In the Kirghiz Steppes - Copper for the Tsars - By J.W. Wardell

"A first-hand account of life in the wilderness of Kazakstan on the eve of industrialization." For five years from 1914 the author mined copper for the Tsarist government, and later for Admiral Koltchak, in the wild steppes of Southern Siberia. He tells of working conditions and regulations, the Kazakh tribesmen who are descendants of the hordes of Genghis Khan, and of the life and ideals of provincial Russians.