Krasny Yar has only been in existence over a year. It has one wide street, still uncleared. The inhabitants go from hut to hut over hillocks, over heaps of clay and wood chips, and jump over logs, stumps and ditches filled with stagnant brown water. The huts are not yet completed. One homesteader makes bricks, another plasters the stove, a third drags a log across the street. It contains a total of 51 householders. Three of them, including a Chinese Pen- Ogi-Tsoy, abandoned their unfinished huts, took off, and nobody knows where they went. The seven local Cau- casians have stopped working, and they huddle together in one hut and are already shivering with cold, although it is only August 2.
The figures show that the settlers are young and are barely beginning their life. There are 90 inhabitants, twice as many males as females. Three families are legally mar- ried, 20 are living as cohabitants. Nine children are younger than five years of age. Three householders have horses, nine have cows. At present all the householders are receiving prison rations. Nobody knows how they will sur- vive in the future. There is little hope for agriculture. Only 24Y2 desyatins have been located and cleared for tillage and potatoes, which means that each household gets less than of a desyatin. There are no hayfields. Since the valley is narrow and enclosed on both sides by mountains which are completely barren, and since the administration acts indiscriminately when it must get rid of people, and will probably settle tens of new householders here, the till- able soil will probably remain at and of a desyatin
or even less. I do not know who selected the Krasny Yar site, but it is evident that it was entrusted to incompetent people who never saw a village, and had no concept of an agricultural colony. This place does not even have decent water. When I asked where they obtain drinking water, they pointed to the ditch.
All the huts are identical, with two windows, con- structed of poor-quality raw timber, the sole aim being to survive the prison term and return to the mainland. The administration has no building code, probably because nobody among the officials knows how to build a hut and make a stove. An architect is listed on the Sakhalin staff,
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but he was absent during my visit and in any case he is concerned only with prison structures.
The most cheerful and attractive building is the gov- ernment dwelling which houses the prison warden Ubi- yennykh [the Overwhelmed], a small, puny soldier with an expression which completely matches his surname. This might be caused by his mistress, a tall, plump settler who lives with him in one room and has presented him with numerous offspring. He is now receiving the top super- visory salary. His entire work consists of reporting to visitors that everything is wonderful in this world. But he, too, dislikes Krasny Yar and wants to leave Sakhalin. He asked me whether they would permit his mistress to leave with him when he retires and departs for the mainland. This question is most disquieting to him.
I did not visit Butakovo.n From data in the homestead list, a portion of which I was able to check, supplementing the information from the priest's Confessional Book, it contains 39 people, only 4 of whom are adult females. It has 22 homesteaders. Only 4 houses have been completed, while the remainder are still in the framework stage. Only 4 desyatins of land are under tillage and potatoes. None of the householders have livestock or poultry.
After visiting the Duyka valley I went on to visit the Arkay River. Along this river there are three settlements. The Arkay valley was chosen for settlement not because it was better surveyed than the others nor because it satisfied the colony's needs, but quite arbitrarily, because it was closer to Alexandrovsk than the other valleys.
1 The greatest benefactors in the penal colony so far were two men: M. S. Mitsul and M. N. Galkin-Vrasky, both notable for their constructiveness and attitude of responsibility. A tiny, im- poverished temporary settlement of ten households has been named in honor of Mitsul. A settlement which has long since borne the name of Siyantsy appears on some maps as Galkino-Vraskoye. The name of M. S. Korsakov was given to a settlement and a large post, not because of any personal merits or sacrifices he endured, but because he was the Governor-General and could evoke fear.
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The yearly mean temperature varies between + i .2 ° and _ i .2 The number of days with precipitation varies between 102 and 209. There were only thirty-five calm, windless days in i 881; in 1884, there were three times as many—i i 2.
P. Gryaznov, "Results of a Comparative Srudy of the Hygienic Conditions of Peasant Life and the Medico-Topography of the Cherepovetsky District" (1880). I have transposed the Reaumur readings used by Gryaznov into Centigrade.
Potemkin arrived on Sakhalin a wealthy man. Dr. Augustino- vich, who saw him three years after his arrival in Sakhalin, writes that "of all the prisoners' homes Potemkin's is the best." If the convict Potemkin was able to build a beautiful home in three years, own horses and marry his daughter off to a Sakhalin official, I believe that agriculture had nothing to do with it.
Most writers disapprove of the local scenery. This is because they arrived on Sakhalin still under the influence of the Ceylonese, Japanese or Amur landscapes and because they began their trips from Alexandrovsk and Due, where narure is indeed pathetic. The local weather is also at fault. No matter how beautiful and original the Sakhalin scenery might be, if it is hidden for weeks at a time by fog or rain, it is difficult to evaluate its worth.
0 This settlement is named in honor of A. M. Butakov, the superintendent of the Tymovsky district.
VIII The Arkay Stream - Arkovsky Cordon - First, Second and Third Arkovo - The Arkovo Valley - The IVestern Bank Settlements, Mgachi, Tangi, Khoe, Trambaus, Viakhty and Vangi - The Tunnel - The Cable House - Due - Barracks for Families - The Due Prison - Coal Mines - Voyevodsk Prison - Prisoners in Balls and Chains
THE ARKAY STREAM falls into the Tatar Strait some eight to ten versts north of the Duyka. Not long ago it was a real river where humpback salmon were caught. Then as a result of forest fires and deforestation, it became shallow and now it dries up completely in the summer. However, during severe rainstorms it o\erflows and rages wildly with tremendous noise. Many times the gardens along its banks have been washed away, and all the crops and the hay have been carried down to the sea. It is impos- sible to prevent this devastation because the valley is narrow and the only escape from the river is up the mountains.1
At the very mouth of the Arkay as it turns into the valley there stands the Gilyak village of Arkay-vo, the old name for Arkovsky Cordon, and the three settlements First, Second and Third Arkovo. Two roads lead to the Arkovo valley from Alexandrovsk—the first, a mountain road which I could not use because the bridges had burned during some forest fires, and the second, a road along the seashore which could be used only at low tide. On my first trip I left for Arkovo on July 31 at 8:oo A.M.
The ebb tide had just begun. It smelled of rain. The gloomy sky, the sea empty of sails, and the craggy clay shore were grim; the waves roared thunderously and mournfully. Stunted, sickly trees gazed downward from the high banks. Here in the open they were all waging a fierce batde against frosts and freezing winds. During the long terrible fall and winter nights they sway restlessly from side to side, cringe toward the earth, creak mournfully, and nobody hears their laments.