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They differ somewhat in respect to their size and their churches; but the grey log houses, conical balagáns drying fish, wolfish dogs, canoes, sledges, and fishy odours are all invariable features.
The fierce animals, half-famished for want of their usual diet of fish, roam over the country in all directions; and fearlessly approach the "ostrogs," roaming around the balagans and jourts in search of something to eat.
In the centre of the village, facing the west, stands, in all the glory of Kamchatko-Byzantine architecture, red paint, and glittering domes, the omnipresent Greek church, contrasting strangely with the rude log houses and conical balagáns over which it extends the spiritual protection of its resplendent golden cross.
Their winter habitations are of logs covered with earth and partly sunk into the ground, the crevices being filled with moss. The summer dwellings are called balagans, and the winter ones yourts, but the latter name is generally applied to both. A winter yourt has a hole in the top, which serves for both chimney and door.
In the former, which is generally situated under the shelter of timbered hills, several miles from the seacoast, they reside from September until June. The letovie is always built near the mouth of an adjacent river or stream, and consists of a few yurts or earth-covered huts, eight or ten conical balagáns mounted on stilts, and a great number of wooden frames on which fish are hung to dry.
In ten minutes we were seated on bearskins before a warm fire in a cozy Russian house, drinking cup after cup of fragrant tea, and talking over our night's adventures. The village of Penzhina is a little collection of log houses, flat-topped yurts, and four-legged balagáns, situated on the north bank of the river which bears its name, about half-way between the Okhotsk Sea and Anadyrsk.
To this fishing-station the inhabitants all remove early in June, leaving their winter settlement entirely deserted. Even the dogs and the crows abandon it for the more attractive surroundings and richer pickings of the summer balagáns.
If it were not for the abundance of fish, the whole country would be uninhabited and uninhabitable, except by the Reindeer Koraks. As soon as the fishing season is over, the Kamchadals store away their dried yukala in balagáns and return to their winter quarters to prepare for the fall catch of sables.
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