CHAPTER IX ENGLAND AND THE GREAT FAMINE IN RUSSIA

My Russian Home—The Horrors of Famine—The Peasants' Heroism—Starving yet Patient—The Society of Friends—I am Invited to Meeting—Magnificent Munificence—Among the Starving—Terrible Hardships—Some Illustrations—The Stoical Russian—Cinder Bread


The Tamboff Steppes have a great fascination for me. I was always very happy at Novo Alexandrofka, our country home. It possesses the beautiful church built by my son. Then I have there my two other attractions, the two splendid schools, each capable of accommodating over one hundred pupils, that for boys being called St. John's, after my husband's patron saint; and the girls' school, of which I am directress, is called St. Olga's. My son and I were always ardent believers in the importance of education, for in it lies the whole of the world. Good teachers are necessary above all, and bad schools do more harm by their existence than no schools at all, and there is nothing more wonderful or beautiful in Russia than to see the passionate eagerness of the peasants to have their children educated. I am happy to say that, thanks to our excellent teachers and the principal director, a very superior priest of our church, all our examinations have resulted in very fruitful success.

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At Novo Alexandrofka, my husband, my mother, my brother, Alexander Kiréeff, my son (the founder of the church) Alexander Novikoff—are already in the family vault. The last addition will be myself, and then the vault shall be definitely closed.

Some ten years ago when I was present at the final examination of the girls, no less than nineteen fulfilled the requirements of the Tamboff Education Committee, and were all qualified to become school-teachers. Since then we have had only excellent results of our schools.

The most unhappy time I ever spent at my home was during the terrible famine in Russia in 1892. I could not remain in England while my country was suffering so. I felt that my place was at Tamboff, and I accordingly left a land of plenty for poor, desolate Russia. I remember only too vividly those terrible days of famine. At one time my son Alexander had under his charge no less than 33,000 men, women and children, all depending upon him to find them food.

I call to mind one terrible day that brought from Alexander this tragic telegram: "Funds exhausted, send me something, position indescribable." It was terrible, tragic.

All the work done by the Relief Committees was voluntary. The Grand Duchess Constantine fed 2000 people a day.

Even in those days we strove to guard against reckless charitable effort, which can only have a demoralising influence. I call to mind one person who insisted on his name being unknown, offered my son 1000 roubles to be spent in providing food {126} for the inhabitants of a certain village on the condition that the amount were regarded only as a loan, which should be repaid and subsequently spent on that same village for educational purposes. This donor was doubly a donor by the proviso he made.

It was a tragedy to see splendid men in the prime of their lives, walking about with stony faces and hollow eyes. With them were women clothed only in wretched rags, and little children shivering in the cold wind. They would crowd round the relief parties, which drove about in sledges, holding out their hands saying:

"We have sold our last horses, cows and sheep, we have pawned all our winter clothing; we have nothing left to sell. We eat but once a day, stewed cabbage and stewed pumpkin, and many of us have not eaten that."

This was true. There were some among them who had not tasted food for days. It was agonising to hear these poor people pleading to us for mercy lest they die of starvation. As they spoke in dull voices, tears would spring up into the eyes of strong men and course slowly down their cheeks into their rough beards; but there were no complaints, no cries, just the slow, monotonous chant, broken by the sobs of worn-out mothers and the cries of hungry children.

We had neither wood nor coal, only straw and the refuse of stables, for fuel. The Volga was frozen, and in some provinces corn was absolutely unprocurable.

MY SON. ALEXANDER NOVIKOFF
MY SON. ALEXANDER NOVIKOFF

In that great calamity the help given by the English Society of Friends was very remarkable. {127} After some preliminary enquiry, I was invited to attend a Committee Meeting. There were, I think, between twenty and thirty present, and I was the only woman. A series of questions was addressed to me about the state of things in Russia. I exaggerated nothing. I concealed nothing. I told them that an unforeseen blow had befallen sixteen of our provinces and found us unprepared to combat its effects. My son, Alexander Novikoff, was just organising a committee in the district of Kazloff (Tamboff province), and, thanks to him, I knew the question fairly well. "The Friends" listened attentively, but said very little. Mr. Braithwaite, the chairman, only expressed a hope that "God will help our efforts." Nothing more: but without losing a day they went to work, and worked splendidly. They not only collected about ￡40,000, but sent their delegates—Mr. Edmond Brookes and Mr. William Fox—to distribute their help on the spot amongst the famine-stricken peasantry.

Do you know one of the results of such practical application of sympathy?

It is now generally admitted in my country that unofficial Englishmen are "kind and generous," and, when left to their own true nature, are capable of being friends deserving trust and confidence.

I also received, quite unsolicited, liberal subscriptions from friends in the City, which enabled me to send without delay much needed relief to the starving peasants in my district of Tamboff. The "English bread," as they called it, is remembered and spoken of even now.

Perhaps the best description of that terrible {128} famine, and of the efforts to relieve it, is that recorded in an interview with me by the representative of The Week's News, which I therefore transcribe, the more so because that enterprising journal sent out a special Commission to our famine districts to report upon the situation there. Here is the interview:


"NOVO ALEXANDROFKA,
    "12th February, 1892.

"A beautiful night drive across the snow from Bogojawlensky brought me to Madame Olga Novikoff's estate during Wednesday night. The thermometer stood at 36 degs. Fahrenheit below freezing point, yet the air was so calm that the cold was scarcely noticeable. A heavy hoar frost covered the trees, and the slight mist gave a weird aspect to the desert of snow that stretched away on every side. Without a house on the horizon to direct him, the jamschick drove out into the night, and the sledge glided along over the crackling snow.

"Mr. Alexander Novikoff, the son of Madame Olga Novikoff, was at Novo Alexandrofka to welcome me, and put me in a position to judge of the state of things in his district of the Tambov Government. He is Zemski Natchalnick, and very popular amongst the peasants whose little differences he has to judge.

"In the early morning we started off to visit the hospital in the village of Tooriévo. After all that has been said of the condition of Russian hospitals at this moment I was agreeably surprised, both at the cleanliness and the absence of patients whose {129} illnesses might be directly attributed to the famine. I, however, found there the first case of hunger typhus that I have seen, and learned from the surgeon, Dr. Malof, that in one village close at hand there were no fewer than 150 similar cases.

"This is one of the strongest proofs of the hardships through which the people are now passing. It is the disease that always follows in the wake of war and famine, and although the mortality amongst those seized is relatively small, the fact that numerous cases are occurring is significant. They arise from stomach disorders, brought on by insufficient and bad food, and the disease then takes the course of ordinary typhus.

"Tooriévo is a long straggling village, and contains about 1000 huts. The harvest in the neighbourhood was fairly good, and the population will probably weather the storm. Another large village in the district, Céslavino, with its 7000 inhabitants, is suffering intensely, the majority of the inhabitants being in receipt of relief. I found a particularly bad state of things in the village of Spasskoe. Amongst the 1500 inhabitants there were but three huts in which there was sufficient corn to keep the occupants till the next harvest. Most of the families are already receiving help from the Government, and the private committee presided over by M. Novikoff.

"I will mention but few cases in this village where the monotony of misery is so apparent in the deserted street and the dilapidated huts. This is the only village I have visited in this neighbourhood where the uniformity of distress compares {130} with the village in the south of Tambov that I described last week.

"Paul Axenoff is the head of a family of nine, comprised of two old people, Axenoff and his wife, and five children. They were receiving aid from both the authorities and the committee, but they had run through everything except three pounds of bread that was to last them for some weeks to come. The same thing happened to them last month, and in spite of all their efforts to secure food they ate nothing for three days prior to the last delivery of the month's flour.

"The horse and cow have both been sold, and the outhouses pulled down and used for fuel. Straw is usually employed in Russia for heating, but this year there is none, so the peasants are glad to find anything to burn. There is very little wood in this part of the country, and what there is is young, and has evidently been planted by the landowners. With the exception of a sheepskin cloak worn by one of the boys who came in from school while I was in the hut, the members of Axenoff's family had nothing to wear but the rags in which they stood.

"In this hut I discovered a fresh article of food—a soup made of hot water and weeds. They didn't eat it for the good it might do them, but simply for the sake of having something hot. At another hut in this village I found a similar concoction made with boiling water and chopped-up hay.

"All the bread I found in the next hovel was broken, and had been begged from house to house. The occupants had burnt the wood, straw, and outhouses they had at the beginning of the winter, and {131} were now pulling the straw from the roof over their heads to keep the hut warm.

"Although this was a new-fashioned hut, that is, one with a chimney, the occupants had stopped this up to prevent the fire burning too quickly, and to keep the heat in. This caused the suffocating smoke and tar-like odour that is found in the chimneyless huts.

"On leaving this place we struggled through the snow to visit another house from which the roof had been torn, and which was almost embedded in the quantity of snow that the gale of the previous night had whirled round it. The mayor of the village, who accompanied me, told me that the family of five persons included a dying woman, and two children down with scarlatina.

"With some difficulty we struggled through the four or five feet of snow that barricaded the door, and on getting it open we found the outer part of the hut half filled with snow that had been driven through the unthatched roof. We had some trouble to open the door leading to the inner room, and when this was done the mayor seemed surprised to find that the place was tenantless.

"He enquired amongst the neighbours what had become of Nicolas Semine and his dying wife. Nobody knew, and all were lost in surmise as to what might have happened had they been driven forth by the storm of the previous night. We continued the tour, and half an hour later I came upon a scene the like of which I hope never to see again.

"Eight or ten persons were crowded into a hovel {132} not more than ten feet square. An unconscious woman had been leaned against the brick stove to keep her warm in the stifling atmosphere. On the ground several dirty and ragged children were playing around two suffering creatures, whose arms and faces were masses of sores. I had already taken in these details when my guide told me this was Semine's dying wife and scarlatina-stricken children, that a man he pointed out was Semine himself, and that the ten-year-old boy lying on the stove was his eldest child.

"I was not able to understand how the father and this boy brought the dying, and now unconscious, woman and the two children through the storm of the previous night. I had myself had an experience of the blinding violence of clouds of snow blown across the plains by a hurricane.

"The story of the refugees is a very sad one; I will tell it just as it was told me. Between the time the harvest failed and the time the authorities commenced to aid the family, they had been obliged to sell everything they possessed to get food, and to pull down the outbuildings for firing purposes. The wife had been ill since autumn, and to keep the place warm they had been obliged to burn first the table, then the benches, then the old clothes, and last of all, to pull the straw from the roof and burn it.

"Yesterday they had nothing. No food, no firing, and the wind drove the snow through the unthatched house. To have stayed was certain death, so they wandered out into the night and were taken into the house where I saw them on condition that they consented to the four walls of their hut being {133} pulled down and used to heat the hovel in which they had taken refuge. They brought no food with them, and the family of four persons which has taken them in had just five pounds of bread to last till the end of February.

"In the hut occupied by Timothy Metchariakof I was shown some lebeda flour which the peasants often mix with rye or maize flour thinking that it gives nourishment to the bread. The fact that there are quantities of lebeda this winter is another sign of famine. Whenever the crops fail the weed from which the grains of lebeda are thrashed is found in abundance.

"In spite of what the peasants say about the satisfying properties of these seeds, the doctors consider the flour made from them most injurious to the health. All sorts of stomach complaints can be traced to the consumption of bread of which it is an ingredient.

"The bread was very black everywhere, but as long as this blackness resulted from the use of rye flour it was not unhealthy, and the bread although rather bitter was not uneatable. In many houses, however, the people had mixed anything that came to hand with the flour served out to them, and the bread consequently suffered.

"I tasted some this morning in which cinders or grit was undoubtedly one of the ingredients. It is also generally very badly baked, and if the authorities can improve on the official bakers I have seen, there should certainly be a public bakery in each village, as many of the sufferers have not sufficient fire in their stoves properly to cook anything. {134} Disease will go on increasing even more rapidly than famine if this unhealthy food is eaten by the peasants.

"I visited a great many of the families in this village so as to be satisfied that I was not basing my judgment of the distress on exceptional cases. The misery I found was very widespread, and actual starvation is only avoided by the aid of the Zemstvo and M. Novikoff's committee. If these aids were stopped for a week, nine-tenths of the village would be starving.

"From Spasskoe I drove across to the little village of Dolguinko, where I found a part of the population living in holes dug in the earth. Towards the end of last autumn, one half of the village was burned to the ground. The work of rebuilding had scarcely commenced when winter set in, and those peasants who were not able to lay beams and branches over their partially-built huts and thus make a roof, dug holes in the ground in which they are now living with their families.

"To reach these burrows it was necessary to follow a long passage cut in the snow, at the end of which was a hole through which the visitor was supposed to let himself, legs first, and then steady his descent by catching at the snow till he felt the ground beneath his feet. I did all this, and am not certain whether I was not more astonished at my safe arrival than the occupants of the hole were to see me.

"Beyond the difficulties of entrance and exit the hole is no darker than an ordinary hut. But a more horribly insanitary place of abode for human {135} beings it would be hard to find. As could only be expected, it was very damp, and the occupants were condemned to stand and sit in several inches of mud, and to support the drippings of the snow melted by the heat of their fire. However they manage to live with insufficient nutriment amid such surroundings I cannot imagine. The man in one of these burrows that I visited was making wooden boots, for which he could earn a penny a pair. If he worked very hard he could make two pairs a day.

"On returning to Novo Alexandrofka, I looked over the books of the district of which these villages form part. It comprises twenty-five villages, with a total of 60,000 inhabitants. How many of these are relieved by the authorities cannot be said, but M. Novikoff's Committee has supplemented the efforts of the Government by feeding 10,436 persons during the month of January. Each one of these 10,436 persons was the recipient of twenty-five pounds of flour.

"According to the inventories made of the possessions of every inhabitant of the district, the number of destitute, unprovided for by Government relief, will increase by more than 1000 a month, and will reach 18,000 by June. The committee has already distributed 650,000 pounds of flour since its institution. As many Britons have aided this work by funds sent to Madame Olga Novikoff, it will interest them to know what is doing.

"In the village of Novo Alexandrofka no one is in receipt of relief. Thanks to M. Novikoff, who has endowed it with elementary, secondary, and adult {136} schools, it is a particularly happy village, and counts 800 teetotalers in a population of 900 persons.

"Before leaving the Tambov Government, I may say that although in certain villages the want is appalling, and is rendered more palpable by the condition in which the inhabitants live, I do not anticipate an overwhelming disaster in this province. It is well served by railway lines, though the companies have little rolling stock, and grain can be easily conveyed to these central Governments if it is in the country, and has been brought to some available spot before the thaw."


On a second occasion, when the present War Charities began to press for support, the same kind friends in the City and elsewhere, who had helped during the Russian famine, again came forward and collected for me a handsome sum. Part of this money I had the satisfaction of distributing to Russian, British and Serbian Red Cross funds. A part also (2000 roubles) was sent as a Christmas present to the wounded soldiers in H.I.M.'s Hospital at Petrograd, in gracious acknowledgment of which I received the following telegram from the Empress Marie:

"Am greatly touched by your letter and your generous gift, for which I wish you to express to all those who have contributed my warmest thanks. MARIE."


From the Princess Helène (daughter of the King of Serbia), to whom I had also sent a small sum, came the following telegram:

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"Best thanks for your generous gift—profoundly touched—affectionate greeting."


And from Monseigneur Cyril, Bishop of Tamboff, came his acknowledgment of my remittance:

"Generous gift received—great joy—many thanks and blessings."


The Grand Duchess Elizabeth, who is at the head of so many charitable institutions in Moscow, and takes such an active interest in good work there, also very kindly acknowledged the small sum sent to her. All these remittances were kindly telegraphed for me by Monsieur de Helpert, the obliging Director of the Russian Bank for Foreign Trade.

Amongst other remittances to Petrograd was one of ￡50 to Lady Sybil Grey, who was at the head of a Red Cross branch there, and respecting the safe transmission of which I had consulted her father, Earl Grey, who replied to me with the necessary advice, and concluded his letter with very warm acknowledgments of the kind and hearty reception his daughter had met with in Petrograd.

Later on I had the additional satisfaction of raising a further sum for War Charities by the raffle of a Diamond Ornament, for which purpose my friend, Lady Primrose, lent me her house as well as her valuable personal aid.

The above are a few illustrations, among others that might be added, of the British warm-heartedness and generosity that never fails in time of need.