Excluding the court councillor, who is working as a surveyor on Sakhalin, why are the homesteaders with a free status and the peasants formerly exiled not departing for the homeland when they have the right to do so? They say they are remaining in Slobodka because they are successful farmers, but this does not apply to everyone. Not all, but only some of the homesteaders use the meadows and plow- land in Slobodka. Only 8 homesteaders have meadows and cattlc, 12 work the soil, and no mattcr how you look at it, the amount of farming here is not extensive enough to explain its exceptionally fine economic position. There are no ways to earn money on the side, they do not engage in tradc, and only one man, a former officer, keeps a small shop. There is no official data which would reveal why the inhabitants of Slobodka are rich and the only way to solve the problem is to consider the one remaining fac- tor—its bad reputation.
Formerly there was widespread bootlegging of alcohol in Slobodka. The import and sale of alcohol are strictly forbidden on Sakhalin, and these prohibitions gave rise to peculiar methods of acquiring contraband. The alcohol was smuggled into the island in tin cans meant to hold sugar loaves and in samovars, and the smugglers were very nearly carrying it in their belts, but most frequently it was deliv- ered in barrels and in the usual bottles since the lower officials were bribed and the higher officials looked the other way.
In Slobodka a bottle of cheap vodka was sold for six and even ten rubles. It was from here that all the prisons of Northern Sakhalin obtained their vodka. Even the drunk- ards among the officials were not squeamish about it. I know one official who was on a drinking spree and gave all thc money he had to some prisoners for a botde of spirits.
At the present time the illicit traffic in alcohol has considerably subsided. Now they gossip about another enterprise—trade in prisoners' used clothing, which is called barakhlo. They buy dressing gowns, shirts and jackets for a pittance and dispose of all these rags in Nikolayevsk. They also maintain clandestine pawnshops.
Baron Korf once called the Alexandrovsk Post "The Sakhalin Paris." Everything that exists in this noisy and famished Paris—fornication, drunkenness, gambling, sick- ness, the buying of spirits and the sale of stolen goods, or selling one's soul to the devil—all this leads directly to Slobodka.
In the area between the seashore and the post, in addi- tion to Slobodka and the railroad, there was still another curiosity. This was the ferry across the Duyka. Instead of a rowboat or ferryboat, there was a large, completely square box. The captain of this unique craft was convict Krasivy Family-forgotten. He was already seventy-one years old. Hunchbacked, shoulder blades protruding, one rib broken, a thumb missing, his whole body was covered with scars from lashings and beatings suffered a long time ago. He had almost no gray hair; his hair seemed faded, his eyes were blue, sparkling, and he wore a happy, good-natured expression. He was dressed in rags and was barefoot. Very lively and talkative, he enjoyed laughter.
In 1855 he had deserted from the army ''out of foolish- ness" and had become a vagabond, calling himself "Family- forgotten/' He was captured and sent to Zabaikal, or, as he says, "into Cossack country." He said:
"At that time I imagined that people lived underground in Siberia," he told me. "I took off and fled down the road from Tyumen. I reached Kamyshlov, where I was captured and sentenced, your worship, to twenty years of hard labor and ninety lashes. They sent me to Kara, gave me the ninety lashes, and then sent me to Korsakov on Sakhalin. I escaped from Korsakov with a friend, but I only got as far as Due. I became ill and couldn't go any farther. My friend reached Blagoveshchensk. Now I am serving my second term and have been living on Sakhalin twenty-two years. My only crime was that I deserted from the army."
"Why do you still hide your real name? Why do you have to do it?"
"I told my real name to an official last year."
"What happened?"
"Nothing! The official said, 'Before we make the cor- rection you'll be dead. Just live as you have been living. Why do you want to change now?' And it's true, that's no mistake. . . .I don't have long to live anyway. But still, my good sir, my family would at least know where I am."
"What do they call you?"
"My name here is Vasily Ignatyev, your worship."
"And your real name?"
Krasivy pondered and said:
"Nikita Trofimov. I come from Skopinsky district, Ryazan guberniya."
I began crossing the river in the box. Krasivy pushed against a long pole along the river bottom, straining his whole emaciated bony body. The work was not easy.
"Isn't it too difficult for you?"
"That's all right, your worship. Nobody is rushing me. I take my time."
He told me that in his twenty-two years on Sakhalin he has never been beaten, nor has he been imprisoned.
"Thats because when they send me to saw wood, I go. When they give me this pole in my hand, I take it. When they order me to fire up the office stove, I fire up. One must obey. To tell the truth and not anger God, life is good! Glory to Thee, 0 Lord!"
In the summer he lives in a yurt near the crossing. In his yurt are rags, a loaf of bread, a rifle and a stuffy, sour odor. When I asked him why he needs a rifle, he said, "To defend myself from thieves, and to shoot snipe," and laughed. The rifle is broken and is only for show. In winter he reverts to being a wood carrier and lives in the office at the pier. One day I saw him, trousers rolled high, displaying his veined, pale white feet. With a Chinaman he was pull- ing a net filled with sparkling humpbacked salmon, each the size of our perch. I shouted to him and he answered me joyfully.
The Alexandrovsk Post was founded in 188 i. One official who has been living on Sakhalin for ten years wid me that when he first came he almost drowned in the mud. The priest-monk lrakly, who lived in Alexandrovsk umil 1886, said that at first there were only three houses. The small barracks where the musicians now live was the prison. The street was filled with tree stumps. Where the brickyard now stands they used to hum sables in 1882. The sentry booth was offered to Father lrakly as a church, but he de- clined, pleading lack of space. In good weather he cele- brated Mass in the open on the square; in bad weather, he celebrated Mass in prison or wherever possible.
"You are conducting services, and suddenly you hear the clanging of chains," he said. "It's noisy and hot from the boiler. Here I'm saying, 'Glory w the Holy Consubstantial,' and next w you somcone yells, 'I'll break your. . . .' "
The actual growth of Alexandrovsk stems from the time when new regulations were made regarding Sakhalin, and many new official posts were designated, including that of a general. New accommodation was required for the new people and their offices since Due, which to that time housed the prison administration, was very crowded and gloomy. Six versts from Due, Slobodka already existed in a cleared area, a prison already stod along the Duyka, and then slowly a residential section began to grow in the neigh- borhood: houses for officials and offices, a church, ware- houses, shops and other buildings. With these arose some- thing without which Sakhalin could not live—a wwn, the Sakhalin Paris, where congenial company, atmosphere and a piece of bread could be found by wwn folk who could only survive when they breathed town air and engaged in town enterprises.
The building of the town, the clearing of stumps and the draining of the soil were done by the convicts. Umil 1888, before the present prison was built, they lived in yurt dugouts. These were made of boards dug into the ground two or two-and-a-half arshins deep with double-pitched clay roofs. The windows were small and narrow, level with the ground. It was dark, especially in winter when the yurts were covered with snow. As a result of water rising from the soil to the floor and the perpetual moisture in the clay roofs and the crumbling, rotting walls, the dampness in these graves was wretched. The people slept in their sheep- skin coats. The surrounding ground and the well water were always filthy with human excrement and all kinds of garbage because there were neither privies nor rubbish pits. The convicts lived with their wives and children in these yurts.