Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XVI. The two Worlds, Peasant and Official
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of the place! But they could do nothing in the presence of the
armed soldiery but ask for time. They were allowed just forty
hours, with the intimation that if the 5,500 roubles were not
then forthcoming, the whole sum of 12,000 roubles would be
exacted.
Then the General left matters in charge of the ispravnik,
Colonel Kapgar. He at once refused to allow them even until
the next morning, and insisted on immediate payment. When
they represented that they had no ready cash for such a large
amount he rushed about like a madman, swearing, striking, and
kicking at them all, and shouting commands for their
punishment. He ordered each of the 233 families to pay him
twenty-five roubles on the spot, and they had at once to sell their
goods to the “Jews” for absurdly trifling sums, or to borrow at
a rate of 3 per cent. per week.
An eye-witness gives the following samples of the treatment
meted out to these unfortunate people, whose only crime had
been refusal to pay rent to a robber for land that was their own.
The peasant Korolevitch was so roughly handled that he never
recovered. Lukashevitch, an old man of sixty-nine years, asked
the ispravnik for some days’ grace, but he gave him two violent
blows in the face, felling him to the ground, and thereupon
ordered him to be flogged; this was done under Kapgar’s
own supervision, and so effectually that the old man had
to be carried from the spot. Kapgar even demanded money
from an old blind beggar, and when he declared he had none,
hit him in the face and threatened to flog him, but the old man
went round the village and begged ten roubles.
The soldiers also, as was small wonder, behaved like brigands.
One of them came to a peasant’s hut to take him in the
middle of the night to the police-station, and while he was
dressing struck his wife, who was pregnant, such a violent blow
in the back that she swooned, and next day suffered a
miscarriage.
By these means Kapgar collected the amount in two days,
and it was sent to the Governor. The troops were withdrawn;
General Loschkarjev reported in St. Petersburg that the revolt
had been quelled without firing a shot, or the use of any violence,
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