Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-02-10
Queer Contrast In This
Munlcibal Sidmese Tyin

According to a recent report XII
akhta, Siberia, has been taken by the
Reds. The immediate results of the
occupation may soon place K1akhta
on the front page, since the report,
if true, means hat Bolshevlk forces
have turned the right flank of the
Anti-Bolshevists In Eastern Siberia,
who must control the Baikal tunnels
or lose their main strategic barrier
Of defense or offensive line of COM
munication. But the greatness Of
Kiakhta lies In the past and future
rather than in the present, according
to a bulletin iSgued by the National
Geographic Society.
Where the have rested,
railway stations soon will lie," the
bulletin says. Even the %aeroplane
follows historic trade routes. Klakh-
ia Is an important way station on q
famous commercial highway that
linked two continents. 1t is $50 miles
south of Lake Baikal. Although the
railway to Vladivostok caused a tent
porary detour, Kiakhta is sure to be
on the railway hat is to connect the
tea bibbers of Moscow and the tea
merchants of Hankow.
"One rail head has been pushed
south from the Siberian border and
another line connects Picking to Kali
Bdu, 81 lldL lueIS ItllLllllS Oily d
thousand miles of easy railway build
ing to shorten the tea route from
Hankow to the Trans-Siberian at
Verhne-Udinsk by one half, and to
obviate entirely the need for rams
porting across salt water the tea to
which Kiakhta owes its very being.
Other beverages may have made
cities famous but tea made Kiakhta
itself. Just across the boundary line,
only a stones throw away. IS the
Chinese companion city, Maimachen.
"Kiakhta and Maimachen face
each other across a neutral zone only
a few feet wide, but they are as diff
ferent as two such Siamese twins
among border cities can well be.
grey. filled with Oriental figures in
the blue gowns of China. Kiakhta is
Russian. with churches and great
white houses and its inhabitants wear
the familiar blouse and boots of the
Russian from Dnieper to the Amur.
I'm Maimachen the teapot is king.
The samovar rules Kiakhta. The
twin cities form a station in the long
route between the tea packing estab-
lishments of Hankow and the fair at
Mini Novgorod.
with the completion OF the
Trans-Stberian it became a very sim
pie thing to load tea ships at Han
kow, in the heart of China. and UNI
load them at Vladivostok, outpost of
the Cars realm, whence a direct
railway led to the heart OF Russia.
had reached so 5000, 900 pounds q
year, began to decline. The long
camel trains across the Cobb desert
through Yurga, where dwells the
Chief Lama of the Mongols. became
fewer. The desert Journey of a thou
sand miles. which %plodding camels
finished in forty days, was supplanted
by q water and rail route much long
err in distance but shorter in time.
Steamers and boxcars formed the last
straw which broke the camel's back
as a tea carrier. But the tea tasters
at the Mini fair on the Volga de-
clared that they could detect the
deterioration in quality due to trans
port over q water route and the 20
nolsseurs OF Russia have secured a
considerable amount OF Hankow tea,
much OF It compressed into brick
form, over the Cobb route. Until the
iron horse takes the place of camel
q or ox-cart, there will proba-
by be plenty for the Mongol and
Buriat camel drivers to do along the
great tea trail. Recently there have
tea transit alone. but with the break
down of the Trans-Sfberian, caravans
have been changed from anachron-
ism to necessitv and between one and
two million camels + being used in
MONGOLIA, Trans-Baikalia and Man
churia.
'"The Mongols along this ase-old
trail between Kalgan and Kiakhta
are good-natured and hospitabie,
They are expert horsemen and they
still CAPTURE their wives in rue
Lochinvar style, although a previous
arrangement is usually made with
the father Of the bride. Their felt
yurts. or tent homes. are almost bare
OF furniture and wealth is reckoned
by the number of heads of live stock
which the individual possesses. AL
though they L devout Beddhists
the Mongols find strict vegetarianism
in the desert an u~nattainable ideal.
Thew are popularity famous as de-
sSendants of the c~onquering hordes
OF former Laws and as wne of the
picturesque camels which en1fven the
usual rictures Of the Tatar wall at