On the fifth day of his sojourn in Rykovsk, General Grodekov unexpectedly visited me at home, to inspect the meteorological station. After talking a bit about the weather, he asked me to write a brief description of the local valley's climate, and left.

This encounter generated considerable excitement among the exile-settlers, who viewed my house not as an official establishment, but exclusively as a residential building given me by the government.

“The general,” they said, “didn't visit the district commander or the warden, but him, an exile-settler. That's no accident! He must be his relative, or they were in the service together…”

This news quickly spread throughout the settlement. Exiles besieged me with even more requests to petition the general for them.

Two days after my meeting with Nikolai Ivanovich, a smartly dressed Jewish woman with heavily rouged cheeks came to me.

I didn't know her, but she quickly introduced herself:

“Bloeffstein. Here, they call me ‘Golden Hand,’ but this is mistaken: the real Golden Hand is in Odessa, but they falsely put me here under that name.”

Suddenly, she burst into tears.

I hurriedly sat her down.

“How can I be of service to you?” I asked.

She didn't respond, and sat and cried.

I’d often happened to see the proverbial “Golden Hand” in the company of the exile Bogdanov, in his own right a Sakhalin celebrity due to his criminal exploits. Always giving me an unpleasant sensation, this couple would insouciantly stroll about the settlement and exploit local simpletons using various illegal stratagems. Only now was I getting the opportunity to see the woman up close.

Had Sofia Bloeffstein wanted, she could have easily found accomplices for any criminal undertaking there. I don't know how justifiably, but in Aleksandrovsk Post, popular rumor credited several major crimes to her “golden hands.” Following her second escape attempt from katorga, she was punished and sent across the Pilinga Range to our Tymovsk District.

“Perhaps you want me to write a petition for you?” I asked her anew.

She shook her head “no” and kept crying. I felt completely at a loss before such an abundant fountain of tears.