Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1889-04-21
A TALE OF SIBERIA.
ALEXANDER BARANoFrs EXCITING Ex-
PERIErcss
Re Became a Siberian fxils-His Eight
Years. servituds and Final Escape
70 Boston.
Boston AdYnrtisar.l

OF Russian cruelty.
Mr.. Alexander Baranof, Of this city,
IS Russian by birth, but has long been
a resident Of Boston and naturalized
American citizen. he came to Boston
thirty years ago, Russian exile who
had made remarkable escape from the
mines and prisons OF Siberia. Mr..
Baranoff has told the story Of his cap
tivity and escape to an Advertiser re-
porter. The narrative is one of thrill
ing interest and is briefly as follows:
I'm 1913 / was lieutenant in the
Shleselburg regiment of the Russian
Sixth army corps. My colonel was Count
Tolstoi, either a brother or an uncle of
the novelist / had been educated for
the army in the Cadets School at ST. Pc
tersburg. was very young officer in
1898 when the Hungarian revolution
broke ont, and the Sixth corps was sent
by Russia to the assistance of Austria.
"Whlle under orders to proceed to
Hungary our regiment lay at Kretinga,
q city in the province of Wilma, Russian
Poland, end on the Prussian border.
IL Was the custom of a number Of us
young officials TO go across the border at
night to take part in dances and other
! jollity. Some of our officers were Poles,
and the sympathies of many of us were
with the Poles in their aspirations for
| freedom Some of the officers had bad
communications with certain Polish no.
bles. In our excursions across the Dor
der we had managed to return in season
to avoid detection, but one morning a
| party of US returned belated and We were
arrested. discriminating letters were
found on the persons OF some Of us, and
we found ourselves no longer army Off
GERS, but political prisoners.
Sixteen of us were court-martialed
and sentenced TO Siberia. We went d.
rect from St Petersburg 10 the mines of
Nerchinsk, walking all the way with our
ankles fettered with nine-pound chains.
| The distance from 81. Petersburg to the
| gold-mines of Nerchinsk ia 7, 800 versts,
and We were fourteen months and three
days making the journey. Our party OF
exiles left Moscow 500 strong. Every
prisoner had his ankles fettered with a
nine-pound chain, which was not long
enough TO allow his taking a stride OF
the ordinary length. i have seen pri-
soners with their ankles worn to the bone
/ by the letters. il would have been i'm
possible to have lourneyed long with the
heavy chain dragging behind one upon
/ the ground. SO We wore around our
necks straps or ropes which reached
down in front and were tied to the
chains. lifting them up to our knees and
thus supporting their weight.
1.-The prisoners on their march were
dependent mostly upon public charity
; for food, rs the Government allowance
per man was only about five cents per
day. On onr journey we averaged
twelve English miles per day, passing
each night at one of the station prisons.
We marched two days and rested on the
third. The rooms into which we were
crowded by night ut the stations were
the worst things in the whole journey.
They killed the most prisoners. In a
room fit at the utmost for fifty people
they would crowd 300 prisoners. The
stencil and filth of these rooms were
horrible, deadly, unmentionablo. OF our
party of 500 $50 had succumbed and
died by the way when we arrived ut
Irkutsk. As the prisoners died by the
road their bodies were thrown into a
wagon and brought along to the next sta
ton end buried
"In our march through Siberia to the
mines we passed through Tobotsk, Kras-
noyarsk, and lrkutsk, besides many
smaller cities, towns, and villages. We
we've guarded by kirgis troops. A few
prisoners escaped on the way. but
never heard what became OF them.
The last part of our iourney-be-
tween Irkutsk and the mines of Ner-
chinsk-was the worst. in this stage
we lost forty men on the road. Few
Russians live in the country between lr-
kutsk and the mines. The inhabitants
are race of Christianized MOngolians
called Bratski. AS we crossed the Brat
ski desert We found these people living,
not in houses, but in round, felt huts
called Yourti. They didn't have much
to eat themselves, and so the poor
prisoners had to carry a months supply
Of food along with them or else starye.
"After conference.-the journey we
arrived at the goldmines Of Nerchinsk.
l worked in the mines two years. These
are rich gold-mines, the gold being
worth at least 5lS per ounce. The
prisoners worked all day long in the
mines, but there was no Sunday work.
We lived in barracks, 100 or 200 to-
gether, and still wore our chains. When
the prisoners moved in n body the clank-
ing OF the chains could be heard long
ways. The food given us at the mines
was poor | stood the confinement
pretty well, for had some money with
which could buy better food than that
which was served ont to US.
al remember one tyrannical overseer
who served out bad food to the prison
ers. The meat was bad and the vegeta-
bles poor. One day the soup, which
was being made for 200 men in great
iron kettle, had bad smell owing to the
bad meat which had been put into ii.
There was strong prisoner who had
been heavily ironed because Of his re-
peated complaints about the bad food.
Never mind, boys said he. I'll give
you something for supper to-day.
When the overseer came along the pri-
eoner, ironed as he was seized the over
seer in spite OF his struggles and, lifting
him up, thrust him head first into the
big pot where the hot SOUP was boiling.
He held him there until he was boiled
to death.
1.-TWO weeks after this occurrence
eighty prisoners, of which | was one,
ran away from the mines. There WAS
no difficulty about escaping. No re-
straint was put upon the prisoners so far
rs preventing their escape was con-
cerned.
eve took to the woods and broke our
chains and marched across the border
into China. After week spent in China
we had to give up and turn back. We
were half starved and the people were
hostile. We had to fight our way as far
as we went. There was no trouble about
that, for we kept together and our party
of eighty was good for 1000 OF the Chi
nese. But it became clear that the
furthar ua advapoad the worsa TX WOul1