we arrived at uliassutai on the day of the return of the detachmentwhich had gone out to disarm the convoy of wang tsao-tsun. thisdetachment had met colonel domojiroff, who ordered them not only todisarm but to pillage the convoy and, unfortunately, lieutenantstrigine executed this illegal and unwarranted command. it wascompromising and ignominious to see russian officers and soldierswearing the chinese overcoats, boots and wrist watches which hadbeen taken from the chinese officials and the convoy. everyone hadchinese silver and gold also from the loot. the mongol wife ofwang tsao-tsun and her brother returned with the detachment andentered a complaint of having been robbed by the russians. thechinese officials and their convoy, deprived of their supplies,reached the chinese border only after great distress from hungerand cold. we foreigners were astounded that lt.-colonel michailoffreceived strigine with military honors but we caught theexplanation of it later when we learned that michailoff had beengiven some of the chinese silver and his wife the handsomelydecorated saddle of fu hsiang. chultun beyli demanded that all theweapons taken from the chinese and all the stolen property beturned over to him, as it must later be returned to the chineseauthorities; but michailoff refused. afterwards we foreigners cutoff all contact with the russian detachment. the relations betweenthe russians and mongols became very strained. several of therussian officers protested against the acts of michailoff andstrigine and controversies became more and more serious.
at this time, one morning in april, an extraordinary group of armedhorsemen arrived at uliassutai. they stayed at the house of thebolshevik bourdukoff, who gave them, so we were told, a greatquantity of silver. this group explained that they were formerofficers in the imperial guard. they were colonels poletika, n. n.
philipoff and three of the latter's brothers. they announced thatthey wanted to collect all the white officers and soldiers then inmongolia and china and lead them to urianhai to fight thebolsheviki; but that first they wanted to wipe out ungern andreturn mongolia to china. they called themselves therepresentatives of the central organization of the whites inrussia.
the society of russian officers in uliassutai invited them to ameeting, examined their documents and interrogated them.
investigation proved that all the statements of these officersabout their former connections were entirely wrong, that poletikaoccupied an important position in the war commissariat of thebolsheviki, that one of the philipoff brothers was the assistant ofkameneff in his first attempt to reach england, that the centralwhite organization in russia did not exist, that the proposedfighting in urianhai was but a trap for the white officers and thatthis group was in close relations with the bolshevik bourdukoff.
a discussion at once sprang up among the officers as to what theyshould do with this group, which split the detachment into twodistinct parties. lt.-colonel michailoff with several officersjoined themselves to poletika's group just as colonel domojiroffarrived with his detachment. he began to get in touch with bothfactions and to feel out the politics of the situation, finallyappointing poletika to the post of commandant of uliassutai andsending to baron ungern a full report of the events in the town.
in this document he devoted much space to me, accusing me ofstanding in the way of the execution of his orders. his officerswatched me continuously. from different quarters i receivedwarnings to take great care. this band and its leader openlydemanded to know what right this foreigner had to interfere in theaffairs of mongolia, one of domojiroff's officers directly givingme the challenge in a meeting in the attempt to provoke acontroversy. i quietly answered him:
"and on what basis do the russian refugees interfere, they who haverights neither at home nor abroad?"the officer made no verbal reply but in his eyes burned a definiteanswer. my huge friend who sat beside me noticed this, strode overtoward him and, towering over him, stretched his arms and hands asthough just waking from sleep and remarked: "i'm looking for alittle boxing exercise."on one occasion domojiroff's men would have succeeded in taking meif i had not been saved by the watchfulness of our foreign group.
i had gone to the fortress to negotiate with the mongol sait forthe departure of the foreigners from uliassutai. chultun beylidetained me for a long time, so that i was forced to return aboutnine in the evening. my horse was walking. half a mile from thetown three men sprang up out of the ditch and ran at me. i whippedup my horse but noticed several more men coming out of the otherditch as though to head me off. they, however, made for the othergroup and captured them and i heard the voice of a foreignercalling me back. there i found three of domojiroff's officerssurrounded by the polish soldiers and other foreigners under theleadership of my old trusted agronome, who was occupied with tyingthe hands of the officers behind their backs so strongly that thebones cracked. ending his work and still smoking his perpetualpipe, he announced in a serious and important manner: "i think itbest to throw them into the river."laughing at his seriousness and the fear of domojiroff's officers,i asked them why they had started to attack me. they dropped theireyes and were silent. it was an eloquent silence and we perfectlyunderstood what they had proposed to do. they had revolvers hiddenin their pockets.
"fine!" i said. "all is perfectly clear. i shall release you butyou must report to your sender that he will not welcome you backthe next time. your weapons i shall hand to the commandant ofuliassutai."my friend, using his former terrifying care, began to untie them,repeating over and over: "and i would have fed you to the fishesin the river!" then we all returned to the town, leaving them togo their way.
domojiroff continued to send envoys to baron ungern at urga withrequests for plenary powers and money and with reports aboutmichailoff, chultun beyli, poletika, philipoff and myself. withasiatic cunning he was then maintaining good relations with allthose for whom he was preparing death at the hands of the severewarrior, baron ungern, who was receiving only one-sided reportsabout all the happenings in uliassutai. our whole colony wasgreatly agitated. the officers split into different parties; thesoldiers collected in groups and discussed the events of the day,criticising their chiefs, and under the influence of some ofdomojiroff's men began making such statements as:
"we have now seven colonels, who all want to be in command and areall quarreling among themselves. they all ought to be pegged downand given good sound thrashings. the one who could take thegreatest number of blows ought to be chosen as our chief."it was an ominous joke that proved the demoralization of therussian detachment.
"it seems," my friend frequently observed, "that we shall soon havethe pleasure of seeing a council of soldiers here in uliassutai.
god and the devil! one thing here is very unfortunate--there areno forests near into which good christian men may dive and get awayfrom all these cursed soviets. it's bare, frightfully bare, thiswretched mongolia, with no place for us to hide."really this possibility of the soviet was approaching. on oneoccasion the soldiers captured the arsenal containing the weaponssurrendered by the chinese and carried them off to their barracks.
drunkenness, gambling and fighting increased. we foreigners,carefully watching events and in fear of a catastrophe, finallydecided to leave uliassutai, that caldron of passions,controversies and denunciations. we heard that the group ofpoletika was also preparing to get out a few days later. weforeigners separated into two parties, one traveling by the oldcaravan route across the gobi considerably to the south of urga tokuku-hoto or kweihuacheng and kalgan, and mine, consisting of myfriend, two polish soldiers and myself, heading for urga via zainshabi, where colonel kazagrandi had asked me in a recent letter tomeet him. thus we left the uliassutai where we had lived throughso many exciting events.
on the sixth day after our departure there arrived in the town themongol-buriat detachment under the command of the buriat vandaloffand the russian captain bezrodnoff. afterwards i met them in zainshabi. it was a detachment sent out from urga by baron ungern torestore order in uliassutai and to march on to kobdo. on the wayfrom zain shabi bezrodnoff came across the group of poletika andmichailoff. he instituted a search which disclosed suspiciousdocuments in their baggage and in that of michailoff and his wifethe silver and other possessions taken from the chinese. from thisgroup of sixteen he sent n. n. philipoff to baron ungern, releasedthree others and shot the remaining twelve. thus ended in zainshabi the life of one party of uliassutai refugees and theactivities of the group of poletika. in uliassutai bezrodnoff shotchultun beyli for the violation of the treaty with the chinese, andalso some bolshevist russian colonists; arrested domojiroff andsent him to urga; and . . . restored order. the predictions aboutchultun beyli were fulfilled.
i knew of domojiroff's reports regarding myself but i decided,nevertheless, to proceed to urga and not to swing round it, aspoletika had started to do when he was accidentally captured bybezrodnoff. i was accustomed now to looking into the eyes ofdanger and i set out to meet the terrible "bloody baron." no onecan decide his own fate. i did not think myself in the wrong andthe feeling of fear had long since ceased to occupy a place in mymenage. on the way a mongol rider who overhauled us brought thenews of the death of our acquaintances at zain shabi. he spent thenight with me in the yurta at the ourton and related to me thefollowing legend of death.
"it was a long time ago when the mongolians ruled over china. theprince of uliassutai, beltis van, was mad. he executed any one hewished without trial and no one dared to pass through his town.
all the other princes and rich mongols surrounded uliassutai, wherebeltis raged, cut off communication on every road and allowed noneto pass in or out. famine developed in the town. they consumedall the oxen, sheep and horses and finally beltis van determined tomake a dash with his soldiers through to the west to the land ofone of his tribes, the olets. he and his men all perished in thefight. the princes, following the advice of the hutuktu buyantu,buried the dead on the slopes of the mountains surroundinguliassutai. they buried them with incantations and exorcisings inorder that death by violence might be kept from a furthervisitation to their land. the tombs were covered with heavy stonesand the hutuktu predicted that the bad demon of death by violencewould only leave the earth when the blood of a man should hespilled upon the covering stone. such a legend lived among us.
now it is fulfilled. the russians shot there three bolsheviki andthe chinese two mongols. the evil spirit of beltis van broke loosefrom beneath the heavy stone and now mows down the people with hisscythe. the noble chultun beyli has perished; the russian noyonmichailoff also has fallen; and death has flowed out fromuliassutai all over our boundless plains. who shall be able tostem it now? who shall tie the ferocious hands? an evil time hasfallen upon the gods and the good spirits. the evil demons havemade war upon the good spirits. what can man now do? only perish,only perish. . . ."