but for many years now not a single one has been seen here. Many springs and small streams that flow into the Ushakovka are too insignificant to have names. The fish in this river are the Arctic grayling, the sharp-snouted lenok, lake minnows [mundi, Rhynchocypris percnurus], Eurasian dace, a species of roach [in text, sorogi], and burbot.
Fig. 1.3. Carrying home a string of grayling in Irkutsk (Arnold).
The nicest hayfields, belonging to the Demientievs, are found along this river. The woods are mostly young trees because, being so close to town, the trees are constantly being felled and transported to town for firewood. Many of the springs flowing into the Ushakovka never freeze, and that is where the water ouzels, or dippers, called vodianie vorob’i [most likely the Eurasian dipper, Cinclus cinclus; Springer, pers. comm., August 24, 2016], are found.
It is no mere flattery to say that this place, Irkutsk, has all the qualities of a well-positioned trade center and on top of that is endowed with many amenities that no European could imagine exist in Siberia. The air is healthy, the fall more pleasant than in all other areas of Russia or Siberia; the weather is constant, the river teeming with fish and navigable, except for a few shallow places that take a lot of effort to get around. The area is wonderfully scenic. Mountains rise above the Angara, if not on both sides, at least on one. Where the town is located, these mountains are about seven kilometers apart, gradually becoming a plain. One end of this valley is called Krest; the other is the Monastery Village, where the mountains gradually begin again, extending along the Angara. They are studded with the most beautiful forest of Dahurian larch [Larix dahurica Turcz. subsp. cajanderi (Mayr) Dylis; Jäger], Siberian spruce [Picea obovata Ledeb.; Jäger], Scots pine [Pinus sylvestris L.; Jäger], Japanese white birch [Betula platyphylla Sukaczev; Jäger], and a few Siberian pine [Pinus sibirica Du Tour; Jäger].
On this plain between both mountain ranges, the Ushakovka flows through forests and meadows, providing the most pleasurable strolls. Across from town, the left bank of the Angara is flat, with the most delightful meadows full of the most beautiful, colorful, and unusual flowers, which convince even the exiles that their lives are not utterly wretched.
You can see across this plain for about twenty kilometers. As the Voznesenski Monastery adds to the charm of Monastery Village, so this village and Zhilkina Village, in which the archbishop has built an uncommonly beautiful building, enhance the appearance of Irkutsk. Although the villages are about two kilometers apart, the people in town do not seem to perceive the space between them, judging them to be one and the same. Upriver from town, across the Angara, on the side of the Irkut, are pleasant forested hills that look like a rampart. Various estates and farms have been built there. A boat trip across the river to the monastery takes a little less than half an hour. The slobodas,6 located for eighteen to twenty kilometers across the mountains of the Angara in the nicest bottom lands, are endowed with the best soil, perfectly suitable for growing grain. You can buy the pud, thirty-six pounds [consistently converted] of rye flour firsthand from the farmer for six or eight kopeks, at the bazaar for ten or twelve, wheat flour for fifteen. As the rivers teem with fish—as I have related extensively in my separate “Description of Fish”7—the forests and meadows are full of the most enjoyable songbirds, as are the rivers with waterbirds. Whole sleds full of various species of ducks, geese, capercaillies [Tetrao urogallus], and black grouse, hazel grouse, and Daurian partridge [Tetrao tetrix, Tetrestes bonasia, and Perdix dauurica; Springer, pers. comm., August 24, 2016] are daily brought to town for sale by both Russians and Buryats, so that even a spoiled palate cannot complain of a lack of delicacies.
In town the Angara’s banks are full of boats, called doshcheniks, that transport goods from Russia here and to the Chinese border as well as returning from there across Lake Baikal to continue on down the Angara. At the bazaar as well as in the gostinii dvor,8 you can buy a lot of Russian and Chinese goods for reasonable prices. Every year more goods become available; some things can be bought at the same price or for little more than in Moscow—for example, German, Dutch, and English cloth, hats, linen, and sugar.
Notes
1. Zimov’e, R, literally winter hut, used by hunters and travelers primarily in winter; by the time of the expedition, used as way station; consistently translated except when part of a name.
2. Steller is right about the water-worn gravel having once been in the water; flooding or glaciation are possibilities. Robin Beebee, hydrologist, USGS, personal communication.
3. Krest, R, meaning cross. Traditionally, a cross was erected at the beginning of important routes for travelers to offer prayers; this is the route to Lake Baikal. WH, Anm. 34.
4. In text, Mündung or mouth; consistently replaced with source or outlet, where that is obviously meant.
5. A relatively small species of sturgeon from Eurasia, also native to rivers in Siberia as far east as the Yenisey, has excellent flesh and makes very good caviar; listed as threatened. “Siberian Fish,” www.sibrybalka.ru/ryby.
6. Sloboda, derived from the Slavic word for freedom. “Large communal villages settled by voluntary colonists with government assistance.” Gibson, 156; term retained.
7. In a letter to Baron von Korff, dated December 23, 1739, Steller promises to send his Historia piscium Angarae et Lacus Baikali cum iconibus [History of fish in the Angara River and Lake Baikal, with pictures] by April 1740. No such work has been found, but Steller’s descriptions of fish from 1739 are found in other places. WH, Anm. 121.
8. Gostinii dvor, prerevolutionary arcade, in towns and forts usually built out of stone. WH, Glossar; term retained.
AS MENTIONED ABOVE, THE TOWN GOT ITS NAME from the Irkut River, which in turn is probably derived from the Buryat word Byrrkuth or Burkuth, meaning eagle, because the birds are said to be found in greater numbers in the high mountains sixty kilometers upriver than elsewhere. Two species are often to be seen not far from town—namely, Haliaetum and Naeviam.1 I leave this judgment to others [unclear what is being judged]. The town itself is, for the most part, built in the round with the number of buildings increasing from year to year. It would, in a short time, be built up as far as the mountains toward Krest and along the Ushakovka, by thousands of houses even to Malaya Rozvodnaya five kilometers from town, if the promyshlenniks arriving from Russia were allowed to get married, settle down, and build houses here. Various ukases prohibit that, however, because most of these people would then forget their home and parents and ruin them because the parents would have to pay the head taxes for them. Many a Russian landowner would also thereby lose his subjects. However, that could be prevented if only Her Majesty’s subjects were allowed to settle and the parents were freed of this tax burden through an edict made known in everyone’s home. Then these settlers would pay their head taxes here or ask the nobles whose subjects they are to let them buy their freedom in a certain number of years, since there are very few such promyshlenniks anyway.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте
