Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/111

 Rh although more primitive in some respects, is, nevertheless, pleasanter than the towns nearer to so-called civilization. The quiet life of old Siberia is still most prominent here. The business of everyday life is slow and old-fashioned, and society is more dignified and less obtrusive than in those towns, situated on the great railway, which are permeated with Western influences.

Being the centre of a certain local trade, capable of a great future, and also of the barter trade with the Mongol and Finnish tribes on the frontier, modern commercial methods have just begun to develop even here. The population in Minusinsk consists chiefly of urban citizens or "meshchaneeny," who are without land. They carry on trade with the Abakansk Tartars and the Siberian peasants of the neighbourhood, and many of them engage in small domestic industries which they carry on in their homes, such as the making of coats, boots, small ironwork, etc. Others keep stores and little shops, while others, especially Jews, deal in furs, which come in from Mongolia. There are, of course, the civil officials and the usual military forces stationed in the town. But besides this there are a few Russian gentlemen of private means, engaged in various academic pursuits, and a few political exiles of high culture, one of whom I had the fortune to meet.

The backbone of society in a Siberian provincial town is to be found in the growing commercial bourgeoisie, or middle class, which in recent years has been created by the economic activities which are springing up on every side. There is the frontier wool trader, who earns his 400 roubles