Sixteen years in Siberia - Some experiences of a Russian revolutionist by Leo Deutsch

Author:Leo Deutsch [Deutsch, Leo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Exiles -- Russia (Federation) -- Siberia
Publisher: anboco
Published: 2017-02-06T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXI

THE CHIEF OF POLICE AT IRKUTSK—MEETING WITH EXILED COMRADES—FROM IRKUTSK TO KARA—STOLEN FETTERS—A DUBIOUS KIND OF DECABRIST—ANOTHER CONTEST—ARRIVAL AT OUR JOURNEY’S END

The detailed narrative of all that these women had gone through impressed us greatly; for their sufferings had been severe, and often caused by the most paltry tyranny. The wonder was that they had ever been able to hold out. Our indignation against the chief of police, under whose auspices this sort of thing had gone on, was naturally roused to such a pitch that we longed for an opportunity to testify our abhorrence of his conduct. This opportunity was soon forthcoming. A higher official from Petersburg, who was inspecting Siberian prisons, came one day with his suite into our cells, and the chief of police was in attendance. The moment he entered, Làzarev, our head-man, went up to him, (in accordance with a predetermined agreement of our party,) and said in loud and distinct tones—

“We are astonished at your impudence in daring to appear before our eyes, after having by your treatment forced our women comrades into a terrible hunger-strike.”

The whole company of our visitors hastily took their departure, to the tune of our comments and ejaculations, which contained nothing flattering to the evildoer! No untoward results followed our action, and the ladies heartily rejoiced at this humiliation of their torturer.

From these four we heard much about the conditions of life in Kara, our appointed destination; as also from another comrade now in Irkutsk, who could give us his personal experience of the prison there. This was Ferdinand Lustig—formerly an artillery officer, and afterwards a student at the Petersburg Technological Institute—who had been sentenced in 1882, in the case of Suhanov and Mihaïlov, to four years’ penal servitude. He had now ended his term in Kara, and was going to be interned elsewhere, under police supervision. What he told us was not comforting: the régime was severe, and the governor of the political prison—a captain of gendarmerie, named Nikolin—of the worst repute.

Four of us only were to travel eastward together: Maria Kalyùshnaya, Tchuikòv, Làzarev, and myself. The other seven were to be sent to various places in the government of Irkutsk; and the nineteen-year-old Rubinok, whose sad case I have already described, was to go northward to the deserts of Yakutsk.

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