In Tymovsk District, all branches of the prison economy constituted bases for katorga. The prison had its own large meadows, fields, and gardens, in which worked a considerable portion of the penal laborers from spring to autumn. All other laborers (excepting craftsmen) were assigned to build roads, i.e., to make cuttings through the taiga, dig ditches, bridge wet areas with logs, and replenish road tarmacs with turf, straw, or stone. With the onset of winter, all unemployed people were driven into the taiga for logging.

The district's nascent colonization required considerable construction, and each winter, the administration's primary concern was to prepare enough building materials. Only two types of wood were used to frame residential homes: hard larch for the lower section and soft spruce for the upper. Silver fir was scorned as a weak wood, and Sakhalin had no pine or cedar at all. Nearly every day throughout the entire winter the whole population, both penal laborers and exile-settlers, undertook excursions to the taiga for timber and firewood. To better familiarize myself with this important industry, I followed some penal laborers to where they were felling trees.

Before sunrise, at three or four o’clock in the morning, the katorga command formed ranks in the prison yard “for secondment.” There was thirty degrees of frost. White steam, as if from a steamship's smokestack, issued from each man's mouth and nostrils. In their short-waisted sheepskin coats, the freezing prisoners shifted from foot to foot. Some were in felt boots and tall hats converted from old sheepskins; most were in government striders (spacious yellow leather boots) filled with straw, and gray cloth hats with earflaps. In their hands or over their shoulders, they carried straps for hauling logs. Some had an axe in their belts, others a teapot or a kettle.

Together with a clerk, the senior guard, viewing with lantern in hand the designated quota of logs, quickly organized all the folks into parties of three, four, five, or more people. As soon as the secondment finished, everyone who’d been hunching over in the prison yard immediately headed for Tymovsk Road with commotion and shouts, albeit not at a run. Passing government buildings and the church, the entire throng turned left along Derbinsk Road. The air was still. Stars burned brightly in the western portion of the sky.