Page:EB1911 - Volume 23.djvu/936

 crews increased 19½%, the number of men employed in the latter year being approximately 150,000.

In 1860 Russia possessed less than 1000 m. of railways; by 1885 this had increased to 16,155 m., and by the middle of 1905 there

were open for traffic over 40,500 m. of railway, of which 34,150 m. or 84.3% were in European Russia and nearly 6400 m. (15.7%) in Asiatic Russia. Between 1895 and 1905 the building of railways proceeded at a rapid rate, the total length nearly doubling within the ten years, namely, from 22,600 to 40,500 m. The European railways cost on an average £10,465 per mile to construct, and the Asiatic railways £5092 per mile.

A considerable number of new railways, some of great strategic as well as commercial importance, were built during the last twenty years of the 19th century. At the same time the chief lines of railway which had been built by public companies with a state guarantee, and which represented a loss to the empire of £3,171,250 per annum, as well as a growing indebtedness, were bought by the state. On the whole, the state derives profit from its railways, although several of the later lines, while imperative for state purposes, must necessarily yield but a very small revenue, or be worked at a loss. The most important of the new railways is the Siberian, of which the first section, Chelyabinsk to Omsk, was opened in December 1895, and which, except for a short section round Lake Baikal, in 1901 was completed right through to Stryetensk, on the Shilka, the head of navigation on the Shilka and the Amur, 2710 m. from Chelyabinsk and 4076 miles from Moscow, via Samara and Chelyabinsk. The section round the S. end of Lake Baikal was completed in 1905. At the Pacific end of the Siberian railway a line connecting Vladivostok with Khabarovsk (479 m.) at the junction of the Amur and the Usuri, was first of all built, following the valley of the Usuri. But it was soon found that the cost of the section required to complete the railway between Stryetensk and Khabarovsk, along the Shilka (246 m.) and the Amur (1160 m.), would be enormous, while neither the wild mountainous tracts of the lower Shilka and upper Amur, nor the marshy, often inundated region between Khabarovsk and the Little Khingan mountains, could ever be the seat of a numerous population. Consequently a company was formed by the Russian government in 1896 to construct, with the consent of the Chinese government, a railway from Vladivostok across Manchuria to Karymskaya near Chita in Transbaikalia. This runs for 222 m. on Russian territory and for 1080 m. on Manchurian territory, and from Kharbin sends off a branch to Dalny near Port Arthur on the Liao-tung peninsula. The first portion of the Manchurian railway, built by Russian engineers, with Chinese labour, was finished in 1902. At the same time several secondary lines were built in connexion with the Siberian line. Chelyabinsk was linked by a transverse line with the middle Urals railway, which connects Perm, the head of navigation in the Volga basin, with Tyumen, the head of navigation on the Ob and Irtysh, passing through Ekaterinburg and other mining centres of the middle Urals. Tomsk is now connected with the main line by a short side branch. A railway has also been built to connect Perm with Kotlas, near the confidence of the Sukhona with the Yug, at the head of the N. Dvina. This N. portion of the Russian railway system was further completed by the opening in 1906 of a line from St Petersburg via Vologda to Vyatka, intersecting the Moscow-Archangel line at Vologda.

Another line of great strategic importance was built across the Transcaspian territory to Ferghana. Starting from Krasnovodsk, it runs S.E. to Merv (560 m.), with a branch line (194 m.) to Kushk, near Herat, then N.E. across the desert to Charjui, on the Amur river, Bokhara and the Russian fort Katta-kurgan, and then to Samarkand, Kokand and Andijan in Ferghana, 710 m. from Merv, with a branch to Tashkent (220 m.). This railway has become important for the export of raw cotton from Central Asia to Russia. In 1905 a second totally independent line was opened from Tashkent down the Syr-darya to Kazalinsk, and thence to Orenburg.

A third line of great importance is the junction line between the Transcaucasian railway—which runs from Batum and Poti to Baku, via Tiflis, with a branch line to Kars—and the railway system of Russia proper. This junction has been effected not across the main Caucasus range, but at its E. extremity, that is, via the Caspian ports of Baku and Petrovsk, which are connected with Vladikavkaz (Beslan junction). The Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, in W. Caucasia, having been connected with the Rostov-Vladikavkaz line, has consequently also been brought into touch with the Russian railways. The Volga is reached from central Russia by seven lines of railways, including one to Kazañ, and three main lines radiate from the Volga E. (one to Siberia and two to the Ural river), while the upper Volga (Yaroslavl) is connected with Archangel by a line 523 m. long. A zone tariff was introduced on the Russian railways in 1894, and the cost of long journeys was considerably reduced; a journey of 623 m. can be made third class at a cost of only about 17 shillings, while for less than twice as much 1990 m. can be covered.

Fish form an important article of national food. The numerous fasts of the national church prescribe a fish diet on many days in the

year, and the continuous frost of winter is favourable to the transportation of fish for great distances. Along the Murman coast of the Arctic Ocean and in the White Sea, where many

millions of herrings are caught annually by some 3000 persons, the yearly produce is estimated at the value of £140,000. In the Baltic Sea, as well as in the lakes of its basin (Ladoga, Onega, Ilmeñ, &c.), the yearly value is estimated at £200,000. Of anchovies alone, 10,000,000 jars are prepared annually, while salted fish is, next after bread, the staple food of large masses of the population. The Black Sea fisheries, in which about 4000 men are engaged, yield fish valued at £300,000 per annum. The value of the fish has much increased owing to the introduction of cold storage; as a result of the employment of this method of packing, fish is now exported in a fresh state from the Black Sea to all parts of S.W. Russia, and even to Moscow. The annual yield of the Azov Sea fisheries, occupying 15,000 men, is valued at £600,000 In the Volga section of the Caspian Sea fish are caught to the value of about £1,000,000 annually; in the Ural section over 40,000 tons of fish and nearly 1500 tons of caviare are obtained. The total value of the Caspian fisheries is estimated at £3,000,000 per annum. Taking the Lake Aral and Siberian river fisheries into account, it is estimated that altogether the fishing industries yield a revenue to the state of £330,000 annually. In addition from 13,000 to 60,000 seals and about 200 whales are killed annually off the Murman coast. Hunting is an occupation of considerable importance in N. and N.E. Russia, and along the shores of the Arctic Ocean.

.—The Russkiy Encyclopedicheskiy Slovar, edited by Brockhaus and Efron, was begun in 1890, with the idea of giving a Russian version of Brockhaus's Conversations Lexikon, but from the very first volumes it became a monumental encyclopedia, and is, indeed, an inexhaustible source of information on everything Russian. A general popular description of Russia entitled Rossiya, containing excellent geographical, geological and other descriptions of separate regions, and very well-chosen illustrations, was begun in 1899 under the editorship of V. P. Semenov. La Russie à la fin du xixe siècle, under the editorship of W. W. Kovalevsky, is especially worthy of notice. See also H. Norman, All the Russias (London, 1902); Sir D. Mackenzie Wallace, Russia (2 vols., new ed., 1905, London); A. Leroy-Beaulieu, L'Empire des tsars (3 vols., 1882-88; Eng. trans., London, 1893-96); A. Hettner, Das europäische Russland (Leipzig, 1905); R. Martin, The Future of Russia (Eng. trans., London, 1906); .M. Kovalevsky, Russian Political Institutions (Chicago, 1902), Modern Customs and Ancient Laws of Russia (London, 1891), Le Régime économique de la Russie (Paris, 1898), and Die produktiven Knäfte Russlands (Paris, 1896); A. M. B. Meakin, Russia (London, 1906); G. von Schulze-Gävernitz, Volkswirthschaftliche Studien aus Russland (Leipzig, 1899); J. Machat, La Développement économique de la Russie (Paris, 1902); Industries of Russia, by the Department of Trade and Manufactures (English by J. M. Crawford, 5 vols., St Petersburg, 1893); A. F. Rittich, “Die Ethnographie Russlands” in Petermanns Mitteilungen, Ergänzungsheft 54 (Gotha, 1878); C. Joubert, Russia as it really is (London, 1904).

The history of Russia may be conveniently divided into four consecutive periods: (1) the period of Independent Principalities; (2) the Mongol Domination; (3) the Tsardom of Muscovy; and (4) the Modern Empire.

1. A Conglomeration of Independent Principalities.—The first period, like the early history of many other countries, begins

with a legend. Nestor, an old monkish chronicler of Kiev, relates that in the middle of the 9th century the Slav and Finnish tribes inhabiting the forest region around Lake Ilmen, between Lake Ladoga and the upper waters of the Dnieper, paid tribute to military adventurers from the land of Rūs, which is commonly supposed to have been a part of Sweden. In the year 859 these tribes expelled the Northmen, but finding that they quarrelled among themselves, they invited them, three years later, to return. Our land, said the deputation sent to Rūs for this purpose, is great and fertile, but there is no order in it; come and reign and rule over us. Three brothers, princes of Rūs, called respectively Rurik, Sineus and Truvor, accepted the invitation and founded a dynasty, from which many of the Russian princes of the present day claim descent.

Who were those warlike men of Rūs who are universally recognized as the founders of the Russian Empire? This question has given rise to an enormous amount of discussion among learned men, and some of the disputants have not yet laid down their arms; but for impartial outsiders who have carefully studied the evidence there can be little doubt that 