the Russians with the third of the peoples they
encountered on the Irtish.
Let me not omit to mention, however, that whilst
the Russian Cossacks and merchants were pushing
further southwards, the Government was planting
institutions and strengthening its administration in the
rear. I n i 744 a road was constructed from Tobolsk, the
capital, to Tara, and 10 years later posting was established
from Moscow to Tobolsk. Tara does not
seem ever to have become a place of great prominence,
but Omsk and Semipolatinsk forts both grew in importance,
the latter being made a “ town ” without a
district in 1764, and in 1782 an uyezd town. In
1804 Omsk and Kainsk were exalted to the same
municipal rank, and at the former, five years later, was
formed an infantry regiment. This necessitated, in
1813, the establishment in Omsk of a Cossack school,
that was subsequently united to and afterwards incorporated
with an Asiatic school that had been set on
foot there more than 30 years before. Further changes
were made, however, in 1846, when the school was
adopted for the Siberian cadet corps, and from it, in
the following year, the teaching of Asiatic languages
was transferred to the town school for soldiers’ children.
The whole of Siberia having been placed under two
Governors-General in 1822, the district about Omsk
was formed into an oblast, or province, of that name,
and a Cossack cloth factory established in the capital
for the employment of exiles. The new oblast,
however, did not at first flourish very well, for in
1823 the capital was destroyed by fire, and in the
following year, through lack of funds from its own
resources, the neighbouring provinces of Tobolsk and
Tomsk had to expend in the oblast upwards of
£ 12,000. This poverty seems to have lingered awhile,
for in 1826 the Cossacks were allowed to engage in
trade. In the following year an institution for granting
public assistance was opened in Omsk, to which town,
also, in 1838, were removed from Tobolsk the residence
of the Governor-General, and the whole staff
of the chief administration of Western Siberia. The
oblast was then suppressed, and instead of it there was
constituted a “ frontier administration ” ; Omsk, Petro-
pavlovsk, and the Cossack villages of the I shim line
being added to the Tobolsk province ; and Semipolatinsk
and Ust-Kamenogorsk, with the Cossack villages
on the Irtish, being added to the Tomsk province.
There was yet another people, the Kirghese, with
whom the Russians were brought in contact during
their occupation of the Irtish, but of these I can better
treat in connection with the Russian occupation of
Semirechia.