Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/105

Rh HISTORY.] K U S S I A 87 Corn, firewood, and timber constitute two-thirds of the whole cargoes carried. Within Russia proper, from 5740 to 7400 boats, larger and smaller, worth from four to seven millions of roubles, have been built annually during the last five years (7415 boats, valued at 6,758,000 roubles, in 1882, 18 of them being steamers) ; most of them are light fiat-bottomed structures, which are broken up as soon as they have reached their destination. The number of steamers plying on inland waters, chiefly on the Volga, was esti- mated in 1879 at 1056 (80,890 horse-power). Twenty-five years a"o Russia had only 993 miles of railways ; on January 1 1883, the totals were 13,428 miles for Russia and Caucasia, 888 for Poland, 734 for Finland, and 141 for the Transcaspian region, and two years later they had reached an aggre- gate length of 16,155 miles. The railways chiefly connect the Baltic ports with the granaries of Russia in the south-east, and the western frontier with Moscow, whence six trunk lines radiate in all directions. Several military lines run along the western frontier, while two trunk lines, starting from St Petersburg, follow the two shores of the Gulf of Finland. Of the projected Siberian railway one main line (444 miles), connecting Perm and Berezmki on the Kama with Ekaterinburg and the chief iron-works of the Urals, has been constructed. It has been extended east to Kamyshkofl", and is to be continued to Tiurneu, 100 miles farther east, whence steamers ply to Tomsk. Only 738 miles of the railways of Russia belong to the state, but most of them have been constructed under Government guar- antees, involving payment of from 11 to 21 million roubles yearly. On the other hand the yearly increasing debt of the railways to the state amounted to 781,888,800 roubles in 1883. Of the aggregate value of the Russian railways, estimated at 2210 million roubles, no less than 1971 million roubles were held by Government in shares and bonds. The cost of construction has been altogether out of proportion to what it ought to be; for, whereas the average rate per verst (0'663 mile) in Finland was only 20,000 silver roubles, in Russia it reached 60,000, 75,000, 90,000, and even 100,000 roubles. In 1882 21,322 versts (14,136 miles) represented an expenditure of 2,210,047,632 roubles, and their net revenue was only 3 '18 per cent' on 'the capital invested (4982 roubles per English mile in 1882). In 1884 34,674,853 passengers, 2,287,955 military, and 834,500,000 ewts. of merchandise were conveyed by 5808 locomo- tives and 120,940 carriages and waggons. Fully one-half of the merchandise carried consisted of corn (24 per cent), coal (13 per cent), firewood (12 per cent.), and timber (8 per cent.). 1 For the conveyance of correspondence and travellers along ordi- nary routes the state maintains an extensive organization of post- horses between all towns of the empire, that is, over an aggregate length of 110,170 miles. In 1882 4355 stations, with a staff of 15,560 men and 446,460 horses, were kept up for that purpose. In 1883 242,193,470 letters, newspapers (93,520,000), registered letters, and parcels were carried, of which 29,808,100 belonged to international correspondence. The telegraph system had in the same year an aggregate length of 65,394 miles, with 2,957 telegraph- offices, and 10,222,139 telegrams were transmitted. 2 (P. A. K.) PART IV. RUSSIAN HISTORY. Plate III. The Russians, properly so called, belong to the Slavonic race, itself a division of the great Aryan family. It can- not be denied that in the northern and eastern parts of Russia large Finnish elements have become mixed with the Slavs, and Mongolian in the south, but this is far from justifying the prejudiced attempts of Duchinski and others to challenge the right of the Russians to be called an Aryan people. The derivation of the words Russia, Russians (Rons, ttossia, Hossiane), has been much disputed. The old-fashioned view was to identify them with the Rhoxolani, who are now generally believed to have been a Medish tribe. The later and probably correct one is to derive the name from the Finnish Ruotsi applied to the Swedes, and considered by Professor Thomsen of Copen- hagen to be itself a corruption of the Swedish word rothsmenn, rowers or seafarers. They are Scandinavian 1 See the Statistical Sbornik of the Ministry of Roads and Commu- nications, vols. viii., ix., and x. (roads, canals, railways, and traffic thereon, with maps and graphic representation of traffic) ; Golovatchoff, "Russian Railways," in Bezobrazoff's Sbornik Gosudarstvennykh Znaniy, vols. iv., v., vii., viii.; Rybakoff and Bieloff, Our Ways of Communication, 1884 ; Tchuproff, Tovarnyie Sklady, &c. (trade in corn), 1884. 2 See Postal Statistics for 1883 (St Petersburg, 1885), and the Rv^skiy Kalendar. Posts and tele graphs. vikings with whom we first become acquainted in northern Russia, and who in a way founded the empire, although from Arabian and Jewish writers we have dim records of a Slavonic race inhabiting the basin of the Dnieper about the close of the 9th century. In recent times Ilovaiski and Gedeonoff have again attacked the view of the Swedish origin of the invaders. They see in "them only Slavs, but they are not considered to have shaken the theory which derives the name from Ruotsi. As the story goes, three Rurik brothers, Rurik, Sineus, and Truvor, were invited to Russia and m ' s from the north and settled at Novgorod in 862. Nestor brotners - calls them Varangians, a name in which most people are willing to see Norsemen. For a long time the Russians and Scandinavians are considered, as we shall find, to be separate races, but at length they are fused, as the Saxons and Normans in England under Henry I. Concerning the origin of the town of Novgorod, which bears a purely Slavonic name, nothing is known ; it has been supposed that at first a Finnish settlement existed on its site. According to the legend the three brothers were invited over by a leading' citizen named Gostomisl. There is, however, no mention of such a person in the Chronicle of Nestor. There is another story that Rurik was the son of the Swedish king, Ludbrat, a person met with in Scandinavian legend, and his queen Umila, the daughter of Gostomisl, and was born at Upsala in 830. Whatever the variants of the legend may be, we seem to learn one thing, that a successful Scandinavian invasion occurred in the north of Russia. The three brothers finally settled in the country, Rurik at Ladoga, where the river Volkhoff flows into the lake, Sineus at Bielo-ozero, and Truvor at Izborsk on Lake Peipus. On the death of his two brothers without heirs, we are told that Rurik annexed their dominions to his own, and took the title of veliki kniaz, or grand-prince. These three brothers are said to have brought two other adventurers with them, Askold and Dir, who, having had a quarrel with Rurik, set out with some companions to Constantinople to try their fortune. On their way they saw Kieff, situated on a rich and grassy plain, in the occupation of the Khazars. Of this city they made themselves masters, and permanently established themselves on the Dnieper. The origin of Kieff itself is involved in mystery. It is first mentioned about the 9th century. Constantino Porphyrogenitus speaks Of TO KCKTTpOV TO KtOa/? TO f.1TOVOfJi.a.t > 6fJ.VOV ^,afJi/3aTa.S. This last word has given much labour to scholars ; some are disposed to see in it the Norse sandbakki, the bank of sand. It is at Kieff that, according to the legend, St Andrew preached the gospel to the Russians. From this place Askold and Dir sallied forth two years afterwards, with an armament of two hundred vessels, sailed up the Bos- phorus, and plundered the capital of the Byzantine empire. The Greek writers give 851 as the date of this enter- prise, thus making it precede the arrival of Rurik by eleven years. The emperor at the time of their invasion was Michael III. Having greatly extended his dominions by subduing the Igor and surrounding Slavonic tribes, Rurik died at an advanced Ole - age in 879, leaving the regency of the principality and the guardianship of his son Igor to the renowned Oleg. 3 This chief subdued Smolensk, a city of the Krivitchi, in 882. Allured by its wealth and advantageous situation, Oleg now resolved to attempt Kieff, which was held by Askold and Dir. The story goes that he took young Igor with him, and disguised himself and his companions as Slavonic merchants. The unsuspecting Askold and Dir were invited to a conference and slain on the spot. Thus was Kieff added to the dominions of Igor, who was recognized as the 3 Both these names are Scandinavian, the original forms being Ingvar and Helgi.