There are 41 families. Of these, there are 21 couples who are not legally married. There are only 10 free women, which is 16 times less than in Rykovskoye and 4 times less than in a hole-in-the-wall like Due.
There are some interesting characters among the Korsa- kov convicts. I will mention Pishchikov, a convict with an indefinite term, whose crime provided the material for G. I. Uspensky's "One on One." This man flogged his wife to death. She was an intelligent woman, and nine months pregnant. He flogged her for six hours. He did this because he was jealous of some things that had happened to her before their marriage. During the recent war she had fallen in love with a captured Turk. Pishchikov carried letters to the Turk, invited him to meet the young woman, and generally helped both parties. When the Turk left the town, the girl fell in love with Pishchikov because he had been so kind to her. Pishchikov married her, and had already sired four children when he was troubled with a fit of jealousy.
He is a tall, thin, handsome man with a huge beard, a secretary in the police department, and consequently he wears the clothes of a free man. He is most industrious, extremely courteous, and judging from his expression, he has withdrawn into himself and locked the door. I visited his quarters, but he was not at home. He has a small room in a hut. His immaculate bed is covered with a red woolen blanket, and on the wall near the bed there hangs a framed portrait of a lady, who is probably his wife.
The Zhakomin family is also interesting. It consists of the father, a former skipper who served on the Black Sea, his wife and son. In 1878 all three were tried at a Niko- layevsk court-martial for murder and sentenced. They as- sure you they were innocent. The old lady and the son have served their terms, but the old man, Karp Nikolaye- vich, remains a convict. They operate a small store and their rooms arc very well furnished, even better than those of rich Potemkin in Novo-Mikhaylovka. The old Zhakomins traveled to Siberia on foot; their son came by sea. The son arrived three years before his parents, and there is an im- mense difference between the two methods of travel. \'{'hen you listen to the old man you are petrified. He speaks of the horrors he saw and suffered before his trial, the agonies in various prisons, and the three-year march across Siberia. His young daughter, who voluntarily followed her father and mother, died of exhaustion. The boat which brought them to Korsakov was shipwrecked near Mayka. So the old man tells the story, and thc old woman weeps. "Well, so what?" says the old man, waving his hand. "This is how God wamed it!"
Culturally Korsakov is obviously behind the districts in the North. It has no telegraph or meteorological station.8 The climate of Sakhalin can be judged only by the frag- memary, chance reports of various authors who served here or, like me, had visited for short periods. According to these data, taking mean temperatures, summer, autumn and spring are warmer by 2° in Korsakov Post than in Due, and winter is less severe by 5°. However, on thc Aniva River, which is not far east of Korsakov, the temperature in the Mu- ravyevsky settlement is significantly lower, closer to that of Due than of Korsakov. In Naybuchi, which is some 88 versts north of Korsakov Post, the commander of the Vsadnik recorded a temperamre of 2 0 of frost on the morning of May i i, 1870, when it snowed. As the reader can see, the South here has nothing in common with the usual idea of a southern climate. The winter is as severe as in Olonetskaya guberniya, the summer is like summer in Arkhangelsk. Krusenstern saw snow in the middle of May on the western bank of the Aniva. In the northern part of the Korsakov region, in Kusunnay, where sea cab- bage is harvested, there were 149 rainy days, while in the Muravyevsky Post in the south there were 130. Neverthe- less, the climate is still more favorable in the Southern region than in the two regions of the North, and life should be better here. In the South, thaws occur in the middle of winter. None such have ever been seen near Due and Rykovskoye. Ice breaks in the rivers sooner and the sun shines through the clouds more frequently.
The Korsakov prison stands on the highest point of the posc and is probably the healchiest place in the neighbor- hood. The modest prison gates are located where the main street runs into the prison enclosure. That rhese are not ordinary gates is evident only from the sign posted outside and from the crowd of convicts who mill around each eve- ning before being permitted to enter the wicket gate one at a time to be searched. The prison yard is located on a slope. Alchough it is enclosed and there are buildings all around, the blue sea and the far horizon can be seen from inside the prison, and there would appear to be fresh air within the prison walls.
\'\'hen I inspected the prison, it became obvious to me from the beginning that the local administration tried ro isolate the convicts from the settlers. In Alexandrovsk the prison shops and the living quarters of several hundred convicts are spread all over the post; here, however, all the workshops and even the firehouse are located within the prison compound. With rare exceptions, even reformed prisoners are not allowed to live outside the prison. The post is self-contained. You can live for a long time at the post and never notice that the prison lies at the end of the street.
The barracks are old, the air in the wards is fetid, the latrine is far worse than in the northern prisons, the bakery is dark, the solitary cells are dark, unventilated and cold. Sometimes I saw prisoners in the solitary cells shivering from the cold and dampness. Only one thing is better here than in the North. The cell where the prisoners are shackled is much larger and the number of convicts in chains is comparatively smaller. Of those in the wards, former sailors are the cleanest; even their clothing is cleaner.9
While I was there, only 450 persons slept in the prison, the remainder having been commandeered for outside work, especially road-building. The total number of convicts in the district is 1,205.
The local prison wardcn delights in showing visitors the fire trucks. Thesc trucks are well-made and in this respect Korsakov surpasses many largc cities. The barrels, watcr pumps and axes in thcir cascs all glisten like toys, as though thcy had been specially prcpared for cxhibition. The fire alarm sounded. At once the convicts dashed out of the workshops coatless and hatlcss, cxactly as they wcrc. In a minute cvcrything was ready and they werc rolling thun- derously down thc main street. The spectacle was im- prcssive, and Major S., thc crcator of the firc trucks, was completely satisficd. Hc asked me many times if I likcd them. It was regrettablc that old men were forced to par- ticipatc in the game, dragging thc fire trucks into thc street and running with thcm. Thcy were not wcll enough for it, and should havc staycd bchind.
1 Someone suggested a project: to construct a dike at the nar- rowest part of thc strait to hold back the cold currents. This project is naturally and historically justifiable. It is known that when the isthmus existcd, the climatc of Sakhalin was remarkably mild. Nevertheless, the construction of thc dikc would bring fcw benefits. Thc flora of the southcrn part of the westcrn shore would be enrichcd by many ncw species, but the climatc of the lower part of the island would hardly change for thc better. Thc entire southern part lies close to the Okhotsk Sca, where ice floes and even icebergs float in the middle of summer. The Korsakov region is separatcd from this sea only by a low mountain range, and then, near the sea, lie the lowlands, full of lakes and opcn to the cold winds.
2 Semenov runs a store in Mauka which is very expensive. The prices on food staples are high so that the settlers must spend half their wages to feed themselves. The commander of the clipper ship Vsadnik reported in 1870 that the clipper intended to land ten people near Mauka to prepare the land for cultivation because a new post was being planned in this location during the summer.