Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1882-06-21
The Blizzard OF Siberia.

King Burran, distant relative OF
Western Blizzard, is the great ogre Of
Siberian travelling. He is apparently
delighted when she comes down and
finds the earth all covered with the
light frozen particles of snow, all ready
to be blown and drifted about hither
and thither wherever his wild fancy
wishes. He rcvels in delight at the
mischief he is enabled to accomplish
unchecked and unbidden. Calling his
companions about him the entire fami-
" of the Burrans, he begins his work.
First, he just blows the snow particles
leisurely over the wide plains, as if he
would like to level off the entire coun-
try to dead monotony. So he blows
it over the post-roads until it has
reached the level of the surrounding
plain, fondly imagining in his stupid
mind that the sledge and caravan
drivers will lose their way and get stuck
fast in the drifts. But his game has
been anticipated, and dead brushwood
has been planted all along the route,
which the drift cannot cover, and the
yemschik can see where to steer his
sledge quite as well as if it were
in summer time. "But / know
place." he thinks to himself,
where the foolish human beings
have not taken any precautions.
There is the road through the woods
yonder; this will block up with heavy
drift, so that the dull-headed yemschik
will have to make detour of four or
five miles in order to get on tho road
again" This done King Burran hurries
along full Of glee to the next village.
Here is post station, he thinks to him
self, and the traveller must pass through
the streets in order to get change Of
he soliloquizes, and then proceeds to
carry all the snow he can gather up
from the plains and to pile It in huge
mountains along the village streets and
against the peasants houses. 81 will
make it difficult" he says, "not only
for the traveller to proceed, but l will
give the poverty stricken peasant some
thing better to do than to go out and
render our friend in the sledge any as
sistance." So, having filed the streets,
he proceeds to fill the farm-yard level
with the housetops. "Ah, there are the
good mans cattle shivering under the
board fence. Forty degrees of Reaumur
is certainly too much for them. / will
give them nice white covering where
with they may keep themselves warm,"
and then he proceeds to bury up the
poor mans cattle so that they have TO be
dug out in the morning, some dead and
some alive. This done, he goes on his
way rejoicing, piling up few more
drifts on the route from his wanton OK
uberance Of spirits, and then he disap-
pears northward again. This seems TO
be the spirit in which the storm king
does his Siberian work, and woe to the
unfortunate traveller who follows close
upon the monarch's heels. AS you pass
along these Siberian post-roads you can
not help thinking that old Burran is in
tho habit of playing practical jokes upon
peasants, yemschiks and travellers, so
uniform is his method of procedure.
Many villages through which we passed
during the last two days of our journey
from Orenburg TO Omsk were literally
made level with the surrounding plains,
the farm-yards being filled with the
snow that could not be piled into the
village streets or up against and over
the one-storicd Lighthouses of the place.
We were fortunate, however, in coming
q day or two after the visit of the old
giant, and only once had our driver TO
make long dctour TO avoid the drifts
in n short stretch of forest road; and
only once did he catch us in his wild
game of snow-drift, and I may llattei
myself that we escaped with only a
minimum Of delay.-Siberiaw Cor. N.
y. Herald