female prisoners being transported on the streets of Aleksandrovsk on Sakhalin

On December 10, 1929, the Politburo considered the issue of using prison labor directly on Sakhalin. The resolution of the commission of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks provided for sending to the island at the disposal of the Sakhalin Joint-Stock Company (ASO) persons sentenced to long terms and held in places of detention of the NKVD, OGPU for their use “in work of national importance.” It was not intended to send “active counter-revolutionaries, bandits, robbers, recidivist thieves and professional murderers” to the island. It was planned to transport the first batch of convicts (1000 people) in April 1930.

Prisoners transported to the island were to be considered conditionally released and have the right to free movement within a certain area. The ASO was instructed to enter into contracts with them, which would stipulate the nature and place of work, methods of performing it, wages, conditions of food supply, etc.

The Kirovsky (now Tymovsky) district was connected to the regional center by a single gravel road 57 km long, built by the NKVD Oshosdor in 1936 year.

The plans for the 3rd Five-Year Plan primarily provided for highway construction Derbinsk - state border (121.5 km) and Derbinsk - Nogliki (145 km), which was entrusted to the NKVD road authorities. Technical research in these areas was carried out back in 1937 year. Providing construction with the necessary labor force in the amount of up to two thousand people was assigned to the NKVD authorities. (about road construction on Sakhalinhttp://vff-s.narod.ru/sakh/tp/t02.htm )

1937 In the village of Verkhniy Armudan, construction began on “defense facility No. 429” - a high-power broadcast radio station. 700 convicts were involved. The labor of convicts is actively used in the construction of the strategic Aleksandrovsk-Derbinsk highway running through the Kamyshov Pass.

1940 April. The Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution on the construction of the Okha-Sofia oil pipeline. 388 kilometers long, running along the bottom of the Nevelskoy Strait, it was designed to transport crude oil to processing sites.

In November 1941 year, the oil pipeline was put into operation ahead of schedule.

On the eve of the Great Patriotic War A number of departmental regulatory instructions were adopted aimed at stabilizing the operational situation in places of deprivation of liberty. The degree of isolation of the special contingent increased, security was strengthened, correspondence with relatives was limited, radio loudspeakers were confiscated, and the working day was 10 hours.

During the war years, 117,000 employees of correctional labor camps and colonies were mobilized to the front, the administration of places of deprivation of liberty was forced to attract prisoners to the positions of foremen, supply managers and even heads of camp centers.

1947 On August 4, the Department of Correctional Labor Colonies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Sakhalin Region was created. To hold convicts on the island, a 7 colonies various types of modes and 3 prisons. The department is headed by a junior lieutenant Vasily Alekseevich Levin. At first, prisoners lived in tents. There were no hot meals, there was not enough food. Potatoes were issued exclusively for the purpose of anti-scorbutic prophylaxis.

1948 A large number of convicts are being transported to Sakhalin - large-scale construction of roads and railways is planned.

1949 The Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a secret resolution on the construction of the Pogibi - Pobedino railway line (332 km) and the Tymovskoye - Aleksandrovsk branch (46 km). The number of prisoners in the camps was 7639 people.

1950 The Department of Forced Labor Camps and Construction No. 506 of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs was created. A colonel of the internal service is appointed as chief N. Potemkin. Survey work and construction of a strategic railway tunnel under the Strait of Tartary - known as “Object No. 506” - begins. For this grandiose construction project, more than 10 thousand convicted, of which 70% were convicted under Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation those. "Enemy of the people". About a quarter of the prisoners were thieves, bandits and repeat offenders. Almost all of them have prison terms ranging from 15 to 25 years.
The Okha-Nogliki section of the narrow-gauge railway was built in record time.

"From now on colonies are converted to camp points SakhLAGA 506th construction site. Again, as many years ago, during hard labor, convicts began to be delivered to the island in large quantities. Now they were called not convicts, but prisoners. A year later, the former ITL system was unrecognizable, the monstrous mechanism was gaining momentum: by the end of 1951, in the camps of Sakhalin there were 12533 people, including 2258 women.” (from the book by A.M. Pashkov)

1951 On Sakhalin there are 26 camp points. All of them were located along the Pogibi-Pobedino railway line. The headquarters of the entire construction was in Tymovsky, and nodal centers - in Pobedino, Voskresenskoye and Nysh.

1953 Death of Stalin. The tunnel construction project is “frozen” and abandoned. After the amnesty, the number of prisoners was reduced to 3.5 thousand people. 1966

1966 On October 27, according to the order of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Gulag was renamed the Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Colonies of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

In Tsarist Russia there were prisoners:
In 1912 - 183 thousand people;
There were prisoners in the Soviet Union:
In 1924 - 86 thousand people;
In 1927 - about 200 thousand people;
In 1937 - about 16 million people;
In the 40-50s - about 17-22 million people;
In the 70s - about 3 million people;
In the 80s - about 4 million people.

For 50 years on the outskirts Russian Empire underwent an experiment in re-education especially dangerous criminals. Back in the early 1850s, tsarist officials conceived the idea of ​​creating a “separate zone” where repeat offenders, first through forced labor and then through free labor, could return to “normal human life.” The island of Sakhalin was chosen for the experiment - an ideal place from the point of view of convict protection: all around is the sea, and beyond the sea there are deserted places. Another innovation was that after the end of their hard labor, people were left on the island in “quarantine”, in an attempt to turn them into agricultural colonists. As one of the high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Panov, later admitted, the Sakhalin experiment was written off from the Australian experiment - at that time the British colonized the “green continent” using almost the same methods.

The first exiles appeared on Sakhalin in 1858 - 20 people were sent there on foot in a convoy. 4 people died on the way; 2 years later, 4 more convicts died on the island itself. But dispatches went to St. Petersburg - “the island, although a disastrous place, can be adapted to life.”

In 1869, the island was officially declared a place of hard labor and exile. In total, during the existence of the Sakhalin penal servitude (until 1905), about 37 thousand people were exiled here. That is, on average, about 1 thousand people per year. Moreover, for the first 10 years, the exiles were sent to Sakhalin on foot through Siberia - and their journey here sometimes took up to 14 months. Since 1879, convicts began to be transported by sea on the ships of the Voluntary Fleet. The ships sailed from Odessa around Asia with stops in Constantinople, Port Said, Aden, Colombo, Singapore, Nagasaki and Vladivostok. The journey took on average 65-75 days. All this time, the criminals sat in stuffy holds in shackles. In some shipments, about 10% of the convicts died en route (as in 1893).

Another innovation was that very few political ones were sent to Sakhalin - in 36 years only 58 people. In Siberia, political leaders carried out missionary activities among convicts - they taught convicts to read and write, and treated them. But on Sakhalin, criminals were deprived of such attention.

The maintenance of convicts on the island was very harsh. For the first 3-5 years they were shackled in hand and leg shackles, and sometimes even chained to a wheelbarrow. 80% of the convicts worked in coal mines (mainly near Aleksandrovsk), the rest - in logging and construction work. They lived in barracks for 30-50 people, with an earthen floor. About 20% of convicts, while serving their sentences, committed new violations; for especially serious ones (mostly murders) they were sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out in the Voivodeship prison, and the executioner was chosen from among the convicts themselves. Thus, the executioner Komlev, sentenced to 55 years of hard labor for murder and escape from custody, personally executed 13 people.

The hopes of the tsarist officials for the strict isolation of convicts were not justified. Only from 1898 to 1901. About 1,100 people escaped, of which approximately 320 ended up on the Japanese islands. It got to the point that the Japanese Foreign Ministry sent an official letter to their Russian colleagues demanding that they strengthen the security of prisoners.

Women began to be sent to Sakhalin in 1884; they were in prison only while the investigation lasted, and then they served special hard labor - slightly lighter in content than for men. So, they were in shackles only in prison; especially dangerous criminals could be kept in them for up to a year.

For what crimes women were sent here can be seen, for example, from statistics for 1894 and 1895. In the first case, out of 120 women, 75 were convicted of murder, in the second, out of 84, 52 women were murderers. In 80-90% of cases they took the lives of their husbands.

The infamous swindler Sonya “Golden Hand” (Blyuvshtein) also spent the rest of her days in the Sakhalin penal servitude. Moreover, the local administration made good money from it. Journalist Pankratiev wrote about her then:

“Katorga, from the administration to the prisoners, was proud of Sonya’s Golden Hand. Sonya has become the main Sakhalin attraction. Even in solitary confinement, with shackles on her legs, Sonya was given no rest. She herself recalled the following: as soon as you calm down, they ask for Sonya the Golden Hand again. Do you think it will happen again? No, take a photo. They tormented me with these photographs...

Sonya was taken out to the prison yard, the scenery was installed - anvils, blacksmiths with hammers, guards - and the supposed scene of shackling the Golden Hand was filmed. These photographs were sold in hundreds on all the ships that came to Sakhalin. These photographs were especially popular in Europe.

At the end of 1894, Sonya went out into the settlement and was assigned to live with Stepan Bogdanov, the most ferocious of the convicts, exiled for murder. The whole island was afraid of him, but Sonya found an approach to him and he served as her protector and bodyguard.”

As can be seen from this passage, the prison authorities, by a willful decision, distributed women among the convicts. “If you endure it, you will fall in love.” The ratio of men to women in hard labor was 8-10:1, and getting a girl was a great blessing. And therefore, as part of the experiment, the administration rewarded exemplary prisoners in this way (or those needed in the case - for example, executioners or sex workers). At the same time, the administration did not give women the right to choose a partner.

The next stage of the experiment on Sakhalin: the gradual adaptation of the former convict into ordinary life through agricultural work.

After serving his term of hard labor, the prisoner received the title of exiled settler, he was given an ax, a shovel, a hoe, 2 pounds of rope and 1 month of provisions at the expense of the treasury - 30 pounds of fish, 15 pounds of corned beef and 1.5 pounds of crackers. With these supplies on his own back, the settler went to the remote taiga, 30-40 kilometers from his previous habitat, and there he had to build a house and develop a plot of land.

If in the future the settler was noticed “in hard work and integrity,” then, by order of the administration, he received a cow, a horse, agricultural implements, and seeds for sowing as a loan. In addition, the exiled settlers remained on government food allowances for two years. So, per year, one person was supposed to have about 25 kg of flour, 50 kg of meat, 3 kg of cereal. For 2 years, 2 pairs of boots and 20 square meters were also given out free of charge. m of cloth. Upon marriage, the husband and wife received a bonus of 15 rubles each.

According to the calculations of the Sakhalin statistician Karpov, in 1895 there were 2,251 men and 222 women listed as exiled settlers. About 30% of them “had an exemplary economy.” “Basically, the Old Believers, Poles and Stundists were distinguished by their diligence,” wrote Karpov. About 10% hid from the authorities - “they joined criminal gangs, brewed moonshine, and wandered.” The remaining 60% of the exiled settlers “served their number”, waiting in “some kind of work - just not to stretch their legs” - for the end of the period of exile and the opportunity to leave for the mainland.

Back to top Russo-Japanese War in 1904, about 46 thousand people lived on the island: prisoners, exiled settlers, free inhabitants and the indigenous Ainu people (about 2 thousand). The loss in the war with Japan, as is known, led to the separation of Southern Sakhalin from Russia; the border between the two parts of the island ran along the 50th parallel. On April 10, 1906, the Law on the abolition of Sakhalin hard labor was announced. Although the convict system was abolished, the restoration of full rights to former exiles and convicts was carried out gradually. So, in 1910 they were allowed free enterprise and movement around the island. But these rights were no longer valid if the person left the island. Only in February 1913 were their rights fully restored. By this time, only about 6 thousand people remained living on the Russian part of Sakhalin (including prisoners in the only prison remaining on the island - in Aleksandrovsk).

Almost all Russians were evacuated from the Japanese part of the island. The Japanese paid the free people the cost of their lost property. About 400 escaped convicts and exiled settlers, who huddled in gangs and lived by robberies and murders, were caught and shot by the Japanese within six months (the tsarist authorities had been looking for them for years). Only about 220 people remained to live under the Japanese - now former citizens of the Russian Empire. These were mainly the already mentioned Poles, Old Believers and Stundist Germans.

Between 1908 and 1917, the tsarist government tried to repopulate the northern part of Sakhalin - now with free people. The settlers were promised significant benefits: a cash allowance of 400 rubles per family, exemption from military service for 3 years and from taxes for 5 years. But even such excellent economic conditions at that time could not attract more than 600 people to the island in 9 years. Sakhalin continued to be perceived by people as a disastrous, inhospitable place, “almost hell.”

The exhibition introduces the history of Sakhalin in 1869–1906. By royal decree of 1869, Sakhalin Island was declared a place of hard labor and exile, and turned into one of the darkest corners of Russia.

The plasma panel shows two routes that the convicts took to Sakhalin: the land route through Siberia and the sea route from Odessa through the Suez Canal and the Indian Ocean.
The exhibition includes a model of the Nizhny Novgorod steamship and photographs of the convicts on board.
The colonization of the island lasted about forty years. The prison administration had unlimited power over both the exiles and the few free Sakhalin residents.

Authentic items: hand and leg shackles, a lock and a key to the punishment cell of one of the island's large prisons - Aleksandrovskaya - are symbols of that era. Miner's sleighs for removing coal and picks give an idea of ​​the work of Sakhalin convicts in the coal mines.
A baby shirt made of rough canvas is also on display. This was the first clothing for the children of prisoners ever to be issued at the prison hospital.

However, it was during this time period that the foundations of the modern economy of the region were laid. Hard labor became an important stage in the formation of the basic industries of Sakhalin: coal, oil, fishing, forestry and Agriculture. The exhibition presents materials on the study of natural resources, the organization of the first manufacturing enterprises, a complex of household items from the late 19th century.
The household and household items of the island's population at the turn of two centuries introduces labor tools, household utensils, and home decoration.

Sakhalin, being the largest criminal prison in Russia, was also a political prison. Members of the most significant Russian political parties and organizations (Proletariat, Narodnaya Volya) served their sentences on the island: B. O. Pilsudski, L. Ya. Sternberg, L. A. Volkenshtein, I. P. Yuvachev, B. P Yellinsky and other activists. Working in schools, libraries, hospitals, workshops, and the office of the island administration, they provided practical assistance in alleviating the plight of convicts and their families, and made a great contribution to the spiritual and cultural life of society.

In 1890, the famous Russian writer A.P. Chekhov visited Sakhalin. The result of the trip, a three-month stay on the island and the study of Sakhalin reality were the books “From Siberia” and “Sakhalin Island”, which literally shocked the entire reading world of Russia.
After a loud public outcry, the government was forced to reform the legislation on the maintenance of convicts and exiles. On April 10, 1906, the Law on the abolition of Sakhalin hard labor was issued. In 1908, the island was declared free for free settlement.

Central street in Douai post

Natural History of Sakhalin

Ammonite. This fossilized shell is about 70 mln. years old.

Desmostylus hesperus.

Fossilized skeleton (copy) of an extinct mammal inhabiting Northern Pacific shores in the mid Miocene (1215.8 mln. years ago). The animal was described for the first time by O. Ch. Marsh famous discoverer of dinosaurs who was able to describe it having only one tooth at his disposal. Teeth in Desmostylus hesperus resemble a bunch of columns. The animal's name is based on its teeth structure. Desmos means bunch or stack, and stylus means pillar or column in Greek.
Desmostylus hesperus skeleton, the copy of which is displayed in the museum, was found by chance. In July of 1933 Nagao Takumi, Hokkaido University professor, was visited by a man who was engaged in shipping timber from Sakhalin island. He brought in a strange looking fossil a skull of an unknown animal which had been found by chance to the north-west of contemporary town of Smirnykh. Professor Nagao identified the skull as belonging to the Desmostylus species based on the teeth shape. Without delay he got together a group of scientists and left for Sakhalin. Unfortunately, that year the bones from the fore part of the body were only collected, but in 1934, in the second expedition, the remaining bones were found. The fossilized bones were shipped to Japan and processed in the University of Hokkaido. It was for the first time in the world that the whole skeleton of the animal was found. Paleontological community as a whole was taken by big surprise. It became clear that Desmostylus hesperus had well developed fore and hind limbs and also hands and feet well suited for rowing. (before then the Desmostylus hesperus were thought to have flippers). The animals apparently used long shovel-like tusks for ploughing bottom sediments in search of benthic organisms, such as: shell-bearing mollusks, crabs and echinoderms.
Desmostylus hesperus reached 3 m in length and were as heavy as 1200 kg. The animals led coastal life and were good swimmers and divers, taking rest on coastal cliffs. During their reproductive period they remained on the coast, however moving on land in a rather clumsy way.
Warm shallow water areas of the Sea of ​​Japan and those of the Western Sakhalin islands with their shallow water shelf and numerous inland and coastal water bodies of the other parts of the Paleo-Sakhalin were favorable habitat for Desmostylus hesperus in the Neogene Period.
Reconstruction of the skeleton was performed by the professor Nagao Takumi together with taxidermist Sinoda Syudziro. It was the first reconstruction of the Desmostylus skeleton ever. Based on the teeth size, Nagao described the animal above-mentioned as a new species Desmostylus mirabilis. Today it is accepted that the attribution to a different species was caused only by the individual features and now the skeleton in question is attributed to the Desmostylus hesperus species.
During the World War II in the Pacific the skeleton was taken to pieces and buried in the ground to be preserved. The skeleton was reassembled after the war by the professor Kamei Setsuo.
The copy of the Desmostylus hesperus skeleton was presented to the Sakhalin Regional Museum as a gift by the Association for Bilateral Relationships of Museums of the Northern Regions and Hokkaido on July 26, 2006.

Mine sea pier of the Sakhalin society

Duya single-altar church in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Opened in 1856

Coal warehouses at the mines of the Sakhalin company

Coal mining at the Sakhalin mine

Zhonkiersky lighthouse. Built in 1886

Sonya Golden Handle

Chained to wheelbarrows in the yard of the Voivodeship prison

The steamship Atlas, which was wrecked in May 1890

Nikolaevskaya street in Aleksandrovsky post

House of the Military Governor of Sakhalin Island

The building of the postal and telegraph department at the Aleksandrovsky post

Alexandrovsky district police department and office of the Alexandrovsky prison

Pedestrian bridge on the Duika River at Aleksandrovsky post

The central part of the village of Rykovskoye

Church of Kazan Mother of God in the village of Rykovskoye. Opened in 1888

Korsakov prison

Street in Korsakovsky post

Post Korsakovsky

Korsakov District Police Department

Settlement Tretya Pad

The village of Maloye Such

Village Bereznyaki

Village Vladimirovka

Settlement Listvinichnoe

Sakhalin hard labor

Officially, Sakhalin hard labor was established in 1886, although it existed before. Only those sentenced to death were sent here, which was later replaced with hard labor. It was not by chance that the tsarist government chose Sakhalin for this purpose. Firstly, the island was significantly removed from Central Russia, which was engulfed in the revolutionary movement. It was separated from the mainland by the Tatar Strait, violent and capricious. In winter, nothing is visible here due to snow storms, and in summer, storms give way to such thick fogs that you can barely make out the mast of your own ship through them. The island position of Sakhalin and its remoteness from the mainland made escapes difficult, and the concentration of a large number of exiled convicts in one place significantly reduced treasury expenses for their maintenance. In addition, with the help of free labor it was possible to develop the richest mineral resources of the island.

Alexander III, who ascended the throne, initiated the creation of political hard labor here, and from the moment of its official establishment, parties of exiles numbering up to several hundred people began to be regularly sent to the island. Thus, a large number of opponents of the autocracy were concentrated here, and the emperor, in order to suppress the slightest resistance on their part, granted special powers to the governor-general of the island. In fact, this legitimized the arbitrariness of the local authorities, and on Sakhalin, in the fight against its political opponents, tsarism discarded even the appearance of legality, which could not be done in the European part of Russia.

Emperor Alexander III

The capital of Sakhalin was the Aleksandrovsky post. Here the steep coast, plunging into the sea with sheer cliffs, gives way to a lowland overgrown with spruce trees. Behind it, on a hill, a village was barely visible, the streets of which were clean, with sidewalks; The buildings are wooden, log, mostly one-story and darkened with age. On the main street, in the long wooden house The military governor of Sakhalin, who ruled three volosts, lived with the traditional sentry at the door. He also commanded an army consisting of four convoy teams with a total number of 1000 people. The governor had an office and a staff of officials who were in charge of various branches of the island economy. Among them were a translator from foreign languages, who himself did not speak foreign languages; the head of agriculture, which consumed many human lives and millions of money, and gave the most pitiful results. With the greatest difficulties, for 30 years the convicts cultivated the land, sowed grain, and all this time they ate bread that was brought from the European part of Russia and from America. There were many other positions that benefited only those who held them. Each of the officials took care of their own affairs, and corrected the service for the sake of appearance, so that if something happened they could “unsubscribe”.

The prison, built here in the mid-1880s, consisted of two prison buildings: a prison for probationers (shackles) was fenced with a palisade, the second - for criminals already being reformed - was not fenced. Both were built according to the barracks system: each consisted of a central corridor with cells on both sides of it, and sometimes a side corridor and cells extending from it.

The prisons were built from damp forest, had no foundation, were poorly caulked, and placed on wet soil, and therefore dampness and cold were commonplace in them. Their entire environment consisted of solid bunks; there was no ventilation in the cells (except for a small window), so the air in them was constantly foul. Due to the poor design of the stoves, smoke and soot poisoned him even more. Almost all the cells were overcrowded, and when new batches arrived, dozens of prisoners slept on the dirty floor.

The prisoners' food and clothing were poor, and in addition, complete arbitrariness reigned on the part of the authorities of all ranks and ranks.

In the first years of exile, convicts were classified as “test subjects”: they were all shackled and used in the most difficult work - in coal mines, collecting and transporting firewood, etc. The shackled prison could not be frightened, because there was nothing to do. Most of its inhabitants are eternal convicts; some of them had to live several lives to serve their sentences. These people went through all the hard labor training, sticks were counted in hundreds, and rods in thousands, so a new crime or escape could no longer bring new horror into their lives. In essence, the inhabitants of the shackled prison and those undergoing correction differed from each other only in the length of the sentence, but in all other respects they were in the same conditions.

But the history of political hard labor on Sakhalin is also the history of the emergence of culture on the distant outskirts of Russia. Political prisoners taught in schools, treated local residents, conducted meteorological observations, studied the nature and ethnography of this region, etc. They collaborated legally and illegally in Far Eastern and Russian newspapers and magazines, and two of them - L.Ya. Sternberg and B.O. Pilsudski - made a great contribution to world science.

On a sunny and clear Sunday in August 1887, a column of exiled convicts slowly moved from the Aleksandrovsky post to the Tymovsky district. The day before, they arrived in Sakhalin on the steamship Nizhny Novgorod, having traveled a grueling journey from Odessa across two oceans. Thus began the path to science of Bronislaw Osipovich Pilsudski, for whom Sakhalin became a convict prison, a kind of university, and a scientific laboratory.

In 1886, as a first-year student Faculty of Law St. Petersburg University, B.O. Pilsudski joined the terrorist faction of the People's Will party, which was created by students of the same university A.I. Ulyanov and P.Ya. Shevyrev. After an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Emperor Alexander III on March 1, 1887, the participants in the conspiracy (15 people, three of them women) were arrested, and their case was considered in the Special Presence of the Senate. All were sentenced to death: the execution of five was approved, the rest were imprisoned or sent to hard labor.

B.O. Pilsudski's death sentence was commuted to 15 years of hard labor. On Sakhalin he was sent to the Rykovskaya prison: the island, with its harsh climate and harsh hard labor conditions, did not promise an easy life for the exiles, but B.O. Pilsudski had a relatively easy lot. He did not engage in heavy physical labor in clearing up forests for long, but he bravely endured all the hardships and, although not distinguished by good health, showed amazing endurance. It turned out that the most terrible thing in hard labor was not the work itself, but a well-thought-out system of humiliation and suppression of human dignity. In these conditions, it was necessary not only to survive and not lose oneself, but also to find an opportunity to be useful.

There was B.O. Pilsudski was a cattleman and carpenter, worked at a weather station, and then he was entrusted with copying papers, and he moved to the office. He later became a school teacher and librarian, which he proudly told his friends about.

The search for his place on Sakhalin leads B.O. Pilsudski to the indigenous population of the island - the Nivkhs, Ainu and Orochs. “I will be pleased,” he noted, “to bring joy and hope for a better future to the thoughts of these simple fellow tribesmen, worried about the hardships of life that were constantly growing.” Under the influence of L.Ya. Sternberg, exiled to Sakhalin in 1891, B.O. Pilsudski began recording Nivkh myths and traditions. Simultaneously with recording the texts, he studies their language and vocabulary, and carefully writes down the translation of each word into Russian.

In 1898 B.O. Pilsudski published in the “Notes of the Amur Department of the Russian Geographical Society” an article “The needs and requirements of the Sakhalin Gilyaks”, which caused many responses in scientific and public circles of the Far East, and in 1899 the “Society for the Study of the Amur Region” petitioned that B.O. . Pilsudski, who by this time had already been transferred to the category of exiles, was allowed to live in Vladivostok. Here he began working in a museum and was able to devote himself entirely to science.

In 1902 B.O. Pilsudski returned to Sakhalin, but now on a business trip from the Academy of Sciences, which sent him to the island to collect ethnographic collections from the Ainu and Orochi. A year later, he joined another Polish exile, V. Seroshevsky, a specialist in studying the life of the Yakuts, and together they went to the Japanese island of Hokkaido. However, the Russo-Japanese War soon broke out, and the scientists had to leave Japan.

In 1905 B.O. Pilsudski was given the opportunity to return to his homeland. Closely following the revolutionary events in Russia, he writes to friends: “Having lost hope for the speedy transformation of Russia into a rule-of-law state and the opportunity to live in peace in it, I decide to head to other countries.” Through America and Europe, the former convict travels to the Austrian part of Poland, but it was difficult to live here. He, a specialist in ethnography of the indigenous peoples of Sakhalin, cannot find a job in any European university. However, B.O. Pilsudski continues to study scientific work, devotes a lot of time to social activities.

After the outbreak of the First World War, he left for Vienna, then to Switzerland, and after some time he ended up in Paris. Here on May 17, 1918, the life of B.O. Pilsudski's life ended tragically: he drowned in the Seine. The documents of the Parisian police indicated that the cause of death was a serious illness and, as a result, suicide...

Hard labor as a means of developing remote territories was not a Russian invention. One can recall the experience of England during the exploration of the New World in the 17th-18th centuries. Or the no less dramatic history of the settlement of Australia, which began in 1788. Then Captain Philip's flotilla delivered a group of exiles to New Wales, who founded the first European settlement on the shores of Port Jackson Bay - the future Sydney. For almost eight decades, “good old England” colonized the entire continent, creating military convict settlements. Until 1868, 155 thousand people were exiled there.

The first convict arrived on Sakhalin back in 1858. Historians even know his name - Ivan Lapshin. He served with one of the mining engineers who was studying coal deposits. Later, convicts were delivered to Douai in small batches. After working at the mine for one or two years, they returned to the mainland.

Alexander II approved the “Regulations of the Committee on the organization of hard labor.” The document officially defined Sakhalin as a place of hard labor and exile. It is this date that is considered to be the official beginning of hard labor, which “glorified” the island in Russia and abroad for many years.

Sakhalin seemed to the authorities of the Empire an ideal place for hard labor - the remoteness and inaccessibility of the territory negated all escape attempts. The undeveloped island provided enormous scope for activity after the prisoners were released. And the appearance of a large number of Russians here increased the influence of the Russian Empire on Far East, which was also an undeniable advantage. In addition, workers made it possible to finally gain access to the wealth of the island.

In terms of the scale of exile, Sakhalin was undoubtedly inferior to Australia. In the first years, convicts were brought here in small stages: in 1870 - 250, in 1871 - 165 people. The purpose of the exile was not so much punishment as the extraction of coal for the Siberian flotilla. The Douai post became a kind of convict “capital” of Sakhalin. Here was the office of a special official - the head of the exiled convicts of the Primorsky region, and in 1875 the first prison was built.

Along with the establishment of hard labor, there were also attempts to resettle free peasants to Sakhalin. In the same year, 1869, more than 20 families from Tobolsk and Irkutsk provinces were brought here. In the south of the island they founded three villages: Voskresenskoye, Stantsionnoye (Takoe) and Novoaleksandrovskoye. In 1871, the agronomist M.S. visited them. Mitsul, who described the experience of peasants in farming.

The settlers belonged to the poor stratum of the Siberian village. Their arrangement required considerable care, but the administration was unable to create conditions for their consolidation on the island. In 1886, they fled from Sakhalin to the South Ussuri region.

Anton Chekhov, writer, public figure

“So, free colonization in the south of Sakhalin should be considered a failure. Whether natural conditions are to blame for this, which at first met the peasants so harshly and unfriendly, or whether the whole matter was spoiled by the ineptitude and sloppiness of the officials, is difficult to decide, since the experience was not long...”

At first, hard labor also did not have a noticeable effect on the settlement of the island. From 1868 to 1878 The exiles founded only two villages: Malo-Alexandrovka (1869) and Novo-Mikhailovka (1872). This was explained by the difficulties of delivering the exiles, who traveled in stages from Siberia for one and a half to two years. Therefore, the Ministry of Internal Affairs came up with the idea of ​​sending convicts to Sakhalin by a semicircular sea route. Their delivery was undertaken by the Voluntary Fleet Society. The first voyage, or, as they called it then, “rafting,” to the Far East was made by the steamship Nizhny Novgorod. He left Odessa on June 7, 1879, carrying 500 convicts and government cargo for the prison department.

Head of the State Prison Department M.N. Galkin-Vraskoy issued an order that prohibited the transfer to the mainland of people who had completed their sentence of hard labor. The link to Sakhalin became almost irrevocable. Convicts, having served their sentences in prison, became exiled settlers. They constituted the main “colonization element” of the settlement of the island.

Subsequently, “volunteers” delivered future Sakhalin colonists regularly - in spring and autumn. The steamships Nizhny Novgorod, Kostroma, Petersburg, and Vladivostok operated on the Odessa-Sakhalin line. In 1893, the Yaroslavl steamship was built in England, specially equipped for transporting large quantities of prisoners. It was a real floating prison, adapted for round-the-world sea voyages.

Forced development

The number of convicts entering the settlements in the 80-90s of the 19th century was about 800 people per year, and villages began to appear on Sakhalin one after another. So, if in twelve years (1874 - 1885) 21 villages were founded, then in the subsequent similar period (1886 - 1897) - exactly 100. By 1898, there were more than 130 Russian villages on the island, including in the Alexander District - 37, Tymovsky - 28, Korsakovsky - 68 villages. After this, the “fascination with colonization” ended, and new settlements almost did not appear.

Life in the Sakhalin settlements, which arose among the untrodden taiga, largely depended on roads and communications. In 1881, the first telegraph cable connected Douai to the mainland. Three years later, the line was drawn from the Aleksandrovsky post to the village of Rykovsky, and by 1892 - to the Korsakov post. But in general, communications within the island were poorly developed. By 1900, only 80 of more than 130 villages were connected by roadways - their total length was only about 600 miles.

There were 52 villages left without normal roads, except for narrow forest clearings. They were cut off from civilization almost all year round. The lack of roads slowed down the settlement of Sakhalin and put the administration in a hopeless situation - it was almost impossible to supply the settlers.

According to the “Regulations on the management of o. Sakhalin" dated May 15, 1884, the main management of all Sakhalin affairs belonged to the governor-general, and local affairs were entrusted to the head of the island, appointed from among the military generals. Administratively, the island was divided into three districts: Aleksandrovsky, Tymovsky and Korsakovsky. The heads of districts and district police departments were in charge of settlements and prisons.

According to the First General Census of the Russian Empire in 1897, 28.1 thousand people lived on Sakhalin. Including in the Aleksandrovsky district - 11.1 thousand, Tymovsky - 8.4 thousand, Korsakovsky - 8.6 thousand people. The impact of hard labor was reflected in the demographic characteristics of the population, 72.8% of which were men and only 27.2% were women. This fact had an adverse effect on the “survival rate” of the population and its way of life.

By nationality, the population of Sakhalin was represented by almost all the peoples of the empire. The majority were Russians - 56.3%, then Ukrainians - 8.4%, Poles - 5.8%. In total, representatives of 20 nationalities lived on the island. About 15% of the population were indigenous peoples: Nivkhs - 7.1%, Ainu - 5.1%, Uilta - 2.5%.

Convict playlist:

• Oh your share - Sergey Sadovnikov
• Farewell word - Sergey Sadovnikov
• Why, boy, was I born - Sergey Sadovnikov
• He is walking tired - Sergey Sadovnikov
• Convict's Song - Nikolai Shevelev
• Tell me, comrade, how you got into the mine - Dmitry Ershov
• It’s not the wind that bends the branch - Choir of convicts of the Tobolsk penal servitude

Economics of steel shackles

The main activity of the convicts was cutting coal. At the beginning of the 20th century, 45-47 thousand tons of coal were exported from Sakhalin, which accounted for a quarter of its annual consumption in the Amur region. The development of the industry was hampered by a lack of labor and the lack of ports. The government did not allow the import of foreign workers. To expand the labor force, the same hard labor was used.

Although there were plenty of other worries - the prisoners worked on building roads, bridges and logging. Hard labor almost never rested - work began at dawn and could continue until late at night. The prisoners were entitled to one day off - Sunday, but in the presence of urgent work it could well be neglected. They even worked on Easter - the Orthodox Christians naturally got a day off on this day - but there were also plenty of representatives of other faiths on Sakhalin.

The abundance of cheap and powerless labor led to the fact that on Sakhalin most mines used exclusively manual labor - mechanization was either completely absent or minimal. This gave rise to monstrous working conditions - cutting and lifting coal in the mines was carried out manually. During a shift, a convict produced 10-15 pounds of solid fuel. The main place of coal mining on Sakhalin was the Duysky mine - 400 convicts worked here. The mine's workforce was provided by two nearby prisons - Voevodskaya and Duyskaya. Contemporaries noted the extremely cruel treatment of convicts and the appalling conditions of their work - for the slightest violation of discipline, prisoners were punished - sent to a punishment cell or beaten.

The next most important sector of Sakhalin's economy was the production of fish and seafood. In the second half of the 19th century, the Sakhalin fishing region was formed, which was actively drawn into the all-Russian market. But compared to other regions of the Amur region, the share of its supplies to the domestic market was lower. The reason is simple - the dominance of Japanese capital, which exported the products of the Sakhalin marine fisheries to Japan.

They tried to develop their own agricultural production on the island. Despite the enormous costs during the period of hard labor, a solid base did not develop on Sakhalin. Local farms provided only 30% of the required amount of grain, and the population was almost entirely dependent on the import of food. But despite this, the experience of farming in the conditions of Sakhalin was very important for subsequent generations.

The labor of tens of thousands of exiles, peasants, soldiers, sailors, and members of the intelligentsia became the material prerequisite for securing the island to Russia. But Sakhalin never became Russian “Australia”, that is, a prosperous colony of a powerful empire. First of all, the outcome of the settlement of Sakhalin with the help of hard labor is sad. This was not explained so much geographical location and natural and climatic conditions, as well as poor organization of resettlement and the unfavorable influence of foreign policy factors.

All around is the sea, and in the middle is grief

The exile colony left an inevitable imprint on all aspects of life on the island. Its gloomy glory was reflected in the fate of several generations of Sakhalin residents, who formed bitter proverbs about that time: “There is sea all around, and grief in the middle”; “There is water all around, and trouble in the middle.”

But it would be wrong to perceive Sakhalin at that time as a continuous “dark kingdom.” The beginnings of cultural life were also noted here. The first school on the island appeared in 1875 at the Korsakovsky post (a year earlier than the first prison appeared here). Its students were the children of soldiers and exiles, and its teachers were officers of the local garrison and the priest Simeon of Kazan.

Even in hard labor there were people who tried to alleviate the plight of the exiles. For example, in 1888, Gogol’s play “Marriage” was staged at the Aleksandrovsky post. The performance was charitable - the proceeds were distributed equally among three schools: in Aleksandrovsk, Douai and Rykovsky, where the children of exiles studied.

In the mid-90s of the 19th century, there were 39 schools on the island, of which 23 were rural (5 two-class and 18 one-class). Only about half of the children had the opportunity to attend school regularly. Nevertheless, the literacy rate of Sakhalin residents was higher than in other regions of the empire. The 1897 census also testifies to this. According to documents, 26.8% of Sakhalin residents were literate. While in Siberia only 11 percent were literate.

The exiled revolutionaries left a deep mark on the history of Sakhalin. They taught in local schools, were engaged in education and medicine. The settlers' leisure time was brightened up by evenings, get-togethers, and church holidays. Yuletide dressing up, seeing off Maslenitsa and other traditions that go back centuries were a kind of folk theater. Sometimes on holidays, festivities with swings and puppet theaters were held in regional centers, attracting spectators from all segments of the population.

For example, in the late 1890s, a theatrical booth in the village of Rykovsky was run by shopkeeper Sofya Bluvshtein, better known as “Sonka the Golden Hand.”

Not our Kuril Islands

In the second half of the 19th century, the Kuril Islands completely fell out of the sphere of influence of the Russian Empire. Russia abandoned part of the Kuril Islands back in 1855, when the Treaty of Shimoda on borders in the Far East was signed.

Treaty of Shimoda, 1855

“From now on, the borders between Russia and Japan will pass between the islands of Iturup and Urup. The entire island of Iturup belongs to Japan, and the entire island of Urup and the other Kuril Islands to the north are the possession of Russia. As for Karafuto (Sakhalin), it remains undivided between Russia and Japan.”

In 1875, another border treaty was signed - the St. Petersburg Treaty. Now Russia completely abandoned the Kuril Islands - consolidation on Sakhalin was more important for the empire.

Treaty of St. Petersburg, 1875

“His Majesty the Emperor of Japan, for himself and his heirs, cedes to His Majesty the All-Russian Emperor part of the territory of the island of Sakhalin (Karafuto) ... from now on, the entire island of Sakhalin (Karafuto) will completely belong to the Russian Empire and the border line will pass in these waters through La Perouse strait...

In return... the All-Russian Emperor, for himself and his heirs, cedes to His Majesty the Japanese Emperor a group of islands called the Kuril Islands... the border line between the Russian and Japanese empires in these waters will pass through the strait located between Cape Lopatka of the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Shumshu Island ..."

After this, convict expansion began on Sakhalin with redoubled force. At first, the Kuril Islands were difficult for Japan to settle in - the settlement of the central and northern islands was especially difficult. However, to end of the 19th century century, many settlements arose in the Kuril Islands - there were small villages and ghost towns that came to life only during the Putin period. Over time, powerful fish processing and whaling industries arose on the islands, and the colonists were engaged in breeding fur-bearing animals. At the beginning of the 20th century, the first semblances of cities appeared in the south of the ridge - Syana (Kurilsk) and Tomari (Golovino). With the growing activity of the United States and Russia in the Pacific Ocean, the Kuril Islands became an important strategic outpost of Japan.

The Land of the Rising Sun used them as a base of aggression in World War II - the islands became a support for attacks on American military bases in the Pacific Ocean.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the population of Sakhalin exceeded 40 thousand people. At the same time, the share of exiles decreased and the number of free peasants and burghers from exiles, who became former convicts, increased. In 1904, the prisons in Douai and Honorat had to be closed. Hard labor as a means of developing the island had clearly outlived its usefulness, and the government was preparing to abolish it. On August 18, 1904, Governor of the Far East E.I. Alekseev instructed the Amur Governor-General to prepare the issue of opening Sakhalin “for a wave of colonization.” The development of measures to abolish hard labor was entrusted to the Governor of Sakhalin M.N. Lyapunov with the participation of representatives of the ministries of justice, internal affairs, and finance. However, the events of the Russian-Japanese War were ahead of the plans of the bureaucratic machine of tsarism - in the summer of 1905, the Japanese army occupied Sakhalin.