Chekhov on the “island of the outcasts” - on Sakhalin. "This is the first Russian writer to travel to Siberia and back"

24.12.2021

I

Nikolaevsk-on-Amur. - Steamship "Baikal". – Cape Pronge and the entrance to the Liman. – Sakhalin Peninsula. - La Perouse, Broughton, Krusenstern and Nevelskoy. – Japanese researchers. - Cape Jaore. - Tatar coast. - De-Kastri.

On July 5, 1890, I arrived by ship in the city of Nikolaevsk, one of the easternmost points of our fatherland. The Amur is very wide here, there are only 27 miles left to the sea; the place is majestic and beautiful, but the memories of the past of this region, the stories of companions about the fierce winter and no less fierce local customs, the proximity of hard labor and the very sight of an abandoned, dying city completely take away the desire to admire the landscape.

Nikolaevsk was founded not so long ago, in 1850, by the famous Gennady Nevelsky, and this is perhaps the only bright place in the history of the city. In the fifties and sixties, when culture was being planted along the Amur, not sparing soldiers, prisoners and migrants, officials who ruled the region had their stay in Nikolaevsk, many Russian and foreign adventurers came here, settlers settled, seduced by the extraordinary abundance of fish and animals, and, apparently, the city was not alien to human interests, since there was even a case that one visiting scientist found it necessary and possible to give a public lecture here at the club. Now, almost half of the houses have been abandoned by their owners, dilapidated, and dark frameless windows look at you like the eye sockets of a skull. The inhabitants lead a sleepy, drunken life and generally live from hand to mouth, which is what God sent them to do. They make a living by supplying fish to Sakhalin, gold predation, exploitation of foreigners, and selling show-offs, that is, deer antlers, from which the Chinese prepare stimulant pills. On the way from Khabarovka to Nikolaevsk I had to meet quite a few smugglers; here they do not hide their profession. One of them, showing me golden sand and a couple of show-offs, told me with pride: “And my father was a smuggler!” The exploitation of foreigners, in addition to the usual soldering, fooling, etc., is sometimes expressed in an original form. Thus, the Nikolaev merchant Ivanov, now deceased, traveled to Sakhalin every summer and took tribute there from the Gilyaks, and tortured and hanged faulty payers.

There is no hotel in the city. At a public meeting I was allowed to rest after dinner in a hall with a low ceiling - here in the winter, they say, balls are given; When I asked where I could spend the night, they just shrugged their shoulders. There was nothing to do, I had to spend two nights on the ship; when he went back to Khabarovka, I found myself broke like a crayfish: where will I go? My luggage is on the pier; I walk along the shore and don’t know what to do with myself. Just opposite the city, two or three miles from the shore, there is the steamship “Baikal”, on which I will go to the Tatar Strait, but they say that it will leave in four or five days, not earlier, although the retreat flag is already flying on its mast . Is it possible to go to Baikal? But it’s awkward: they probably won’t let me in, they’ll say it’s too early. The wind blew, Cupid frowned and became agitated like the sea. It's getting sad. I go to the meeting, have lunch there for a long time and listen to how at the next table they talk about gold, about show-offs, about a magician who came to Nikolaevsk, about some Japanese who pulls his teeth not with forceps, but simply with his fingers. If you listen carefully and for a long time, then, my God, how far life here is from Russia! Starting with the chum salmon balyk, which is used to snack on vodka here, and ending with the conversations, you can feel something unique, not Russian, in everything. While I was sailing along the Amur, I had a feeling as if I was not in Russia, but somewhere in Patagonia or Texas; not to mention the original, non-Russian nature, it always seemed to me that the structure of our Russian life is completely alien to the native Amur people, that Pushkin and Gogol are incomprehensible here and therefore are not needed, our history is boring and we, visitors from Russia, seem to be foreigners. In terms of religion and politics, I noticed complete indifference here. The priests whom I saw on the Amur eat meat during Lent, and, by the way, they told me about one of them, in a white silk caftan, that he was engaged in gold predation, competing with his spiritual children. If you want to make an Amur citizen feel bored and yawn, then talk to him about politics, about the Russian government, about Russian art. And morality here is somehow special, not ours. Chivalrous treatment of a woman is elevated almost to a cult and at the same time it is not considered reprehensible to give up your wife for money to a friend; or even better: on the one hand, there is the absence of class prejudices - here even with the exile they behave as if they were an equal, and on the other hand, it is not a sin to shoot a Chinese tramp in the forest like a dog, or even to secretly hunt humpbacks.

But I will continue about myself. Not finding shelter, I decided to go to Baikal in the evening. But here is a new problem: there is a considerable swell, and the Gilyak boatmen do not agree to carry it for any money. Again I walk along the shore and don’t know what to do with myself. Meanwhile, the sun is already setting, and the waves on the Amur are darkening. On this and on the other bank, Gilyak dogs howl furiously. And why did I come here? - I ask myself, and my journey seems extremely frivolous to me. And the thought that hard labor is already close, that in a few days I will land on Sakhalin soil, without having a single letter of recommendation with me, that I might be asked to go back - this thought worries me unpleasantly. But finally two Gilyaks agree to take me for a ruble, and on a boat made of three planks, I safely reach “Baikal”.

This is a steamer marine type of medium size, a merchant who seemed to me, after the Baikal and Amur steamships, quite tolerable. It makes voyages between Nikolaevsk, Vladivostok and Japanese ports, carrying mail, soldiers, prisoners, passengers and cargo, mainly government goods; under a contract concluded with the treasury, which pays him a substantial subsidy, he is obliged to visit Sakhalin several times during the summer: at the Alexander post and at the southern Korsakov post. The tariff is very high, which is probably not found anywhere else in the world. Colonization, which first of all requires freedom and ease of movement, and high tariffs - this is completely incomprehensible. The wardroom and cabins on the Baikal are cramped, but clean and furnished in a completely European style; there is a piano. The servants here are Chinese with long braids, they are called in English - fight. The cook is also Chinese, but his cuisine is Russian, although all the dishes are bitter from the spicy keri and smell of some kind of perfume, like corylopsis.

Having read about the storms and ice of the Tartar Strait, I expected to meet whalers with hoarse voices on “Baikal”, splashing tobacco chewing gum when talking, but in reality I found quite intelligent people. The commander of the steamship, Mr. L., a native of the western region, has been sailing in the northern seas for more than 30 years and has traveled them length and breadth. In his time he has seen many miracles, knows a lot and talks interestingly. Having circled around Kamchatka for half my life and Kuril Islands, he, perhaps with more right than Othello, could talk about “ the barren deserts, terrible abysses, inaccessible cliffs." I owe him a lot of information that was useful to me for these notes. He has three assistants: Mr. B., the nephew of the famous astronomer B., and two Swedes - Ivan Martynych and Ivan Veniaminych, kind and friendly people.

On July 8, before lunch, the Baikal weighed anchor. With us came three hundred soldiers under the command of an officer and several prisoners. One prisoner was accompanied by a five-year-old girl, his daughter, who held his shackles as he ascended the ladder. There was, by the way, one convict woman who attracted attention by the fact that her husband voluntarily followed her to hard labor. Besides me and the officer, there were several other classy passengers of both sexes and, by the way, even one baroness. Let the reader not be surprised at such an abundance of intelligent people here in the desert. Along the Amur and in the Primorsky region, the intelligentsia, with a generally small population, makes up a considerable percentage, and there is relatively more of it here than in any Russian province. There is a city on the Amur where there are 16 generals alone, military and civilian. Now there are, perhaps, even more of them.

Day was quiet and clear. It's hot on deck, stuffy in the cabins; in water +18°. This weather is just right for the Black Sea. On the right bank the forest was burning; the solid green mass emitted crimson flames; the clouds of smoke merged into a long, black, motionless strip that hangs over the forest... The fire is huge, but there is peace and quiet all around, no one cares that the forests are dying. Obviously, the green wealth here belongs to God alone.

After lunch, at about six o'clock, we were already at Cape Pronge. Here Asia ends, and one could say that in this place the Amur flows into the Great Ocean, if Fr. Sakhalin. The Liman stretches wide before your eyes, a foggy strip is barely visible ahead - this is a convict island; to the left, lost in its own convolutions, the shore disappears into the darkness, going into the unknown north. It seems that the end of the world is here and that there is nowhere to go further. The soul is overcome by a feeling that Odysseus probably experienced when he sailed on an unfamiliar sea and vaguely anticipated encounters with extraordinary creatures. And in fact, on the right, at the very turn into Liman, where the Gilyak village is nestled on the shallows, some strange creatures are rushing towards us in two boats, screaming in an incomprehensible language and waving something. It's hard to tell what they're holding, but when they get closer, I can make out gray birds.

“They want to sell us dead geese,” someone explains.

We turn right. Along our entire route there are signs showing the fairway. The commander does not leave the bridge, and the mechanic does not get out of the car; “Baikal” begins to go quieter and quieter and goes as if by groping. Great caution is needed, as it is easy to run aground here. The steamer sits 12 1/2 in places, but it has to go 14 feet, and there was even a moment when we thought it was crawling with its keel along the sand. It was this shallow fairway and the special picture that the Tatar and Sakhalin coasts give together that served as the main reason that Sakhalin was long considered a peninsula in Europe. In June 1787, the famous French navigator, Count La Perouse, landed on the western coast of Sakhalin, above 48°, and spoke here with the natives. Judging by the description that he left, on the shore he found not only the Ainos who lived here, but also the Gilyaks who came to trade with them, experienced people who were well acquainted with both Sakhalin and the Tatar coast. Drawing in the sand, they explained to him that the land on which they live is an island and that this island is separated from the mainland and Yesso (Japan) by straits. Then, sailing further north along west bank, he hoped that he would find a way out from the North Sea of Japan to the Sea of Okhotsk and thereby significantly shorten his path to Kamchatka; but the higher he moved, the shallower the strait became. The depth decreased by one fathom every mile. He sailed north as long as the size of his ship allowed him, and, having reached a depth of 9 fathoms, he stopped. The gradual, uniform rise of the bottom and the fact that the current in the strait was almost imperceptible led him to the conviction that he was not in the strait, but in the gulf and that, therefore, Sakhalin was connected to the mainland by an isthmus. In de-Kastri he once again had a meeting with the Gilyaks. When he drew an island on paper for them, separated from the mainland, one of them took his pencil and, drawing a line across the strait, explained that the Gilyaks sometimes have to drag their boats across this isthmus and that grass even grows on it, as he understood La Perouse. This convinced him even more strongly that Sakhalin was a peninsula. Nine years later, the Englishman W. Broughton was in the Tartary Strait. His vessel was small, sitting in water no deeper than 9 feet, so he managed to pass somewhat higher than La Perouse. Stopping at a depth of two fathoms, he sent his assistant to the north to take measurements; This one on his way encountered depths among the shallows, but they gradually decreased and led him first to the Sakhalin coast, then to the low-lying sandy shores on the other side, and at the same time the resulting picture was as if both banks were merging; it seemed as if the bay ended here and there was no passage. Thus, Broughton had to conclude the same thing as La Perouse.

Our famous Krusenstern, who explored the shores of the island in 1805, fell into the same mistake. He sailed to Sakhalin with a preconceived idea, since he used La Perouse’s map. He walked along eastern shore and, going around northern capes Sakhalin, entered the strait itself, keeping a direction from north to south, and, it seemed, was already very close to solving the riddle, but a gradual decrease in depth to 3 1/2 fathoms, specific gravity water, and most importantly, a preconceived idea forced him to recognize the existence of an isthmus that he had not seen. But he was still haunted by the worm of doubt. “It is very likely,” he writes, “that Sakhalin was once, and perhaps even in recent times, an island.” He returned back, apparently, with a restless soul: when Broughton’s notes first caught his eye in China, he “rejoiced a lot.” The error was corrected in 1849 by Nevelsky. The authority of his predecessors, however, was still so great that when he reported his discoveries to St. Petersburg, they did not believe him, considered his act impudent and subject to punishment and “concluded” him to be demoted, and it is unknown what this would have led to if if it weren’t for the intercession of the sovereign himself, who found his act brave, noble and patriotic. He was an energetic, hot-tempered man, educated, selfless, humane, imbued with an idea to the marrow of his bones and fanatically devoted to it, morally pure. One of those who knew him writes: “I have never met a more honest person.” On east coast and on Sakhalin he made a brilliant career for himself in just five years, but lost his daughter, who died of hunger, his wife, “a young, pretty and friendly woman” who endured all the hardships heroically, grew old and lost her health. To put an end to the question of the isthmus and the peninsula, I think it would not be superfluous to provide some more details. In 1710, Beijing missionaries, on behalf of the Chinese Emperor, drew a map of Tartary; when compiling it, the missionaries used Japanese maps, and this is obvious, since at that time only the Japanese could know about the passability of the La Peruzov and Tatar Straits. It was sent to France and became famous because it was included in the atlas of the geographer d'Anville. This map was the reason for a small misunderstanding to which Sakhalin owes its name. On the western coast of Sakhalin, just opposite the mouth of the Amur, there is an inscription on the map written missionaries: “Saghalien-angahata”, which in Mongolian means “cliffs of the black river". This name probably referred to some cliff or cape at the mouth of the Amur, but in France it was understood differently and attributed to the island itself. Hence the name Sakhalin, retained by Kruzenshtern and for Russian maps.The Japanese called Sakhalin Karafto or Karafta, which means Chinese island.

The works of the Japanese reached Europe either too late, when they were no longer needed, or were subject to unsuccessful amendments. On the map of the missionaries, Sakhalin looked like an island, but d'Anville treated it with distrust and placed an isthmus between the island and the mainland. The Japanese were the first to explore Sakhalin, starting in 1613, but in Europe they attached so little importance to this that when the Russians subsequently and the Japanese were deciding the question of who owns Sakhalin, then only the Russians spoke and wrote about the right of first exploration. A new, possibly thorough study of the coasts of Tatarstan and Sakhalin has long been in line. The current maps are unsatisfactory, which can be seen at least from the fact that the ships , military and commercial, often run aground and on rocks, much more often than they write about it in the newspapers. Thanks mainly to bad maps, ship commanders here are very cautious, suspicious and nervous. The commander of the "Baikal" does not trust official map and looks into his own, which he himself draws and corrects while swimming.

In order not to run aground, Mr. L. did not dare to sail at night, and after sunset we dropped anchor at Cape Jaore. On the cape itself, on the mountain, there stands a lonely hut in which the naval officer Mr. B. lives, who puts signs on the fairway and has supervision over them, and behind the hut there is an impenetrable dense taiga. The commander sent Mr. B. fresh meat; I took advantage of this opportunity and swam to the shore in a boat. Instead of a pier, there are a bunch of large slippery stones that we had to jump on, and a series of steps made of logs, dug into the ground almost vertically, lead up the mountain to the hut, so that when climbing, you have to hold on tightly with your hands. But what a horror! While I was climbing the mountain and approaching the hut, I was surrounded by clouds of mosquitoes, literally clouds, it was dark from them, my face and hands burned, and there was no way to defend myself. I think that if we stay here overnight... open air, without surrounding yourself with fires, you can die or, at least, go crazy.

The hut is divided into two halves by a vestibule: the sailors live on the left, and the officer and his family on the right. The owner was not at home. I found an elegantly dressed, intelligent lady, his wife, and two daughters, little girls, bitten by mosquitoes. In the rooms, all the walls are covered with spruce greenery, the windows are covered with gauze, it smells of smoke, but despite everything, mosquitoes still exist and sting the poor girls. The furnishings in the room are not rich, camp-like, but there is something sweet and tasty in the decoration. On the wall hang sketches and, by the way, a woman’s head sketched in pencil. It turns out that Mr. B. is an artist.

– Do you have a good life here? - I ask the lady.

- Okay, but it’s just mosquitoes.

She was not happy about the fresh meat; According to her, she and the children have long been accustomed to corned beef and do not like fresh meat.

A gloomy sailor accompanied me to the boat, who, as if guessing what I wanted to ask him, sighed and said:

– You can’t come here of your own free will!

The next day, early in the morning, we went further in completely calm and warm weather. The Tatar coast is mountainous and abounds in peaks, that is, sharp, conical peaks. It is slightly covered with a bluish haze: this is smoke from distant forest fires, which here, as they say, is sometimes so thick that it becomes no less dangerous for sailors than fog. If a bird had flown straight from the sea through the mountains, it would probably not have met a single dwelling, not a single living soul at a distance of five hundred miles or more... The shore turns cheerfully green in the sun and, apparently, gets along just fine without humans. At six o'clock we were at the very bottleneck Strait, between Capes Pogobi and Lazarev, and saw both shores very closely, at eight we passed by Shapka Nevelskoy - that’s the name of the mountain with a hillock on top that looks like a hat. The morning was bright, brilliant, and the pleasure I felt was intensified by the proud consciousness that I could see these shores.

At two o'clock we entered the Bay of Castries. This is the only place where ships sailing along the strait can take refuge during a storm, and without it, shipping off the Sakhalin coast, which is entirely inhospitable, would be unthinkable. There is even such an expression: “to run away to de-Castri.” The bay is beautiful and designed by nature exactly as ordered. This is a round pond, three miles in diameter, with high banks protecting from the winds, and with a narrow exit to the sea. Judging by its appearance, the bay is ideal, but, alas! - it only seems so; For seven months of the year it is covered with ice, has little protection from the east wind, and is so shallow that steamboats anchor two miles from the shore. The exit to the sea is guarded by three islands, or rather reefs, which give the bay a unique beauty; one of them is called Oyster: very large and fat oysters are found on its underwater part.

There are several houses and a church on the shore. This is Alexander's post. The head of the post, his clerk and telegraph operators live here. One local official who came to dine with us on the ship, a dull and bored gentleman, talked a lot at dinner, drank a lot and told us an old joke about geese that, having eaten berries from the liqueur and got drunk, were taken for dead, plucked and thrown away and then, having slept through it, they returned home naked; at the same time, the official swore that the story with the geese took place in de-Kastri in his own yard. There is no priest at the church, and when needed he comes from Mariinsk. Good weather happens here very rarely, just like in Nikolaevsk. They say that in the spring of this year a measuring expedition worked here and throughout May there were only three sunny days. Please work without the sun!

In the roadstead we found the military vessels "Beaver" and "Tungus" and two destroyers. I remember one more detail: as soon as we dropped anchor, the sky darkened, a thunderstorm gathered and the water took on an unusual, bright green color. “Baikal” had to unload four thousand pounds of government cargo, and therefore they stayed overnight in de-Kastri. To pass the time, the mechanic and I fished from the deck, and we came across very large, thick-headed gobies, the likes of which I had never caught either in the Black or Azov Seas. There was also flounder.

Steamers always unload here for a painfully long time, with irritation and blood damage. However, this is the bitter fate of all our eastern ports. In de-Kastri they unload onto small scow barges, which can only land on the shore during high tide and therefore when loaded they often run aground; It happens that thanks to this, the steamer is idle because of some hundred bags of flour for the entire period of time between low tide and high tide. There is even more unrest in Nikolaevsk. There, standing on the deck of the Baikal, I saw how a towing steamer, dragging a large barge with two hundred soldiers, lost its towing rope; The barge was carried along the roadstead by the current, and it went straight to the anchor chain of a sailing ship that was moored not far from us. We waited with bated breath for one more moment and the barge would be cut by a chain, but, fortunately, good people intercepted the rope in time, and the soldiers escaped with only fear.

On Amur steamships and the Baikal, prisoners are placed on deck along with third class passengers. One day, going out at dawn for a walk on the forecastle, I saw soldiers, women, children, two Chinese and prisoners in shackles sleeping soundly, huddled together; they were covered with dew and it was cool. The guard stood among this heap of bodies, holding his gun with both hands, and was also sleeping.

La Perouse writes that they called their island Choco, but probably the Gilyaks attributed this name to something else, and he did not understand them. Our Krasheninnikov’s map (1752) shows the Chukha River on the western bank of Sakhalin. Does this Chuha have anything in common with Choco? By the way, La Perouse writes that while drawing the island and calling it Choco, the Gilyak also drew a river. Choco translates to "we".

The fact that three serious researchers, as if by agreement, repeated the same mistake speaks for itself. If they did not open the entrance to the Amur, it was because they had at their disposal the meager means for research, and most importantly, as men of genius, they suspected and almost guessed another truth and had to reckon with it. That the isthmus and the Sakhalin Peninsula are not myths, but once actually existed, has now been proven. A detailed history of the study of Sakhalin is available in the book by A. M. Nikolsky “Sakhalin Island and its vertebrate fauna.” In the same book you can also find a fairly detailed index of literature related to Sakhalin.

Details in his book: “The exploits of Russian naval officers in the Far East of Russia. 1849–1855."

Nevelsky's wife, Ekaterina Ivanovna, when traveling from Russia to her husband, rode 1,100 miles in 23 days, being sick, through marshy swamps and wild mountainous taiga and glaciers of the Okhotsk tract. Nevelsky’s most gifted associate, N.K. Boshnyak, who opened the Imperial Harbor when he was only 20 years old, “a dreamer and a child,” as one of his colleagues calls him, says in his notes: “On the Baikal transport we They all moved together to Ayan and there boarded the weak barque Shelekhov. When the bark began to sink, no one could persuade Mrs. Nevelskaya to be the first to move ashore. “The commander and officers are the last to leave,” she said, “and I will leave the barge when not a single woman or child remains on the ship.” So she did. Meanwhile, the bark was already lying on its side...” Boshnyak further writes that, often being in the company of Mrs. Nevelskaya, he and his comrades did not hear a single complaint or reproach - on the contrary, they always noticed in her a calm and proud consciousness of that bitter, but the high position that Providence had destined for her. She usually spent the winter alone, since the men were on business trips, in rooms with 5°C. When ships with provisions did not arrive from Kamchatka in 1852, everyone was in a more than desperate situation. There was no milk for infants, there was no fresh food for the sick, and several people died of scurvy. Nevelskaya gave her only cow for everyone to use; everything that was fresh went to the common benefit. She treated the natives simply and with such attention that even uncouth savages noticed it. And she was then only 19 years old (Lt. Boshnyak. Expedition in the Amur region. - “Sea Collection”, 1859, II). Her husband also mentions her touching treatment of the Gilyaks in his notes. “Ekaterina Ivanovna,” he writes, “sat them (the Gilyaks) in a circle on the floor, near a large cup of porridge or tea, in the only room in our wing, which served as a hall, a living room, and a dining room. While enjoying such a treat, they often patted the hostess on the shoulder, sending her either for tamchi (tobacco) or for tea.”

The Japanese land surveyor Mamia Rinzo, traveling in a boat along the western coast in 1808, visited the Tatar coast at the very mouth of the Amur and sailed from the island to the mainland and back more than once. He was the first to prove that Sakhalin is an island. Our naturalist F. Schmidt speaks with great praise of his map, finding that it is “especially remarkable, since it is obviously based on independent surveys.”

On the purpose of this bay in the present and future, see K. Skalkovsky “Russian trade in Pacific Ocean", page 75.

“Sakhalin Island” is a book by the great writer A.P. Chekhov, written in the form of notes during the author’s trip to the island in one thousand eight hundred and ninety.

Chekhov's journey began with the half-empty city of Nikolaevsky. It was distinguished by its gloomy setting, poor and drunken townspeople who somehow made ends meet and survived mainly on smuggling. In general, the city resembled American Texas.

Also, this city did not have a developed infrastructure, and the writer was unable to find even a hotel for a couple of days. Because of this, he spent 2 nights on the ship, but he had to set off on a return voyage, and Chekhov was left completely without shelter in this city.

The next point on the route was Sakhalin Island, which was mistakenly considered a peninsula in those days. She sailed there on the ship “Baikal”. One day Chekhov took a vulgar stroll onto the deck, he saw ordinary people 3 classes that were cold and covered in dew from early work.

Upon arrival on the island, in the city of Aleksandrovsk, the writer thought that he was in hell, he was so struck by the dense taiga of Sakhalin. In this city, Anton Pavlovich was able to settle in the apartment of a local doctor, who told him many secrets mysterious island. The author sadly observed the injustice towards convicts and convicts. He visited several prisons with their inhumane, unsanitary conditions, humidity, freezing and hunger. Convicts were forced to work exorbitantly long hours in terrible physical conditions - with virtually no clothing or shoes.

Later, Chekhov began taking a census of their population (except for political convicts, to whom he was denied access).

The unpleasant climate added to the difficulties for the residents - the summer was cold, cloudy, snow often fell in June, the autumn was very damp with freezing rain, and the winter months were striking in their severity of frost.

In addition to the prisoners, Chekhov met the main inhabitants of the island - the Gilyaks. They lived so poorly, in special buildings - yurts, their life was hard and joyless, which is why they sinned with alcohol and disdainful attitudes towards the women of their people. However, in human terms they were quite hospitable and welcoming.

Having become familiar with northern part islands, Anton Pavlovich went to its southern part. The indigenous inhabitants there were the Aino, who amazed Chekhov with their elderly women. Their ugliness, aggravated by the blue paint on their lips, was incredible. In appearance they resembled real devils. One more interesting feature was that they ate mainly rice and practically did not use ordinary Russian bread.

After the publication of this book, the Russian public became dismayed by the lives of convicts and indigenous people, resulting in the government being forced to respond. This book shows how harsh conditions our country has, and how indifferent the government was to the lives and everyday life of the people.

Reader's diary.

Nikolaevsk-on-Amur. - Steamship "Baikal". – Cape Pronge and the entrance to the Liman. – Sakhalin Peninsula. - La Perouse, Broughton, Krusenstern and Nevelskoy. – Japanese researchers. - Cape Jaore. - Tatar coast. - De-Kastri.

This is a medium-sized marine type steamer, a merchant, which seemed to me, after the Baikal and Amur steamships, quite tolerable. It makes voyages between Nikolaevsk, Vladivostok and Japanese ports, carrying mail, soldiers, prisoners, passengers and cargo, mainly government goods; under a contract concluded with the treasury, which pays him a substantial subsidy, he is obliged to visit Sakhalin several times during the summer: at the Alexander post and at the southern Korsakov post. The tariff is very high, which is probably not found anywhere else in the world. Colonization, which first of all requires freedom and ease of movement, and high tariffs - this is completely incomprehensible. The wardroom and cabins on the Baikal are cramped, but clean and furnished in a completely European style; there is a piano. The servants here are Chinese with long braids, they are called in English - fight. The cook is also Chinese, but his cuisine is Russian, although all the dishes are bitter from the spicy keri and smell of some kind of perfume, like corylopsis.

Having read about the storms and ice of the Tartar Strait, I expected to meet whalers with hoarse voices on “Baikal”, splashing tobacco chewing gum when talking, but in reality I found quite intelligent people. The commander of the steamship, Mr. L., a native of the western region, has been sailing in the northern seas for more than 30 years and has traveled them length and breadth. In his time he has seen many miracles, knows a lot and talks interestingly. Having spent half his life circling Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands, he, perhaps with more right than Othello, could talk about “the most barren deserts, terrible abysses, inaccessible cliffs.” I owe him a lot of information that was useful to me for these notes. He has three assistants: Mr. B., the nephew of the famous astronomer B., and two Swedes - Ivan Martynych and Ivan Veniaminych, kind and friendly people.

The book “Sakhalin Island” was written by Chekhov in 1891-1893 during his trip to the island in mid-1890. In addition to the author's personal observations, the content travel notes Other information was also included in the form of eyewitness accounts and factual data. Also, according to experts, the creation of the book was strongly influenced by the work of F.M. Dostoevsky "Notes from the House of the Dead".

The main goal that the writer pursued on his journey was to study the lifestyle of “convicts and exiles.” On Sakhalin, Chekhov was engaged in the census of the population, thanks to which he was able to become closely acquainted with local life and the living conditions of prisoners. At the end of the trip, the writer collected a whole “chest” of different stories and facts. When the book was written, Chekhov each time refused to publish individual chapters; he wanted the world to see the entire book. However, in 1892, the author nevertheless agreed to the publication of one chapter in a scientific and literary collection. The book was published in its entirety in 1895.

The story is based on the fate of a convict, whose life has turned into a real hell. Throughout all the chapters there is a description of the life and customs of the settlers, their hard physical labor. The author focuses on the living conditions of people - the state of prisons, hospitals, educational institutions.

The main plot load falls on the chapter “Egor’s Story”. It tells about the fate of a man who, like most other convicts, found himself in a difficult life situation, the only way out of which was to commit a criminal act.

The book had a great influence on the fate of the island, and in particular on the lives of its settlers. Thanks to truthful descriptions of the difficult life of the exiles, government authorities drew attention to their situation and sent their representatives there to clarify the situation and subsequently resolve it.

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The work entitled "Sakhalin Island" was written by such a famous writer as Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. He wrote this work after he visited Sakhalin Island. Before going there in 1890, the writer was dissuaded by absolutely all the people with whom he came into contact, from acquaintances and colleagues to close friends and relatives. The book was written in the form of simple essays that described the ordinary life and life of those people who lived there. Without any authorial embellishment, he described the deplorable state of the hospitals, schools and prisons there. With this work he was able to raise public awareness and draw people's attention to a truly serious problem.

During his visit, Anton Pavlovich was busy writing down the stories of ordinary people that he heard among them, who, by terrible will, found themselves in those truly unbearable and terrible conditions. Some people were so unlucky that they ended up there not for some bad deeds and harm to people, but simply because the authorities of that time could not simply do otherwise. This can best be seen, understood and felt only in the chapter entitled “Egorka’s Stories”. In this chapter, the author describes the difficult life story of one of the convicts, which he hears literally first-hand.

Anton Pavlovich is trying to convey to the whole world how life flows on this small piece of the world, isolated from the normal rest of the world, how people not only live here, but actually survive, how they raise and raise their own children, try to run a household, and how it seems At first glance, they live an ordinary, but completely different life. In this place, time literally froze and there are still very ancient remnants of the past, such as those that existed under serfdom, corporal punishment for offenses, forced bald shaving.

After the book was written, the public finally paid attention to such important problems, thereby Anton Pavlovich Chekhov rendered a great service to all residents of Sakhalin. The information was able to reach the highest echelon of power, thanks to this, all those tortured and tired of such life Sakhalin residents were heard and now a large number of things will change in their way of life. The people of Sakhalin were very grateful to the author and therefore they consider this book one of the main assets of their culture.

Chekhov on the “island of the outcasts” - on Sakhalin. "This is the first Russian writer to travel to Siberia and back"

I

Nikolaevsk-on-Amur. - Steamship "Baikal". – Cape Pronge and the entrance to the Liman. – Sakhalin Peninsula. - La Perouse, Broughton, Krusenstern and Nevelskoy. – Japanese researchers. - Cape Jaore. - Tatar coast. - De-Kastri.

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Picture or drawing Sakhalin Island

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