Eastbound through Siberia. Georg Wilhelm Steller

communal villages settled by voluntary colonists with government assistance.” Gibson, 156; term retained.

      7. In a letter to Baron von Korff, dated December 23, 1739, Steller promises to send his Historia piscium Angarae et Lacus Baikali cum iconibus [History of fish in the Angara River and Lake Baikal, with pictures] by April 1740. No such work has been found, but Steller’s descriptions of fish from 1739 are found in other places. WH, Anm. 121.

      8. Gostinii dvor, prerevolutionary arcade, in towns and forts usually built out of stone. WH, Glossar; term retained.

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       ABOUT IRKUTSK ITSELF

      AS MENTIONED ABOVE, THE TOWN GOT ITS NAME from the Irkut River, which in turn is probably derived from the Buryat word Byrrkuth or Burkuth, meaning eagle, because the birds are said to be found in greater numbers in the high mountains sixty kilometers upriver than elsewhere. Two species are often to be seen not far from town—namely, Haliaetum and Naeviam.¹ I leave this judgment to others [unclear what is being judged]. The town itself is, for the most part, built in the round with the number of buildings increasing from year to year. It would, in a short time, be built up as far as the mountains toward Krest and along the Ushakovka, by thousands of houses even to Malaya Rozvodnaya five kilometers from town, if the promyshlenniks arriving from Russia were allowed to get married, settle down, and build houses here. Various ukases prohibit that, however, because most of these people would then forget their home and parents and ruin them because the parents would have to pay the head taxes for them. Many a Russian landowner would also thereby lose his subjects. However, that could be prevented if only Her Majesty’s subjects were allowed to settle and the parents were freed of this tax burden through an edict made known in everyone’s home. Then these settlers would pay their head taxes here or ask the nobles whose subjects they are to let them buy their freedom in a certain number of years, since there are very few such promyshlenniks anyway.