Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1911 — SUNDAY IN RUSSIAN SIBERIA [ARTICLE]

SUNDAY IN RUSSIAN SIBERIA

No Music In Chimes of Other Land* After One Has Heard Rue •lan Bells. When one has heard the bells of Russia ring there is no longer music In the chimes of any other land —not even in Spain. The Russian-Slberian Sunday begins with Saturday’s nightfall and as it came on the bells of Tomsk's 26 bulbous domed Greek orthodox churches began their anthem. The small ones that tinkle soft and clear as silver bells are beaten with clapper hammers of* wood and the great, grand booming tones are coaxed with beams of soft pine. There is a softness and melody in it all that soothes and quiets the very soul of man. It carries with its sweetness in these populated oases of the great unoccupied land a soft, impressive spirit of its grandeur, solitude, isolation and sadness. As th& bells toll the people cross themselves and hurry to the great churches to kneel and touch heads to the floor before the great icons; to light candles before the Nikoli, and to press their lips to the hem of the Madonna’s diamond-sprinkled, gold-plait-ed or solid silver vestments and against the gold feet of the infant in her arms. The flames of hundreds of thousands of tapers are Reflected and dance on the golden robes of the saints, Madonnas and child and the great gold enamel screens before the holy of holies. Clouds of incense arise and over it all comes a swelling, grand, impressive music. No instrument made with hands contributes to it; it wells from the throats of men; deeper, richer, sweeter than heard in any other clime. Is It their northland or a pe> culiar training which has given the Russian Slav priest and these peasants, with crock-put hair and baggy trousers, this baritone that, in the simple chants and responses and sup plications for mercy of the Greek orthodox churches has a fulness an| melody that one does not ever hear at home. It is the sweet lost chord that cannot be struck again on all the remainder of the world’s keyboard of melody. The Slav indeed has a music of his own. All through Siberia the church is the impressive thing. Far out on the plain one sees here and there great white churches with bulbous blue domes; around them the poor log houses —almost shacks—of the village. Or, in the great prairie Siberia, clusters of haystacks—for except that they have windows and doors in them they look no different at a distance than the haycocks close beside them.