The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1889-09-07
A TALE OF SIBERIA.
Alexander Baranof's Exciting Expe'
rience---Once q Russian Officer.

There is living in this city a man
who can tell stories of personal ex.
perience that almost out-Kennan
Kennan's tales of Russian cruelty
Mr.. Alexander Baranoff, of this
city, is Russian by birth, but has
long been a resident of Boston and a
naturalized American citizen. He
came to Boston thirty-six years ago,
a Russian exile who had made a re-
markable escape from the mines and
prisons of Siberia. Mr.. Baranoff
has told the story of his captivity
and escape to a Boston Advertiser
reporter. The narrative is one of
thrilling interest, and is briefly as
follows:
"In 1S49 was lieutenant in the
Shleselburg regiment of the Rus
sian Sixth Army Corps. My colonel
was Count Tolstoi, either brother
or an uncle to the novelist. | had
been educated for the army in the
cadets school at St. Petersburg. ]
was a very strong officer in 1S48
when the Hungarian revolution
broke out, and the Sixth Corps was
sent by Russia to the assistance of
Austria.
"While under orders to proceed
to Hungary, our regiment lay at
Kretinga, a city in the Province of
wilma, Russian Poland, and on the
Prussian border. 1t was the custom
of number of US young officers
to go across the border at night to
take part in dances and other ,jol-
lity. Some of our officers were Poles
and the sympathies of many of us
were with the Poles in their aspira-
tions for freedom. Some of the
officers had had communication
with certain Polish mobiles. In our
excursions across the border we had
managed to return in season to es-
cape detection. But one morning
party of US returned belated and
we were arrested. discriminating
letters were found on the persons
of some of us, and we found our
selves no longer army officers, but
political prisoners.
Sixteen of US were court-martialed
and sentenced to Siberia. We went
direct from st. Petersburg to the
mines of Nerchinsk, walking all
the way with nine-pound chains.
The distance from ST. Petersburg
to the gold mines of Nerchinsk is
500 versts, and we were fourteen
months and three days making the
journey. Our party of exiles left
Moscow 800 strong Every pris-
oner had his ankles fettered with
nine-pound chain, which was not
long enough to allow of his taking
stride of ordinary length. | have
seen prisoners with their ankles
worn to the bone by the fetters. 1t
would have been impossible to have
.journeyed long with the heavy chain
dragging behind on 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.
"The prisoners on their march
were dependent mostly upon public
charity for food, as the government
allowance per man was only five
cents per day. On our 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 at night at the stations
were the worst things in the whole
journey. They killed the most pris-
oners. In room fit at the utmost
for fifty people they would crowd
three hundred prisoners. The stencil
and filth of these rooms were hor.
rible, deadly, unmentionable. vi
our party of eight hundred, one
hundred and fifty had succumbed
and died by the way when We ar
rived at Irkutsk. AS the prisoners
died by the road their bodies were
thrown into a wagon and brought
along to the next station and buried.
"In our march through Siberia to
the mines we passed through lob
DISK, Krasnoyarsk and 1rkutsk, be-
sides many smaller cities, towns
and villages. We were guarded by
Kirgis troops. A few prisoners es,
capped on the way but | never heard
what became of them.
"The last of our journey-be-
tween Irkutsk and the mines OF
Nerchinsk-was the worst. In this
stage we lost forty men on the road,
Few Russians live in the country
between Irkutsk and the mines.
The inhabitants are of race of
Christianized Mongolians, called
Bratski. AS we crossed the Bratski
desert we found these people, liv-
ing 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