Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/50

 22 These interesting remarks gave me much food for reflection, representing, as they did, the views of an educated Siberian commercial man.

During the daytime while I was in Krasnoyarsk, I was able to get a glimpse of the municipal life of a growing Siberian commercial town. Primitive conditions and superficial imitation of Western culture were evident on every side. The streets were simply wide cart-tracks full of ruts, without any attempt at paving except for a few boards put down in the dirtiest places for the benefit of the foot-passengers, while modern conveniences which one finds in European Russia, such as drainage, paving, lighting and water supply, from public resources did not exist.

Scavengers call round periodically and carry away refuse, which they pitch into the Yenisei River, and water-carts, which consist of tubs on four wheels, are to be seen plying about the streets bringing water from the river. It is perhaps a good thing on the whole that there is no drainage system, for an inferior system is often more perilous than no system at all. A "Goratskoye-upravlenye," or town council, exists, and, if you take the trouble to hunt up the Local Government Statistical reports, you can find a publication which is supposed to record its activity, along with general statistical information about local Government institutions. Some of it is very interesting, although it always relates to conditions about five years old. It apparently takes in Russia at least so long to compile an issue for publication, probably at considerable expense, by which time the information is obsolete. That is very typical of bureaucratic Russia.

But whatever public conveniences are lacking here,