OMSK, the chief town of the government of Akmolinsk and capital of western Siberia, stands at the junction of the Om with the Irtish, on the great highway of Siberia, 1795 miles east of Moscow. Distant as it is from the great line of steamboat communication leading to Tomsk, the true commercial capital of western Siberia, Omsk has a purely administrative importance; its “fortress,” or old earthwork, is now almost entirely abandoned. The town, situated in a wide steppe, broken only by the gently-sloping hill occupied by the fort, is almost entirely of wood. It has a military school, a lyceum, several lower schools, and a small public library. A “West Siberian branch of the Russian Geographical Society,” opened in 1877, issues valuable publications. Its industries (candlemaking, tanning, and the like) are insignificant; but the trade, chiefly in cattle, skins, and furs imported from the Kirghiz Steppe, and partly also in tea, is of some importance. The population, which is entirely Russian, numbers about 31,000, of whom about 5000 are military.

The ‘ ‘ fort” of Omsk was erected in 1716 to protect the series of block-houses on the Russian frontier, and, as two lines of blockhouses—that of the Ishim and that of the Irtish—met at this point, it became a military centre. In consequence of frequent incursions of the Kirghiz about the end of the last century, a stronger earthwork, with bastions and a stone gate, was erected on the right bank of the Om. From being a district town of the government of Tobolsk, Omsk became in 1839 the seat of the administration of western Siberia in anticipation of a further advance of the Russians towards the south. Since the conquest of Turkestan it has lost even this strategic importance.