The church at Alexandrovsky Central

Identifier: sidelightsonsibe00simp 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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Text Appearing Before Image: tion to this heprovides them with fire and light, while each family isallowed to appropriate and to cultivate a certain portionof the kitchen-garden which lies to the rear. Otherwise,these people would have had to live in the village andfind work there: as a matter of fact, some of them hadgained employment in that way. Twice a-week the wivesare allowed to go and visit their husbands in prison. Onepoor Dungan woman and her child fell down begging fora little help; she had not a single kopek in the world. AMoldavian gipsy woman with her three daughters, whosehusband was going to be sent on to the silver-mines ofNertchinsk, prayed that she might be allowed to remain THE CHURCH. 207 where she was, as life was harder, she had heard, at thegreat penal settlement. The next day was devoted to an inspection of the prisonin all its different branches and activities. AlexandrovskyCentral, originally built as a distillery, will hold 1000 men;but with the free-commands who live outside the prison

Text Appearing After Image: The church at Alexandrovsky Central. walls, there are half as many again upon the roll. It isunusual to find a convict there whose sentence extends overhalf-a-dozen years. As you drive down towards the western end of the village,where are the prison buildings, you observe that they arelargely hidden by the beautiful church which stands outboldly, lying, as usual, east and west. A pair of artisti- 208 ALEXANDROVSKY CENTRAL. cally painted ikoiu adarii the eastern outer wall. As already-stated, the church is entirely the work of convict hands.The terra-cotta bricks, with their white pointing, harmonisedelicately with the tasteful bluish - grey that clothes theroof and cupolas, while the outlines of the windows arealso accentuated by being picked out in white. The outsideeffect, therefore, cheery and gay (as are all liussian outsideeffects), is essentially agreeable to the eye. Ten yards fromits main entrance on the west, and immediately oppositeto it, is a gate opening out of the prison-ya

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