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178 of things by erecting better buildings. Without any suggestion or prompting from me, Captain Nikólin then diverted the current of our conversation to another branch of the subject and began to talk about the political convicts at the mines of Kará. Their condition, he said, was much better, and their life much easier, than people generally supposed. They lived together in large, well-lighted kámeras; they were not required to do any work; they had a good library; they could receive money from their friends; and at the expiration of their "term of probation" they were set at liberty, and were allowed to live in houses and to cultivate little gardens of their own. I expressed great surprise at this presentation of the case, and said, "Do you mean to tell me that the political convicts don't work in the mines?"

"Work!" he exclaimed. "Certainly not. They have nothing to do but sit in large, comfortable, well-lighted rooms, and read or study."

"Do they ever have communication with their friends or relatives in European Russia?" I inquired.

"Certainly," he replied. "That was one of the things that I insisted on when I came here, that they should be allowed to write to their friends and relatives. Of course I read their letters, or rather their postal cards, but they can write as much as they like."

"We have always had the impression in America," I said, "that state criminals in Siberia are compelled to work in underground mines, often chained to wheelbarrows, and that their life is a constant struggle with hardships and misery."

He smiled a calm, superior sort of smile, and said that he himself had had precisely similar ideas before coming to Siberia, and that he had been surprised just as I was. "Why," said he, "if you should take a look into one of the kámeras of the political prison at this moment you would see the prisoners sitting around a big table, reading and writing, just as if they were in some library."