Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/164

142 We found in Omsk very little that was either interesting or instructive. The city was the place of exile of a well-known and talented Russian author named Petropávlovski, but as we were not aware of the fact we missed an opportunity to make the acquaintance of a man whose wide and thorough knowledge of Russian life, as well as of the exile system, might have been in the highest degree useful to us. The only letter of introduction that I had to deliver in Omsk was a brief note from the editor of a newspaper in St. Petersburg to Colonel Paivtsóf, president of the West Siberian branch of the Imperial Geographical Society. The latter received me very cordially, gave me some useful information with regard to the comparative merits of different routes from Semipalátinsk to Tomsk, and went with me to see the little museum connected with the Geographical Society, which, apparently, was the only evidence of culture that the city afforded. Mr. Frost, meanwhile, made explorations in the neighborhood; discovered and sketched a wretched suburb north of the river Om, which seemed to be inhabited chiefly by poor, common criminal exiles, and made the drawing of the police station that is reproduced on page 141. I tried to find the ostróg where the gifted Russian novelist Dostoyéfski spent so many years of penal servitude and where, according to the testimony of his