CHAPTER III 



KOU RGAN— PETROPAVLOVSK— OMSK 



Kourgan — A sledge race — Petropavlovsk — Asiatic character of the 

 town — Caravan routes — Character of the native Siberian — 

 Criminal and political exiles — The Altai range — Its mineral 

 wealth — Speed on the Siberian railway — Organisation of the 

 traffic — The territory of Semipalatinsk — Lakes and rivers — Salt 

 lakes^Fauna of the region — The Kirghiz — Their customs — 

 Siberian Cossacks — Their organisation — Pastimes and pursuits 

 of the Kirghiz— Omsk— Yermak — The " dead-house "—Educa- 

 tional, scientific, and other institutions at Omsk — A tea caravan 

 from China — A gigantic waterway — Karachi — Lake Chany — 

 Kainsk — ^Jews in Kainsk — ^A watchman and his rattle — Climate 

 — Game exporting — A sledge drive in the dark — Obi Bridge — 

 Difficulties of navigation — Novo-Nicolaevsk — A hearty welcome. 



In addition to being the pioneer butter-exporting 

 town, Kourgan possesses granaries for the storage of 

 wheat, flour mills, a distillery, a brewery, a sugar 

 factory, a tallow factory, a glass works, and a starch 

 factory. The railway station, besides serving the 

 town itself, forms the nucleus of a region which 

 includes 132 settlements with a population of 68,000. 

 The vicinity is rich in game, which is killed and, 

 together with meat, tallow, and grain, is dispatched 

 direct to the seaports and markets of European 

 Russia. Fifteen thousand tons of oats and 16,000 

 of barley, peas, wheat meal, rye meal, and bran, 

 together with 1,536 tons of hemp seed, linseed, and 

 other seeds used in the manufacture of oil, were 

 dispatched to the West from this station during 

 1898. 



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