File:All the Russias- travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia (1902) (14597526138).jpg

Identifier: allrussiastravel01norm (find matches)
Title: All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Norman, Henry, 1858-1939
Subjects: Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910 Eastern question (Central Asia)
Publisher: New York, C. Seribner's sons
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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when you are hungry and eating what-ever you may happen to fancy, instead of eating when the cookwills, and then only what custom severely restricts you to, is dis-organising in its effects upon the refectory of the train. Thereis no time to sweep up and set tables; no time when the servantscan feel free to rest, sleep, or eat; no time when the weariedkitchen fire can go down as it does at home. The result isgreat discomfort for Western passengers, and the authoritiesshould certainly insist upon all meals being served at fixed hours,and at those hours only. The story of the inception of the Great Siberian Railway hasbeen told many times (in my own Peoples and Politics of theFar East, for instance), and all that need be recalled here isthat the first suggestion of it came from an Englishman, and thatenterprising Americans were the first to lay before the RussianGovernment a definite ofifer to build it on certain terms. Nat-urally enough, Russia decided that it must be her own task, but
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a,OH U4 as THE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY 113 it was a long time before she could face the tremendous expendi-ture involved, and not until her statesmens keen foresight per-ceived the vast change coming over the Far East was the giganticenterprise reduced to a definite project. The present Tsar, whenas Tsesarievich he was travelling in the Far East, wheeled thefirst barrow and laid the first stone of the railway at Vladivostokon May 19, 1891, and his enthusiastic support has assured thesuccess achieved. The speed with which construction has fol-lowed is, considering the great natural difificulties, without par-allel in railway-building. The whole line was divided into sevensections, and work carried on upon them so far as possible simul-taneously. The Siberian plain presented no engineering diffi-culties, since for a thousand miles the surface does not show ahigher rise than four hundred feet; but as all wood, water, food,and labour had to be suppHed from the base, the difficulties of or-

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