Clay ruins in the steppe, credited to Bukharan farmers
Editorial contextSouth of Semipalatinsk the party saw the foundations of a house of six rooms, which Gmelin calls the former dwelling of a Kalmyk 'idol-worshipper'. Others had stood there, but weather had destroyed them because all were built only of clay. Irrigation channels in the fields he credits to Bukharans, since, he explains, the Kalmyks do no farming at all and even their ruler has no fixed seat but is always on the move.
but the weather had destroyed them entirely, because all the buildings had been made only of clay. In the field nearby one could see some channels in the ground, into which the inhabitants of this area, who are said to have been Bukharans, had led water
Working translation
Original wording
allein das Wetter hatte sie ganz zernichtet, weil alle Gebäude bloß von Leim aufgeführet gewesen waren. Auf dem Felde dabey sahe man einige Rinnen in dem Erdreiche, in welche die Einwohner dieser Gegend, welche Bucharen gewesen seyn sollen, Wasser geleitet haben
About Kalmyks (Dzungars) and Bukharans
Keep in mind
Who built the houses is Gmelin's inference from hearsay and from what he knew of Kalmyk life.
Grave-robbers melt the gold of the old steppe graves
Editorial contextAll along the Irtysh Gmelin saw very many graves, which he took for remains of former Kalmyk or Bukharan settlement, and nearly every one had been dug open. Local people treated them as a mine for 'grave silver': horse ornaments, big seals, bracelets, sometimes idols. The unopened ones near Ust-Kamenogorsk were ringed with upright field stones or slates and filled with stones and earth.
But those who open the graves in this country have the habit, to the uncommon loss of history, of generally melting down the gold and silver and throwing away the copper and iron.
Working translation
Original wording
Allein diejenigen, die hier zu Lande die Gräber eröffnen, haben die Gewohnheit, daß sie zu ungemeinem Verlust der Historie das Gold und Silber gemeiniglich schmelzen, das Kupfer und Eisen aber wegwerfen.
About Ancient graves, thought to be Kalmyk or Bukharan
Keep in mind
The attribution of the graves to Kalmyks or Bukharans is a guess; many such steppe graves are far older.
Ablai-kit: a brick temple full of books in the steppe
Editorial contextGmelin did not go himself: he sent a corporal, soldiers and a scribe, with orders to measure the place and 'carry off everything'. They reported a rectangle walled with broken rock, buildings on a raised base, a hall with two bellied furnaces, a great clay idol with sixteen smaller ones, and heaps of Tibetan ('Tangut') and Kalmyk manuscripts and woodblocks; nearly twenty cartloads still lay there. Gmelin names it the idol temple of the Kalmyk prince Ablai of the Khoshut, driven out about 1671.
In this same building was a large cupboard with many compartments, in which many writings lay when the place was first discovered, and which are now scattered through the whole building... All these buildings are built of baked bricks
Working translation
Original wording
In eben diesem Gebäude war ein großer Schrank mit vielen Fächern, worin bey der ersten Entdeckung viele Schriften gelegen haben, die nun in dem ganzen Gebäude zerstreuet sind. … Alle diese Gebäude sind von gebackenen Ziegelsteinen aufgeführet
About Kalmyks (Oirats); Ablai, a Khoshut prince
Keep in mind
Second-hand: the description is the soldiers' and scribe's report. It also records the expedition removing manuscripts from the site.
Round reed huts for summer, other houses for winter
Editorial contextThree versts from Kuznetsk Gmelin visited a village of Teleut Tatars with two kinds of houses, one for summer and one for winter. The summer huts were round and pointed, about three fathoms across, with a small door on the east side, a smoke hole at the top, benches all round and a cooking hollow in the middle. They were built of reeds woven onto thin poles, with birch bark tucked in against the rain.
The village consists of two kinds of houses: in the one they live in summer, in the other in winter... The summer huts are round in shape and pointed at the top... The building material of these houses is reed, woven onto thin poles bound together on the inside
Working translation
Original wording
Das Dorf bestehet aus zweyerley Art Häusern, in der einen wohnen sie des Sommers, in der andern des Winters. … Die Sommerhütten sind von Figur rund, und oben zugespitzt … Der Bauzeug dieser Häuser ist Schilf, welches an die inwendig zusammen verbundenen dünnen Stöcke angeflochten
About Teleut Tatars
A goose and a loaf on the table: 'the fearsome name of the Tatars'
Editorial contextGmelin admits the travellers had feared the very name of the Tatars. After a few days among them it sounded quite different: everywhere a gift was waiting, usually a plucked goose and a baked loaf, and at Ulga also honey and hazelnuts. He is honest that the courtesy had limits: one host hid rather than hand over his horses, and the soldiers found him and took them anyway.
On the whole we found them friendly people, and the name of the Tatars, once so frightful to us, now sounded quite different. Everywhere we came we found a gift already waiting for us on the table, usually a plucked goose and a baked loaf
Working translation
Original wording
Wir haben sie überhaupt als leutseelige Leute befunden, und der uns ehemahls fürchterliche Name der Tataren kam uns nun ganz anders vor. An allen Orten, wo wir hinkamen, fanden wir auf dem Tische schon ein Geschenke vor uns, welches gemeiniglich in einer abgefederten Gans und einem gebackenen Brodte bestund
About Kazan Tatars
A wedding song called 'Yermak'
Editorial contextAt the same wedding two Tatar musicians, one with a reed pipe with finger holes (its end taken wholly into the mouth) and one with an ordinary violin, played for the guests. They singled out one tune they found moving. It was called 'Yermak', after the Cossack leader who conquered Siberia in the 1580s, and they said it dated from the time he brought their forefathers under Russian rule.
They called the song 'Yermak' and said it had been composed at the time when Yermak took Siberia and, through his services, brought their forefathers under Russian rule.
Working translation
Original wording
Sie nennten das Lied Jermak und sagten, daß es zu der Zeit gemacht wäre, da Jermak Sibirien eingenommen, und ihre Voreltern durch seine Dienste unter die Russische Bothmäßigkeit gebracht hätte.
About Siberian Tatars of Tobolsk
A stuffed horse on four birch poles, facing east
Editorial contextThe Teleuts, Gmelin notes, were not Muslims; each morning they turned to the rising sun and prayed 'do not strike me dead'. By the village stood their 'taülga', four birch posts in a square. Once or more a year they killed a horse, ate it in a circle, stuffed the skin and set it on the posts facing east. They now built these close to the village, he says, because they had noticed the Russians knew better uses for the hides.
They slaughter a horse, strip off its skin and eat the flesh near the taülga... They stuff the skin and set the horse... on top of the taülga... They have noticed that the Russians know how to make better use of their skins, so they now always build their taülga close to the village.
Working translation
Original wording
Sie schlachten ein Pferd, ziehen demselben die Haut ab und verzehren das Fleisch nahe bey dem Taülga … Die Haut stopfen sie aus, und setzen das Pferd … oben auf den Taülga … Sie haben gemerckt, daß die Russen ihre Häute besser zu gebrauchen wissen, deswegen bauen sie ihre Taülga jetzo allzeit nahe bey dem Dorfe.
About Teleut Tatars (not Muslim)
An ironworks inside a family yurt
Editorial contextGmelin rode to see a Tatar ironworks and at first could not find it: no building looked any different. The furnace was simply the cooking hollow found in every yurt, topped with a clay cone about a foot high and blown by two bellows, and the family went on living around it. Two men did all the work; from three pounds of ore they got about two pounds of iron, impure-looking but, he thought, very good.
We could see at once that no special yurt needs to be built for the furnace, but that any yurt will serve. Indeed it did not even stop people living in that same yurt, which is already a great advantage over European ironworks, which have to be built at great expense.
Working translation
Original wording
Wir konnten auch gleich sehen, daß man wegen des Schmelzofens nicht nöthig habe, eine besondere Jurte zu bauen, sondern daß eine jede Jurte darzu tüchtig sey. Ja es hinderte auch die Leute nicht in eben dieser Jurte zu wohnen, welches alles schon ein großer Vortheil vor den Europäischen Eisenhütten ist, die man mit großen Kosten aufführen muß.
About Tatars of the Kondoma valley (the people now called Shors)
Horse races before a Tatar wedding
Editorial contextGmelin and Müller drove out to a Tatar wedding at Sabanaka near Tobolsk. Before any wedding, he was told, riders race their horses to the bride's house for prizes put up by both families; this time they included red damask, a fox pelt, cotton cloths brought from the Kalmyk lands and a red horsehide. A few pages on, the akhun (Muslim cleric) told the groom his chief duty: not to take another wife without the consent of the one he was marrying.
It is an old custom at all Tatar weddings that many horses must first put on this show before the wedding begins. And so that there may always be riders, and people to lend horses for it, various prizes are put up both by the bridegroom's side and by the bride's
Working translation
Original wording
Es ist dieses eine alte hergebrachte Gewohnheit bey allen Tatarischen Hochzeiten, daß viele Pferde, ehe die Hochzeit angehet, vorher dieses Schauspiel machen müssen. Und damit es allezeit Reuter und auch Leute, die die Pferde dazu lehnen, geben möge, so sind sowohl von Seiten des Bräutigams, als der Braut verschiedene Preise ausgesetzt
About Siberian Tatars of Tobolsk
'All the land was Tartary, and all the peoples Tartars'
Editorial contextIn his preface Gmelin explains why Peter the Great sent the expedition. Before it, he says, European geographers knew nothing of the far north: every land there was simply 'Tartary' and every people 'Tartars'. On the next page he adds that in Russia itself people talk far less about 'Tartary' than elsewhere, the way real experts talk less about hidden qualities than those still in the dark.
In the northernmost lands the geographers had nothing but darkness. All the land was Tartary, and all the peoples of those regions Tartars.
Working translation
Original wording
In den Nordlichsten Ländern war bey den Erdbeschreibern nichts als Dunkelheit. Alles Land war Tatarey, und alle Völker selbiger Gegenden Tataren.
About Everyone in northern Asia, as European maps saw them
A man with four heads and twenty-four arms
Editorial contextOn the walls behind the idols at Ablai-kit were paintings that baffled Gmelin. He says he has not the patience to describe them and refers the curious to alchemical pictures, as equally absurd. His examples: figures with several heads and many arms, one trampling a man's head, and a many-headed man embracing a woman.
One sees, for example, a man with 4 heads and 24 arms, another with 2 heads and 8 arms. The first treads with one of his right feet on a man's head and has two more men lying at his feet.
Working translation
Original wording
Man siehet z. E. einen Mann mit 4 Köpfen und 24 Armen, einen andern mit 2 Köpfen und 8 Armen. Der erstere tritt mit einem seiner rechten Füße einem Menschen auf den Kopf und hat noch zween andere Menschen zu seinen Füßen liegen.
About Kalmyks (Oirats)
Keep in mind
Gmelin does not identify the figures; they match the many-armed deities of Tibetan Buddhist art. He knew them only from his men's report and the pieces they brought back.