In the summer of 1892, a Professor Krasnov came to Sakhalin. Wishing to understand the island's nature up close, he followed, in Rykovsk, a neglected route through the Pilinga and further along the Poronai River to Patience Bay. Exiled penal laborers accompanying him in the capacity of guides and porters unabashedly told him about the latest happenings in Tymovsk District. Upon arriving in Russia, the professor published his impressions of the island in the journal Books of the Week, in which he described Khanov's beastly violence toward starving, defenseless people. As if to support his stories, correspondence from Sakhalin began appearing sporadically in the newspaper Vladivostok. The Onor business was finally being spoken of abroad. The administration grew anxious. It would seem to have been necessary to extinguish the fire quickly, that is, to investigate the matter onsite, sack Khanov, make new arrangements, and pay especial attention to those being beaten; but the opposite was immediately done: Khanov was prominently left in charge at Onor and, scandalously, D. S. Klimov was nearly removed; the nascent “Onor Affair” was “put under the rug,” even stricter censorship was imposed on exiles’ letters, and a search was launched to identify among them the Vladivostok correspondent.

Truth be said, the correspondents sometimes overdid it. Alongside writing about the Onor developments, they touched on administrators’ intimate lives and didn't begrudge scandalous petty tales concerning exile-settlers. It was immediately possible to surmise by the articles’ nature that the hand writing them was not that of an educated person but some poorly educated clerk. Nonetheless, the leadership concluded for itself that the correspondent was to be found among Rykovsk settlement's educated exiles.

One day, the commandant came to our district. As per the famous itinerary, he was shown all the sights in Rykovsk settlement. Of course, he was left very satisfied by everything he saw.

Following his tour of the neighboring settlements, my comrades and I were summoned to the police administration's chancery. Supposing the commandant wished to personally familiarize himself with us, we calmly entered into his presence; but, having noticed his stern face, I immediately understood that the conversation to occur would not be of a completely peaceful nature.