Neat Ethnological Map of Siberia

I found this map showing the general location of the various Siberian ethnic groups. I found it here. It seems to be from a monograph on the Aboriginal Siberians authored by female Anthropologist M.A. Czaplicka in 1914.

Here is a link to another, more detailed, (uglier) map that seems to indicate that in the areas George spent most of his time the aboriginal group he would have been most likely to encounter would be the Nanais or the Evenks. Both groups seem to be related to the Tungus group and are probably identified as Tungus and Goldi (Nanais were once referred to as Goldi) in the above map. In any case, both groups still exist and are recognized groups with about 12,000 Nanais in Russia and 65,000 Evenks in Russia and China.

Red River Prison Camp

With tired feet and cold body we at last reached the prison at eight o'clock at night and we got a swell meal there. The fellows all wondered where we came from as this was the first time that anybody ever came over from our camp at Khabarovsk.

We stayed here for two days and started back to our camp and had a fine time to get back as we got in a blizzard and would have been lost if it had not been for a Chinese Hunter we met who was going the same way. The days in this month were not very long. We got back to our camp after walking for 12 hours.
___________________________________

Upon given a few days off George decides to walk miles through the snow and freezing weather to see some friends at a prison camp. Pretty much tells you there was not too much to do on days off in Siberia. Unfortunately, there is no elaboration regarding the chance meeting with the Chinese hunter. Perhaps George and his friend knew some Chinese or, more likely, the Chinese hunter knew a little Russian. George mentions later that he became pretty proficient in Russian.

I couldn't find much on the Red River Prison Camp but it seems to me it was a camp housing Germans captured by Allied forces in WWI prior to the Bolshevik takeover of Russia.

**UPDATE: please see the comment section for some more interesting information about the Red River Camp including info on two significant figures who spent time int he camp. Thanks to Dimitri Minaev, you can find his blog about Russia and Russian History here.
___________________________________

Wolves

We hit the lower Shan Alin Mountains of Manchuria and crossed the Amur River into Manchuria, China. We did not go very far when we heard the howl of some wolves which we took a shot at but missed them by a mile as our hands were so cold that we could hardly shoot. This being the dead of winter we had to be careful not to run on some large pack of wolves.
___________________________________________________

The Shan Alin mountains, or possibly, Shan-a-lin mountains also seem to be known as the Long White Mountains. Not much could be found about the mountains.

Khabarovsk. Amur River District

January 1919

New Years

Today we had one of those good meals, this time we had turkey, which was supposed to be for thanksgiven but we did not care as long as we knew that we was going to have a good meal. The whole command was to have two weeks off except them that happen to get on detail. We got a pass, three of us, to go over to Red River Prison Camp. We had some friends that we had not seen since we left Frisco over at the camp, so we started over there on the second of the year. At daylight we were off for Red River Camp. We had a hike of 21 miles across the Amur and Sungari Rivers. We were loaded down with our packs and rifles and a hundred rounds of ammunition. We had a poor day to go in as it was snowing pretty heavy, but we had some mountains off to the right to guide us. We did not know how cold it was but we were sure cold. I froze my nose twice and my friend froze his ears. He did not even know it till I told him his ears were white.

Who's Who

I pulled this directly from the Wikipedia entry for "Siberian Intervention". It lays out pretty clearly the two "sides" to the conflict. Of course, there was plenty of tension between allies. I wanted to lay this out now because future posts will discuss fighting amongst some of these groups and this will be useful to link back to. I should also say that the White movement listed below includes Czech Legions and other anti-Bolshevik forces, including the Cossacks.

Belligerents
Entente Powers Japan United States United Kingdom Canada France Italy White Movement	Russian SFSR Pro-Bolshevik forces 1920-1922 Far Eastern Republic
Commanders
Yui Mitsue Admiral Kolchak William S. Graves
Strength
70,000 Japanese 7,950 U.S soldiers 1,500 British 4,192 Canadian 800 French 1,400 Italian troops	Unknown

Patches

I came across a number of different patches associated with the Army Expeditionary Forces in Siberia. Here's one of them and a link to the rest right here. I don't know if George wore this or any of the other patches.

December 25 Xmas

This evening I spent on guard. The whole night it snowed and it was 30 below. I had Regimental Headquarters and in the main entrance standing in one place for two hours at a time. At one o'clock in the morning the officer of the day came around and had the nerve to ask me if I was cold. I was so cold then that I could hardly talk.

Back in Business

I have been pretty lazy about the blog of late. No posts in three months! But I'm back now and should have a decent string of posts for a while. Thanks for reading.

If you are new to the blog check out the info on the right, it will tell you what the deal is.

Here is a link to the first entry.