Works of A.P. Chekhov, Vol. 10: Sakhalin Island

LIBRARY
OF THE LOCAL COMMITTEE
at the East-Siberian...?

I.

On July 5, 1890, I arrived by steamer at the city of Nikolayevsk, one of the easternmost points of our fatherland. The Amur here is very wide, only 27 approx. 18 miles versts remain to the sea; the place is majestic and beautiful, but the memories of the region's past, the stories of my fellow travelers about the fierce winter and equally fierce local customs, the proximity of the penal colony, and the very sight of the abandoned, dying city completely take away the desire to admire the landscape.

Nikolayevsk was founded not long ago, in 1850, by the renowned Gennady Nevelskoy, and this is perhaps the only bright spot in the city’s history. In the fifties and sixties, when culture was being planted along the Amur without sparing soldiers, prisoners, or settlers, the officials who governed the region resided in Nikolayevsk. Many Russian and foreign adventurers of all kinds flocked here; settlers settled, enticed by the extraordinary abundance of fish and game, and apparently the city was not alien to human interests, as there was even an instance where one visiting scientist found