The excise duty for 1879 from Western Siberia
amounted to ^455,961-pnamely, wine and spirits,
,£402,084 ; additional on vodka, ,£6,609 ! beer and
mead, .£1,458 ; and licences, .£45,809. Whether or not
this amount represents all that ought to have been paid
admits of a doubt ; for Baron Nolde,* speaking of the
whole Empire, goes so far as to say that .£20,000,000
yearly find their way by fraud into the pockets of the
distillers. I heard, when passing through Western
Siberia, of a remarkable method of keeping the
supply of spirits down and the prices up. The
principal distillers of the district met, it appeared, from
time to time, to arrange the maximum of their products
each should bring into the market, one result of the
conference being that small distillers were offered a
certain sum to make little spirit, or even none. If they
chose to be independent and go their own way, the
great distillers combined to ruin them by under-selling
them; and, on the other hand, I heard of one distiller
who received from this party of monopolists the sum
of .£2,000, simply for keeping his factory closed for a
year. Up to 1863 the manufacture of spirits was restricted
to persons called otkupschiks, usually rich
merchants, who paid heavy sums to Government for
the privilege. From that date private distilleries were
set on foot; dram shops,, which up to that time had been
limited in number, have, according to the Baron, increased
tenfold, whilst the price of the liquor decreased
to a third (though it has been rising since), thus tending
powerfully to that wholesale demoralization of Russia
which the Government at length is beginning to realize.
I am not rich in statistics bearing exclusively upon
* “ Piteinoe D ielo i Aktsiznaia Sistema.” By Baron Edward Frederick
Nolde, Petersburg, 1882.
Akmolinsk, but it appears that in Western Siberia, in
1879, there were sold 5,363,166 gallons of vodka, of
which 216,729 gallons were exported. The remainder
was disposed of in 3,232 retail shops, including 120
wholesale— at the rate, that is, of i2 | pints of vodka,
or 5ttq pints of alcohol to each inhabitant of Western
Siberia.* In the United Kingdom the consumption
of alcohol was, in 1876, at the rate of 26 pints per head
of the p o p u l a t i o n . t Russia is sometimes spoken of as
a drunken nation, but if the foregoing statistics be
trustworthy, it should not be England that should cast
the first stone at her.
In Akmolinsk, as elsewhere, it is only a step from
drink to crime. Concerning this connection it may here
suffice to point out generally that in those parts of the
province where the Muhammadan (and, therefore,
teetotal) Kirghese abound, crime is less apparent; but
where Christian Russians assemble, crime is more
manifest. I believe this to be generally true, both
from the figures below, as well as from my general
experience in travelling through Central Asia. I have
been careful, however, to say that crime is less apparent;
because the real criminality of the nomad population
must be greater than indicated, since the figures here
given relate to crimes which came before the Russian
courts, whereas the misdeeds of the Kirghese (with
some few exceptions) are judged by their own native
tribunals, statistics of which are not forthcoming.
Throughout the province in 1880 were committed 831
* In Tobolsk and A kmolinsk were disposed of 3,024,729 gallons, to a
population of 1,660,635, or *4-2 pints per head; and in Tomsk and
Semipolatinsk 2,121,708 gallons to a population of 1,558,558, or io f
pints to each man, woman, and child.
t “ Are we a Sober P e o p le ? ” p. 8, by James Whyte. London:
John Heywood.