the victims of accidents at sea, urgent and pitilessly longing for air, deep under the sea and struck with the terror of not being able to get out, as they rush to the embrace of the surface of the sea. The sickness was spreading rapidly.
The young Czar’s chief preacher was from the Defenders of the Faith. ‘Your Highness, it’s time to grant them permission so they can come,’ he said one day. Indeed the Czar had been on the point of thinking this for some time. ‘Yes,’ he said, nodding his head thoughtfully. ‘I grant permission. Let them come.’
They came. They came in order to root out the renegades within their ranks and put an end to dissent in the Russian Church, to purify great Russia and to standardise religious rituals, and to fan the spiritual torments of the ignorant peasants and wipe out idolatrous practices once and for all. As their numbers increased, so too did the number of those who were proclaimed to be enemies; as the number of their enemies increased, so too did the number of their victims. Because 1648 was as famous for the plague as it was for its evil consequences.
That year the Salt Revolution broke out. It was during the first days of June. A mob that somehow couldn’t reach the Czar took revenge by burning down the boyars’ houses, looting their possessions and attacking their wives. The fire started on the third of June. The flames spread quickly, and the grumbling crowd besieged the Kremlin. One of the rebels stripped naked, climbed on the shoulders of his comrades, and shouted as loud as he could:
‘I’m so hungry that to make room for what I could eat in just one sitting I would have to build a road from here to Siberia.’
Siberia wasn’t concerned about these events. He’d been deaf since birth anyway, and couldn’t hear anything that wasn’t aimed directly at his eardrum. He was aware neither that God was above nor that the Czar was far away. He was doing his own thing, playing his own game with loaded dice of mammoth ivory. The story of the Sable-Girl was rooted there; in Siberia in the first half of the 17th century.
Siberia wasn’t concerned about these events, but for some time many people had been concerned about Siberia. Beketov, who with his thirty Cossacks had founded the city of Yakutsk, wrote a report to the Czar: ‘Your Highness. After following the length of the Lena river, I reached the lands of Yakut, where I built a small tower and took the necessary defensive precautions…I have shed my blood and stained my soul for you, I have eaten horse meat and roots and pine cones and all manner of filth. Your humble servant.’
This is what he wrote in his report. This is how he and others gained their enormous wealth. From the summits of the daily growing mountains of furs, they cursed poverty and challenged nature. They didn’t care about anything except fur. The furs were so soft…Soft and warm, furry and bloody sacks of gold. The conquerors of Siberia accepted all kinds of fur. They were mostly after squirrel, fox and ermine; but especially sable. The hunters made huge fortunes from this small, nervous animal. Every day, sledges full of dead sables were piled up in the Yakutsk customs house. Every day, hundreds of sable furs were given a value of thousands of gold coins. Those who had arrived at the beginning of the season had long since filled their money bags. Nor did one often meet any who had decided they’d made enough and that it was time to go back. These hunters couldn’t get their fill. More furs, more protection money, more power…Siberia had more, and they wanted more.
In wide squat cabins built of huge tree trunks and with transparent fish skin stretched across the windows, the hunters waited months for the coming of spring, and the melting of the snow. The beds next to the brick stove belonged to the strongest. The strongest were the cruelest. The rest warmed their beds with prostitutes. But if they continued to feel cold anyway, they
The young Czar’s chief preacher was from the Defenders of the Faith. ‘Your Highness, it’s time to grant them permission so they can come,’ he said one day. Indeed the Czar had been on the point of thinking this for some time. ‘Yes,’ he said, nodding his head thoughtfully. ‘I grant permission. Let them come.’
They came. They came in order to root out the renegades within their ranks and put an end to dissent in the Russian Church, to purify great Russia and to standardise religious rituals, and to fan the spiritual torments of the ignorant peasants and wipe out idolatrous practices once and for all. As their numbers increased, so too did the number of those who were proclaimed to be enemies; as the number of their enemies increased, so too did the number of their victims. Because 1648 was as famous for the plague as it was for its evil consequences.
That year the Salt Revolution broke out. It was during the first days of June. A mob that somehow couldn’t reach the Czar took revenge by burning down the boyars’ houses, looting their possessions and attacking their wives. The fire started on the third of June. The flames spread quickly, and the grumbling crowd besieged the Kremlin. One of the rebels stripped naked, climbed on the shoulders of his comrades, and shouted as loud as he could:
‘I’m so hungry that to make room for what I could eat in just one sitting I would have to build a road from here to Siberia.’
Siberia wasn’t concerned about these events. He’d been deaf since birth anyway, and couldn’t hear anything that wasn’t aimed directly at his eardrum. He was aware neither that God was above nor that the Czar was far away. He was doing his own thing, playing his own game with loaded dice of mammoth ivory. The story of the Sable-Girl was rooted there; in Siberia in the first half of the 17th century.
Siberia wasn’t concerned about these events, but for some time many people had been concerned about Siberia. Beketov, who with his thirty Cossacks had founded the city of Yakutsk, wrote a report to the Czar: ‘Your Highness. After following the length of the Lena river, I reached the lands of Yakut, where I built a small tower and took the necessary defensive precautions…I have shed my blood and stained my soul for you, I have eaten horse meat and roots and pine cones and all manner of filth. Your humble servant.’
This is what he wrote in his report. This is how he and others gained their enormous wealth. From the summits of the daily growing mountains of furs, they cursed poverty and challenged nature. They didn’t care about anything except fur. The furs were so soft…Soft and warm, furry and bloody sacks of gold. The conquerors of Siberia accepted all kinds of fur. They were mostly after squirrel, fox and ermine; but especially sable. The hunters made huge fortunes from this small, nervous animal. Every day, sledges full of dead sables were piled up in the Yakutsk customs house. Every day, hundreds of sable furs were given a value of thousands of gold coins. Those who had arrived at the beginning of the season had long since filled their money bags. Nor did one often meet any who had decided they’d made enough and that it was time to go back. These hunters couldn’t get their fill. More furs, more protection money, more power…Siberia had more, and they wanted more.
In wide squat cabins built of huge tree trunks and with transparent fish skin stretched across the windows, the hunters waited months for the coming of spring, and the melting of the snow. The beds next to the brick stove belonged to the strongest. The strongest were the cruelest. The rest warmed their beds with prostitutes. But if they continued to feel cold anyway, they
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