Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There were, moreover, some very uneasy and unpleasant moments, especially when the wind rose and began to buffet the boat. From Tomsk to Krasnoyarsk, five hundred versts, impassable mud, my chaise and I stuck in the mud like flies in thick jam. It was not driving but wading through mud. How I swore at it all! My brain would not work, I could do nothing but swear.
My journey east was broken at Krasnoyarsk to enable me to interview the new commander, General Rosanoff, who had taken in hand the suppression of the revolt of the Lettish peasants north of the railway. South of the line all hostile elements had been dispersed. The line cut through the centre of the Bolshevik field of operations.
After vain efforts to set him right, the yemshick turned him loose, and he bolted homeward contentedly. We climbed and descended a long hill near the village, and then found a level country quite free from snow, and furnishing a fine road. I was told that very little snow falls within twenty miles of Krasnoyarsk, and that it is generally necessary to use wheels there in the winter months.
After standing to arms all night we arrived, at midday on the 13th, at Klukvinah, the Russian Headquarters, and discovered that the Government forces had driven the enemy back from the railway, and that the remainder of our journey to Krasnoyarsk would be practically safe. We arrived about 9.15 P.M. on Wednesday, the 13th.
Our High Commissioner, Sir Charles Eliot, and the Chief of the British Military Mission, General Knox, had already arrived there, and required a guard, hence I was ordered to proceed with the remainder of my battalion. We remained in Krasnoyarsk for two days, and marched through the town and saluted the British Consulate.
Among the middle classes in Siberia the erection of churches is, or has been, the fashionable mode of public benefaction. The endowment of schools, libraries, and scientific associations has commenced, but is not yet fully popular. The wealth of Krasnoyarsk is chiefly derived from gold digging. The city may be considered the center of mining enterprises in the government of Yeneseisk.
Joining Schmidt with the other team, we rattled out of town on an excellent road, and left the red hills of Krasnoyarsk. The last object I saw denoting the location of the town was a church or chapel on a high cliff overlooking the Yenesei valley. The road lay over an undulating region, where there were few streams and very little timber.
In my last long letter I wrote to you that the mountains near Krasnoyarsk are like the Donets Ridge, but that's not true; when I looked at them from the street I saw they were like high walls surrounding the city, and I was vividly reminded of the Caucasus.
In the beginning of the year 1920 I happened to be living in the Siberian town of Krasnoyarsk, situated on the shores of the River Yenisei, that noble stream which is cradled in the sun-bathed mountains of Mongolia to pour its warming life into the Arctic Ocean and to whose mouth Nansen has twice come to open the shortest road for commerce from Europe to the heart of Asia.
Two or three thousand laborers in the gold mines spend the winter at Krasnoyarsk, and add to the volume of local commerce. The town of Yeneseisk, three hundred versts further north, hibernates an equal number, and many hundreds are scattered through the villages in the vicinity. The mining season begins in May and ends in September.
Word Of The Day