Note 5 — Chapter VIII · THE OBI.

The surprisingly small cost of provisions on the Obi will be referred to hereafter; but some idea may be formed, for the purposes of trade, of the cheapness of provisions, from the fact that a merchant told me that in 1877 he bought up meat at Tobolsk for less than ½d. per English pound, and that, more recently, he sold for the Petersburg market ten thousand brace of black grouse, capercailzie, and hazel grouse at 9d. a pair all round. The cost for transporting from Tiumen to Petersburg is as follows: heavy goods, going by land where necessary, and floated on the rivers where possible, take 12 months in transit, and cost about 5s. a cwt.; if, however, goods are sent by road to Nijni Novgorod, and thence forwarded by rail, they take 2½ months in transit, and cost up to 12s. a cwt.; or, again, if goods are sent “express”—that is, put into large sledges, carrying each from a ton to a ton and a half, placed under charge of a man, and drawn by three horses, to Nijni Novgorod, and thence by rail—the transport costs 18s. a cwt. Notwithstanding this heavy cost of carriage, however, the merchants at Tiumen can bring their fish from the mouth of the Obi, forward it to Petersburg, sell the sturgeon at 24s., and the sterlet, nelma, and moksun at 30s. the cwt., and then secure a handsome profit for everybody concerned.