The number of steamers which sail the Black Sea under the Russian flag was, in 1901, only 316, with a tonnage of 187,000 tons, that is, 42% of the number and 52% of the tonnage of the entire steamship fleet of Russia. In 1912 the figures were 410 steamers, 223,000 tons, the percentages being 42% and 47%. The number of sailing vessels in 1901 was 635, with a total tonnage of 47,000, and in the year 1912 there were 827 sailing vessels, with over 53,000 tons. The development of Pontian navigation is thus going a very slow, if not a retrogressive course.
The Russian Black Sea steamers maintain a more or less regular service between the most important Black Sea ports — Odessa, Mikolaiv, Kherson, Sevastopol, Rostiv, Novorossysk, etc. From Sevastopol a line goes to Constantinople, from Odessa one to Alexandria and Vladivostok.
Despite this miserable condition of Pontian navigation, from a European point of view, it still has greater significance than navigation on other seas of Russia. Near the end of the past century, 70% of the total oversea exportation of Russia by weight, and 65% by value, went thru the harbors of the Ukrainian coast. To be sure, in 1896, only 7.5% of the ships which visited these ports sailed under the Russian flag. In the year of 1911 it was not much different; of the outgoing ships only 11.4%, and of the incoming ships only 13.9% carried the Russian flag!
Among the Black Sea ports, Odessa, now, as ever, takes first place. The imports of Odessa, in 1911, amounted to 19.2 million q., the exports 26.2 million q. This, by the way, is an example of the great preponderance of exportation oyer importation. In other ports the disparity is even greater. Thus, the imports of Mikolaiv amount to only 2.3 million q., the exports 22.8 million q. For Tahanroh the respective figures are 1.9 and 19.5, for Novorossysk 1.5 and 18.3, for Mariupol 3.1 and 16.2, for Kherson 1.1 and 11.3, for Feodosia 0.6 and 4.8, for Rostiv 2.1 and 2.4, for Berdiansk 0.3 and 3.9, for Eupatoria 0.8 and 2.9, for Akerman 0.4 and 2.0.
These figures once more bring before our eyes the ruinous effect of the economic policy of the Russian Government upon the Ukraine. The natural resources of the Ukraine are exported in enormous masses, without consideration of the needs of the Ukrainian population; the imports are to a great extent directed to other far distant coasts of the Russian Empire, and Great Russia gets the advantage of them, while the Ukraine is flooded with the inferior goods of Central Russian industry. If we consider, further, that an annual customs balance of 200 million rubles goes to the central government from the Ukraine, an amount which is then used for the development of the central provinces, we become able to understand under what unfavorable conditions the economic life of the Ukraine must develop, and how dearly its progress must be paid for.
The Districts and Settlements of Ukraine
For centuries robbed of its political independence, the Ukraine today simply vegetates, instead of living in a state of full development. The fatal results of its lack of independence are visible in every aspect of the material and spiritual life of the country.
The present political-administrative division of the Ukraine is also a result of the want of political independence of this nation. This division corresponds neither to the natural nor to the anthropogeographical conditions, and to a great degree represents only entirely antiquated, now worthless remnants of the statesmanship of former centuries.
Even the state boundaries are very unnaturally drawn in the Ukrainian territory. The Austrian crown-province of Galicia embraces parts of Rostoche, Volhynia, Podolia, Pokutye, while other parts of this natural territory lie outside the state border, in Russia. The topography and the people are the same on both sides of the cordon; only the state authorities, and the ruling races are different. The Carpathian boundary between the Austrian and Hungarian parts of the Ukraine, to be sure, seems a good natural boundary, but in reality it would be that only if it ran along the southern foot of the range. For the Carpathian region of the Ukraine, as a result of its easy communications constitutes not only a physico-geographical, but also an anthropogeographical unit. On both sides of the border live the same Lemkos, Boikos and Hutzuls.