In order to finish with Southern Sakhalin, it remains to say a few words about those people who formerly lived and still live here independent of the penal colony. I will begin with the attempts at free colonization.
In 1868 one of the Eastern Siberian offices decided to settle twenty-five families in Southern Sakhalin. These were to be free peasants, immigrants who had already settled along the Amur. Their conditions were so miserable that one author calls their settlement lamentable and the set- tlers themselves wretched. These were Ukrainian peasants, natives of Chernigovsk guberniya, who, before living on the Amur, had settled in Tobolsk guberniya, also unsuccess- fully. In proposing that they resettle on Sakhalin, the ad- ministration made tremendously enticing promises. They announced that they would provide each family with free flour and groats for two years, would supply all agricultural implements, cattle and seeds on credit, and would lend money, the debt being repayable in five years. They were also to be free of taxes for twenty years and excused from military service. Ten of the Amur families agreed to emi- grate. These were joined by eleven families from Balagansk district, Irkutsk guberniya, a total of 101 people. In August of 1869 they were sent out on the transport Mandzhur to Muravyevsky Post. Thence they were to be taken around Cape Aniva via the Okhotsk Sea to Naybuchi Post, from which it was but thirty versts to the Takoyskaya valley, where it was proposed to found the free colony. However, autumn had come, no ship was available, and therefore the Mandzhur landed them and their possessions at Korsakov Post, from which they planned to travel overland to the Takoyskaya valley. At the time there was no road. Accord- ing to Mitsul, Ensign Dyakonov "bestirred himself" and fifteen soldiers to cut a narrow road for them. He obvi- ously bestirred himself very slowly, because sixteen of the families did not wait for the road to be completed and went ofT to the Takoyskaya valley, crossing the taiga in oxcarts. On the way they were caught by a heavy snow- storm and were obliged to abandon some of the carts and make runners for the rest. Upon reaching the valley, on November 20, they immediately set to work building bar- racks and dugouts to protect themselves from the freezing cold. The remaining six families arrived a week before Christmas, but since there was no room for them and it was too late to build houses for them, they left to find shelter in Naybuchi. They then went on the Kusunnay Post, where they wintered in the soldiers' barracks. They returned to Takoyskaya valley in the spring.
"At this point all the slovenliness and ignorance of the administration became evident," writes one author. They had been promised various agricultural articles costing i,ooo rubles and 4 heads of cattle for each family. But when the emigrants were put aboard the Mandzhur at Nikolayevsk, there were no grindstones, no working oxen, there was no place on the ship for the horses, and the plows had no plowshares. The plowshares were brought by dog sledge during the winter, but only nine were supplied. When the settlers at once sent requests for plowshares to the administration, their pleas "did not receive the proper anention." Oxen were delivered to Kusunnay in the fall of 1869, but they were exhausted and half dead. No hay had been prepared in Kusunnay and of the 4 i oxen, 25 died during the winter. The horses remained to winter in Nikolayevsk bm since feed was dear, they were auctioned off. The money was used to buy new horses in Zabaikal, but these proved to be even worse than the former ones and the peasants rejected several of them. Seed grains were all mixed up together, regardless of germination periods. Summer rye was delivered in the same bags with winter rye, with the result that the homesteaders came to lose all faith in the seeds and although they cook them from the warehouse, they either fed them to the cattle or ate them themselves. Since there were no grindstones, the r'e was not ground. They boiled it and ate it as porridge.
After a number of crop failures, they were hit by a flood in 1875 which finally destroyed the setders' remain- ing ambition to farm on Sakhalin. Again they began migrating. A group of twenty houses for the exiles was built at Chibisani, on the banks of the Aniva, halfway be- tween the Korsakov and Muravyevsky Posts. They later began to plead to be allowed to settle in the South Ussuriy- sky Kray. They waited impatiently for the permission, as for a special favor, for ten long years. Meanwhile they lived by hunting sable and fishing. It was not until 1886 that they reached the Ussuriysky Kray. A correspondent writes: "They are abandoning their homes; they are completely des- titute; they are bringing only a part of their belongings, and each one has only one horse" (Vladivostok, 1886, No. 22). At the present time there stilJ exists a burned-out area not too far from the road between Bolshoye and Maloye Takoe. This is the site of the former free settlement of Voskresenskoye. The huts abandoned by the settlers were burned down by vagrants. They say that even now the huts are standing in Chibisani, with the chapel and the school building. I did not visit it.
Only three free settlers remain on the island: Khomu- tov, whom I have already mentioned, and two women who were born in Chibisani. They say that Khomutov is "roam- ing around somewhere," and supposedly lives at the Muravyevsky Post. He is rarely seen. He hunts sable and catches sturgeon in Busse Bay. As to the women, onc— Sofya—is married to Baranovsky, a peasant-formerly-exiled, and lives in Mitsulka. The other, Anisya, is married to the settler Leonov and lives in Tretya Pad. Khomutov will soon die and Sofya and Anisya will leave for the mainland with their husbands and so there will soon be only a memory of the free settlers.
Free colonization on the southern part of Sakhalin must therefore be called unsuccessful. It is difficult to ascer- tain whether the fault lies with the natural conditions which were so grim and inimical to the settlers or whether the whole matter was ruined by the ignorance and negli- gence of the officials, since the experiment was short-lived. In addition, the experiment was made with people who were obviously nomadic, for they had acquired a taste for nomad life during their long ravings over Siberia. It is difficult to say whether the experiment might have proved successful if it had been repeatcd.2
Actually, the unsuccessful experiment can be educational for the penal colony in two respects. First, the free settlers did not farm for any length of time, and in the last ten years before returning to the mainland they lived only on fishing and hunting. At the present time, Khommov, de- spite his debilitating age, finds it more advantageous and gainful to catch sturgeon and shoot sable than to sow wheat and plant cabbage. Second, it is impossible to hold a free healthy man, full of life, in Southern Sakhalin when he is told daily that only two days' distance from Korsakov there lies the warm and rich South Ussuriysky Kray.
When asked who they are, members of the native popu- lation of Southern Sakhalin, the local foreigners, do not respond with the name of a tribe or nation, but say simply, "Ainu," a word which means "a man." In Shrenk's ethno- graphic map the area inhabited by the Ainu, or Aynu, is indicated in yellow. This color completely covers Matsmay Island and the southern section of Sakhalin up to Terpeniye Bay. They also live on the Kurile Islands and are therefore called Kurils by the Russians. The number of Ainu living on Sakhalin is not known exactly, but there is no doubt that this tribe is dying out extremely rapidly.
Dr. Dobrotvorsky, who served in Southern Sakhalin3 twenty-five years ago, states that there was a time when there were 8 large Ainu settlements having almost 200 inhabitants each year near Busse Bay alone. Close to the Nayba he saw traces of many settlements. At the time he considered three census figures taken from various sources: 2,885, 8 and 2,050, but he felt the last one was the most authentic. According to one author who was his contemporary, Ainu settlements existed along the shore on both sides of Korsa- kov Post. Howcver, I did not find even one settlement re- maining, and I saw only a few Ainu yurts near Bolshoye Takoe and Siyantsy. The number of Ainu given in the Record of the Number of Foreigners Living in the Kona- kov District in 1889 is 581 males and 569 females.