At the present time Alexandrovsk covers an area of some two square versts. However, since it has merged with Slobodka and since one of its streets has already extended almost to Korsakov, the aim being to merge with it in the not too distant future, its measurements can only be sug- gested. It has several straight, wide streets which are called not streets but slobodkas, the name used in ancient times. In Sakhalin the custom is to name streets in honor of living officials. They do not use only the surname, but the Chris- tian name and the patronymic are also used.2
By some happy chance, however, Alexandrovsk has not yet immortalized even one official and its streets have to date retained the names of the slobodkas from which they developed: Kirpichnaya [kirpich = brick], Peysikovskaya, Kasyanovskaya [Kasyan = a man's name], Pisarskaya [pisar = clerk], Soldatskaya [soldat = soldier]. The deri- vation of all these names except Peysikovskaya can easily be understood. They say that it was so named by convicts in honor of the ringlets of hair worn by a Jew who traded here when the slobodka was still in the taiga. Another ver- sion is that a woman settler named Peysikova lived and traded there.
Wooden sidewalks line the streets. Everything is very clean and orderly. Even in the farthest streets where the poor huddle together there are no puddles or rubbish heaps.
The main part of the post comprises the official dis- trict: the church, the residence of the island commandant, his office, the mail and telegraph offices, the police depart- ment with its printing shop, the home of the district com- mander of the area, the store run by the Colonial Fund, the military barracks, the prison hospital, the military infirmary, a mosque with a minaret under construction, government buildings in which officials are housed, and the penal-servi- tude prison with its numerous warehouses and workshops. The majority of the houses are new, built in the European style, roofed with iron, and often painted on the exterior. There is no lime or good stone on Sakhalin, and therefore there are no stone buildings.
If we exclude the officials' and officers' quarters as well as the Soldatskaya Slobodka—their inhabitants, being tran- sient, are changed almost yearly—there is a total of 298 households in Alexandrovsk. There are 1499 inhabitants, 923 of whom are men, and 576 women. If we include the free population, the military and the convicts who sleep in the prison and do nor participate in households, we obtain a total figure of 3,000.
In comparison with Slobodka, Alexandrovsk contains very few peasants. The prisoners comprise one-third of the entire population. Convict regulations permit convicts to live outside the prison, but these regulations apparently apply only to reformed prisoners, who are permitted to settle in households. However, this law is regularly ignored because of its impracticability. The huts are not only inhabited by reformed criminals but by probationers, long-term and even life-term convicts. In addition to the clerks, draftsmen and skilled artisans who cannot live in prison because of their work, there arc many convicts with families on Sa- khalin, husbands and fathers, whom it would be impractical to confine in prisons without their families. This would make for severe confusion in rhe life of the colony. Fam- ilies would also have to be detained in prisons, or they would have to be provided with living quarters and food at prison expense, or they would have to be maintained in their homeland during the entire prison term served by the father of the family.
Convict probationers live in huts and therefore often have lighter punishmenrs than reformed prisoners. Here the concept of proportionality of punishment is grossly vio- lated. However, this irregularity finds justification in the conditions implicit in the life of the colony, and so pro- portionality of punishment is easily set aside. All that remains is to move the rest of the convicts from prisons into huts. Referring to convicts with families, it is impos- sible to become reconciled to another muddle: the waste- fulness of the administration when it permits tens of families to settle where there is neither a homestead nor arable land nor hayfields, while other district settlements, which have more favorable conditions, are inhabited by single men and the farmsteads are completely barren be- cause of the lack of women. In Southern Sakhalin, where there are yearly harvests, there are some settlements with- out even one woman, while i 58 free women, who have followed their husbands into exile voluntarily, live in the Sakhalin Paris.
There is no more arable land in Alexandrovsk. For- merly, when it was still spacious, 100 to 200 and even 500 square sazhens were allocated per family; now only 12 saz- hens or even 9 or 8. I counted 161 homesteads which are nestled together, buildings and gardens, on lots no larger than 20 square sazhens each. The main fault lies in the natural conditions of the Alexandrovsk valley: it is impos- sible to move back toward the sea because of the unfertile soil, while mountains rise on both sides of the post, and it can only grow in one direction, beside the Duyka River along the Korsakov road. Here the huddled homesteads stretch in a long line.
According to data on the homestead list, only 36 homesteaders work arable land and 9 work hayfields. The size of the plots of arable land varies between 300 sazhens and i desyatin. Almost everyone plants potatoes. Only 16 homesteaders have horses, 38 have cows. Furthermore, the livestock is owned by peasants and settlers who do not engage in farming but practice trades.
It must be concluded from these few figures that the Alexandrovsk homesteads are not supported by agriculture. The poor soil has so little attraction that there are practi- cally no older settlers here. None remain of those who settled on a plot in i 88 i; only 6 remain of those settled since 1882; four since 1883; thirteen since 1884; sixty- eight since 1885. This means that the remaining 207 came after 1885. Judging by the small number of peasants, only 19, the conclusion is that each householder stays on his plot only so long as it is necessary for him to acquire peasant rights—that is, the right to abandon the home- stead and leave for the mainland.
I have still not fully resolved the question as to how the Alexandrovsk population survives. Let us assume that the householders, their wives and children, eat only pota- toes, like the Irish, and that thcy have enough to last the whole ycar. But what do the 241 inhabitants and 358 convicts of both sexes cat who livc in the huts as cohabi- tants, male and female, lodgers and workers? It is true that almost half of the population rcccivcs aid from the prison in the form of prison rations and children's food allot- ments. They also carn somcthing. More than one hundrcd pcrsons work in govcrnmcnt workshops and offices. I have many artisans listcd on my forms without whom a city could not cxist: cabinetmakers, upholstcrcrs, jcwelcrs, watchmakcrs, tailors, ctc. Articlcs made of wood and mctal arc vcry expensivc in Alexandrovsk and it is customary to tip nothing less than a rublc.
But arc prison rations and mcager earnings sufficient for daily life in thc town? Thc artisans' earnings far cxcced their nceds, but unskilled laborers, as, for example, ordinary carpentcrs, carn tcn kopecks a day for food. The population exists haphazardly; ncverthcless they still drink tea daily, smoke Turkish tobacco, wear thc clothcs worn by free men and pay for their living quartcrs. They purchase houses from peasants who are leaving for thc mainland and build new ones. Shops carry on a brisk business, and various kulaks who have emerged from prison make profits in thc tens of thousands.