Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/222

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206

SIBERIA

from the long and terrible history of the Kara penal establishment.^[1]

The Russian Government began sending state criminals to the mines of Kara in small numbers as early as 1873, but it did not make a regular practice of so doing until 1879. Most of the politicals condemned to penal servitude before the latter date were held either in the "penal-servitude section" of the Petropávlovsk fortress at St. Petersburg, or in the solitary confinement cells of the central convict prison at Kharkóf. As the revolutionary movement, however, grew more and more serious and widespread, and the prisons of European Russia became more and more crowded with political offenders, the Minister of the Interior began to transfer the worst class of hard-labor state criminals to the mines of Kará, where they were imprisoned in buildings intended originally for common felons.^[2] In December, 1880, there were about fifty political convicts in the Kará prisons, while nine men who had finished their term of probation were living outside the prison walls in

↑ Nearly all of the statements made in this and the following chapter have been carefully verified, and most of them rest upon unimpeachable official testimony. There may be trifling errors in some of the details, but, in the main, the story can be proved, even in a Russian court of justice. The facts with regard to Colonel Kononóvich and his connection with the Kará prisons and mines were obtained partly from political convicts and partly from officials in Kará, Chíta, Irkútsk, and St. Petersburg. The letter in which Kononóvich resigned his position as governor of the Kará penal establishment is still on file in the Ministry of the Interior, and all the circumstances of his retirement are known, not only to the political convicts, but to many of the officials with whom I have talked. I regret that I am restrained by prudential and other considerations from citing my authorities. I could greatly strengthen my case by showing — as I might show — that I obtained my information from persons fully competent to furnish it, and persons whose positions were a sufficient guarantee of impartiality.
↑ The political prison was not in existence at that time, and the state criminals were distributed among the common-criminal prisons, where they occupied what were called the "secret" or solitary-confinement cells. At a somewhat later period an old detached building in Middle Kará was set apart for their accommodation, and most of them lived together there in a single large kámera. They were treated in general like common convicts, were required to work every day in the gold placers, and at the expiration of their term of probation were released from confinement and enrolled in the free command.

[1] Nearly all of the statements made in this and the following chapter have been carefully verified, and most of them rest upon unimpeachable official testimony. There may be trifling errors in some of the details, but, in the main, the story can be proved, even in a Russian court of justice. The facts with regard to Colonel Kononóvich and his connection with the Kará prisons and mines were obtained partly from political convicts and partly from officials in Kará, Chíta, Irkútsk, and St. Petersburg. The letter in which Kononóvich resigned his position as governor of the Kará penal establishment is still on file in the Ministry of the Interior, and all the circumstances of his retirement are known, not only to the political convicts, but to many of the officials with whom I have talked. I regret that I am restrained by prudential and other considerations from citing my authorities. I could greatly strengthen my case by showing — as I might show — that I obtained my information from persons fully competent to furnish it, and persons whose positions were a sufficient guarantee of impartiality.

[2] The political prison was not in existence at that time, and the state criminals were distributed among the common-criminal prisons, where they occupied what were called the "secret" or solitary-confinement cells. At a somewhat later period an old detached building in Middle Kará was set apart for their accommodation, and most of them lived together there in a single large kámera. They were treated in general like common convicts, were required to work every day in the gold placers, and at the expiration of their term of probation were released from confinement and enrolled in the free command.

[1]

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