....with photogravure and many black-and-white illustrations from original photographs.
This volume about Russia was published in 1916.
Summary from the book's Introduction:
The journey recorded in these pages was made in
the summer before the great war, and although
the record of my impressions and the story of my
adventures were fully written in my road diary and in
the articles I sent to The Times, I had thought to
postpone issuing my book to some quieter moment
beyond the war. But the days go on, and we are
getting accustomed to live in a state of war; war has
almost become a normal condition of existence. At
first we could do nothing but consider the facts of
the great quarrel of nations and the exploits of the
armies. War for the moment seemed to be our life,
our culture, and our religion. But things have
changed. War started by concentrating us and
making us narrow, but now it is giving us greater
breadth. We have become more interested in the
home life of our Allies, in the " after-the- war"' pro-
spects of Europe, in the future of our own British
Empire and of the wide world generally. The war
has given us a larger consciousness, and we have
become, as some say, " Continental." In any case,
we are much less insular. France and Russia have
become real places to the man in the street, and the
account he gives of them is more credible. Even
our country labourer can say where Gallipoli is, Meso-
potamia, Egypt, Salonica, Bulgaria, Serbia, though,
indeed, I have frequently heard the latter spoken of
as Siberia. " My son's gone to Siberia," says the
countryman; "it's a cold place." Our imagination
ranges farther afield, and young men of all classes
think of making far travels when the war is
over. We are not less interested in other things,
but more; only less interested in the old suffocating
business and industrial life of the time before
the war, of the stuffy rooms, the circumscribed
horizons, the dull grind. All eyes are opened wider,
all hearts have greater hopes, and that which dares in
us dares more. We are reading more, reading better,
and, among other matters, are thinking more of foreign
countries, empires, far-away climes. The war, bring-
ing so many nations together, has touched imaginations.
It has mixed our themes of conversations and enriched
our life with new colours, new ideas. So, perhaps,
the story of this journey and my impressions of an
interesting but remote portion of the Tsar's Empire
will not come amiss just now. Moreover, during the
war many problems have become clearer, especially
those of the British Empire, clearer, but none the
less unsolved, and I feel that a study of a vast stretch
of the Russian Empire, and of its problems and its
prospective future, cannot but be helpful.
have it, and it touched me. May the roses bloom
again !
I am indebted to the Editors of The Times and
Country Life for permission to republish portions of
this book previously printed in their columns, and to
Country Life for permission to republish photographs.
For these photographs, except those relating to the
Altai, I am chiefly indebted to the professor of French
at Tashkent Military School and to M. Drampof, of
Pishpek. Special permission has to be obtained to
enter Russian Central Asia, and, as I was going on
foot, the possession of a camera might have led to the
suspicion of military spying. So I had my camera
sent to Semipalatinsk, which is in Siberia, and only
used it on the Siberian part of my journey. My
thanks are also due to Mr. Wilton, the courteous and
able correspondent of The Times at Petrograd, who
obtained for me my permit for travel in Russian
Central Asia.
Stephen Graham
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