1880 ca, SIBERIA, RUSSIA : The russian ZNAMENSKI , photo from Siberia. Znamenski was the district chief of police in the Siberian town of Minusinsk when american Siberian Explorer George Kennan ( 1845 - 1924) visited in January, 1886. Kennan found Znamenskii to be a petty Russian bureaucrat who "obeyed the rules with a stupid and brutish disregard of all the circumstances".