Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
unquestioned obedience. By 1240, the Mongols had moved further west to capture large
sections of Hungary and Poland. Then they returned to Russia to rule and consolidate their
empire, the largest in the world. The empire's Russian component centered on Moscow,
but its full extent ran from the Sea of Japan to Poland and from the Siberian Arctic to the
Persian Gulf. Mongols ruled with fist and iron. They took tribute from their subjects but
were tolerant of religions and religious disputation. They also opened their empire (twice as
large as Rome's at its height) to travelers and traders. And under that dispensation, Marco
Polo with his father and uncle traveled for more than three years until they arrived at Pek-
ing in 1275, capital of the mighty Kublai Khan. When Marco returned to his native Venice
after twenty-five years in the service of the Great Khan, he carried a wondrous secret: a sea
route to the fabled Indies lay across the Indian Ocean, a secret that Columbus enfolded in
his scheme to reach the East by sailing west.
Mongols dominated Russia for 250 years. During that time, Mongols and Russians
intermarried, creating an aristocracy accustomed to deference and obedience. Tsar Boris
Godunov was descended from Tartars, and in our own time, Vladimir Nobokov claimed
Tartar descent. Scratch a Russian, as the saying goes, and uncover a Tartar. During the mur-
derous dictatorship of Josef Stalin, those seeking to explain his behavior would sometimes
whisper, “He comes from Tartar stock.” And Leon Trotsky, hounded out of Revolutionary
Russia by Stalin, famously described Stalin as Genghis Khan with a telephone. (The mur-
derous arm of the Soviet secret police followed Trotsky to his sanctuary in Mexico City. A
hatchet in his skull put an end to his jibes.)
WHY DO THE TARTARS HAUNT RUSSIAN HISTORY?
Altitude, as the saying goes, is attitude. Flat nations lend themselves to tyranny; the ruler's
writ can run to the nation's farthest reach. (Consider Ronald Reagan's remark, “You can
run but you can't hide!”) Conversely, mountains afford places to hide. They make it pos-
sible to defy a ruler's writs. They tend to nurture codes of honor that support blood feuds
and clan revenge. Above all, they nurture an attitude that demands personal freedom.
Russia, like China, Egypt, and Persia, is a mostly flat place. From ancient times to
the present, all four countries have nurtured despotic rulers. The Russian steppes made
Mongol conquest easy; and once established as overlords, Mongol rulers deepened Russian
obeisance to authority. (An old Russian proverb has it that government is like the weath-
er. It comes from above.) The Mongol conquest put another marker on Russian culture in
the form of identity search. Russians have long posed the question, Are we an Asian or
European country? A glance at a map shows that far more of Russia lies in Asia than in
Europe. The map also displays Russia's geographic reach: Russia extends through elev-
en times zones; the distance from Moscow to Vladivostok via the Trans-Siberian railroad
is more than 6,000 miles. Some Russians insist that Russia is sufficiently insulated from
Search WWH ::
Custom Search