Krillon peninsula. The Krillon Peninsula: A Story of Betrayal

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In the 1950s, at the southernmost tip of Cape Crillon, there was a small monument made of natural stone and erected, according to the recollections of old-timers, in 1945. By the decision of the Sakhalin Regional Executive Committee of March 9, 1971, No. 98, the monument was placed under state protection.

Part of the route runs along the territory of the zoological natural monument of regional significance "Cape Kuznetsova". The territory of the natural monument is the only year-round rookery for sea lions and seals in the south of Sakhalin. The valley of the Kuznetsovka River is home to many rare plant species and a nesting site for rare bird species. The main objects of protection: rookeries of sea lions and seals; nesting places for rare bird species; habitats of rare and endemic plant species listed in the Red Data Books of the Russian Federation and the Sakhalin Region

Security mode: water route does not pass through a specially protected natural area; in case of organizing a walking tour, it is necessary to familiarize oneself with the regime of protection of the natural monument of regional significance “Cape Kuznetsova”.

Route description

The route is very popular. Among Sakhalin tourists, it is interesting for pedestrians, jeepers and water tourists traveling on motor-sailing ships or sea kayaks. The route is replete with a large number of capes, difficult-to-pass pressure areas, complicated by the lack of settlements. This route is especially interesting if you observe the shores of the Krillon Peninsula from the sea, traveling on small boats.

The route can start from the village of Shebunino, which can be reached by vehicles of any cross-country ability. The first amazing place that a traveler sees from the sea is Cape Vindis and Mount "Kovrizhka", which is located on the cape and is a rock with a flat top and steep, almost sheer walls. From a distance, the cape looks like an island: when viewed from the north and south it is trapezoidal, and from the west it is square. Around this rock you can see many large stones of different shapes and types, crabs and seals are also found here. Several archaeological sites of ancient people were found on the flat top of the cape (78 meters high).

The name Cape Vindis is translated from the Ainu language as "bad dwelling". The Ainu called the capes which were dangerous to go around by boat and had to be bypassed along the coast as bad, bad capes. For its trapezoidal shape, the mountain on the cape is also called "Kovrizhka". It is possible to climb to the top of the mountain only along its eastern slope overgrown with forbs, but it is quite difficult to overcome the last 7-8 meters without special equipment.

Further along the route, there is another interesting place - a zoological natural monument "Cape Kuznetsova". This place is also notable for the beauty of the coast. In the direction of the southwest, a strip of sheer cliffs with heights of up to 50-60 meters stretches for 2300 meters. Of the geomorphological objects, one can distinguish giant "fingers", "arches", "gates" - all this is scattered in a picturesque disorder not far from the coast. The shores themselves hang menacingly over the surface of the water, forming huge wave-breaking niches. The extensive bench zone extends into the strait about 600-800 meters, so in calm sunny weather the waves do not reach the coast. In the south, the cape ends in a rock that resembles a man's face in profile.

At present, in the lower reaches of the Kuznetsovka River, there is Noah's Ark - this is how the people call the subsidiary farm of the Cape Kuznetsova enterprise. This closed place is fenced off by a cordon, behind which the ecovillage is located. There is a small church on the territory of the ecovillage. And indeed, who and what is not here - horses, pigs, goats, rams, turkeys, ducks, geese graze on the seashore. Wild animals also found shelter - porcupine, ostriches, Yashka the fox, Masha the bear.

In the central part of Cape Kuznetsov (the Japanese called him Sonya), at the very tip there is the Kuznetsovo lighthouse, built by the Japanese in 1914. Its height above sea level is 78.5 meters. Previously, the cape and the bay were called Sony, which in translation from the Ainu means columnar stones or reefs and reflects the peculiarities of this place.

The southern tip of Cape Kuznetsov turns into a two-kilometer beach stretching into westward to the long and narrow Cape Zamirailova Golova. The cape is 87.5 meters high. There is a trigger point at the top. The elongated cape is surrounded from the north by the Kamoi bay, on which there are sandy beaches, from the south is Cape Zamirailova Golova.

Moving south, the route comes to the long-awaited Cape Crillon - the southern point of the peninsula. This is one large Japanese fortified area, where you can walk for weeks in search of military pillboxes, underground passages, guns, trenches. In these places, it is worth visiting the Krillon lighthouse with a height of more than 8 meters, which has a unique and long history, as well as a monument erected on the cape in honor of the soldiers who died during the liberation of southern Sakhalin in 1945. It is recommended to take a day off at Cape Crillon to explore the local attractions. There is a frontier post on the cape, where you need to note about the visit. Also, for the movement of small vessels, notification of the border service is required.

Further, the route will go along the other side of Sakhalin along the Aniva Bay already in a northern direction through the interesting and beautiful capes of Anastasia, Kanabeev and ends at the mouth of the Uryum River ( old village Kirillovo). Fishing camps are often found along this section, and fixed seines in the sea (care must be taken on small boats!). From the Uryum River you can go by road to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.

In general, when entering a route on a small vessel, it is necessary to take into account the risks associated with the weather, it changes very quickly in this area. When passing Cape Crillon, it is necessary to take into account the rifts and constant currents of the La Perouse Strait.

List of attractions and objects of tourist display: Cape Vindis, Cape Kuznetsov, sea lion rookery at Cape Kuznetsov, Cape Crillon, p. Atlasov, Cape Kanabeev; along the entire route, beautiful landscapes, picturesque sea and hills open up.

Arrival and departure from the route: you can reach the beginning of the route by vehicles of any passability to the village of Shebunino; Departure from the route runs from the mouth of the Uryum River (Kirillovo village).

Options for an emergency approach, departure or exit: on the section of the route from the village of Shebunino to Cape Krillon, you can leave the route by off-road vehicles. Of particular difficulty by car is the Kuznetsov Cape Pass and the pressure in front of Krillon. It is also possible to leave by off-road vehicles on the eastern section of Krillon from the Uryum River to the Mogucha River (a particular difficulty is the passage of cars through river mouths). On the section from Cape Crillon to the Mogucha River, exit from the route is possible only on foot (through Cape Kanabeev, no passage) or by water transport.

Parking places and their description. It is easy to choose a good camp: large meadows, a sufficient amount of firewood, clear water of shallow streams flowing into the sea, will make it as comfortable as possible to equip the camp.

The most interesting and convenient parking areas:

1. Cape Vindis - north side, there is a small stream, a good meadow, little firewood.

2. Cape Kuznetsova (Komoya Bay) - beautiful cozy place, sheltered from the wind, lots of firewood, water from small streams.

3. The mouth of the Pekarnya river (a ravine in front of Cape Crillon) - convenient parking, good water, firewood along the beach.

4. Cape Anastasia - a convenient bucket for settling in bad weather, the territory is polluted with man-made debris, a fishing camp is often located.

Conclusion

The purpose of the work is to consider and identify the tourist opportunities of the Krillon Peninsula and assess natural conditions and the resources of the peninsula for the development of tourism.

To achieve this goal, a number of tasks were set before the work:

1.Geographical position the peninsula determines its uniqueness. The Krillon Peninsula is a rather unique place for its beauty. The landscapes of the peninsula are rich in their history, as well as pleasantly surprise with a variety of fauna and flora. Here you can find rare plants and observe various animals and birds. On the Krillon Peninsula, the places of settlement of the former population of the peninsula - the Japanese and the Ainu - have been partially preserved to this day. The bucket port and Cape Kanabeev, which is a historical monument, are also unique.

2. A large number of natural and historical monuments, some of which are difficult to access, in addition to their uniqueness, this attracts tourists even more.

3. Despite all the beauty of this place, the peninsula is far from tourist place... There are no excursions and tours here, there is no tourist bases... This is due to the fact that there are two currents near the Krillon peninsula. Cold from the Sea of Okhotsk and warm from the Tatar Strait, which ensures windy and rainy weather. You can get here only by car or on your own, by organizing a hike. In any case, unfavorable weather conditions do not stop those who decided to visit this unique peninsula.

Bibliography

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2. Gorbunov S.V. Zoomorphic figurines from the Ivanovka site // Research on the archeology of Sakhalin and Kuril Islands... II. Conference abstracts. Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 1989.S. 14-15.

3. Gorbunov S.V. Catalog of archaeological collections of the Nevelskoy Museum of Local Lore // Code of Archaeological Monuments of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Issue 2. YuzhnoSakhalinsk, 1996.

4. Gluzdovsky V.E. Catalog of the Museum of the Society for the Study of the Amur Region // Notes of the Society for the Study of the Amur Region (Vladivostok Branch of the Amur Department of the IRGO). 4.1, vol. IX. Vladivostok, Printing house "Trade and Industrial Bulletin Of the Far East". 1907, p. 121.

5. Ito Nobuo. Earthen fortifications of the Chinese type on Karafuto // Bulletin of the Sakhalin Museum. No. 3, 1996.

6. Klitin A.K. Rediscovering Sakhalin: Backpacking across Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. - Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk: Sakhalin - Priamurskie vedomosti Publishing House, 2010. - 304 p.

7. Klitin A.K., Brovko P.F., Gorbunov A.O. Waterfalls. Series "Natural history of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands" / Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk: state budgetary institution of culture "Sakhalin Regional Museum of Local Lore", 2013. - 168 p.

8. Multimedia Encyclopedia "Reserved Areas" / Sakhalin Regional Public Organization "Boomerang" Club, 2010

9. Niyoka T., Utagawa H. Archaeological sites in southern Sakhalin. Sapporo, 1990 (in Japanese).

10. Monuments and memorable places Korsakovsky district / MU "Centralized library system of the Korsakovsky district". - Korsakov, 2008

11. Pervukhina E.L. , M.Yu. Lozovoy, S.V. Gorbunov. Aleksandrovskoe coast Trillium. - Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk: Publishing house of KANO, 2001. - pp. 110 - 121.

12. Pervukhin S.M., M.Yu. Lozovoy, S.V. Gorbunov. Peninsula Krillon Trillium. - Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk: Publishing house of KANO, 2001. - pp. 93 - 110.

13. Pervukhina, M.Yu. Lozovoy. Narrow-gauge steam locomotives of the Agnevo mine // Bulletin of the Sakhalin Museum. No. 6. Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 1999. S. 350 -355.

14. Plotnikov N.V. Archaeological prospecting in the Nevelsky district in 1990 // Local history bulletin, 1991.

15. Prokofiev M.M., Deryugin V.A. Gorbunov S.V. Pottery of the Satsumon culture and its findings on Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 1990.

16.Rivers of Sakhalin / Sakhalin Energy Invest Company Ltd. - Vladivostok: Apelsin Publishing House, 2013.156 pp.

17. Ryzhavsky G.Ya., Tashoyan F.V., Across Sakhalin and the Kuriles. 1994 .-- 176 p.

18. Samarin IA .. The Krillonsky detachment // Bulletin of the Sakhalin Museum. No. 1, 1995. S. 3-18.

19. Samarin IA .. Cape Kanabeeva // Bulletin of the Sakhalin Museum. No. 5, 1998. S. 26-39.

20. Samarin IA .. Cape Anastasia // Bulletin of the Sakhalin Museum. No. 6, 1999. S. 43-65.

21. Samarin I.A., Shubina O.A. Results of the survey of monuments of history and archeology on the peninsula in the field season of 1996 // Regional Studies Bulletin, 1997. No. 4. P. 19-58.

22. Samarin IA. Lighthouses of Sakhalin // Local history bulletin. No. 1, 1994.

23. Samarin I.A. Lighthouses of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, 2005

24. Samarin I.A. Monuments military glory Sakhalin region, 2000

25. Samarin IA .. "Sivuch" off the coast of Sakhalin // Local history bulletin. No. 1, 1996.

26. Samarin I.A. , O. A. Shubina. The current state of the settlement of Siranusi // Bulletin of the Sakhalin Museum. No. 4, 1997.

27. Svyatozar Demidovich Galtsev-Bezyuk / Toponymic dictionary Sakhalin Oblast, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk: Far Eastern Book Publishing House, Sakhalin Branch, 1992

28. Hirokawa Yosinaga, Yamada Goro. About the current state of the Siranusi earth fortress // Bulletin of the Sakhalin Museum. No. 4, 1997.

29. Sharova S.S. Traveling around the native land: excursion routes and tours around the island of Sakhalin: tourist guide / Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk: Publishing house IROSO, 2014. - 356 p.

30. Shubin V.O., Shubina O.A. The sites of primitive man in southern Sakhalin // Research in the archeology of the Sakhalin region. Vladivostok, 1977.S. 62-102.

Applications

a) Decision No. 329 of 15.09.1982 of the Sakhalin Regional Council of People's Deputies:

Approve the Regulation; to extend the period by 10 years - in order to protect and reproduce rare and valuable animals: sable, otters, released for the acclimatization of Canadian beavers (by that time dead!), eagles, hazel grouse, sea and water birds, taimen, sima, pink salmon, and also protection of their habitat.

The reserve performs the functions of maintaining the integrity of natural communities, preserving, reproducing and restoring valuable in economic, scientific and cultural relations, as well as rare and endangered wild animals.

Restrictions have been established for the following activities:

a) hunting and fishing,

b) tourism and other forms organized recreation population,

c) collecting mushrooms, berries, medicinal and ornamental plants,

d) the use of pesticides,

e) off-road traffic.

It should be noted that all this time, young cattle were grazing in the floodplains of spawning rivers. Every year, cattle bears took their tribute, for which they were shot. Here the huntsman Kartavyh hunted a bear, whose skull at the international trophy exhibition turned out to be larger than Ceausescu's trophy.

Decision of the Sakhoblispolkom No. 391 of 23.12.1987 "On partial amendment of the Regulations on the state defense order" Peninsula Krillon "No. 329":

The restriction on fishing, introduced in 1982, contributed to an increase in the number of various fish species living in the reservoirs of the reserve. Taking into account the proposal of the department of the hunting economy, I decided:

Introduced in clause 3.5. Regulation No. 329 the following addition:

Amateur fishing is allowed on the territory of the reserve. For carrying out biological reclamation in rivers and catching weed fish, it is allowed, as an exception, to use nets under permits issued by the hunting administration. Control is entrusted to the gamekeepers. Chairman of the regional executive committee I. I. Kuropatko.

For reference, in the period preceding this decision, the fish protection inspectorate confiscated up to 36 large taimen per day from violators. Since then, a massive invasion began on the peninsula. The local district administration tried to get their hands on the process - they introduced an entry fee. The reserve served, and still serves, as a place for "royal" hunting and fishing. For example, during Putin's visit, Chernomyrdin was with him, who, instead of boring excursions, went to Tambovka and killed a bear. It is also the site of a fierce battle for influence between local fisheries and game management.

Memorandum "On the expediency of preserving the status of the Cape Krilyon reserve":

The number of rare fish, birds and wild animals, for which the sanctuary was supposedly created, has reached a critical point of complete extinction today. The district receives practically no production and no income through the reserve. On the basis of the above, I consider it inexpedient to further extend the status of the Cape Krillon reserve, I propose to use these lands for the development of small businesses and farms. Art. State Inspector of the Aniva Fish Protection Inspectorate Aisin N.T. 1992

In the 90s, there was a rapid growth of fisheries. It is limited only by the inaccessibility of the area and the lack of valuable objects. Repeated attempts to restore at least some kind of order fail. The most harmful is the spring fishing for miscellaneous fish. Local rivers still perform well the functions of reproduction of pink salmon - in odd years the spawning grounds overflow and deaths are possible. Therefore, it is possible to remove pink salmon from the rivers, since fishing with sea fixed seines is ineffective here. At the same time, the by-catch of juvenile kunja, rudd and taimen is significant. There is also limited fishing for seal and kelp.

b) Order of the Sakhalin Region Administration dated 12.24.2002.

In accordance with paragraph "a" of Article 18 and Articles 19 of the Law of the Sakhalin Region dated 02.10.2000 No. 214 "On the Development of Specially Protected Areas of the Sakhalin Region": To cancel the status of the state hunting reserve of regional significance "Krillon Peninsula". I.P. Farkhutdinov, regional governor.

The game managers managed to get rid of the problem area very easily. The following wording was used: "the goals of stabilizing the number of wild animals and birds, including those listed in the Red Book, are fully achieved." None of the independent experts confirmed this, and there was no environmental impact assessment. In fact, the reserve failed at least to protect and reproduce taimen and sima. Since March 2002, several meetings of various levels have been held on the Krillon issue. A variant was proposed of organizing a specially protected natural area, new for the Russian Far East, - a salmon reserve under the management of Sakhalinrybvod.

By the order of the governor, a reserve was established on the Krillon peninsula:

At the request of the deputies and the administration of the Aniva district, at present, the Department of Fisheries and the Committee of Natural Resources are working on the creation of a biological and ichthyological reserve on the Krillon Peninsula.

In order to maintain law and order on the territory of the peninsula, suppress poaching, as well as taking into account the fire hazardous period and the upcoming salmon fishing season, on April 30, the regional governor signed an order instructing the departments of the timber and fishing complexes to ensure, together with the regional hunting administration, the closure of free access across the Uryum River to all legal and individuals, who does not have in his hands a special pass signed by all three controlling services. Thus, nature conservation measures allow preserving relict forests and maternity hospital salmon in Aniva Bay. Press center of the Sakhalin Region Administration, April 30, 2003

Unfortunately, the title of this post contains typical misinformation. At one time, Sakhalinrybvod really advocated the creation of an ichthyological reserve with a ban on salmon fishing. There was a wave of publications in the media about this - "Krillon is not dead", "Krillon will live", "Salmon sanctuary". But at the decisive meeting on April 28, 2003, the head of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Zatulyakin A.V. abandoned the intention to take this territory under special protection. Governor Farkhutdinov ordered to spend Putin and return to consideration of the question of the expediency of the reserve in November 2003. Yes, he did not have time.

Posted on Allbest.ru

Day one: south again

In the middle of September there were free days: now, for sure, to Cape Crillon! But a friend persuaded him to go to Spamberg Mountain instead. We spent four days on the slopes of this thousand-meter, but we could not conquer the summit because of the fierce resistance of bamboo and dwarf cedar.

We returned to the city on Friday, and already on Sunday, having packed my backpack, at 14:20 I took a regular bus to Aniva - at last my trek to the Krillon Peninsula began. Outside the city, having stopped a jeep, I got to the village of Taranay. For Taranay, things went badly with hitchhiking - no one picked it up, and from Taranay itself to Cape Crillon I walked on foot.

After walking a couple of kilometers along the road, I decided to go to the seashore, since the road went further in hills.

The coast of the Krillon Peninsula stretched far to the south, and on the other side of the gulf, the barely visible, as if illusory, islets of the Tonino-Aniva Peninsula were turning blue.

The Crillon Peninsula is named after the promontory it ends with, and the promontory, in turn, was named by the French navigator Jean-Francois La Perouse in honor of the legendary French warrior Louis de Crillon. The history of the peninsula is rich: wars and international trade in the Middle Ages, colonization of the Karafuto period, espionage passions in the post-war period, etc.

A month ago I walked along that coast of the bay to Cape Aniva - the extreme southeastern point of Sakhalin. On a real trip, I pursued the goal of visiting the southernmost point of the island. These trips were part of the concept of visiting all five extreme points of Sakhalin. The end of the earth is the end of the earth, to beckon with its transcendence and mystery. Striving to get to the ends of the earth, according to one good man may have its roots in the cult of ancient hunters.

The concept of autonomous existence and free movement has fascinated me for a long time: a tent, a sleeping bag, a sleeping mat, provisions, matches, a gas burner with a gas cylinder, a headlamp, a change of clothes - all this allows free movement in space and weighs only 12-15 kg. Of course, such a way of life presupposes certain hardships and hardships, but still no ideological propaganda can be compared with it, calling for "taking everything from life."

Aniva Bay ... Long-suffering, which is just not flooded in it: according to unofficial data, there are so many RTGs alone that Fukushima nervously smokes on the sidelines. It is no longer necessary to talk about a heap of sunken ships with fuel oil and all kinds of chemicals.

There are many jeeps and other cars on the coast. Ordinary people have a rest, fishermen set up their nets, children play in the sand, dogs scamper along the shore. The coast is littered.

I hasten to go through the hustle and bustle of the people. They call me. A boy of about twenty-five or eight years old, kind of a collective farm, politely interested in my person. We talk. Politely admires my trip. Shakes hands goodbye.

After walking a few hundred meters, I heard a shout: from an inflatable boat not far from the coast, a fixed fisherwoman offers fish.

Is free! he adds.

I refuse with a smile, referring to the lack of space in my backpack (and there is no time to cook), but the mood is excellent: our people are good-natured!

Dusk fell. We need to set up camp. Pleased with the abundance of wood thrown ashore - there will be no problems with a fire.

I stop by a deep river. I set up a tent, light a fire.

On the side of the river is a fishing camp. From there, two bodies in orange fishing jackets are heading towards me. One of them, going to the water's edge, shouts to me "Hey!" and waves his hand. I'm coming over.

If I see that you are putting on a network! .. - a cheeky, thuggish threatening tirade is heard.

I make it clear that he is wrong about the network.

The guy gives up his position and adds a note of apology to his speech:

You’re sorry, of course, that in such a tone, but here recently two spent the night. In the morning I looked, they set up the net and caught two of them. And we have RUZ standing here, waiting for the fish to come.

Changing the subject:

Is the water in the river drinking?

And in response to an affirmative answer, I ask a new question:

Will you give me sugar tomorrow morning, or forgot to take it at home in a hurry?

The fisherman turned out to be trouble-free.

Another feature of this area that struck me was the presence of evil mosquitoes. It's a strange thing, on the slopes of Spamberg, in the taiga they were not, but here they are raging! What an anomaly ?! Despite the autumn cold, they are as active as in summer.

From behind the mountains on the opposite bank, an orange waning moon swam up. The lights of that coast, the bright stars in the sky, the Milky Way ... Firewood is blazing merrily. The taiga firewood of the Spamberg Mountains did not really want to burn, but these straight lives are happy.

I hang up.

Day two: complete freedom, tides and an aura of legend around the Kartavy family

Wake up at 6:50. Very cold. From three o'clock in the morning I could not sleep: from the cold coming from the depths of the earth and penetrating through the tent, sleeping mat and sleeping bag, everything was broken - after all, mid-September. At dawn it became more cheerful: the mountains and the expanse of the bay cleared up, the lights of the ships shone and settlements.

The first thing to do was set up a fire - you need to warm up. The most amazing thing, in spite of everything, got enough sleep: uncomfortable conditions keep the body (and soul) in good shape.

The firewood on the coast is good: it bursts into flames, giving precious warmth. At this time of day and at this time of year, the environment is saturated with indescribable colors.

Having finished packing, I wade the river and go out to the camp. Fishermen are sitting on the embankment, among them is my yesterday's interlocutor. As promised, he gave sugar, even more than half a kilo, will definitely pull. The fishermen liven up: the appearance of the traveler brings at least some movement into their monotonous reality (to wait all day for the fish to come!). As usual, they gave a bunch of advice on the road.

I walk along the coast lit by the morning sun. "Absolute freedom!" - sang Romych Neumoev from "Instructions for Survival". What could be better than free unlimited movement in space? .. For all that, this is not just aimless wandering around the world, but whole scientific journeys. It is scientific travel that the ideologist of the hitchhiker Anton Krotov calls such adventures. Travel is always an expansion of the horizons of knowledge: new lands, new people, new impressions, and most importantly, new experience.

I am approaching the liquidated village of Kirillovo. Until recently, there was a border outpost here, there was a cordon that controlled the passage to the territory of the reserve (the Krillon peninsula is a reserve). The outpost was disbanded, and all and sundry rushed here in a free stream, and now there is a courtyard.

I am met by a rusty all-terrain vehicle, or rather, its frame. Monument of the past power Soviet army.

In the distance, a lonely tower rises. There is nothing to protect. Sakhalin is no longer a border area, but a free-action zone. There is nothing to be done, nowadays the world is run by other concepts: instead of industrialization - ferrous metal, instead of a sound state ideology - hurray-patriotism. I had to see enough of the country plundered military units.

I wade across the wide Uryum River. The rivers of the east coast of Crillon, as I have seen from my own experience, are quite full-flowing.

I hit the camp. The dog barks. A tall man of about fifty with a beard comes out. I asked him for bread. He gave crackers - not bad either, even better: they will not grow moldy. My new friend's name is Vadim. He is from Krasnoyarsk. I came here in my car on the fishing line, but there were very few fish (in 2013): Vadim was sadly wondering how much money he would need to return home. She says she misses her little granddaughter. It turns out that Vadim is a truck driver and has traveled all over the country. And on the shore of a distant island, far from federal highways, the eternal brotherhood of hitchhikers and truckers was discovered.

Vadim and the dog accompanied me a little.

I am passing an interesting coast.

The high bank is formed by sandstone. The slope "melted" out of itself the face of the mutant.

After lunch I go out to the mouth of the Maksimovka River. There is a large camp here. A little man came out, about fifty years old, in a leather jacket, decked (there are people who look elegant in any circumstances). He introduced himself as Sasha. He guards the camp until spring. This has been the case for several years. He likes it here, and when he is at home, in Chekhov, he is drawn here. It's especially good here in winter, he adds.

Not far from him is another camp, which is guarded by a young boy. They go to visit each other.

Recently I am walking away from him in the evening. It was dark, a candle with a flashlight. I see - the bear is following me, I both shouted and drove him away, and he kept following me all the way to the house, until he turned into the thicket.

Sasha gave me tea and fed me with huge delicious pancakes, cooked by him on coffee powder. He gave me crackers, pancakes, and mosquito ointment for my journey. Once again, I came to the conclusion that they will not give an abyss in our lost world: they will feed, give to drink and give everything with themselves.

While we were having tea, Sasha said that this year there was no fishing season. He personally earned only 650 rubles (!) At the fish factory in Aniva for the whole season.

Sasha accompanied me with a young playful cat Sima.

She, like a dog, walks along the coast with me.

The Ulyanovka River flows nearby. From here began my incessant struggle with the elements and adventures on this wayward peninsula.

The river itself is rather big, and then the sea tide began to come, the waves go straight into the river. I was wading, but the depth did not allow crossing the river. Slightly upstream - a Japanese bridge, but it was destroyed.

I found a way out of the situation: with the help of a pole, I groped for a scythe in the sea, where it was possible to go up to the waist in water (the shallowest depth), and, carrying my backpack on my shoulders, making a detour into the sea, I walked slowly.

The sun, bending to the west, set over the high coast, a shadow moved on the coast.

The tide is pressing. I walk over the stones: a strip of small boulders has begun.

A broken TV set perched on the logs. Original: in remote places there is such an echo of civilization. As if someone (fishermen, bears) was sitting on logs, watching TV and, having broken the screen with stones, went home.

Here is the refrigerator. On the western coast of the Tonino-Aniva Peninsula, a month ago, I quite came across household rubbish.

Until every next cape I walk with bated breath: what will open behind it? ..

Another water obstacle is the Kura River. I cross this river up to my throat in water and with a backpack on my head. However, this is a high tide, at low tide you can probably walk up to the waist.

I went to the opposite bank on the spit. There is a fishing camp in about three hundred meters. The boy who met me said that some uncle Sasha and Oleg Kartavykh settled down a little further. Kartavyh ?! Familiar surname!

After passing two kilometers - it has already begun to get dark - I see: the camp is not a camp, but some kind of gazebos, houses, etc. At the mouth of the river (Kolkhoznaya river), cut carcasses of seals lie in an artificial dam. Alarmed.

There is a jeep nearby. Two men came out to meet them.

Yeah, here he is the son of a famous father. However, the presence of seal carcasses in the reservoir does not allow me to completely trust:

I've seen seals butchered here, aren't you poachers by any chance?

The owner changed slightly in his face, but without taking his eyes off me, he immediately found a suitable biting answer:

No, we are just catching travelers, butchering and burying them, - and he added with pretentious passion, - what kind of poachers are we to you ?! The reserve is here, everything is legal. I myself would shoot these poachers. Come in and spend the night with us. We'll have supper now.

Oleg Kartavykh is a St. John's wort, the son of Fyodor Leontyevich Kartavykh, a famous hunting expert, senior huntsman Krillon, who at one time supervised the peninsula. His grave is on the Naiche River. There, next to him, his wife is buried. I read about Fyodor Leontievich in the story of a Sakhalin writer shortly before this campaign.

After Batey there was no one in his place. And when in 2006 the outpost in Kirillovo was removed, anarchy generally set in on Krillon, - Oleg stated the sad fact.

This frontier post, it seems, did not so much protect the frontier zone from spies, saboteurs and foreign invasions, as from local barbarians.

Here is a border guard sitting, he sees you go: he wanted - let you in, did not want - he sent to FIG.

During dinner, Oleg told a lot of interesting things about his father. Fedor Leontyevich, among other things, became famous for the fact that he eliminated a huge cannibal bear on the peninsula, which devoured its own kind. The monstrous bear chose a place for itself where the river makes a turn: it lay over a three-meter cliff and waited for a victim. He hears steps on the water and jumps in front of the dazed bear. Fills it up, hides the carcass and lies down again.

And now this cannibal bear lies in its ambush, - says Oleg, - hears: steps. Jumping off a cliff, and in front of him is not a bear, but ... Fyodor Leontievich!

Oleg, with a sense of natural pride in his father, continues:

The gutted carcass of this giant weighed 520 kg! At VDNKh, his skull took first place. And when they wanted to send to Europe (European competition), a snag came out: our intelligence found out that the skull of the trophy bear Ceausescu was smaller. It was decided not to humiliate Ceausescu - the trophy of some Fedor Leontievich, you see, is more than Ceausescu's trophy! - and thus not to spoil relations with Romania, and the batin bear was not exhibited in Europe. This is all politics, so that it was empty!

Oleg Sanya's laconic partner was sitting at the table next to me. We were treated to soup and pelengas.

Eat everything, we already ate during this time.

When the cannibal bear was overwhelmed, they found five or six of the bears he had killed buried in it, '' Oleg continued the topic briskly.

I don’t like it when they boast, - he developed the idea, - that, they say, they killed a bear from three hundred meters, etc. They would try, like Fyodor Leontyevich, to have a deal with bears.

Yes, the ancestors went to bear not only with a gun, but with a spear, and often won in a fair fight. In our time, hunting prowess lowers its bar as small arms are improved. Everything is relative.

And are you not afraid to walk alone among the bears like this? - St. John's wort looks at me with a small amount of irony.

But somehow there is no fear, it's a familiar thing, - I answer.

You have been attacked by a bear at least once. Not? But he attacked me ... You would have spoken differently.

The bear seems to be a calm creature. I even heard that he is afraid of a person. You just need not to provoke him ...

Wielding a spoon, Oleg grinned, casting a glance at me:

And who knows what is on his mind. Here we are sitting here with you, eating, and you suddenly take a knife and chop us all. Who knows you ?! So is the bear.

Sitting in a gazebo against the backdrop of a twilight bay and distant high shores, we talked with Oleg for life.

In the deepening darkness we went to sleep. A bit unusual: there is no electric light, and you have to go to bed early.

According to Oleg Kartavykh, it is 27 kilometers from the barrier of the village of Kirillovo to its camp. Thus, in a day I made about 30 km.

Day three: hospitable fishing camps, Sakhalin jungle and Cape Anastasia

We woke up at seven in the morning from a loud voice:

Sanya! Get up!

It was Oleg who woke up his partner.

Get up, get up! It is necessary to collect things.

Today they roll up and leave the camp. At noon, the tide begins, and you need to have time to collect belongings, disassemble the houses and slip along the low tide to the north.

The sky was dark. However, the forecast promised just that: it would rain on Tuesday morning.

The motto of Fyodor Leontyevich Kartavykh was: "If you can't do it, don't promise, if you swing it, hit it."

With such parting words, Oleg and Sanya took me on the road. At parting, Oleg gave me his mobile number.

It was 8:30 in the morning. It was dripping with rain. After a while, it began to drip more persistently, and a heavy rain began, which overnight soaked me to the skin.

Soon the buildings appeared: after walking about 8 km, I came to the banks of the Naychi River (it is there that the grave of F.L. Kartavykh and his wife is located). On the northern bank of the river is the camp. As I was told the day before, a certain Petrovich lives here.

The camp is huge. I knock on the door. A chubby fellow came out, calling himself Sergei. Petrovich himself was in the trailer. After a while, the three of us were already having breakfast in the dining room of the camp. Petrovich is a hardened bearded man in venerable years, he has lived in these parts since 1989. Everyone on the east coast of Crillon knows him. In turn, he was personally acquainted with F.L. Kartavykh.

Treating me to smoked duck with rice, Petrovich told me how three years ago two young Englishwomen, who were sailing to Japan in canoes, spent the night in this camp. I recognized them immediately: one of them was Sara Outen. She went around the world and moved through Sakhalin to Japan: from Krillon to Wakkanai by the La Perouse Strait. I then worked in certain structures and dealt with her issue.

In the evening, I saw a kayak docked. Two girls got out of it and set up a tent on the shore, - recalls Petrovich, - I tell them: bears roam here, I don’t go to the toilet without a gun. In short, he invited them to spend the night inside.

According to Petrovich, there was a Japanese village with a school in this place. No wonder, with the Japanese, all South Sakhalin was built up and inhabited. In the foothills of Mount Spamberg, we met many fields of considerable size - the hardworking Japanese were struggling to expand their doomed empire.

After breakfast, I crossed the full-flowing Naicha, which carried its waters almost under the windows of the dining room, in the bogs that Petrovich had lent me, and, leaving them under a snag on the other side, as agreed, went on. In the distance, near the hills, horses were grazing. The Krillon Peninsula is famous for them.

After almost 8 kilometers of travel, under streams of rain, I notice an Orthodox cross in the hills crowning a chapel hidden behind wet trees - I went to the mouth of the Mogucha River, on the banks of which another camp was located.

A cow and rams graze on the territory of the camp. The dog is running. I notice a woman rushing into the house. I hurry after her, knocking on the door. The door opens, and a woman who has just entered, and an oriental man with a bandana on his head are looking at me. The phrase with which I was met spoke volumes:

You are my dear man!

It was Olga, the mistress of the house, who expressed sympathy for my completely soaked state. Alik immediately offered to change. After examining the chapel on the hill, I ate three cups of hot borscht, listening to the story of these kindest people. Olga came with Altai Territory, she has been working here as a cook for the fourth year. A husband and five children are at home. A year or two ago I went to visit my family and since then I could not leave - there was still not enough money. Moreover, this year there was almost no fish. Alika was also leaving her life, and he has been here for the third year without getting out (!).

Here, in fact, is not only a camp, but also a recreation center. In the warm season, every weekend there are parties for wealthy people: music, barbecue, etc.

Olga shows me on her digital camera photographs of local life: fishing, livestock, working days. It’s like some kind of deja vu: in July of the same year, when I was making my way along the road from Cape Pogibi to the east, crossing Sakhalin, the same hospitable hostess showed me photographs on a laptop at a meal in a pipe-walker's hut in a deep taiga. Apparently, a whole type of such women has developed.

I draw your attention to the presence of mosquitoes during this rather cold season. Alik says, citing the exact data of his observations, that they appeared on the coast on September 6, and Olga explains the reason: the summer was dry, hot, up to 30 degrees in the shade, so mosquitoes, supposedly, were waiting for a favorable time.

Having eaten borscht, drunk hot coffee and warmed up, despite Alik's insistent suggestions to stay overnight (although it's still a day outside), I move on. Having embraced goodbye with the owners who accompanied me to the river, I wade (while the tide is low) Mighty and continue my way south.

I look with hope at the gloomy sky, from which the water is rapidly falling: as never before, a wet traveler wants the sun.

The most difficult stage of the path lies ahead - the trek along the top, along the ridge, bypassing the Hirano rocks and Cape Konabeyevka. I was prepared for the fact that it would be very difficult, but that it would be almost deadly, I did not even imagine.

There is a passage through these rocky places from below, but from the memories of travelers I read and the advice I heard from experienced people, it came out that the edge of the sea can only be walked light. My friend and companion on a hike to the Spamberg Mountain Maxim said that Cape Konabeyevka got its name because horses crashed here (there was a horse trail set up by the Japanese).

With about 12 kg of belongings behind me, I decide to go on top.

I reach the skeleton of a small rusted ship indicated by Alik. There is a ravine in which an old Japanese road hides, leading up to the ridge. But first I decide to walk to the nearest rocky promontory and see what's behind it. Having made my way over the huge stones for the first tens of meters, I climb the promontory and see everywhere heaps of boulders and blade-like rocks. I understand that it's not worth going further with a heavy backpack - it's risky.

I change my shoes: I hide the sneakers, which are good only in the conditions of the seashore, in my backpack, put on my sneakers and go to the ravine.

At first, the path seems to be visible, but soon it is lost in the thickets. With a wave of your hand - come what may! - I turn onto the slope and go up straight ahead. Bamboo, painfully familiar with Spamberg, bristles with hostility. A week ago, he did not let us go to the top of the mountain, now he prevents us from bypassing Krillon!

The clothes were dry to the skin. There are birches and other deciduous trees and some conifers all around. Clinging to tree trunks, fighting bamboo. Suppressing the fear of the unknown in these desolate, rainy, bear-riddled places. There is no going back. True, Alik and Olga are still nearby, and you can return at any time, but returning to them will be surrender. I remember that Maxim said that in comparison with the Tonino-Aniva Peninsula, Krillon are children's toys. You're kidding, buddy, the hike to Cape Aniva was a fun promenade, but then there's the matter - the struggle for every meter.

I break through to the crest of the ridge. Behind the lush vegetation, only the surface of the sea and the endless expanses of the peninsula are visible.

On the crest of the ridge, the bamboo is not so high - it is easier to walk. I walk along the ridge further south. I am not going - I am swimming, literally and figuratively. Directly - because everything is wet from the rain; in a portable one - because you have to work with your hands, as when swimming. I don't even remember the vaunted old Japanese road - it finally disappeared into the thickets. I go by intuition. From time to time you come across some kind of ditches under your feet, cutting through the ridge. In places they are deep, and in order to overcome them, you have to go down in them. All this - and bamboo, and ditches, and rain - cannot but cause a sad mood. But to lose heart in such places is madness: much better beautiful landscapes in such conditions than in dryness and warmth - the wall of the house opposite, where in the evening windows is displayed personal life hundreds of people. Cape Konabeyevka appeared below. Truly unearthly beauty!

I notice that the ridge gradually begins to descend towards the coast. In a fit of joy I decide to get off the ridge and start the descent early, and that was a big mistake. I "fall" to the left and work my way through the bamboo. And on the slopes, as we already know, it is much more violent than on the ridge. I make my way to the stream bed and freely walk down it in the hope that he will lead me to the seashore. However, the slope abruptly breaks down, and seeing the sea waves beating against the stones far below, I understand that I am only on a high rock. Hastened, oh, hastened with the descent!

With annoyance I climb the channel and take it to the left onto the slope of the spur, straight into the thicket of bamboo. The fact is that it is easier to go down a slope overgrown with bamboo or cedar elfin, because you go in the direction of its spread, that is, "along the wool", but you have to climb "against the grain". In fact, I decided to bypass the Krillon Peninsula from the Taranay side precisely because, according to an experienced comrade, the bamboo on the ridge above Konabeyevka spreads in the direction of the south, which simplifies the course, since it is "on the wool."

With difficulty I crossed the slope and began to descend along the spur. Vines are mixed with bamboo. They intertwine and cling to the backpack, or simply hang across the path: it is impossible to step over or break them. It is very difficult to move forward, to the point of nausea, nausea is a sign of overwork. The situation is repeated, many years ago, which took place in the mountain jungles of Laos. Some beetles were added to Lao lianas and other lush vegetation, which bit their hands, leaving a previously unfamiliar, twisting pain. Then I had no food or drink with me, and a deep river flowed below, less than a kilometer from me, and teased me with its freshness. And in the same way, I then made my way through the jungle and went out to the rocky cliffs. But then I was light and could somehow climb down the rock wall and trees.

The Sakhalin jungle is not inferior to the jungle of Indochina. On the slopes of Mount Spamberg, making my way through bamboo, I expressed my wish to have a machete, but Maxim said that in this case the machete would not help. Now I was just eager to hold the machete in my hand and hack my way to the sea. Chop everything around, from the shoulder! - so the wild flora was exhausting. On the coast there will be salvation from this murderous beauty! There are stones and sand, there are streams and waves, there you can lie down on a flat surface and take a breath. Here you have to be in constant tension: physically and mentally. In order to somehow advance, I make a desperate somersault forward and throw myself with my backpack through the plexus of branches. And so three times.

Again the stream bed and again it falls down the cliff.

Again I climb through the stubble of the Sakhalin jungle, again I cross the spur. And now, finally, the third stream, the channel of which leads to the sea!

Coming out to the coast, I look back at the Konabeyevka arch, left behind, in the north, and look up. Indeed, a deadly beauty: you can stay forever in these thickets.

It is so exhausted that the desire to go to the arch and see what is behind it is killed (now I regret it). But everything that does not kill us makes us stronger, said one radical.

Not without losses: a torn pocket on his trousers and scratched hands. Then, in Laos, my pants turned into shorts, and my legs and back became stripped flesh. Native places are more indulgent.

It's six in the evening.

... I go to Cape Anastasia. There was once the village of Atlasovo. Petrovich said that from there to them - to the camp on Nichy - one man walked through the thickets above Konabeyevka in two hours (!) To call for help: they had something stalled there. I only spent more than three hours on bypassing one Konabeyevka.

I pass a waterfall, a lighthouse on a hill, I reach Cape Anastasia.

It is a sharp ledge in the sea and consists of two rocks: a large one looks like a loaf and, most likely, extrusion (magmatic body), the second is smaller and is a kekur. In the south, across the Morzh Bay, you can see Cape Krillon with structures on it. Higher up on the hill - white air defense balls.

At the very Cape of Anastasia there is a camp, the fishermen have already filmed, there is no one in the camp. Around the buildings. From the time of Karafuto, the infrastructure remained: a pier, vats for salting fish, etc.

It is getting dark. I cross the river Anastasia with a backpack on my head up to my throat in water full of water (the tide begins).

I light a fire (sea firewood, even damp from the rain, burns well!), At dusk I hastily dry things, cook dinner and hang up. In a damp tent, I replay a busy day in my memory. Through the open entrance of the tent, I contemplate the distant lights of Cape Crillon and the reflections of the lighthouse: with a certain frequency, it cuts through the southern part of the night sky with a rapid flash. Nice and monumental. There is no one nearby, and the distant presence of people warms the soul: in the Bay of Morges, about half the distance from me to Cape Crillon, a small boat anchored.

Up to the cape - 12-15 kilometers. I have to get there by lunch tomorrow.

Day four: Cape Krillon, Japan and the west coast

In the morning I woke up early: at six or half past six. It took a long time to dry my wet clothes, and I did not leave until half past ten.

In the process of drying clothes, I regretfully discovered that Ryunosuke Akutagawa's little book of stories was once again wet and now completely collapsed (paper things must be stored in a plastic bag!). The glued book was no longer subject to new repairs, and I made the decision to burn it. The worthy care of a travel book is to be honorably devoted to the fire at the end of the world. The book of this great Japanese writer, which accompanied me on my travels across the country and across Sakhalin, triumphantly disappeared in the flames of a bonfire at Cape Anastasia.

For a while I was accompanied by a curious seal, swimming parallel to my course, ten meters from the shore. I follow the huge fresh footprints of the clubfoot. The footprints turn to the right into the hills and immediately reappear.

I go around three rocky headlands. I come across the skeleton of the all-terrain vehicle: only the chassis and pistons remained from the combat vehicle. The closeness of the military is already being felt.

I pass the last rocky cape - Cape Kostroma - and get out on the home stretch - to Cape Krillon.

From the coast to the hill where the buildings are located, there is a dirt road torn up by the "Ural".

At about four o'clock in the afternoon I was already at the extreme southern point of Sakhalin.

There is a frontier post on Crillon, near which there is a helicopter (it flew back and forth a couple of times while I walked along the coast), an ancient active lighthouse rises, near it there is a meteorological station, destroyed buildings everywhere.

I walk along a dirt road, in some places it turns into vigorous mud.

The helicopter began to take off again. The woman who watched it take off greeted me. The boy rode an ant motorcycle, carrying in the back, if my memory serves me right, parts of a diesel engine.

To my surprise, none of the military asked me for my documents: they - the military - were practically invisible in this border zone.

On the edge of the cape, above the cliff, is the grave of Soviet soldiers who liberated South Sakhalin in August 1945. Jeepers come here every year on May 9 to lay wreaths. To see the monument here was quite unexpected for me. However, this arrangement must have more symbolic meaning.

I am sitting on a cliff, on the very edge of Sakhalin. A strip of Japan is blue in the distance. It is about forty kilometers to Wakkanai. A white tower can be seen on that - Japanese - bank. Mount Rishiri rises in the southwest, representing the island of the same name. Japan, as they say, is just a stone's throw away, and at the same time it is far away. Far away - bureaucratically (a visa to Japan will not be canceled in any way), but a stone's throw because the Japanese traveler Sekino Yoshiharu and a friend ten years ago on a kayak got there in 13 hours.

Somehow, at the sunset of the Union, one French windsurfer baron Arno de Rone, the Guinness Book of Records record holder, without waiting for a Soviet visa (they fed breakfast at the consulate in Sapporo) to legally cross the La Perouse Strait, on one of his training days, catching a passing wind, unauthorizedly left on the surf to Sakhalin. On the coast of the frontier cape, Crillon Arno did not meet anyone who could fix his record. For melancholy reflections, our fishermen found him, who handed over the world famous navigator to the border guards. The matter was resolved quite well: in Moscow, Arno was well known.

And only a limited circle of people knows how many spies from Japan have landed in this area!

I walk back towards the lighthouse. I ask a recent woman who is now sawing wood, where is the weather station: there I have one thing to do. The weather station is located on the territory of the lighthouse, to which you only need to climb a little.

Chickens are running around in the yard and a dog is torn apart. At the entrance stands, slightly smiling, a pretty girl Olya, to whom I walked for more than a year, and looks at me with interest. Complete romance.

Hello! Olya? Greetings from Yegor from Tomsk.

At Egor's, I fit in for the night in Tomsk while hitchhiking in Russia. Egor is a frostbitten hitchhiker and bicycle adventurer. Arriving a couple of years ago in Kholmsk by ferry and finding himself for the first time on Sakhalin, he immediately went to Krilyon (after that he got all the way to Okha). Here he met Olya, who came from Barnaul here to the end of the world. Egor told me about her and asked to say hello on occasion.

She remembered Egor, thanked him for his greetings and offered to drink tea, however, only an hour later, when her shift was over. But I didn't have time - I had to set up camp before sunset, and I had to bow. Whether I did it right or not to refuse, I don’t know; maybe it was worth sacrificing time and finding out what made this girl leave civilization and live at the end of the earth? ..

And now, having rounded Cape Crillon, I am now going north, towards the house. I absorb delicious overripe rose hips. Mount Rishiri was transformed by the rays of the setting sun. In the northwest, the island of Moneron turns blue. The hills of the Tatar coast of the Krillon peninsula are devoid of forests due to strong sea winds. This makes the local relief similar to Transbaikalia, with the only difference that impassable bamboo grows on the local hills, and soft fragrant herbs in the steppes of Transbaikalia.

Another feature of the West Krillon coast is the lack of full-fledged firewood: you cannot light a normal fire. The shore is full of seaweed, into which you fall ankle-deep.

I go out to Cape Maydel.

Something like a monument turned white on the coastal hills. From a distance, against the background of bare relief, it resembles a Buryat ritual building in the steppes.

A little further off, a concrete pipe rises right next to the forest.

I climb up the military road into the hills and come up to a monument made in a characteristic Japanese style. The grave of a noble samurai? At the base there is a red plaque, on the sides of which there are two huge casings with red stars. On the plate there is an inscription that a Soviet soldier died here in 1990 (as a result of an accident). Is this entire complex really dedicated to the deceased? ..

In fact, my intuition did not disappoint me: the pedestal is indeed Japanese. After the described campaign, I found in the Bulletin Sakhalin Museum"(No. 18, 2011) an article about the Japanese post of Shiranushi, located here, at Cape Maidel, in the XVIII- XIX centuries... It was also reported that in October 1930, the mayor's office of the Japanese city of Honto (now Nevelsk) erected a monument at the site of the post, which in Japanese sounds like Kaijima Kinento, in honor of the Japanese explorers Karafuto. In addition, according to the stories of local residents, there was a Soviet Military Unit, whose tanks are allegedly still hidden in the hills and are ready to turn around at any moment to conduct hostilities.

Soon the massifs of the Zamirailov Golova and Kuznetsov capes appeared.

At sunset, I came to the remains of the ship Liberty, which had run aground during an incredible storm in 1945. The ship fell apart into three unequal parts.

At sunset, all this symbolizes the transience of human civilization against the background of the beauty of the universe.

The colorful evening firmament performed a soundless symphony, solemn and unearthly.

At 7:45 pm I noticed a spot by the river where a tent could be pitched on the grass. From the fire pit and the remnants of firewood, it was clear that there was already someone's camp. In the thickening twilight, when I was building my tent, I heard the distant noise of a car, and soon a fishing "Niva" stopped on the shore nearby, from which two got out and began to lead a seine into the sea. I went up to them. Met: Dima and Andrey from the village of Pravda. Five kilometers to the north was their camp, where their comrades remained.

In the morning Dima and his father came to pick me up and offered to give me a lift to Nevelsk, since it is difficult to go by the coast around Cape Kuznetsov, and it is dirty and dangerous along the bypass taiga road due to bears. And the Cape of Kuznetsov itself - these rocky shores - are under the jurisdiction of one monopoly bear, which, allegedly, does not like strangers on its territory very much (does it resemble anything?). It was inappropriate to refuse, and on three cars we moved north. I rode with Ivan and his hunting dog Peach (Pers), who whined mournfully whenever he saw a duck fluttering out the window. Thank you, friends, for not leaving the traveler!

… We drove through Mount Kovrizhka. I had heard before that this mountain was used by the Ainu as an impregnable military fortress. There was once a war between the Nivkhs and the Ainu on the island, so this hypothesis cannot be discarded. Dima once climbed Kovrizhka. The fact that there is a move to the flat top is evidenced by a rope hanging from above. With regret I gazed at the Gingerbread we were leaving. Looks like I'll have to climb next time.

We got to Shebunino, and the asphalt started.

After the bombed Shebunino and Gornozavodsk, Nevelsk appeared as a metropolis. They even have their own "Rublyovka": cottages along the federal highway. Civilization began, framed by colorful autumn hills.

And so ... the station - minibus - Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Have arrived.

In the work on the material, information was used from the books "Hoppo ruto. Sacharin no tabi" by Sekino Yoshihara (Tokyo, 2006), "Without a stamp" SECRET ", compiled by N.V. Vishnevsky (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 2012).

CARPET!

On August 23, 2011, six people (myself, Dima, Galya, Anton and two Kirill) set off by morning bus to Nevelsk, then to Shebunino from where our journey will begin to Cape Krilyon, the southernmost point of Sakhalin Island. In two days we have to approach Mount Kovrizhka, where four more people from our group (Lena, Alexey, Vika and Sergey) will join us. Ahead of 10 days of the hike, sea, sun and no civilization, everyone is in excellent mood, let's hit the road !!!

We reached Kovrizhka without obstacles, most of all they were afraid that we would not cross the Pereputka River, in the rains and tides it rises so that even cars cannot pass. But to our delight, we crossed the river calmly, well, after all, two days were not without incident, Kirill's knees hurt and he practically could not walk. Do not leave him alone, Dima put a backpack on Kiryukhin's shoulders and walked slowly towards our goal. Puffing, puffing with big stops, we nevertheless reached the goal in time, but ours are going, joy knew no bounds. At the general meeting, we decide that tomorrow we need to send Kirill home by passing transport, we set up camp at the foot of the mountain, while everyone is collecting firewood for the fire. wash and cool off from the mercilessly scorching sun. In the meantime, the fire is burning, the tents are set up, you can start dinner, the guys brought home food with them, oh bliss !!!

It was beginning to get dark, but we terribly wanted to visit the top of Kovrizhki. Mount Kovrizhka got its name because of its shape in the form of a cake; it is located on Cape Vindis in translation from the Ainu language, as "bad dwelling", where does this name come from? The cape is located 35 km. from the village Shebunino, Kovrizhka itself rises above sea level at an altitude of about 78 m, has an almost ideal round shape with a diameter of more than 100 m. The absolutely flat summit of Kovrizhka is known for the fact that archaeological sites of ancient people were found on it. There are versions that this natural building was used by the Sakhalin aborigines as a fortress, where they escaped from the invasion of strangers, which may be why the name "nasty dwelling" is.

The ascent to Kovrizhka is very steep, it can only be reached by a rope pulled by kind people. Overcoming fear, we climbed up and a dizzying view opened up in front of us, almost the entire South Kamyshevy Ridge is visible from one side, and from the other Cape Kuznetsov, where we will go tomorrow morning.

It has already completely darkened, so take a photo as a souvenir and begin our descent down. Oh Gods!!! Descending was even more terrifying than climbing upward, groping in the dark, you couldn't see where to put your foot, stones were falling from under your feet, but you couldn't stay above. Dima insures the girls from above, and Sergei encourages him with his jokes and jokes, and now his feet touched the firm and level ground. Hooray!!! We went downstairs and Galyunya and I went to the "bathhouse" that the guys had built. "Bathhouse" was a success. Washed up, poured home in tents, tomorrow morning on the way to their dream, to Krillon !!!

Cape Kuznetsov

The next morning we packed up and set off. Alexei loaded backpacks and some of our team members into the car and drove towards Cape Kuznetsov to negotiate about sending Kirill home and parking the car, while we set off on foot lightly. It’s beauty, the sea is splashing, the sun is warming (it’s not baking yet), here is a cormorant perched on a pebble, very close to let us in and doesn’t fly away, well, all the cormorant now you are a model and the hero of our photo albums.

Coming closer to Cape Kuznetsov, houses appear, we noticed an Orthodox cross-church !!!

It is unusual to see a church at such a distance from civilization. And we freeze with delight, what a stunning picture in front of us, a herd of horses grazing on the seashore, I have never seen such a miracle in my life, and which there are only red, and white, and black, and in a speck and in a bull's-eye. An extraordinary beauty, this picture still stands before my eyes. At one time, 50 Yakut pedigree horses were brought here for breeding. They also say that ostriches live on the territory of the farm, but we, unfortunately, have not seen them. But horses ……….

Cape Kuznetsova is one of the natural monuments of about. Sakhalin, its name was given in honor of the captain of the 1st rank D.I. Kuznetsov, who commanded the first detachment that sailed to the Far East in 1857. Russian borders... We bypass the cape, since there are impassable passages, we turn onto the road leading through the pass, Kiryukha went to see us off, as today he is in a car that will go from the farm and go home to treat his knees. Bye, Kiryukha, see you in the city. Well, we, in the composition of nine people, are recovering further. Not far from the village, we came across a Japanese column with hieroglyphs, there are many such columns left across Sakhalin, the height above sea level is indicated on it.
The road through the pass is in good condition, we go into the forest and it becomes creepy for us, there are a lot of bears in these parts, there used to be a nature reserve on the peninsula, hunting and fishing in this collapse was prohibited, so bears bred here. We take out the pipes and play, that there is urine, the head is already spinning. The sun beats down mercilessly, backpacks pull off the shoulders, and even a whole bunch of gadflies have flown in, even the repellents do not help, they drain from the heat along with sweat.

Well, that is the end of the road and then we stumble upon a fresh trail of a club-footed bear, we imagined how he skidded when he heard our pipes. We finally went out to the seashore and made a halt and lunch.

Shipwreck.

We dined, rested and on our way. On the left there are green hills, somewhere there are bears sniffing sweetly, on the right the sea is blue, ahead is a foggy horizon, silence and only the sound of the surf is heard, quiet and grace, only the sun beats down so that it is hot to breathe. Galyunya wrapped herself up in an olympic jacket, hiding from the sun, the poor little one sticks out.

Sergei is overwhelmed with emotions and he scratches on the sand "AHRINET" and everything is in this word !!!

A "ghost ship" appears on the horizon because of the fog, and it gives me goosebumps. We come closer and now he is a handsome man, or rather everything that is left of him. The ship is torn into three pieces - an eerie sight. As I later read this dry cargo ship "Luga", it has been lying here for more than 65 years on the shallows. Seagulls and cormorants took a fancy to the remains of the ship and arranged a bird market on it. By the fall of 1947, the dry-cargo steamer Luga was prepared for towing to Vladivostok, and then further to Shanghai for overhaul. The steamer Pyotr Tchaikovsky was instructed to tow the Luga, but they lost time and began towing at the end of October. "Pyotr Tchaikovsky" and "Luga" were caught by a violent typhoon near the La Perouse Strait. The tug tore and "Luga" was thrown onto the Krillon peninsula between the capes of Maydel and Zamirailov's head. The damage to "Luga" was so great that the repair was impractical and they did not try to remove it from the shallows, that's how it became a home for seagulls and cormorants

A small resting place, a photo for memory and again on the road.

Night guest.
More and more often we come across bear tracks of different sizes and sizes, bear trails can be seen on the hills.

It's late afternoon, it's time to look for a place to camp. We decided to stop near a small lake. Well, the tree-sticks were not taken into account, that the camp was set up near Mishya's path, or rather, they understood it later.

Lesha and I went to the lake, I wash the dishes, Lesha fetch water. And so Alexey decided to take some water from the stream that flowed down from the hill. He went into the grass, and less than a minute, Lesha jumped out of the bushes, as if scalded. “What happened?” - I ask, he tells me “Look”. I watched the grass sway, the bear leaves and goes quietly, even if the twig crunches, I always wondered how such a colossus walks so quietly ??? Well, that was not all …….

After supper, we dispersed to the tents, I slept with Galya in the tent. Through a dream I hear as if someone touched a stretch from the tent, I open my eyes and a sharp smell of dog hits my nose, and near the tent someone sniffs everything ... ... bear, already the blood froze in my veins with fear. I wake up Galya, I say "The bear has come", Galya muttered something, turned over on the other side and continued to sleep, this is our Galyunya who sleeps where he will lie down, sit down and no bears will wake her up, and I lay all night without a wink of sleep and breathing was afraid. In the morning I dared to go out only when I heard the voices of the guys who had already woken up and were busy with the housework. I walked around the tent and as if the bear's footprints were on the sand, so it really came, I didn't dream. More than one night I didn’t close my eyes on this trip.

Museum under open air... Crillon.

Morning. According to our calculations, in two hours we should come to Krillon. The morning turned out to be foggy, so we did not immediately notice the outlines of Krillon on the horizon. Well, what was our joy when we realized that because of the fog we could see the towers and the lighthouse of the Krillon Peninsula.

Cape Krillon is the southernmost point of Sakhalin Island. The name was given by the French navigator Jean-François de La Perouse in honor of the French general Louis Balbes de Crillon. In the north it is connected by a narrow but steep isthmus with the Krillon Peninsula, in the west it is washed by the Sea of Japan, in the east by the Aniva Bay of the Sea of Okhotsk. From the south - La Perouse Strait, separating Sakhalin and Hokkaido islands. Crillon is called the "Open Air Museum" and it is not for nothing that this small piece of land received such a name. Now on Crillon there is an operating frontier post, a weather station and a lighthouse. Well, let's start in order.

"Century mark"
A car is coming to meet us, it was the head of the outpost who was in a hurry to warn us to check in at the outpost, such is the order here, after all, a frontier post, so those wishing to visit Crillon do not forget to take their passport with them.
First of all, we go to look for the "Century Mark", which was carved on the coastal rock by the famous Admiral Makarov. On September 22, 1895, Rear Admiral Makarov ordered to install a tide gauge in the form of a rail with graduations on Krillon, installed to observe and accurately determine the water level in the sea. But the tide stock was broken by the movement of ice, and to eliminate this shortcoming Makarov ordered to carve a “century mark” on the rock, seven horizontal notches were carved under the inscription, numbered in Roman numerals from bottom to top from 4 to 10 (Tanya, these Roman numbers must be written). Over time, water has done its job and now only the word "mark" is visible on the rock. We found the mark and jumped on the boulders and hoisted our backpacks and move on. Further, our path goes along a steep path that leads up.

Lighthouse.
We went upstairs, threw off our backpacks and to the lighthouse. A wooden dilapidated staircase leads to the lighthouse, we climbed it and here we have a handsome man made of red brick, but he was not always like that, the lighthouse was originally built from logs. The construction of the first lighthouse on Krillon began on May 13, 1883, 30 exile carriages and the crew of the schooner "Tungus" took part in the construction of the lighthouse, with the help of which the rafts from logs were towed, the work lasted 35 days. A wooden tower with a height of 8.5 m was erected, a house for the caretaker, a barracks, a bathhouse, a vegetable garden was planned. The lighting apparatus with silver-plated reflectors is equipped with 15 argan lamps. For the production of fog signals, a two-pound signal cannon and a 20-pound bell are installed on the lighthouse. The first keeper of the lighthouse was the sailor Ivan Kryuchkov.
In 1894, construction of a new lighthouse began on Cape Crillon, next to the old building made of red bricks brought from Japan. The construction was carried out by the paratroopers Shipulin, Yakovlev and 25 Korean workers. The work was supervised by engineer-lieutenant colonel K.I. Leopold, who built several lighthouses on the Black Sea. On August 1, 1896, a lighting device was installed at the Crillon lighthouse, manufactured by the French company "Barbier and Benard" in Paris. A new pneumatic siren with a kerosene engine has been installed in a room located at the southernmost point of Cape Crillon. A special signal cannon of the 1867 model was located next to the siren building. A backup "fog bell" was also installed here, which, in the event of a malfunction of the siren, was supposed to give signals during fog. During the Soviet era, the lighthouse was refitted with electric lamps, but the bulk of the French lighting fixture remained unchanged. A new cinder block house was built on the cape for the lighthouse attendants. The bell was removed in 1980. Until the end of the 1990s, there was a Japanese bell on the cape. According to some reports, the bell was taken out for scrap metal. The further fate of the Japanese bell is unknown. Currently, the lighthouse is still active.

Borders
After inspecting the lighthouse, went downstairs, the guys went to the monument to the soldiers who died during the liberation of Sakhalin,

and we, exhausted by the heat, remained to wait for them near the backpacks, Galyunya climbed under the cart, into the shade and sniffed sweetly.

And here the guys returned and we all went to check in at the border guards. We were greeted very warmly, while the head of the outpost told us that while they were rewriting the data of passports, four little worlds coexist on the cape: border guards, a meteorological station, a beacon that lives alone in the whole two-story building and occupies any apartment in it that we liked (the house is empty, in it now no one lives except for the lighthouse) and fishermen. They all live independently of each other and do not meddle in the affairs of their neighbors. He said that if the beacon is in a good mood, then maybe it will take us to the lighthouse and show it from the inside. He told that it is possible to take pictures and what is undesirable, he offered to charge cameras and phones. By the way, the cellular communication on Crillon Japanese eats up the entire balance without having time to dial the number. They showed us a comfortable place to spend the night and gave us a tank of water, because on Krillon there is a problem with springs and rivers, and the nearest spring is very far away. It was on such a positive note that we said goodbye to the hosts of the outpost and set off to set up a camp.

Catacombs.
The camp was organized quickly. We fell from fatigue, heat and grated mazoles, the people decided today not to go anywhere, and I, Dima and Kirill still decided not to waste time, because tomorrow we are returning home at lunchtime, but still we will take a walk along the cape. They began their detour from the monument to the soldiers who died during the liberation of Sakhalin and the Southern Kuriles. 7 paratroopers are buried in this mass grave. Then we went to inspect the nowadays non-residential buildings, which were built by the Japanese and then the Russians, everything was mixed on a small piece of land. We climbed, took a look, and now we are in a hurry to the fortified area. After all, Cape Crillon is one large fortified area, along which you can walk for weeks in search of military pillboxes, underground passages, trenches, cannons. On the way, we climbed to a large plateau overgrown with bamboo and where is what to look for in such thickets ??? And here is the first find - an inverted cannon, then another one. A little further off you can see the visor of the command post, here we are already inside.

The walls and steps were lined by the Japanese with natural stone, the masonry has survived to this day, as good as new.

We went upstairs and in front of us the entire La Perouse Strait, at a glance, already takes our breath away from the emotions that overwhelmed me. We go further, here in the underground shelter there is a whole cannon, they tried to turn the levers and oh, miracle, they are still in working order. We play like little children !!!

Below you can see a manhole, which goes underground, we go down, and here a whole underworld... Many rooms, manholes. Passages, stairs and we are again at the top, already at the other end of the peninsula, again we go down, again up and again at the other end, along the road we meet empty boxes of shells, old bunks, various instruments, sensors, counters on the walls, yeah, sure You can walk here for weeks to examine everything and find all the loopholes. We crawled out into the white light, it is already getting dark, it’s time to camp, well, how you don’t want to leave, how you want to explore the whole Krillon up and down. We returned to the camp, had a snack. But for today we have another excursion planned. In good weather, you can see Japan from Krillon, but the weather was excellent, so we go to the edge of the cape, and suddenly we are lucky and we will see Japan. And we saw her, right like this with the naked eye, at first the island of Rebun rose in front of us.

Then we saw Hokkaido. Dima took binoculars with him and through them we saw the windmills that glow with multi-colored lights, it's great how !!! It was completely dark and the lighthouse came on. And also a local resident, little piggy Manka, came to visit us. She ran up to us, fell apart and scratched my belly, rolled her eyes with pleasure, she was so funny, she was grunting.

The post of Shiranushi.
In the morning we packed our things and again went to inspect the underground passages and "study" military equipment. We came across a huge cannon, found Soviet tanks in the bamboo,

examined new manholes, trenches, came across Japanese washbasins, which were preserved in excellent condition.

I already said that you can wander around Crillon for weeks, but it was time for us to return home. Farewell look at Krillon, I promise myself that I will definitely return here to continue looking for new underground passages. On the way back we dropped in to look at the remains of the post of Shiranushi. The fast was founded by the Japanese clan Matsumae from the island of Hokkaido, presumably in the 1750s, in the 1850s the importance of fasting began to diminish and the fast in Shiranushi was abolished, and the history of fasting ended. There is information that by 1925 150 people lived in the village of Siranusi, there were 36 houses. Now at the site of the post, you can find many objects from different times, belonging to both the Japanese and the Russians, a pedestal from the monument to Kajima Kinento, a platform from the building of a Japanese post, earthen ramparts, which were most likely defensive in nature, concrete structures, firing points of the 2nd world war.

Above the post are the ruins of a crab factory and coastal batteries from IS-3 tanks. By the way, the tanks are mothballed and are in excellent condition.
A car drove us to the farm, which was driving from Crillon to Shebunino, a herd of horses met us, I will never forget this beauty, sea, rocks and horses !!!
We were at home two days later.

place about. Sakhalin, Krillon peninsula

time September-October 2013

Day one: south again

In mid-September (2013) free days stood out: the excitement with orders subsided, and nothing else was planned for the near future. That's it, now I'm definitely going to Cape Crillon! But Maxim persuaded to go to the thousand-meter (1) of South Sakhalin - Mount Spamberg. Maxim just had a vacation, and he desperately needed to somehow usefully spend time. I had to go to meet my dear comrade.

Let's go to the Spamberg mountain. In the foothills and on the slopes of this mountain, we rode for four days. Reached only high mountain lake Mokhovoy. We set up camp there. The next day, they began to storm the summit, but met fierce resistance from the bamboo, and when a dwarf cedar came to the rescue with a sudden rain, we capitulated. They were content only with contemplating the summit from a two-kilometer distance. But, returning to the camp, we rode on a raft made by someone a long time ago and comprehended the beauty of Lake Mokhovoy (clouds overhead!).

We returned to the city on Friday. I had enough for a day and a half, and on Sunday I got ready to travel again. Now for sure on Crillon! This time, nothing held: the fact is that, returning from the Spamberg mountain, I contacted another employer and found out that while I was chilling out on the heights of South Sakhalin, they unsuccessfully tried to get out to me so that I would come to them in a hurry. and signed the short-term contract. Naturally, I was out of touch, and thus lost an order for a considerable amount of money. This was a reason to be upset, but remembering that just before the departure to Mount Spamberg, about which I had firmly agreed with Maxim in advance, I had to refuse the customer who suddenly called, I realized that I was dealing with System (2), and calmed down ... This System is cleverly arranged: either you are spinning in it, receiving stable money, food and entertainment, and at the same time you are a dependent cog, an instrument and executor of someone else's will; or you are outside of it, but at the same time you lead a chaotic, unstable, but, most importantly, free lifestyle, and your life is full of unpredictability, interesting people and beautiful landscapes. In general, the blind System wants one thing from you: that you sit still and wait from it for instructions, instructions and commands. The system is dumb, and there are ways to get around it. However, you have to sacrifice profit and comfort. This is what I felt from my own experience.

If so, then to walk, so to walk: hastily packed up a backpack, at 14.20 o'clock left on a regular bus to the city of Aniva. Outside the city, a jeep stopped (after all, hitchhiking is a fun activity!), And the driver Dima took me to the village of Taranay, along the way describing the advantages of kiting, which he became interested in. Behind the village, hitchhiking did not go well: no one picked it up. Thus, from Taranay itself to Cape Krillon, I walked on foot.

After walking a couple of kilometers along the road, I decided to go to the seashore, because the road went further down the hills. I walked south, contemplating the Krillon peninsula stretching far ahead and the illusory islets of the Tonino-Aniva peninsula, blue on the other side of the Aniva Bay. I also walked south along that strait coastline a month ago. The extreme points of Sakhalin, according to the Sakhalin scientist and traveler Andrei Klitin, attract us to themselves, as they once attracted ancient hunters striving to reach the ends of the earth. I caught myself thinking that I was going after happiness. How true this is, I find out at the end of the journey, but for now I feel earthly happiness to walk into the distance with a backpack on my back.

In general, the concept of the autonomous existence of a personality has long fascinated me: a tent, a sleeping bag, a sleeping mat, a necessary supply of food, matches, a gas burner with a gas cylinder (a new item in my hiking set; I bought it inexpensively at the Lyubitel store; the store has everything for traveling, I recommend it!), a headlamp, a change of clothes - all this allows free movement in space and weighs only 12 - 15 kg. Of course, this way of life presupposes certain inconveniences and quickly becomes boring, but, nevertheless, romantics are given the opportunity to truly “take everything from life”.

Aniva Bay ... Beautiful, long-suffering, poisoned by RTGs (3) and other filth. Driving away from myself these sad thoughts, I try to think about the positive. Still, Sakhalin is a unique place: wherever you are, it will be different everywhere. Hills and tundra, taiga and mountains, bays and waterfalls - and all on one island!

I walk along the coast, past jeeps and cars, people having rest, fishing nets in the sea, children playing in the sand, running dogs, etc. The coast is littered. I hasten to go through the hustle and bustle of the people. They call me. A boy of about twenty-five or eight years old, kind of a collective farm, politely interested in my person. We talk. Politely admires my trip. Shakes hands goodbye. After walking several hundred meters, I hear a shout: a fixed fisherman offers fish from an inflatable boat not far from the shore.

Is free! he adds.

I refuse with a smile, referring to the lack of space in my backpack.

Dusk gradually deepened. We need to set up camp. Pleased with the abundance of wood washed ashore. I stop at a full-flowing river, a little short of Kirillov. I'm pitching a tent, making a fire. On the side of the river is a fishing camp. From there, two bodies in orange fishing jackets are heading towards me. One of them, coming to the edge of the river water, shouts to me "Hey!" and waves his hand. I'm coming over.

If I see that you are putting on a network ...! - a cheeky, thuggish threatening tirade is heard.

What makes you think that I will put the network ?! - I answer him in tone.

The middle-aged man is losing ground and adding notes of apology to his speech:

You’re sorry, of course, that in such a tone, but here recently two spent the night. In the morning I looked, they set up the net and caught two of them. And here RUZ (4) is standing, waiting for the fish to enter.

I decide to change the subject:

Is the water in the river drinking?

And in response to an affirmative answer, I ask a new question:

Will you give me sugar tomorrow morning, or forgot to take it at home in a hurry?

The fisherman turned out to be trouble-free.

Another feature of this area that struck me was the presence of evil mosquitoes. It's a strange thing, in the taiga on the slopes of Mount Spamberg they were not, but here they are aggressively attacking! What an anomaly ?! It's autumn, it's already cold, it's time for them to go to bed. No, they are active as in summer!

... And again experienced on the opposite shore of the Nevelskoy Strait, near the Lazarev village, the feeling when, sitting in the evening at the tent, I looked with longing at my native Sakhalin coast and wondered if the sea would calm down the next day so that it would be possible to cross the strait. This feeling is a feeling of loneliness, abandonment and at the same time it is the realization that no one needs you, except for loved ones who are not around, but who love and wait for you.

From behind the mountains of the opposite bank, in the vicinity of Prigorodnoye and Mount Juno, on the other side of the Aniva Bay, an orange defective moon swam. There is beauty all around: the lights of that coast, the bright stars in the sky, the Milky Way ... Firewood is blazing merrily. The taiga firewood of the Spamberg Mountains did not really want to burn, but these directly enjoy life.

I hang up.

Day two: complete freedom, tides and an aura of legend around the Kartavy family

Ascent at 6.50. Very cold. From three o'clock in the morning I could not sleep: my body ached from the cold. At dawn, however, it became more fun in the sense that he contemplated the colors of life: mountains, a bay, lights of ships and settlements, all this - in the rays of dawn. The firewood here is really blessed: it flashes in a swing, giving the joy of warmth

Wading the river, I go out to the camp. Fishermen are sitting on the embankment, among them is my yesterday's interlocutor. As promised, he gave sugar, even with interest - he will definitely pull a half a kilo. The fishermen around me liven up: I brought fresh air into their monotonous reality (to wait all day for fish to come!). As usual, they gave a bunch of advice on the road.

I walk along the coast lit by the morning sun. "Absolute freedom!" - sang, I remember, Romych Neumoev from the Siberian "Instructions for survival". Here it is, complete freedom! For all that, this is not just aimless wandering around the world, but scientific travel. This definition was deduced by the ideologist of hitchhiking Anton Krotov. After all, travel - whether on foot, hitchhiking, hydrostop, air stop, bicycle, kayak - is always the expansion of the horizons of knowledge. These are new lands, and new people, and new impressions, and most importantly, new knowledge. From this position, hitchhiking - and any travel - is good in the period from 18 to 30 years old. The basis in the head and soul is laid by the capital! And, of course, an invaluable life experience.

I am approaching the liquidated village of Kirillovo. Until recently, there was a border outpost, a cordon that controlled the passage to the territory of the reserve (the Krillon peninsula is a reserve). In 2005 or 2006, it was disbanded, and jeeps and other ATVs poured here in a free stream, and now there is a passage yard.

I am met by a rusty all-terrain vehicle, or rather, its frame. Monument to the former might of the Soviet Army. In the distance, a lonely observation tower rises.

There is nothing to protect, Sakhalin is now a zone of free machinations of world bosses, covetous people and hucksters. What can you do, this is postmodern (5), an era when the world is ruled by petrodollar hucksters, teleclowns and opportunists. No state ideology; instead of love for the Motherland - cheap pseudo-patriotism and the desire to dump abroad, because it is more comfortable there. How many disbanded and plundered military units in Russia have I seen! It is not possible to pass calmly.

I wade the Uryum river. In general, the rivers on the east coast of Crillon are full-flowing. More on this below.

I hit the camp. The dog barks. A tall man of about fifty with a beard comes out. I asked him for bread. He gave crackers - not bad either, even better: they will not grow moldy. My new friend's name is Vadim. He is from Krasnoyarsk. I came here in my car on the fishing line, but there were very few fish this year, and now he sadly estimates how much money he will need to return home. She misses her little granddaughter, she says. It turns out that Vadim is a truck driver, he has traveled all over the country! Look, even here, on the shores of a distant Russian island, far from federal highways, an eternal union-symbiosis-friendship of hitchhikers and truckers has found itself. At parting, Vadim and the dog accompanied me a little.

I am passing an interesting coast. Tall, it consists of petrified sand (as it seemed to me, although I am not a geologist). In one place, this slope "melted" out of itself the head of some mutant. Miracles, and more!

Here I arrange lunch: I heat up canned pearl barley porridge on a gas burner.

I go out to the Maksimovka river. There is a big camp here. A peasant came out, over fifty years old, in a leather jacket, decolonized (there are people whose elegance is maintained in any conditions). He introduced himself as Sasha. He guards the camp until spring. This has been the case for several years. He says he likes it here, and when he is at home, in Chekhov, he is drawn here. It's especially good here in winter, he adds.

Not far from him is another camp. His young boy is guarding. They visit each other.

And recently I go in the evening from him to my place. It's dark, a candle is a flashlight. I see - the bear is following me, I both shouted and drove him away, and he kept following me all the way to the house, until he turned into the thicket.

Sasha gave me tea and fed me with huge, delicious pancakes made by him on the basis of coffee powder. He gave me crackers, pancakes and an anti-mosquito ointment for the journey. In general, I once again concluded that they will not give you an abyss in our lost world: they will feed you, give you something to drink, and give you everything on the road (6).

While we were having tea, Sasha said that this year there was no fishing season. He personally earned only 650 rubles (!) At the fish factory in Aniva for the whole season. For myself, I make the assumption that one of the main reasons for the poor entry of fish is the blocking of Sakhalin rivers by RUZs in previous years.

Sasha accompanied me with a young playful cat Sima.

She, like a dog, walks along the coast with me.

The Ulyanovka River flows nearby. It was from this place that my incessant struggle with the elements and metaphysical adventures on this wayward peninsula began.

The river itself is not small, and then the tide of the sea began. Waves go straight into the river. I was thrusting ford, and immediately realized that the depth is not childish. Slightly upstream - a Japanese bridge; I thought I'd go over it, but it turned out to be destroyed. I found the following way out of the situation: with the help of a pole, I felt a scythe across the sea, where it was possible to go waist-deep in water, and, having loaded the bag (7) on my shoulders, crossed over to the other side.

The sun, leaning to the west, set over the high bank. The tide is pressing. I walk over the stones - a strip of small boulders has begun. Broken TV comes across.

Original: in remote places there is such an echo of civilization. And even with a broken screen. Apparently, the fishermen (or bears?) Were sitting watching and looking and, unable to endure the filth of what was happening on the screen, broke it with stones and went home. Imagination works well in such places. O! and here is the refrigerator. On the western coast of the Tonino-Aniva Peninsula a month ago I met them quite well; now look, and here they come across!

I walk to each new cape with bated breath: something will open behind it? ..

Ford again - the Kura river. I cross this river up to my neck in water with a bag on my head - it is so deep. However, this is a high tide, at low tide you can probably walk it up to the waist.

Came out on the spit. There is a fishing camp in about three hundred meters. The boy who met me said that a little further - Uncle Sasha and Oleg Kartavykh. Kartavyh ?! Bah, familiar surname!

And after walking two kilometers - just beginning to get dark - I see: the camp is not a camp, but some kind of gazebos, houses, etc. At the mouth of the river (Kolkhoznaya river), in an artificial dam, there are cut carcasses of seals, which I did not like right away. There is a jeep nearby. Two men came out to meet them.

Going south? Come and spend the night. There you will reach the maximum to Medvedevka, and that's it. So it’s better to spend the night with us, ”a jaunty man tells me outright.

Yeah, here he is the son of a famous father. However, the presence of carcasses of seals does not allow me to completely trust these hospitable people:

I've seen seals butchered here, aren't you poachers by any chance?

The guy's face changed slightly, but, looking into my eyes, he found a suitable and biting answer:

No, we just catch travelers, butcher and bury them. - And, seeing my equanimity, he added with pretentious passion, - what kind of poachers are we to you ?! The reserve is here, everything is legal. I myself would shoot these poachers. Come in and spend the night with us. We'll have supper now.

Oleg Kartavykh - St. John's wort, as he introduced himself; son of Fyodor Leontyevich Kartavykh, a famous hunting expert, senior huntsman Krillon, who at one time supervised the peninsula. His grave is on the Naichi River. There, next to him, his wife is buried. I read about Fyodor Leontievich in the story of a Sakhalin writer shortly before the campaign.

After Batey there was no one in his place. And when the outpost in Kirillovo was removed in 2006, anarchy set in on Krillon, Oleg stated the sad fact.

This frontier post, it seems, did not so much protect the frontier zone from spies, saboteurs and foreign invasions, as from our local barbarians.

Here is a border guard sitting, he sees you go: he wanted - let you in, did not want - he sent to FIG.

During dinner, Oleg told a lot of interesting things about his father. Fedor Leontyevich, it turns out, became famous for the fact that he eliminated a huge cannibal bear on the peninsula, which devoured its own kind. According to Oleg, who heard all this from his parent, this monstrous bear chose a place for himself where the river makes a turn: he lay over a three-meter cliff and just lay there, waiting for a victim. He hears steps on the water and jumps in front of the dazed bear. Fills it up, hides the carcass and lies down further. He hears again the stomp on the water, jump - and there is no wandering relative.

And somehow this cannibal bear lies in its ambush, - says Oleg, - hears: steps. Jumping off a cliff, and in front of him is not a bear, but ... Fyodor Leontievich.

Oleg, with a sense of natural pride in his father, continues:

The gutted carcass of this giant weighed 520 kg! At VDNKh, his skull took first place. And when they wanted to send to Europe (European competition), there was a snag: our intelligence found out that the skull of the trophy bear Ceausescu (8) was smaller. It was decided not to humiliate Ceausescu - the trophy of some Fedor Leontievich, you see, is more than Ceausescu's trophy! - and thus not to spoil relations with Romania, and the batin bear was not exhibited in Europe. This is all politics, so that it was empty!

Oleg's partner Sanya was sitting next to me at the table. We were treated to soup and pelengas.

Eat everything, we already ate during this time.

When the cannibal bear was overwhelmed, they found five or six of the bears he had killed buried in it, '' Oleg said briskly, continuing the topic.

I don’t like it when they boast, - he developed the idea, - that, they say, they killed a bear from three hundred meters, etc. They would try, like Fyodor Leontyevich, to have a deal with bears.

I thought even further: that our ancestors went to bear with a spear and often won in a fair fight. Now hunting prowess is lowering its bar as small arms are improved. Everything is relative.

And are you not afraid to walk alone among the bears like this? - St. John's wort looks at me with a small amount of irony.

But somehow there is no fear, it's a common thing, - I answer calmly.

You have been attacked by a bear at least once. Not? But he attacked me ... You would have spoken differently.

The bear seems to be a calm creature. I even heard that he is afraid of a person. You just need not to provoke him ...

Wielding a spoon, Oleg grinned, casting a glance at me:

And who knows what is on his mind. Here we are sitting here with you, eating, and you suddenly take a knife and chop us all. Who knows you ?! So is the bear.

Sitting in a gazebo against the backdrop of a twilight bay and distant high shores, we talked with Oleg for life.

You have to choose your wife so that she is eight years younger: that is, for example, you are forty years old, and she ... somewhere thirty-two. Well, so that she would have grabbed it in full in this life, would have burned herself from the men and would not twitch anymore.

I strongly disagree with these views of him.

However, giving advice about life is a thankless task, to each his own, - Oleg cheerfully summed up.

Having come to this general conclusion, we went to sleep in the deepening darkness.

Judging by the words of Oleg Kartavykh, from the barrier of the village of Kirillovo to his camp is 27 kilometers. Thus, in a day I made about 30 km.

Day three: hospitable fishing camps, Sakhalin jungle and Cape Anastasia

We woke up at seven in the morning from an assertive and loud voice:

Sanya! Get up!

It was Oleg who woke up his partner (I spent the night in Sanya's house).

Get up, get up! It is necessary to collect things.

Today they roll up and leave the camp. Until midday, when the tide begins, you have to have time to collect belongings and disassemble the houses and slip along the low tide to the north. The tide starts at twelve. We already know what tides are, especially at river mouths.

The sky was dark. However, the forecast promised just that: it would rain on Tuesday morning.

The motto of Fyodor Leontyevich Kartavykh was: “If you can't do it, don't promise, if you swing it, hit it”.

With such parting words, Oleg and Sanya took me on the road. At parting, Oleg gave me his mobile number.

I went out at 8.30 am. It was dripping with rain. After a while, it began to drip more persistently, and a heavy rain began, which overnight soaked me to the skin.

Soon the buildings appeared - it was me, having walked about 8 km, came to the banks of the Naychi River (this is where the grave of F.L. Kartavykh and his wife is located). On the northern bank of the river is the camp. As I was told the day before, a certain Petrovich lives here.

The camp is huge. I knock on the door. A chubby guy named Sergei came out. Petrovich himself was in the trailer. After a while, the three of us were already having breakfast. Petrovich is a bearded, hardened, strong internally elderly man who has lived in these parts since 1989. Everyone on the east coast of Crillon knows him. In turn, he personally knew F.L. Kartavykh.

Treating me to smoked duck with rice, Petrovich told about how three years ago two Englishwomen spent the night in this camp, who were sailing in a canoe to Japan. I recognized them at once: or rather, one of them was Sara Outen. She went around the world and across Sakhalin moved to Japan: just from Krillon to Wakkanai through the La Perouse Strait. I then worked in the authorities and dealt with this issue.

In the evening, I saw a kayak docked. Two girls got out of it and set up a tent on the shore, - Petrovich recollects, - I tell them: bears roam here, I don’t go to the toilet without a gun ... In general, I invited them to spend the night inside.

According to Petrovich, there was a Japanese village with a school in this place. No wonder, under the Japanese, all of South Sakhalin was built up and populated. In the foothills of Mount Spamberg, we met many fields of considerable size - the Japanese mastered. They, the Japanese, are economic people.

After breakfast, I crossed Naychi, flowing almost under the very windows of the dining room, in Petrovich's bogs, and leaving them under a snag on the other side, as agreed with Petrovich, walked on, looking with interest at the horse grazing in the distance. Horses on Sakhalin are bred quite actively. The horse, a noble and unpretentious creature, is admirable.

After an almost 8-kilometer journey under the rain streams, I notice an Orthodox cross in the hills, crowning a chapel hidden in wet trees. I went to the Mogucha river, on the banks of which the next camp was located.

A cow and rams graze around. The dog is running. I notice a woman entering the house. I hurry after her, knocking on the door. The door opens, and a woman of about fifty, who has just entered, and a man of eastern nationality with a bandana on his head, are looking at me. The phrase with which I was met spoke volumes:

You are my dear man!

It was Olga, the mistress of the house, who expressed sympathy for my soaked state. Alik immediately offered to change. After visiting the chapel on the hill, I ate three cups of hot borscht, listening to the story of these kindest people. Olga is from the Altai Territory. Here for the fourth year she has been working as a cook. At home - a husband and five children. About two years ago I went to visit my family and since then I could not leave - there was still not enough money. Moreover, this year there was almost no fish. Alika was also leaving her life, and he has been here for the third year without getting out (!).

Here, in fact, is not only a camp, but also a recreation center. Every weekend in the warm season, parties are held here for wealthy people: discos, booze, etc.

Olga shows me on her digital camera photographs of their life here: fishing, livestock, working days. I remembered how in June of this year, when I was making my way along the road from Cape Pogibi to Goryachi Klyuchi, crossing Northern Sakhalin, in the pipe-walkers' hut in the deep taiga, the hospitable hostess of the house showed me photographs on her laptop at a meal. What a similar situation! Apparently, there is a whole type of such women in the classification table of Russian women.

I draw your attention to the presence of mosquitoes during this rather cold season for them. Alik says, citing the exact data of his observations, that they appeared on the coast on September 6, and Olga adds, explaining the reason for this, that the summer was dry, hot, up to 30 degrees in the shade, so mosquitoes, supposedly, were waiting for a favorable time.

Having eaten borscht, drunk hot coffee and warmed up, despite Alik's insistent suggestions to stay overnight (although it's still a day outside), I move on. Having embraced goodbye with my benefactors, who accompanied me to the river, I wade, not yet filled with the mighty sea tide.

I look with hope at the gloomy sky, from which the water is rapidly falling: as never before, a wet traveler wants the sun.

But still, our sun

Will appear salutary.

Gloomy people wake up,

The forests will rise burned.

And myriads of stars

Over our heads

Dispell all doubts

And all fears will be driven away.

The most difficult stage of the journey lies ahead - the crossing over the Hirano rocks and Cape Konabeyevka. I was mentally prepared for the fact that it would be very difficult, but that it would be practically murderous, I did not even suspect. There is, of course, a passage through these rocky places from below, but from the recollections of travelers and the advice of experienced people heard, it turned out that the edge of the sea can only be walked lightly. My friend and partner in the hike to the Spamberg Mountain Maxim said that Cape Konabeyevka got its name because horses were crashed here.

With about 12 kg of belongings behind me, I decide to go on top.

I reach the skeleton of a small rusted ship indicated by Alik. There is a ravine, in which an old Japanese road is hiding, leading along the top, bypassing Konabeyevka. However, I decide first to reach the nearest rocky promontory and see with my own eyes what is behind it. After walking over the huge stones for the first tens of meters, I climb the promontory and see everywhere heaps of boulders and blade-like rocks. I understand that it is not worthwhile to meddle with a heavy summit. He's pulling me down with his weight anyway, so I wouldn't fall ...

I change my shoes: I hide the sneakers, which are good only in the conditions of the seashore, in my backpack and put on my sneakers and go into the ravine.

At first, the path seems to be visible, but soon it is lost in the thickets. With a wave of your hand - come what may! - I go straight up the hill. Bamboo, painfully familiar from Mount Spamberg, bristles with hostility. A week ago, he did not let us go to its top, but now he prevents us from bypassing Krillon!

I will finally blot it to the skin. There are birches and other deciduous trees and some conifers all around. Clinging to trees, fighting bamboo. There is nothing to lose - just forward! I suppress the animal fear of the unknown in these lonely places, watered by rains and surrounded by bears. Native Sakhalin cannot destroy, but the Lord will not betray. There is no going back. True, Alik and Olya are still nearby, and you can return at any time, but returning to them will be surrender. It's hard, but you have to go. I remember that Maxim said that in comparison with the Tonino-Aniva Peninsula, Krillon are children's toys. You're kidding, buddy, the hike to Cape Aniva was a fun promenade, but then there's the matter - the struggle for every meter.

I break through to the ridge itself. Only the sea is visible. On the ridge, bamboo is shorter - it's easier to walk.

I walk along the ridge further south. I am not going - I am swimming, literally and figuratively. Directly - because everything is wet from the rain; in a portable one - because you have to work with your hands, as when swimming. I don't even remember the vaunted old Japanese road - it is clearly overgrown with giblets. I just follow my intuition. From time to time you come across some kind of ditches under your feet, cutting through the ridge. In places they are deep, and in order to overcome them, you have to go down in them. All this - bamboo, ditches, and rain - cannot but cause despondency and murmur. Although what to grumble about? On nature? Or on himself, who cannot sit still? I would buy a ticket somewhere in Thailand and go to have fun on hot bourgeois beaches - and it would fit perfectly into the framework of the System, and the System would be happy with you. But no, you have to climb where you can easily disappear; in conditions where a person begins to be a person, where he does not live according to imposed patterns, but acts on the basis of the prevailing spontaneous circumstances! Then why grumble ?! Only forward and with the song! Look at what beauties: below - rocks, to the west - mountain ridges. Why be discouraged ?! We should be glad that you take everything from life in the very real sense of this expression. There, just below Cape Konabeyevka appeared. Unearthly beauty!

I see the ridge gradually starts to descend towards the coast. In a fit of joy, I decide to get off the ridge and start the descent early, and that was my big mistake. I "fall" to the left and work my way through the bamboo. And on the slopes, as we already know, it is much more violent than on the ridge. I make my way to the stream bed and freely walk down it in the hope that he will lead me to the seashore. However, the slope abruptly drops down, and, seeing the rustling sea far below, I understand that I am just above a high cliff. Hastened, oh, hastened with the descent!

With annoyance I climb the channel and take it to the left onto the slope of the spur, straight into the bamboo. The fact is that it is easier to go down a slope overgrown with bamboo or cedar elfin, since you go in the direction of its spread, that is, “along the wool,” according to A. Klitin; but you have to go up against the grain. In fact, I decided to bypass the Krillon peninsula from the side of Taranay precisely because, as Maxim mentioned, the bamboo on the ridge above Konabeyevka spreads in the direction of the south, which simplifies the course, because - “on the wool”.

With difficulty I crossed the slope and began to descend along the spur. Vines are mixed with bamboo. They intertwine and cling to the backpack, or they simply appear across the path, and it is impossible to step over or break them. Moving forward is incredibly difficult, right up to nausea - this is from overwork. The situation is repeated nine years ago, when the mountain jungles of Laos did not let me go back. Some beetles were added to the Lao lianas and other lush vegetation, which bit their hands, leaving an unfamiliar, twisting pain. Then I had no food or drink with me, and a deep river flowed below, less than a kilometer from me, and teased me with its freshness. And in the same way, I then made my way through the jungle and went out to the rocky cliffs. But then I was light and somehow climbed down the rocky wall and trees.

The Sakhalin jungle is not inferior to the jungle of Indochina. On the slopes of Mount Spamberg, making my way through bamboo, I expressed my wish to have a machete, but Maxim said that in this case the machete would not help. Now I was again eager to hold the machete in my hand and hack my way to the sea. Chop everything around, in a big way! So this lush vegetation wore out. On the coast there will be salvation from this murderous beauty! There are stones and sand, there are streams and waves. There you can lie back and relax, here you have to be in constant tension, both physically and mentally. To move forward somehow, I do a desperate flip-jump forward and throw myself along with my backpack. And so - three times.

Again the stream bed and again it falls down the cliff.

Again I climb through the stubble of the Sakhalin jungle, again I cross the spur. And now, finally, the third stream, the channel of which leads to the sea!

Coming out to the coast, I look back at the arch of Cape Konabeyevka, left behind, in the north, and look up. Indeed, a deadly beauty: you can stay there forever in these thickets, go crazy and surrender to the power of nature. But it is better to come out victorious and never be afraid of anything: not the elements, not bears, not dashing people.

Not without losses: a torn pocket on his trousers and scratched hands. Then, in Laos, my pants turned into shorts, and my legs and back became stripped flesh. Still, native places are more indulgent.

The clock reads six in the evening.

... I go to Cape Anastasia. There was once the village of Atlasovo. Petrovich said that from there to them - to the camp on Naychi - some man walked through the thickets above Konabeyevka in two hours (!) To call for help: they had something stalled there. I only spent more than three hours on bypassing one Konabeyevka.

I pass a waterfall, a lighthouse on a hill, I reach Cape Anastasia. It is a sharp ledge in the sea and is crowned with two rocks: one is huge in the form, as it seemed to me, of a cylinder, the second is much thinner.

In the south, across the Morzh Bay, you can see Cape Krillon with buildings on it. A little higher - air defense balls (9). At the very Cape of Anastasia there is a camp, however, the fishermen have already taken off, and there is no one in the camp. Around the buildings. Infrastructure remained from the Japanese of the times of Karafuto: a pier, vats for salting fish, etc.

It is getting dark. I cross the raging high water - the tide begins - the river Anastasia. Soak my clothes and my backpack. I light a fire (sea firewood, even damp from the rain, burns well!), Hastily dry things, cook dinner and hang up. In a damp tent I replay in my memory a day full of mystical adventures and murderous beauty.

I contemplate the distant lights of Cape Crillon and the blinking of its lighthouse: it cuts through with a rapid flash only the southern part of the night sky. Nice and monumental. The main thing is that the conditional closeness of people warms the soul. In addition, in Morzh Bay, about half the distance from me to Cape Crillon, a small boat anchored for the night. Up to the cape - 12 -15 kilometers. We have to get there by lunch tomorrow.

Day four: Cape Krillon, Japan and West Coast

In the morning I woke up early: at six or half past six. However, it took a long time to dry the soaked clothes the night before, and I did not move until half past ten.

In the process of drying my clothes, I regretted that Ryunosuke Akutagawa's little Japanese book of stories got wet again and completely collapsed because I did not store it in a plastic bag on the way. The glued book was no longer subject to new repairs, and I made the decision to burn it. The worthy care of a travel book is to be honorably devoted to the fire at the end of the world. The book of this great Japanese writer, which accompanied me on my travels across the country and across Sakhalin, triumphantly disappeared in the flames of a bonfire at Cape Anastasia.

Akutagawa's Tale on the Sheets

Scattered under the onslaught of the rains.

And only the twinkle with the guitar carried everything,

And the picture changes every day.

I walk along the coast of the Morzh Bay. The sea is without waves, which is quite unusual. There are vodka bottles lying on the shore and there are all the same household items: a refrigerator and two TVs. In the distance, ships ply the expanse of the bay. There is a rumble over the water area. It was even thought that this stinking RTG at the bottom of the sea was buzzing through the water column. After all, it was here, in Morges Bay, in 1987, according to eyewitnesses, that a helicopter dropped one of these infamous, death-emitting generators.

Teddy bear

I walked through the forest, collected cones,

I immediately lost everything I found

Turned into a dummy

For someone there to remember

For someone there to look

For someone there to understand

I go around three rocky headlands. I come across a former all-terrain vehicle: only the chassis and pistons are left of it. The closeness of the military is already being felt.I pass the last rocky cape - Cape Kostroma, and go to the finish line - to Cape Krillon.

A dirt road torn up by the Ural leads from the coast to the hill where the buildings are located.

At about four o'clock in the afternoon I was already at the southern point of Sakhalin. In the distance, Japan, dear to my heart, was blue. It is about forty kilometers to Wakkanai. They even see some kind of tower there. To the southwest rises Mount Rishiri on the Japanese island of the same name.There is a frontier post on the cape, near which there is a helicopter, which flew back and forth a couple of times while I walked along the coast of Morzh Bay; an ancient but still active lighthouse, a weather station and a bunch of destroyed buildings.

The helicopter began to take off again.To my surprise, none of the military asked for my documents or even became interested in my person. Although the border zone ...

At the very edge of the cape, above the cliff, is the grave of Soviet soldiers who liberated South Sakhalin in August 1945. Every year, on May 9, jippers come here to lay wreaths.

After resting on the cape, I follow the way back towards the lighthouse. I ask the woman where the weather station is: I have business there. The meteorological station is located nearby, on the territory of the lighthouse, to which you need to climb a little.

Chickens are running around in the yard and a dog is torn apart. At the entrance stands, slightly smiling, a pretty girl Olya, to whom I walked for more than a year, and looks at me with curiosity.

- Hello! Olya? Greetings from Yegor from Tomsk.

At Egor's, I fit in for the night in June last year while hitchhiking in Russia. Egor is a frostbitten hitchhiker, traveler and bicycle adventurer. Arriving a couple of years ago in Kholmsk by ferry and finding himself for the first time on Sakhalin, he immediately went to Krilyon (after that he got all the way to Okha). Here he met Olya, who came from her native Barnaul here, to the end of the world. Last year, in Tomsk, he told me about her and asked to say hello to her on occasion.

She remembered Egor, and offered me some tea, however, only an hour later, when her shift was over. But I didn’t have time, and I had to bow. Whether I did it right or not to refuse, I don’t know; or maybe it was worth sacrificing time and finding out what made this girl leave civilization and live at the end of the earth? ..

So someone there knows

It means that someone there believes.

It means that someone there remembers.

So someone loves there.

So someone is there ...

... I go north, towards the house. I absorb delicious overripe rose hips. Mount Rishiri was transformed by the rays of the setting sun. In the northwest, the island of Moneron turned blue. The hills of the western Tatar coast of Krillon are devoid of taiga - the influence of violent winds affects. All this makes the local relief similar to Transbaikalia, with the only difference that impassable bamboo grows on the local hills, and soft fragrant herbs in the steppes of Transbaikalia. Another feature of the West Krillon coastline is the lack of firewood. Do not light a normal fire. The shore is full of seaweed, into which you can fall ankle-deep.

Something like a monument turned white on the coastal hills. From a distance, and even against the background of bare relief, it resembles something Buryat in the Trans-Baikal steppes. A little further off, a concrete pipe rises right next to the forest. I climb up the military road into the hills and come up to a monument made in a characteristic Japanese style. The grave of some noble samurai, no way? At the base there is a red plaque, on the sides of which there are two huge casings with red stars. On the plate there is an inscription that a soldier who was born in Armenia died here in 1990. Is this whole complex dedicated to the deceased? .. (11)

After a while, the massifs of the Zamirailova Golova and Kuznetsov capes appeared ahead.

At sunset, I came to the remains of the ship Liberty, which had run aground during an incredible storm in 1945. The ship fell apart into three unequal parts. At sunset, all this symbolizes the transience of human civilization and the eternity of the Sun, this center of the Divine universe. The colors of the evening sky were a soundless symphony, solemn and unearthly.

At 19.45 o'clock I noticed a place by the river, on the grass, where it was possible to set up a camp. From the fire pit and the remnants of firewood, it was clear that someone had already been there. In the twilight, when I was setting up my tent, a distant noise of a car was heard, and soon a fishing "Niva" stopped on the shore near the camp, from which two came out and began to lead a seine into the sea. I went up to them. Met: Dima and Andrey from the village of Pravda. Their camp was about five kilometers from me, where their comrades remained.

In the morning Dima and his father came for me and offered to give me a lift to Nevelsk. Moreover, it is difficult to walk along the coast to bypass Cape Kuznetsov, and it is dirty and dangerous along the bypass taiga road due to bears. It was inappropriate to refuse, and in three cars we drove north. I rode with Ivan and his hunting dog Peach (diminutive for Pers), who whined every time he saw a duck fluttering out the window. Thank you, friends, for not leaving the traveler!

… We drove through Mount Kovrizhka. I had heard before that this mountain was used by the Ainu as an impregnable military fortress. There was once a war between the Nivkhs and the Ainu on the island, so this hypothesis cannot be discarded. Dima once climbed this mountain. The fact that there is a way to the mountain is evidenced by a rope hanging along the slope. With regret I gazed at the Gingerbread we were leaving. Apparently, next time I was destined to visit the top.

We got to Shebunino, and the asphalt started.

After the bombed Shebunino and Gornozavodsk, Nevelsk appeared as a cool metropolis. They even have their own "Rublyovka": sophisticated cottages along the federal highway. “The system itself creates its own poles of negation” (Guy Debord). Civilization began, framed by colorful autumn hills.

And so ... the station - minibus - Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Have arrived.

1. Mountain over 1000 meters above sea level.

2. System - a set of existential, technical and bureaucratic conditions, stereotypes and human factors, aimed at enslavement, corruption and destruction of the individual; in other words, a matrix.

3. RTG - radioisotope thermoelectric generator. The name speaks for itself - a battery based on the use of strontium-90; designed to power beacons. RTGs were actively produced during the Soviet years. After the expiration date, these radioactive batteries required careful and careful disposal, but in the 80s and 90s. their "disposal" was in full swing in coastal waters Sakhalin, Kuril Islands and other regions of the Far East. Information about the flooded places (and there are about 40 of them) is carefully hidden, but stubborn seekers of their truth discover them from space and thrust facts under the nose of those who were involved in this so-called. “Recycling”. The latter, in turn, fearing responsibility and, as a consequence, being deprived of their high positions, are fiercely denied.

4. RUZ - fish counting barrage. Another sophisticated invention of modern Russian civilization, aimed at robbing the people and the barbaric extermination of nature. RUZom blocks the river and does not allow salmon to spawn, citing the prevention of deaths. The fish caught in the net are seized and taken away by trucks in an unknown direction. Something is dull here.

5. Postmodernity - the modern era, characterized by the fact that in the first place are the mixing of styles, the combination of the unconnected, the service sector and all kinds of depravity; began at the end of the 20th century.

6. When I hitchhiked to a friend in Primorye this summer, we went to his friends - a strong peasant, such a kulak family. There they gave me so many glass jars of jams, pickles, canned food, pasta, army dry rations, etc., that I needed a jeep or at least a cart for my further movement with all this food. Naturally, most of the received had to be left with a friend at home. XVIII - XIX centuries. It was also reported that in October 1930, the City Hall of the Year Honto (now the city of Nevelsk) erected this Kajima Kinento monument at the site of the post in honor of the Japanese explorers Karafuto. In addition, according to local stories, a Soviet military unit was stationed nearby, the tanks of which are still hidden in the hills and are ready for military operations.

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