In 1901, British Journalist John Foster Fraser travelled from Moscow to Vladivostok, and back again, mostly by rail. On his return, he recorded his experiences (and prejudices) in “The Real Siberia”.
In today’s excerpt, Fraser realizes that he is being spied on:
It was at Taiga I became conscious of the fact I was being watched. I felt the knowledge of the fact creep in somewhere at the back of my neck. I turned hurriedly and caught the departing side-glance of a short, inquisitive-eyed and tufty-bearded gentleman. I knew he was watching me. Maybe he belonged to that mysterious body, the Russian Secret Police. Maybe he thought I was a Soho-Nihilist - though I hope there was nothing suggestive of Soho in my attire, save my old knockabout slouch hat.
I took a stroll to the far end of the platform. He followed and pretended not to be looking when I turned, but when I again passed him I could feel his gaze, like a Rontgen-ray, go into the side of my head.
When the Moscow-Irkutsk post train arrived I hunted out a carriage and prepared to make myself comfortable for four nights. Suddenly the door was jerked open, and as suddenly jerked shut again. It was my little spy. I heard whispering in the next compartment, and when I went into the corridor my spy - I got to regard him as my own particular property after three days - and the conductor came and stared.
Whenever I left my carriage he left his. I couldn’t go into the buffet and have a cup of soup without my spy sitting opposite me. If I wandered for ten minutes into the woods to take a photograph, or climbed a bank to get a snapshot of the train, he was near.
Truly, as a spy, he played the game badly. It was all too patent. If I could have really acted suspiciously I would have done so, just to fool him to the top of his bent. All I could think of was to look at embankments, simulating wisdom, as though calculating how much dynamite it would need to blow them into the air, or walk along the line and inspect the rails, as though I had some deep design in mind. But I maintained an air of sublime ignorance that he was on the earth.
It was the evening before we reached Irkutsk, and the train was halting for half-an-hour, when, all at once, there was a row next door. I sprang into the corridor to see.
There were the railway officials ignominiously throwing my spy and his belongings out. The inquisitive little fellow had never seen a foreigner before, and he was travelling first-class with a second-class ticket. He was very petulant at this indignity of ejection. He fretted and fumed. But “out you go and get into a back carriage,” was the attitude of the officials. As he picked up his bedding and kettle he looked at me. I could not resist the temptation to give him two broad, slow British winks and then laugh. It was the only revenge I had.
This post is one of a series of excerpts from John Foster Fraser’s “The Real Siberia”. Further excerpts can be found in the Siberian Light archive.
The full text of The Real Siberia is available online at Friends & Partners.
