Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 145, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 June 1920 — Omsk Once Cossack Center. [ARTICLE]

Omsk Once Cossack Center.

Feodor Dostoievsky, the Russian Dickens, wrote his famous novel, “Crime and Punishment,” out of his experiences with criminals at Omsk, which was for a time the seat of government of the regime of Admiral Kolchak. Ip this work Dostoievsky pictures a future Russian people freed from'bonds of force, but united by ties of mutual trust and kindness. Omsk, under the Russian monarchy. was the crossroad of the routes to Central Russia, Orenburg and Turkestan. It lies along the trans-Siberian railway, running from Moscow to Vladivostok, a 5,385-mlle Journey. It was founded about 200 years ago and is approximately of the size of Birmingham, Ala., or Paterson, N. J. Omsk waa long a Cossack center. In the principal square stands the church of St Nicholas, In which hangs a banner reputed to have been that of Yermak, a Cossack bandit of the Volga, who turned over the vast domain of ,Siberia to Ivan the Terrible, with the result that Yermak procured his own restoration to Moscow court favor.