CHAPTER II
A SIBERIAN COMMERCIAL TOWN
(KRASNOYARSK)
KRASNOYARSK, where the railway crosses the Yenisei River, is the chief town of the Yenisei Government or Province, and the economic and administrative focus of Central Siberia. It is a town of some 52,000 inhabitants, increasing rapidly, but, being in the heart of the continent, its development has up to now been somewhat eclipsed by the western provinces. It is not a place that would have at first any attraction for the sightseer, until, on closer investigation, here, as elsewhere, the cruder and intermediate stages of social organization in which it abounds are found to be quite as interesting as any other. From the railway station, which in Russia is always a mile or more away on the outskirts of the town, the tarantass, or four-wheeled cart, bumps along a wide cart-track, which reminds one of an unmetalled rural lane in England during a wet December. Soon I became aware that this was the principal street of Krasnoyarsk, where the Governor of the Yenisei Government resided, and by the dim light of a few tumbledown lamp-posts I saw the typical Russian houses, separated by wooden palings and courtyards. Many of them were built of new logs, while some were plastered over in a hasty fashion, as if pretending to be up to
