“Spring is coming to the south of Sakhalin. In the taiga, in the hills, the beds of rivers and streams begin to clear of snow. Water arteries swell, small streams turn into serious mountain streams, rushing down with a roar, sweeping away everything in their path. The rivers become impassable. Everything is covered in snow—you could say it’s still winter—and the muddy, dirty water rumbles and roars. This means that intensive snow melting has begun in the hills. Below, in the floodplains, the so-called green grass has already grown: burdock, sorrel, nettle, bear's pipe, wormwood and other grass. After the city mud, where since winter there have been heaps of sand and slag on the city streets - the consequences of the fight against ice; after the dirty, almost black snow lying in the courtyards, how pleasant it is to find yourself in the floodplain of the lower reaches of some river, on a fresh green carpet! The young green color pleasantly caresses the eye and soul. The buds on the trees had just burst. And the greenery has already laid out its bright, fresh, fragrant carpet. In a month the green carpet will turn into a grassy, impassable jungle taller than a man. Calendar summer is coming, but even in the south of the island it freezes at night. We can say directly that the month of June on Sakhalin is spring. The days go by, nature takes its toll, the sun works, sparing no effort. The water in the rivers is becoming brighter and declining. This means that the melting of snow has practically stopped. The snow remained at the very top, in the valleys of the eastern, northern direction...”