WESTERN SIBERIA AND THE ALTAI MOUNTAINS 



499 



Photograph from Horace Brodzky 



A CROWD IN FRONT OF AN OPEN-AIR THEATER AT A CHINESE FAIR IN KYAKHTA, 



SIBERIA 



The crowd contains Chinese, Mongolians, Russians, Tatars, Bnriats, and a few Europeans. 

 There is no scenery at these shows. The "announcer" tells the spectators what scene they must 

 imagine. The costumes of the actors, however, are very beautiful, elaborate, and costly. 



As far back as the days of the Tsar 

 Ivan the Terrible and the English Queen 

 Elizabeth, a bold English captain tried 

 this route with success, and there is rea- 

 son to believe that nowadays vessels 

 fitted with wireless apparatus could make 

 pretty sure of safe voyages to and fro. 



NOT A FERTILE FIELD FOR BOLSHEVIK 

 DOCTRINES 



The economic progress I saw in 191 3 

 was arrested by the war which broke out 

 in Europe just a year later; and in 1917 

 there was fighting in Siberia itself be- 

 tween the Bolsheviks, who had then 

 seized power in European Russia, and 

 their opponents, who were organized for 

 a time under Admiral Kolchak.* The 

 Bolsheviks prevailed, not because the Si- 



* See "Glimpses of Siberia, Russia's Wild 

 East," in the National Geographic Magazine 

 for December, 1920. 



berian peasants adopted communist doc- 

 trines, for those doctrines find no support 

 in Siberia except among the few town 

 workers, but because the men who sur- 

 rounded the unfortunate and entirely 

 well-meaning Kolchak made themselves 

 detested ; so that his forces, at first suc- 

 cessful, ultimately melted away before 

 the Bolshevik advance with very little 

 resistance. 



What is happening in Siberia as I write 

 these lines, in January, 1921, few people 

 in western Europe know, and I am not 

 one of them, but evidently the economic 

 conditions must have gone sadly back 

 since 191 3. When will progress be re- 

 sumed? When will the setting up of a 

 stable and tolerably enlightened govern- 

 ment make progress possible? 



No sensible man will venture to 

 prophesy about Russia ; but one thing at 

 least may be said: In the long run, eco- 



