Saxalin Islands

The Colony of Saxalin is a Kiravian colony located on an archipelago of three large islands off of the Antarctic coast in the Pelian Ocean of Ixnay.

History
The Saxalin Islands were first inhabited by three Palæo-Ixnayan peoples: The Kūye, the Auyak, and the Valiru. The Kūye arrived on the islands first, whether from Ixnay Proper or Myosia. The Auyak followed, seizing the middle island of Korsakova, while the Valiru came to occupy the southern island of Tola, reducing Kūye territory to the northernmost island, Alkaï. All three tribes practiced arctolatry and pursued a lifestyle based on hunting, fishing, herding, and shifting cultivation.

Disputed Territory
After the collapse of the People’s Republic of Myosia in 21200 and the division of Myosia into foreign occupation zones, the [REDACT1] Empire, noting the archipelago’s strategic value, gradually advanced into the Sakhalins before claiming them as part of its sovereign territory. This claim was first formally recognised by the Kiravian Federacy. The Sakhalins were subject to [REDACT1]an and Dorman settlement, at the expense of the Myosian population, and the islands were integrated with the Empire’s mainland.

As the [REDACT1] Empire itself fell into political decay, the Imperial government asked the Kiravian Federacy to undertake temporary custodianship of the islands. The final breakup of the Empire led the Federacy to occupy the ethnically [REDACT1]an mainland provinces, which it merged with the existing protectorate as the Amical Protectorate of [REDACT1] and the Sakhalins. The islands served as a stronghold of the [REDACT1]an Imperial remnant, and were spared much of the violence that wracked the mainland during the struggle against the [REDACT2] rebels, save for a few naval battles. The islands became home to Kiravian naval installations, supply depots, and missile batteries, as well as the Kiravian administration based at Primorsk.

The mutual destruction of the Imperial remnant and the [REDACT2] left the former [REDACT1] Empire without any functioning indigenous political structure, and the occupied territories were formally annexed into the Kiravian Federacy by order of Prime Executive Andrus Candrin as the Intendancy of Regeria and the Sakhalins. Kiravian settlement of the islands began that year, undertaken primarily by independent syndicates of settlers taking advantage of land grants to found new towns and villages.

In 21203, the Intendancy of Regeria and the Sakhalins was split into the Government-General of Ibykia and the District of the Sakhalins.

Demographics
The ethnic makeup of the Sakhalins is 78% Coscivian, 14% indigenous (6% Kūye, 4% Auyak, 4% Valiru), 3% Celtic, 3% Sarpic, and 2% other (mainly Levantine and Corummese).

The largest Coscivian ethnic groups in the Sakhalins are the Sëorans (Käloatem, Vespâniem, Koralem, Ibusckem), Dark Coscivians (Iruktem, Kibirskem, Krôysanyem), Caspoärians (Stelanoviem, Cervoniem), Pineratem, and Túkluskans, who were resettled from Old Coscivia and poorer areas of the Federacy. The military bases and larger towns are home to Kiravians of various other ethnic backgrounds.

The indigenous peoples of the island have Kiravian citizenship.

The Sakhalins are unique among Kiravian possessions in Ixnay in that Christians account for only a minority of the Coscivian settler population there. Avargianism and Istavism, followed by the Dark Coscivian and Sēoran colonists are the largest religious groups in the colony.