The essays presented here came to the author from having lived on Sakhalin for eight years. Having personally experienced various situations in an exile life, he has decided to write down the most outstanding events of his Sakhalin “purgatory.” In 1898, Mr. A. P. Salomon, director of the Main Prison Administration, visited the island of outcasts, and here is the bitter conclusion he drew from his detailed examination of all conditions of the exiles’ penal labor existence:

As such, the various reforms of recent times have barely grazed this place of banishment, and exiles’ lives have up to now remained in nearly the same conditions as when the author resided on Sakhalin.

The essays presented here were first published in the first seven issues of History News, in 1900. Certain revisions and additions have been made to the current text. The illustrations are derived from real-life photographs courteously shared by History News editors misters B. O. Pilsudski, A. A. Suvorov, V. L. Komarov, and V. V. Sakharov, as well as from Mr. Budagianets's photographs of Vladivostok.