504 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by Hugh A. Aloran 



THE LAST EXPRESS TRAIN TO GO THROUGH EROM VLADIVOSTOK TO PETROGRAD IN 



FEBRUARY, I918: BAIKAL, SIBERIA 



nomic factors are sure to prevail. They 

 assert themselves, because revolutionary 

 disorders never last very long, since it is 

 the general interest of the vast majority 

 in every people to see a stable admin- 

 istration established ; and when some 

 strong man, or group of men, possessing 

 the gift for rule have established it, the 

 self-interest of the rulers prompts them 

 to occupy the energies and promote the 

 well-being of their subjects by extending 

 facilities for trade and industry. 



•Siberia's history is almost a blank 



A few concluding words may be said 

 as to the future generally. The history 

 of Siberia was almost a blank, and had 

 little interest for the world at large, till 

 1 91 7. The men of Great Novgorod had 

 occasionally sent trading or raiding bands 

 across the Urals in the eleventh and 

 twelfth centuries, and the first invasion 

 was under a robber chief, named Yermak, 

 who led his followers into the country in 

 1580. But thereafter the process of con- 

 quest and colonization went on unnoticed 

 1))' Europe, with no serious resistance 

 from the aboriginal inhabitants, who were 

 weak and loosely scattered savage tribes. 



Thus there were really no events for 

 historians to record ; the process went on 

 gradually and unobserved. The racial 

 character of the Russian immigrants has 

 (except in the Far East) been scarcely 

 affected by any infusion of aboriginal 



blood, and so far as the Siberian Russians 

 differ from the Russians of Europe, they 

 are nowise inferior. 



Serfdom never existed in Siberia. The 

 immigrants were mostly more enterpris- 

 ing than their brethren who stayed at 

 home. The exiles, banished for political 

 offenses, real or alleged, often came from 

 the intellectual elite of Russia, while the 

 descendants of criminal convicts did not 

 permanently stain the population, al- 

 though some of those who escaped used 

 to range the country as robbers. 



Taken as a whole, the Siberians, if not 

 fit to work democratic institutions, are 

 quite as capable of local self-government 

 as are the peasantry of European Russia 

 and just as unlikely to become Com- 

 munists of the Marxian or any other 

 stripe. 



WILL SIBERIA REMAIN A PART OF RUSSIA? 



So far as I could learn, the only class 

 in which political discontent or any signs 

 of an interest in politics existed had been 

 the students in the university, who occa- 

 sionally "demonstrated" or "struck work" 

 when some particularly offensive piece of 

 tyranny proceeded from the university 

 authorities acting at the instance of the 

 ecclesiastic authorities. There have been 

 ferments among the students everywhere 

 in Russia for the last half century; and 

 now and then professors have been dis- 

 missed or exiled. 



