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Show OMSK BECOMING A MODERN CITY No Longer "City of the Dead " But Teeming With Life and Improvement. OMSK, Siberia, Feb. 25. --(Torre-spondence of The Associated Press.) American readers of tho great Russian Rus-sian novelist, Dostoievsky, who, exiled lor a political crime, spent four f;ns at hard labor, in the fortress-prison of Omsk, would hardly recognize In the Omsk of today the terrible conditions Which he depicted in his book, ''Recol-J lections of the House of tbe Dead." It was in 184!) thai Dostoievsky began his term of exile anil passed through the experiences which he ;-o powei fully pictured later. The "house of ih-dead" ih-dead" no longer exists at Omsk. 1' aai passed to give room for the building of a more modern and more hopeful city. It. is difficult to realize how the pri ent half million population of Omsk lives The normal population fl one b.undfed thousand, but the i mi-slant mi-slant influx- of refugees from the i liters li-ters of Bolshevism has swelled the nunibrr of Inhabitants. To fin.! a bouse oi apartmenl is not to b-y thought of in the present-day Om-tk. chosen as the capital u Hie pro i-sional i-sional nil-Russian government, The most humble room Is not to b- obtained ob-tained without the intervention of friends or the help of the authorities who do not hesitate to requisition rooms in case of urcent need. The city is without electricity, except in a few sections and the streets at nljffll are in obscurity. For thai reason few persons po out after eight or nine o'clock because of the possible (linger (lin-ger of robbery or worse Public safety safe-ty has. however, greatly Improved in the past two months. Omsk in its main thoroughfare has many finely appointed office buildings build-ings and some modern apartment houses. The residential section consists con-sists of low-built houses of wood or mortar. There are several fine views due to the presence of many domed churches and the long expanses of pace afforded by the rivers Irtish and m. which meet In the very heart Ol ill" city. At foriy below zero few women are seen in the streets, but the advent of a day when the meTCUf? rise- tv ii or zero brings out a large number of ladles who look very attractive attrac-tive In their great coats of varied colored col-ored tun and their overshoes always-prettily always-prettily bordered with mink or hare. The Siberian hare's fur is utilized In the fashioning of warm nfid attrecMve hats with long streamers covering the ears and tying under tbe chin. Hnre are so plentiful that these hats are within tho financial reach or almost everybody. It is the orthodox cathedral, dedicated dedicat-ed by the late Emperor Nicholas in 1891, which looms up, vast and Imposing, Im-posing, ns the dominating structure of the capital. On one side is the former for-mer residence of tho civil governor ot Omsk, now used by tbe foreign office and on the opposite side ol the square is tho imposing ministry of Justice, as yct uncompleted. The cathedral, which is called the Church of the Ascension of the Saviour, is a vast edifice capable cap-able of holding 1,600 persons. During Dur-ing the Saturday night and Suuda morning services the brilliant and flittering flit-tering auditorium is crowded with people. peo-ple. ;ill tan ding In accordance wi'h Russian custom. The cathedral has a great dome surrounded by several turrets tur-rets and has on one side a high tower of finely sculptured stone surmounted by a spire. In 1714, Peter the First sent a commission com-mission to the Om6k region to erect a small fortress on the bank of the river Urn, from which the city later took Its' name. In 1 7G5 began the construction of a new and more solid fortress. It was in the form of a polygon with five bastions. Reside it was erected later the wooden prison, surrounded by a high palisade, which served to imprison im-prison Russian political exiles, and i'i which Dostoievsky spent his four years for having been in the Toua-tchot Toua-tchot ridti This was the "Dead House" which he later described to the world in protest ot the horrors of Siberian banishment. |