Siberian Adventure

Abstract

The party travelled by post-sleigh on the great Siberian road, and on the eighteenth day reached Omsk, the capital of Western Siberia. Here the guards left their prisoner and returned to Petersburg. Before their departure, Bakunin handed to them letters for Prince Dolgorukov and for his mother. The first, couched in the fulsome language which had become second nature to him, expressed his “sincere and profound” gratitude for the Prince’s “powerful intercession” on his behalf. The second complained that the money which had been given him for the journey was insufficient. Then he moved on to Tomsk—for the first time for eight years a free man. A remote district in the province of Tomsk had been assigned as his place of residence. But when he reached Tomsk itself he pleaded ill-health, and on this score received permission to live in the town. He had lost no time in obtaining this first mitigation of his sentence.¹