Arthur Hughes
Arthur Hughes, who had a large estate, was obliged to send thousands of feet to the Government annually, this was a form of taxation.
Foxes and hares are abundant, and many an exciting hunt did we have in the cool and pleasant autumn. The hounds were bought from the Court Estate, Merthyr Tydfil and had been brought to Russia by steamer via Odessa. Occasionally a polecat would pay us a visit, a very unwelcome one, judging by the number of things, which disappeared from the yard after the visit. Wolves were now and then seen, driven in search of food not far from our place, though I never happened to see any on the Steppes. Peasants would often bring us young ones, which we kept for the purpose of hunting.
I should have said that Hughesoffka the place in which we lived was situated in the Government of Ekaterinislav about 80 to 100 versts north of the sea of Azof about six hours journey from the Taganrog Port and from Marcople. It bordered also on Don Cossack country. The Russian Government in honour of the late John Hughes named Hughesoffka, the father of the gentleman in whose house I lived and whose granddaughters I taught. When he went out to Russia first at the invitation of the Russian Government (for whom he had already made some patent iron plates for the Russian Navy) he searched the Steppes for a suitable place wherein to start an Ironworks. The Steppes as far as is known is especially rich in minerals. At last he fixed on a spot that is now called Hughesoffka with a population of 25-30,000 but then was inhabited only by shepherd and dog. The ironworks is called the New Russian Company. All this was due to the Indomitable pluck and perseverance of John Hughes, a Welshman born near Ynysgan, Merthyr Tydfil. In Hughesoffka we were a small band of Welsh and English in the midst of a mixed population of Russians, Poles, Jews, Tartars, French and Germans. The Russians of course predominating. An Armenian doctor saved my life when I developed typhoid Fever.
Blast Furnace 1892.
(It is said that John Hughes had a dream. On the night before he was expecting the Russian Emissaries from the Czar at Mill wall Docks, London, he dreamt that a workman with a grievance, threw had thrown a spanner into the machinery at the works of the Millwall and Engineering Company. He rose in the night, took his carriage and drove to the works to find that his dream was true. Had the machinery been damaged, the Czar might never have commanded him to build the great steel factory at Hughesoffka.)
Just a few words about the climate. Winter and summer are just sudden incidents in Russia, one day the land is snow bound and the next there is a great thaw; the next is the beginning of summer. Briefly we can say that there are only two seasons, summer and winter. In winter the cold is intense, the thermometer falling to several degrees below zero. Still it was very dry, brisk and invigorating and far more endurable than the damp winter climate, the snow was of great depth indeed. We had to be very warm clad to withstand the severity of the cold. We were muffled to the tips of our noses with heavily and warmly lined fur cloaks, a fur cap of Astrakhan-skin, over this again a shawl of camels hair so that often when out driving we had our faces covered except for our eyes, fur lined boots and over these fur lined goloshes completed our costume. We had no pretensions to fashion; we looked more like Eskimaux than anything else; it was bitterly cold.
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