Exile in Siberia was a well-known punishment for criminals in Imperial (and Soviet) Russia. Exiles, who could be common criminals or political prisoners, were forced to walk in irons to their new job at a mine or saltworks. The more remote labor camps cost the state more. James Gibson wrote in Feeding the Russian Fur Trade that the exiles were "state servitors" and that:
... the worst offenders, such as traitors and murderers, were banished to the northern and eastern extremities of Siberia, including the [Okhotsk] seaboard and the [Kamchatka] peninsula, while lesser offenders were exiled to less remote and more civilized parts.
Under the rule of Catherine the Great (1762-1796), how many criminal exiles were sent all the way to Kamchatka? I can only name Benyovsky.
