Kresty stands on the Takoe River right at the mouth of a tributary. The earth is clay with a good silt topsoil. There are almost yearly harvests. There are many meadows, and fortunately the people turned out to be g^^ farmers. How- ever, during the first years the settlement differed little from Verkhny Armudan and almost perished. Thirty men were assigned simultaneously to the area, but the tools did not arrive from Alexandrovsk for a long time and the set- tlers were left bare-handed. In pity for them, the prison officers gave them some axes so that they could cut down trees. Then for three whole years no livestock was given to them, for the same reason that Alexandrovsk failed to send any tools.
It has 90 inhabitants, 63 males and 27 females; 52 homesteaders.
In Kresty there is a shop run by a retired sergeant major who was formerly the inspector of the Tymovsky dis- trict. He sells groceries, bracelets and sardines. When I entered the shop he obviously took me for a very important official, because he immediately, and without any reason, began explaining to me that at one time he had been in- volved in something but had been put right, and hurriedly showed me various official documents attesting to his serv- ices. Among others, he showed me a letter from a Mr. Schneider, which ended, as I recall, with the following words: "And when it gets warm, then ardor thaws." Desir- ing to show me that he was no longer indebted to anybody, the sergeant major began burrowing among his papers to find some receipts, which he never found, and I left the shop with the firm belief that he was completely innocent, and also with a pound of ordinary peasant candies. He soaked me for the candies, charging fifty kopecks.
The settlement after Kresty is on a river which falls into the Nayba. The river bears the Japanese name of Takoe, and the settlement is called Takoyskaya. It is well known because free settlers formerly lived there. Bolshoye Takoc has officially existed since 1884, but was founded much earlier. They wanted to call it Vlasovskoye in honor of Vlasov, but the name did not take. It has 71 inhabitants, 56 male and I 5 female; 47 householders. A man who was formerly a surgeon's assistant at a medical school resides here permanently and the settlers regard him as a first-rate doctor. A week before my arrival his young wife poisoned herself with wolfsbane.
Close to the settlement, especially along the road to Krcsty, there arc some magnificent elms. There is a good deal of greenery, succulent and dazzling, as though it had been just washed. The Takoyskaya valley flora is incom- parably richer than in the North, but the northern scenery is more vivid and often reminded me of Russia. True, nature in Russia is mournful and grim, but it is grim in a Russian way. Here it smiles and grieves, perhaps in the Ainu fashion, and it arouses an indefinable sadness in the Russian soul.10
In the Takoyskaya valley, 4Y2 versts from Bolshoyc Takoe, lies Maloye Takoc, on a stream which flows into the Takoe.11 lt was founded in 1885. It has 52 inhabitants, 37 male and 15 female. It contains 35 homesteads. Only 9 have "wives" and none are legally married.
Some eight versts farther on there is a district which the Japanese and Ainus called Siyancha. Formerly a Japanese fishing shed was located here, and this became the settlement of Galkino-Vraskoye or Siyantsy, founded in 1884. This site, at the fall of the Takoe River into the Nayba River, is lovely but most impractical. In the spring and autumn, and even during the summer rains, the Nayba, which is capricious like all mountain rivers, overflows and floods Siyantsy. The strong Nayba current closes off the inlet of the Takoe and that, too, overflows its banks. The same occurs with the small tribucaries of the Takoe. During that period Galkino-Vraskoye resembles Venice and they row about in Ainu boats. The floors of the huts which are built on low-lying plots are usually flooded. The site was chosen by a certain Ivanov, who understood as much about the matter as he knows about the Gilyak and Ainu lan- guages, of which he is the official translator. At that time he was the assistant to the prison warden and he discharged the duties which are today discharged by the inspector of settlemems. The Ainus and the setders warned him that the site was swampy, but he paid no attention to them. Whoever complained was beaten. In one flood an ox was lost, in another a horse.
The fall of the Takoe into the Nayba creates a penin- sula which is reached by a high bridge. It is quite beautiful here. The area is enchanting. The inspector's house is well- lit and clean; it even has a fireplace. A terrace overlooks the river and an orchard blooms in the garden. The watch- man is an old convict named Savelyev, who serves as a manservant and cook when officials spend the night here. When he was serving dinner to me and another official, he served something incorrectly and the official shouted an- grily, "Fool!" I glanced at the timid old man and I re- member thinking that all the Russian intelligentsia had been able to accomplish with penal servitude merely served to debase it to serfdom in the most vulgar manner.
Galkino-Vraskoye has 74 inhabitants, 50 males and 24 females. There are 45 householders, 24 of whom have peasant status.
The last settlement on that road is Dubky [The Oaks}, founded in 1886 on the site of a former oak forest. In the eight versts between Siyantsy and Dubky you see burned- out forests, and between them cultivated land where they say kapor tea grows. As you ride along, you are shown the stream where the settler Malovechkin used to fish: now the stream bears his name. Dubky has 44 inhabitants, 31 male and i 3 female. It has 30 householders. The site is con- sidered good, on the principle that where there are oaks, the land is good for wheat. A large part of the land which is now under tillage and hay was swamp land until recently. On the advice of Mr. Y. the settlers dug a canal a sazhen deep to the Nayba and now it has g^^ soil.
Possibly because this is the last settlement and is prac- tically isolated, card-playing and tenacity are highly de- veloped. In June the local settler Lifanov lost everything and poisoned himself with wolfsbane.
It is only four versts from Dubky to the mouth of the Nayba, but this area is impossible to settle because the mouth of the river is marshy, the seashore is sandy and the vegetation is of the sand and sea variety, sweetbrier with very large berries, and so on. The road leads to the sea but you can also go downriver on an Ainu rowboat.
Once the Naybuchi Post stood at the mouth of the river. It was established in 1866. Mitsul found 18 buildings and dwelling places, a chapel and a supply depot. One correspondent who visited Naybuchi in 187 1 wrote that it had 20 soldiers commanded by a cadet. In one hut he found a tall, beautiful woman, the wife of a soldier, and she served him fresh eggs and black bread. She praised the local life, and only complained that sugar was very ex- pensive.12
Today there is no trace of these huts, and as you glance around the wilderness the beautiful woman seems to be a myth. They are building a house which will either be the living quarters of an inspector or a way station, and that is all. The sea looks cold and troubled. It seethes with fury, and the high gray waves smash down on the sand as though shouting in despair, "God, why did you create us?"
This is the Pacific Ocean. On this bank of the Nay- buchi there can be heard the sound of convicts hacking away with their axes at a new building site, and far away there lies the coast of America. To the left through the fog you can see the headlands of Sakhalin, to the right more cliffs . . . and not a single living soul around you, not a bird, not a fly. You ask yourself for whom do these waves roar, who hears them during the night, what are they call- ing for, and for whom they will roar when you have gone away. Here on these coasts you are gripped not by thoughts but by meditations. It is terrible, but at the same time I want to stand there forever and gaze at the monotonous waves and listen to their thunderous roar.