In 1918, during a period of political instability, the Nikolsk-Ussuriysky camp issued, as currency, a scrip note with a denomination of 1 kopek. The note was issued to facilitate trade within the camp and to support economic stability. It serves as a tangible reminder of the complex political landscape in Russia in the early 20th century. It is evidence of the resilience and ability to adapt of the people living in the Far Eastern region during a time of significant change.
During the imperialist war, 2,322,378 prisoners of war were taken into Russian captivity (2,104,146 Austrians, 167,082 Germans, 50,950 Turks, and 200 Bulgarians). A significant portion of these prisoners of war was concentrated in camps in the Urals, Turkestan, and Siberia.
As early as the winter of 1915–1916, Turkestan counted about 200,000 prisoners of war, and Siberia and the Far East 240,950, who were distributed among the following towns: Tobolsk, Tyumen, Kurgan, Chelyabinsk, Petropavlovsk, Omsk, Novo-Nikolaevsk, Barnaul, Semipalatinsk, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Achinsk, Biysk, Kansk, Irkutsk, Nizhneudinsk, Troitskosavsk, Verkhneudinsk, Berezovka (special military settlement), Chita, Sretensk, Nerchinsk, Dauriya, Nikolsk-Ussuriysky, Spasskoye, Blagoveshchensk, Shkotovo, Razdolnoye, Krasnaya Rechka, Khabarovsk.
Subsequently, the number of prisoners of war increased somewhat, but very insignificantly. The modest housing stock of Turkestan, Siberia, and the Far East was not able to provide shelter for such an unexpected increase in population. They therefore had to be housed in hastily built barracks or in primitive dugouts that left much to be desired. Unaccustomed to the Siberian climate, poorly clothed and poorly shod, not receiving sufficient food and living in unsanitary conditions, the prisoners of war became victims of various epidemic diseases, and it is quite understandable that mass mortality developed among them...
Despite the chauvinist frenzy that gripped Russia during the war, the Siberian civilian population (urban and rural) for the most part treated the prisoners of war without any hostility, sometimes even with compassion. The Siberian police and military authorities treated the prisoners of war differently: they did everything they could to worsen the already difficult situation of the prisoners, to profit from their lack of rights, and to enrich themselves at their expense. In order to justify in the eyes of the population the repressions applied to prisoners of war and to change public attitudes toward them for the worse, rumors were spread about German aeroplanes flying at night over Siberia (the Omsk Governor-General announced these aeroplanes in the newspapers)...
Although standards for the treatment of prisoners of war were established by international conventions (The Hague, Geneva), nevertheless, in the world war none of the warring parties observed them precisely. And in Siberia prisoners of war were forcibly used for work at enterprises operating for defense...