The local executioner is called Minayev. A merchant's son, he is still quite a young man. The day I saw him he told me he had just flogged eight men with birch rods.
XIII Poro-an-Tomari, Muravyevsky Post - First, Second and Third Drop - Solovyevka - Lyutoga - Goly Mys - Mitsulka - Listvenichnoye - Khomutovka - Bolshaya Yelan - Vladimirovka - The Farm, or Firm - Lugovoye - Popovskiye Yurty - Berezniki - Kresty - Bolshoye and Maloye Takoe - Galkino-Vraskoye - Dubky - Naybuchi - The Sea
i will begin the survey of the Korsakov district with the populated areas lying along the banks of the Aniva. The first settlement, four versts southeast of the post, bears the Japanese name of Poro-an-Tomari. It was settled in 1882 on the site of a former Ainu village. It has 72 inhabitants, 53 male and 19 female. There are 47 home- steaders, of whom 38 live alone. Although the area around the settlement seems spacious, each homesteader has only one-quarter of a desyatin of arable land and less than one- half desyatin of meadowland. This indicates either that no more can be obtained or that it is extremely difficult to clear more land. Nevertheless, if Poro-an-Tomari were located in the North it would long since have had 200 homesteaders and 150 co-owners. In this respect the Southern administra- tion is more moderate and prefers to found new settle- ments rather than expand the old.
I recorded nine old men from sixty-five to eighty-five years of age here. One of them, Yan Rytseborsky, who looked like one of those soldiers of Ochakiv days,J was 75 and so old that he has probably forgotten whether he was guilty of any crime. It is strange to learn that they have all been sentenced to life terms for robbery. Baron Korf transferred them to the status of settler because of their advanced age.
Settler Kostin lives in a dugout. He never comes out- side, permits no one to visit him, and prays continually. They call the settler Gorbunov "the slave of God," because he wandered about the land when he was free. By profes- sion he was an artist, but now he is a shepherd in Third Drop, probably because he loves solitude and contempla- tion.
Some 40 versts eastward is the Muravyevsky Post, which exists only on the map. It was founded a comparatively long while ago, in 1853, on the shore of Lasosey Cove. When there were rumors of war in 1854, it was razed to the ground and rebuilt 12 years later on the banks of Busse Bay, or the Twelvefoot Harbor, which is the name of a shallow lake which joins the sea by a canal. Only small boats drawing a few feet of water can pass through the canal. In Mitsui's time it held 300 soldiers, who suffered from severe scurvy. The post was founded in order to con- solidate Russian influence on Southern Sakhalin. After the treaty of 1875 it was abandoned as useless, and they say that the abandoned huts were burned by escaped prisoners.2
A charming shore road leads to the settlements west of Korsakov Post. On the right arc steep clay hills and ravines thick with greenery. To the left is the clamorous sea. On the sand, where the waves burst into foam and roll back as though overcome with weariness, the seaweed poured out by the ocean lies along the coast in green rib- bons, exuding the sweet but not unpleasant odor of rotting sea plants. The smell is just as typical in the southern area as the wild ducks always rising, which are a source of amuse- ment during the cntire journey along the coast. Steamboats and sailing vessels arc rare visitors here. There is nothing to see on the horizon or closer to shore, and therefore the sea looks deserted. Occasionally you see a clumsy hay raft which barely moves, and sometimes it will have a dark, ugly sail, or you will see a convict wading through knee- high water and dragging a roped log behind him. You never see anything else,
The steep coast is broken by a long, deep valley, through which there flows the little Untanay or Unta River. At one time this was the site of the Untovsk farm, which the convicts called Dranka [Bedraggled], for obvious reasons. At the moment this is the site of the prison vegetable garden and only three settlers' huts remain. This is known as Fint Drop.
There follows Second Drop, which has six homestead- ers. An old man, a peasant formerly exiled, I ives here with an old woman, the maid Ulyana. Very long ago she killed her baby and buried him, but in court it was stated that she had not killed him but buried him alive, and thought she would be acquitted. The court sentenced her to 20 years. Telling me about this, Ulyana cried bitterly, then she dried her eyes and asked, "Won't you buy some sauer- kraut?"
There arc 17 homesteads at Third Drop. It contains 46 inhabitants, 17 of whom are women. There are 26 home- steaders. All the people here are substantial and prosperous. They have a large number of livestock and some even earn their living raising and selling livestock. I must admit that in all probability the chief reasons for such prosperity are g^^ climate and excellent soil. However, I also think that if the Alexandrovsk or Due officials were invited to take charge here, there would be 300, not 26, homesteaders within a year, not counting co-owners, and all of them would prove to be negligent and self-willed householders, and would languish without a piece of bread. I believe the example set by these three tiny settlements enables us to establish the rule that when a colony is still young and unstable, the fewer the homesteaders the better. The longer the street, the greater the poverty.
Four versts from the post lies Solovyevka, founded in 1882. It has the most convenient location of all the Sakha- lin settlements. It is near the sea and close to the mouth of the Susui, a fine fishing stream. The inhabitants raise cattle and sell milk. They also engage in agriculture. It has 74 inhabitants, 37 male and 37 female, with 26 house- holders. They all have arable meadowlands on an average of one desyatin per person. The soil is only good along the slopes near the sea and further inland it is quite poor, having formerly been covered with fir trees.
There is one more remote settlement along the Aniva River. It is 25 versts from the post, or 14 if you travel by sea. It is called Lyutoga. It is 5 versts from the mouth of the Lyucoga River and was founded in 1886. Communica- tion with the post is extremely difficult. One must travel along the coast or by cutter; the settlers use hay rafts. It has 53 inhabitants, 37 male and 16 female, and 33 home- steaders.
The road past Solovyevka turns sharply to the right at the mouth of the Susui and then runs northward. The map shows that the upper reaches of the Susui are close to the Nayba River, which falls into the Okhotsk Sea. A long line of settlements lies along both of these rivers. These are con- nected by a single road 88 versts long. This row of settle- ments is wholly characteristic of the Southern region, its very essence, while the road is the beginning of the post road with which they want to unite Northern Sakhalin with the South.
I had become fatigued, or lazy, and did not work as zealously in the South as I had in the North. Often I spent entire days on outings and picnics and had no desire to continue visiting the huts. When help was graciously offered, I did not refuse it.
My first trip to and from the Okhotsk Sea was in the company of Mr. Bely, who wanted to show me the entire region. Later, while continuing my census, I was always accompanied by the settlement inspector N. N. Yartsev.3
The settlements of the Southern district have their own peculiarities, and a person who recently arrived from the North cannot fail to observe them. First, here there is considerably less poverty. I did not see any unfinished or abandoned huts, and plank roofs are as commonplace and normal here as thatched and bark roofs in the North. The people look younger, healthier and more cheerful than their Northern counterparts, and this, as well as the comparative prosperity of the district, can probably be explained by the fact that the main contingent of prisoners living in the