In the parts of the prison where cleanliness can be maintained, the rule of tidiness was obviously strictly ob- served. In the kitchen and the bakery, for example, the premises themselves, the very air, the furnishings, dishes and clothing of the employees are so immaculate that they would pass the most rigid sanitary inspection. Quite obvi- ously there is constant supervision for cleanliness, and this is done without any regard for expected visitors.
When I visited the kitchen they were cooking fish soup, a most unhealthy food, for the convicts get bad cases of intestinal flu from the migratory fish caught in the upper- most reaches of the river. Nevertheless, the entire process is so arranged that the convict would appear to receive the full amount of food to which he is entitled by law. Be- cause the work of supervisors, overseers and others inside the prison has attracted privileged exiles responsible for the quantity and quality of the food, I believe that the really terrible features do not arise, and that evil-smelling cabbage soup and bread made from clay are not possible here. I took several loaves of bread from the huge number being prepared and weighed them; and each weighed over three pounds.
The latrine here is constructed in the usual way: it is a cesspool, but it is not maintained in the same way as in other prisons. The demand for cleanliness is so strict that it is probably embarrassing for the prisoners; the latrine is warm, but has no odor. This is achieved by special ventila- tion described in the famous textbook of Professor Erisman and is brought about by an inverse draft.1
The warden of the Rykovskoye prison is Mr. Livin, a talented, experienced man, full of initiative. All the good things at the prison are mainly due to him. Unfortunately he is strongly partial to the use of birch rods, a circum- stance which once nearly cost him his life. A convict fell upon him with a knife, as upon a wild beast, with fatal results for the attacker. Mr. Livin's constant concern for the welfare of the people and his simultaneous wielding of birch rods, his ecstatic delight in corporal punishment, and other forms of brutality provide an entirely incongruous and inexplicable combination. Captain Ventzel in Garshin's Notes of Private Ivanov2 was obviously not a fantasy.
Rykovskoyc has a school, a telegraph office, a hospital and a meteorological station named after M. N. Galkin- Vrasky, unofficially in the charge of a privileged convict, a former midshipman who is marvelously industrious and kind. He is also the churchwarden. Not too much data has been gathered during the four years of the station's existence, but there is an obvious difference between the two northern districts. While the climate of the Alexan- drovsk district is coastal, the Tymovsk climate is conti- nental, although there are only 70 versts between the 2 stations. Temperature changes and the number of days with precipitation are not as marked in Tymovsk. The sum- mer is warmer, the winter more severe; the mean annual temperature is below zero, which is even lower than on Solovetsky Island.
The Tymovsky district is at a greater height above sea level than Alexandrovsk, but because the place is encircled with mountains and lies in a circular valley, it has an average of over 6o calm days and less than 20 days of bitter winds. A small difference is also evident in days with precipitation: Tymovsky has more—I 16 days of snow and 76 of rain. The amount of precipitation in both regions is quite different, almost by 300 millimeters; however, Alexandrovsk has the greater amount of humidity.
On July 24, 1889, a morning frost killed the Derbin- skoye potato blooms. On August 18, all the potato plants in the entire district were killed by frost.
South of Rykovskoye, on the site of a former Gilyak village called Palevo, on a tributary of the Tym bearing the same name, there stands the Palevo settlement, founded in 1886. A good country road leads from Rykovskoye over a flat plain along groves and fields which were very suggestive of Russia, perhaps because I came here during excellent weather. The road is 14 versts long. A telegraph and post road, projected some time ago from Rykovskoye to Palevo, will soon unite Northern and Southern Sakhalin. The road is now under construction.
Palevo has 396 inhabitants, 345 male and 51 female. It has 183 homesteaders and 137 co-owners, although the local conditions warrant no more than 50 home- steaders. It would be difficult to find another such settle- ment on Sakhalin containing so many varied and unfavor- able conditions for an agricultural colony.
The soil is pebbly. According to older people, the Tungus pastured their reindeer at the site of lower Palevo. The settlers also say that in ancient times it was a sea bottom, and the Gilyaks still find parts of ships in the area. Only 108 desyatins of land have been cultivated for pasture, gardens and meadows, while there are over 300 householders. There are only 30 adult females, one for every 10 males, and as though to emphasize the melancholy significance of this proportion with a joke, death recently visited Palevo and struck down 3 females in a few days.
Before their conviction, a third of the convicts were former city dwellers, and did no farming. Unfortunately the list of unfavorable conditions does not end here. For some reason, probably in order to iJlustrate the old proverb "A really unfortunate man will drown in a teacup," no other Sakhalin settlement has so many thieves as this greatly suffering, unlucky Palevo. Every night there are robberies; on the eve of my arrival three men were put in irons for stealing rye grain. Together with those who steal from hunger, Palevo also has many "mischief makers," who do harm because it amuses them. For no reason at all they will slaughter livestock at night, uproot unripened potatoes and break windowpanes. All this causes severe damage and brings ruin to the wretched, impoverished homesteads. What is even more serious is that it forces the population to live in constant fear.
The living conditions describe poverty and nothing else. The roofs are covered with bark and straw; there are no yards or outbuildings; 49 of the houses are still un- finished and have obviously been abandoned by the owners, 17 of whom have left in search of work.
When I visited the huts in Palevo I was constantly followed by a settler guard named Pskovich. I recall that I asked whether it was Wednesday or Thursday. He an- swered:
"I can't remember, your worship."
A retired quartermaster, Karp Yerofeyich Mikryukov, the oldest Sakhalin guard, lives in the prison house. He arrived in Sakhalin in 1860, when the Sakhalin penal col- ony was just being organized. Of all the people on Sakhalin he is the only one who could write its entire history. He is loquacious and answers questions with evident relish and, as is customary with old men, he talks at vast length. His memory is beginning to fail and he can recall accurately only events that happened in the remote past. His furnish- ings arc decem, completely homelike; he even has two oil paintings—one of himself, the other of his deceased wife wearing a flower at her breast. He was born in Vyatskaya gttberniya. He closely resembles the late writer Fct. He conceals his true age, says he is only sixty-one, but actually is over seventy. He took the daughter of a settler for his second wife; he has six children ranging from one to nine years of age with this young woman. The youngest is still breast-feeding.
My conversation with Karp Yerofcyich lasted past mid- night, and all the stories he told me were concerned with penal servitude and its heroes. He told me about the prison superintendent Selivanov who angrily smashed door locks with his fist and was eventually murdered by the convicts for his brutality.