File:Side-lights on Siberia (1898), page 282, Grinding corn.jpg

Identifier: sidelightsonsibe00simp (find matches)
Title: Side-lights on Siberia; some account of the great Siberian railroad, the prisons and exile system;
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Simpson, James Young, 1873-1934
Subjects: Prisons -- Soviet Union Exiles -- Russia (Federation) Siberia Siberia (Russia) -- Description and travel
Publisher: Edinburgh and London : W. Blackwood and Sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ted, and with a high white-plastered wallsurrounding its ample yard. On the north side of the wallare built the directors house, as also the guardroom andsoldiers barracks. It was Sunday—i.e., a holiday — andseveral of the prisoners friends and relatives were waitingabout the gates till the hour when they might see their un-fortunate kinsmen or acquaintances through the wire fencein the reception-room. On the question of Sunday labourthe conclusion to which one came, independently of anycommunication on the part of the officials, was that it is notcompulsory. One saw men engaged in work on Sundays,but not a sufficiently large proportion to warrant the assump-tion of any other custom than that maintained by morethan one natchalnik to be in vogue, that if any man cared towork on Sunday he was not hindered, and that sometimesthe authorities had work on hand that had to be continuedduring the first day of the week. Moreover, there areseveral other holidays on which the men do no work.
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AT THE MILL. 283 Once inside the yard of the new Verkhni-Udinsk prison,the visitor is confronted by what is termed the mill,whose capstan-like wheel turned by human laliour is coveredby a wooden shed, so that the weather cannot affect thenumbers of inids that are ground. The prison buildingsstand right in the centre of the yard, leaving as much spareroom behind as in front. The backyard was in the possessionof a gang of men who were busily shaking out pillows andmattresses. Everything inside the prison looked fresh andclean, and the only circumstance that suggested the possi-bility of age was the stone staircases, which were worn espe-cially beside tlie iron balustrades, for which the prisonershad thus left evidence of being thankful. At the top of thefirst flight we stepped on to a broad well-ventilated corridor,off which opened a series of grey doors, each with a spy-hole.The beds were of that panel type described as introduced inthe refurnished rooms at Alexandrovsky Central, excep

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