How do the four islands of the southern Kuril Islands live? Shikotan Island: how we live here Life on the Kuril Islands

28.01.2024

Reedus correspondent Dmitry Stroganov visited the Kuril Islands and shared his impressions of the bear region.

The capital of Iturup - Kurilsk - is a tiny town (population 1800 people), in central Russia it would be called more of a village. It will hardly take more than an hour to walk around it length and breadth.

There are no buildings higher than three floors - seismic activity. There are signs everywhere telling you where to go in case of a tsunami or earthquake. The rules for these cases are simple: urgently rush to higher ground. For those who are particularly intelligent, arrows are also drawn pointing to these same hills.

Entertainment

Entertainment in the city is only a couple of cafes at hotels and two gyms, not even a cinema. This is probably why young people are actively involved in sports. The most popular are snowboarding and alpine skiing. There are hills all around, you can ride anywhere.

Of particular note is the fishing. It is very easy to spot a fisherman among the locals: the trunk is covered with linoleum. Fish: trout, pink salmon and other delicacies are caught here in bags and counted as tails. “We went fishing a couple of weeks ago,” the local “bombila” tells me. - In three hours we took 80 trout tails. We caught it on a spinning rod using frozen caviar. You take a couple of tails and move further along the river for about 500 meters to get away from the bear.”

Bears are one of the main local problems. The day before, as you know, as a result of the actions of local flayers, this problem became relevant for the whole country for a day. Bears are really not liked here and are extremely feared. But they respect.

“Don't walk at night! A bear might attack me!” the concierge warned me when checking into the hotel. Wild land. However, ill-mannered tourists who throw garbage along the rivers are partly to blame for this problem. The clubfooted people are accustomed to household waste and happily look for food in garbage dumps; they are no longer even afraid of people.

The bear’s tormentors, by the way, were detained very quickly - yes, and where can you hide here, everyone knows each other here - there were three suspects, however, the names were not given, they don’t like it here when strangers meddle in local affairs, however, where they like it . A task force came all the way from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to look for the suspected killers.

Among the local animals, one can also note the Kurilian bobtails - funny short-tailed cats with capricious characters. This is a cross between domestic breeds and jungle cats; many people keep them on their farms instead of dogs.

Surprisingly, it is difficult to buy fish that is rare for central Russia in this fish paradise. There is no market, and the shops only stock squid and smoked halibut. Everyone catches for themselves. The price tag in local shops is prohibitive. The first words of visitors who came to a local store for the first time were “we thought it was expensive in Moscow...”.

Yogurts start from 120 rubles, milk - from a hundred. To travel a kilometer by taxi costs two hundred rubles. Prices comparable to those in the capital are set only for cigarettes, medicines and mineral water. Island, all products are imported: either from Russia or from Japan.

Among the local population, the attitude towards Japan is ambiguous. Most people are not eager to become allegiance to the emperor.

Regardless of nationality, it sounds like we are Russians, and that’s it.

However, there are also those who got a job in Japan and are not going to return back to Russia. It gets to the point that when they come to renew their work visas, they don’t leave the hotels on the street at all, only to the embassy and to buy groceries. “Our children have everything there, and the standard of living is completely different,” such expats say. For the sake of these benefits, they agree to put up with tiny apartments three times smaller than the smallest compact “Khrushchev” apartments and the absence of vacations.

The main product of Japanese export is cars. The most popular are SUVs from Toyota and Mitsubishi.

Domestic transport is only official: trucks, regular “grooves” and “bookers” of ambulances, police and the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The only exception is a dirty UAZ that came across once on the way. Judging by its appearance, it came to the Kuril Islands back in the era of historical materialism.

The roads are also worth mentioning. They are magnificent; I have only encountered road surfaces of comparable quality in the capital.

“For another three years there were only primers here, then they started laying asphalt. Everything is guaranteed, and the builders approached the issue of quality very responsibly. In three years, only a couple of patches had to be made,” noted the mayor of Kurilsk, Igor Karpman, in a conversation. In some places around the city there are still dirt roads, but road construction is in full swing.

A couple of kilometers from Kurilsk is the main local resort - “Vannochki”. In 1986, geologists drilled two wells with mineral water there: one from a hot spring, the second from a cold one. Since then, you can happily soak in mineral boiling water overlooking the Sea of Okhotsk. They say it is very good for joints. The course is 10 days, a one-time visit without a time limit costs 200 rubles per person. The water tastes and smells similar to Essentuki.

In view of recent events, many inhabitants of the planet are interested in where the Kuril Islands are located, as well as to whom they belong. If there is still no concrete answer to the second question, then the first can be answered quite unambiguously. The Kuril Islands are a chain of islands approximately 1.2 kilometers long. It runs from the Kamchatka Peninsula to the island landmass called Hokkaido. A peculiar convex arc, consisting of fifty-six islands, is located in two parallel lines, and also separates the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean. The total territorial area is 10,500 km 2. On the southern side there is a state border between Japan and Russia.

The lands in question are of invaluable economic as well as military-strategic importance. Most of them are considered part of the Russian Federation and belong to the Sakhalin region. However, the status of such components of the archipelago, including Shikotan, Kunashir, Iturup, as well as the Habomai group, is disputed by the Japanese authorities, which classify the listed islands as Hokkaido Prefecture. Thus, you can find the Kuril Islands on a map of Russia, but Japan plans to legalize ownership of some of them. These territories have their own characteristics. For example, the archipelago entirely belongs to the Far North, if you look at legal documents. And this despite the fact that Shikotan is located at the same latitude as the cities of Sochi and Anapa.

Kunashir, Cape Stolbchaty

Climate of the Kuril Islands

Within the area under consideration, a temperate maritime climate prevails, which can be called cool rather than warm. The main influence on climatic conditions is exerted by baric systems, which usually form over the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, the cold Kuril Current, and the Sea of Okhotsk. The southern part of the archipelago is covered by monsoon atmospheric flows, for example, the Asian winter anticyclone also dominates there.

Shikotan Island

It is worth noting that the weather on the Kuril Islands is quite changeable. The landscapes of these latitudes are characterized by less heat supply than the territories of the corresponding latitudes, but in the center of the continent. The average freezing temperature in winter is the same for each island included in the chain, ranging from -5 to -7 degrees. In winter, prolonged heavy snowfalls, thaws, increased cloudiness and snowstorms often occur. In summer, temperatures vary from +10 to +16 degrees. The further south the island is located, the higher the air temperature will be.

The main factor influencing summer temperature is the nature of the hydrological circulation characteristic of coastal waters.

If we consider the components of the middle and northern group of islands, it is worth noting that the temperature of the coastal waters there does not rise above five to six degrees, therefore these territories are characterized by the lowest summer temperature for the Northern Hemisphere. Throughout the year, the archipelago receives from 1000 to 1400 mm of precipitation, which is evenly distributed throughout the seasons. We can also talk about excess moisture everywhere. On the southern side of the chain in summer, the humidity level exceeds ninety percent, which is why fogs appear dense in consistency. If you carefully examine the latitudes where the Kuril Islands are located on the map, you can conclude that the terrain is particularly complex. It is regularly affected by cyclones, which are accompanied by excessive precipitation and can also cause typhoons.

Simushir Island

Population

The territories are unevenly populated. The year-round population of the Kuril Islands lives on Shikotan, Kunashir, Paramushir and Iturup. There is no permanent population in other parts of the archipelago. There are nineteen settlements in total, including sixteen villages, an urban-type settlement called Yuzhno-Kurilsk, as well as two large cities, including Kurilsk and Severo-Kurilsk. In 1989, the maximum value of the population was recorded, which was equal to 30,000 people.

The high population of the territories during the Soviet Union is explained by subsidies from those regions, as well as by the large number of military personnel who populated the islands of Simushir, Shumshu, and so on.

By 2010, the figure had dropped significantly. The total territory was occupied by 18,700 people, of which approximately 6,100 live within the Kuril District, and 10,300 in the South Kuril District. The rest of the people occupied local villages. The population has decreased significantly due to the remoteness of the archipelago, but the climate of the Kuril Islands, which not every person can withstand, also played a role.

Uninhabited Islands of Ushishir

How to get to the Kuril Islands

The most convenient way to get here is by air. The local airport, called Iturup, is considered one of the most important aviation facilities built from scratch in post-Soviet times. It was built and equipped in accordance with modern technological requirements, therefore it was given the status of an international air point. The first flight, which later became regular, was accepted on September 22, 2014. It was an Aurora company plane that flew in from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. There were a total of fifty passengers on board. This event was perceived negatively by the Japanese authorities, who consider this territory to be their country. Therefore, disputes about who owns the Kuril Islands continue to this day.

It is worth noting that a trip to the Kuril Islands must be planned in advance. Drawing up the route should take into account that the archipelago includes fifty-six islands in total, among which Iturup and Kunashir are the most popular. There are two ways to get to them. The most convenient way is to fly by plane, but you should buy tickets several months before the intended date, since there are quite a few flights. The second way is to travel by boat from the port of Korsakov. The journey takes from 18 to 24 hours, but you can purchase a ticket exclusively at the ticket offices of the Kuril Islands or Sakhalin, that is, online sales are not provided.

Urup is an uninhabited island of volcanic origin

Interesting Facts

Despite all the difficulties, life on the Kuril Islands is developing and growing. The history of the territories began in 1643, when several sections of the archipelago were explored by Martin Fries and his team. The first information obtained by Russian scientists dates back to 1697, when V. Atlasov’s campaign across Kamchatka took place. All subsequent expeditions under the leadership of I. Kozyrevsky, F. Luzhin, M. Shpanberg and others were aimed at the systematic development of the area. After it has become clear who discovered the Kuril Islands, you can familiarize yourself with several interesting facts related to the archipelago:

To get to the Kuril Islands, a tourist will need a special permit, since the zone is a border zone. This document is issued exclusively by the border department of the FSB of Sakhalin. To do this, you will need to come to the institution at 9:30 - 10:30 with your passport. The permit will be ready the next day. Therefore, the traveler will definitely stay in the city for one day, which should be taken into account when planning a trip.
Due to the unpredictable climate, if you visit the islands, you can be stuck here for a long time, because in bad weather, the airport of the Kuril Islands and their ports stop operating. High clouds and fog become a frequent obstacle. At the same time, we are not talking about a couple of hour flight delay at all. A traveler should always be prepared to spend an extra week or two here.
All five hotels are open for guests of the Kuril Islands. The hotel called "Vostok" has eleven rooms, "Iceberg" - three rooms, "Flagman" - seven rooms, "Iturup" - 38 rooms, "Island" - eleven rooms. Reservations are required in advance.
Japanese lands can be seen from the windows of local residents, but the best view is from Kunashir. To check this fact, the weather must be clear.
The Japanese past is closely connected with these territories. There are Japanese cemeteries and factories here, and the coast on the Pacific Ocean side is thickly lined with fragments of Japanese porcelain that existed before the war. Therefore, you can often meet archaeologists or collectors here.
It is also worth understanding that the disputed Kuril Islands are, first of all, volcanoes. Their territory consists of 160 volcanoes, of which about forty remain active.
The local flora and fauna is amazing. Bamboo grows here along the highways, and a magnolia or mulberry tree may grow near the Christmas tree. The lands are rich in berries; blueberries, lingonberries, cloudberries, princelings, redberries, Chinese lemongrass, blueberries and so on grow abundantly here. Local residents claim that you can meet a bear here, especially near the Tyati Kunashir volcano.
Almost every local resident has a car, but there are no gas stations in any of the settlements. The fuel is supplied inside special barrels from Vladivostok and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
Due to the high seismicity of the region, its territory is built up mainly with two- and three-story buildings. Houses with a height of five floors are already considered high-rises and a great rarity.
While it is being decided whose Kuril Islands belong, the Russians living here will have a vacation duration of 62 days per year. Residents of the southern ridge can enjoy a visa-free regime with Japan. About 400 people use this opportunity per year.

The Great Kuril Arc is surrounded by underwater volcanoes, some of which regularly make themselves felt. Any eruption causes renewed seismic activity, which provokes a “seaquake”. Therefore, local lands are susceptible to frequent tsunamis. A powerful tsunami wave about 30 meters high in 1952 completely destroyed a city on the island of Paramushir called Severo-Kurilsk.

The last century was also remembered for several natural disasters. Among them, the most famous was the 1952 tsunami that occurred in Paramushir, as well as the 1994 Shikotan tsunami. Therefore, it is believed that such a beautiful nature of the Kuril Islands is also very dangerous for human life, but this does not prevent local cities from developing and the population from growing.

From Moscow to the disputed Kuril Islands there are 9,500 kilometers. "GoogleMaps” pessimistically states: “it’s impossible to walk or drive here” and “there’s no public transport here.” For an ordinary resident of Russia, the Kuril Islands are the end of the world, and the everyday life and habits of the Kuril Islands are no more known than the habits of the Antarctic penguins. Earlier, Telegraph talked about the history of the territorial conflict between Russia and Japan, and then found out whether Russian Kuril residents want to become citizens of Japan (spoiler: they don’t). This time we collected stories from local residents about everyday issues so that the disputed territories become closer and clearer.

The girl is crying, the “farik” has flown away

Transport inaccessibility of the Kuril Islands remains the most important problem of the region. Communication with the mainland is difficult, unpredictable and at the same time extremely expensive. Modern airports began to appear on the islands only in recent years, but are still not equipped with all-weather navigation systems, so their operation is possible only in the absence of fog and strong wind, which rarely happens in the Kuril Islands.

The water route to the Kuril Islands is more predictable. From Sakhalin to the islands of Kunashir, Iturup and Shikotan, the motor ship “Igor Farkhutdinov” (in common parlance “farik”), named after the governor of Sakhalin who died in a MI-8 helicopter crash in 2003, runs. The sailing time of the ship, which can accommodate only 140 passengers and departs twice a week, is highly dependent on weather conditions, the number of passengers and cargo carried. The road to Kunashir, depending on the route, takes 1-1.5 days - the ship spends a long time in the port of Shikotan. In addition, the ship, having already reached its destination, cannot always approach the pier due to difficult weather conditions.

The inconveniences don't end there. In the Catherine Strait, separating Kunashir from Iturup Island, passengers prone to seasickness it's not easy due to strong ship motion. The wind can reach a speed of 30 m/s, and at this moment it is impossible to move around the ship. All that remains is to lie on the beds and hold back the urge to vomit.

For tourists, such adventures while traveling to the ends of the world add additional adrenaline to the blood, and Kuril residents are forced to carefully plan each trip to the mainland, which costs 4,000 rubles in a 4-berth cabin on the lower deck with amenities in the corridor.

Prices are not the first freshness

The remoteness of the Kuril Islands significantly affects the price and availability of earthly goods, to which residents of the rest of Russia have long been accustomed. First of all, construction suffers due to difficulties in delivering large cargo. When Kuril residents talk about decorating apartments, the concept of “good repair” implies the use of wallpaper and paint; poor Kuril residents are content with bare walls. Double-glazed windows are considered a luxury item here, so the owners sell the frames separately from the apartments. And in populated areas you can often see empty window sockets - they “attach legs” to scarce goods as soon as the residents leave the house.

“People don't run away from here. We're used to these places. Even the terrible earthquake of 1994 did not frighten them. They rebuilt and live,” explains blogger Stasya Svetlaya in her video essay about the island of Shikotan.

Food prices are a favorite topic for Kuril residents. Compared to the mainland, prices are several times higher because food is delivered only by ship and only when the weather permits. Large cargoes come from Vladivostok, and small goods from Sakhalin. Island-made bread costs 35-40 rubles, bread from the mainland costs 60-80 rubles. Eggs are sold for 110-130 rubles. Sugar - 90 rubles per kg. Cucumbers, tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables are 2-3 times more expensive than in Moscow markets. But the appearance of new products is welcome here, even despite the high cost. In this regard, Iturup often remembers the spring of 2014, when Easter had to be celebrated without traditional Easter eggs, since the bay was clogged with ice until mid-May.

“Products are brought by ship, they spoil during transportation, they arrive stale, limp, you have to buy only this! They immediately sold out what they brought, and then they had to wait again for something fresh. The stores seem to have everything, but the prices are steep and high! Even if they are the same as in Moscow, there is work there and the salaries are higher than ours,” said Nina, who works on Kunashir Island as a cook for 10 thousand rubles a month.

The first gas stations appeared on the islands quite recently. Gasoline here costs about 70 rubles per liter. Many car owners still order it from Vladivostok in barrels. Diesel fuel is cheaper (45 rubles), so car enthusiasts mainly prefer diesel cars. Where it comes from, local residents prefer to remain silent, only hinting that the military and state-owned enterprises have a lot of it.

A few years before the gas station, the first asphalt plant appeared on the islands, and before that time, settlements in the Kuril Islands were connected only by dirt roads. Because of this, an all-Russian incident almost happened. During Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Kunashir, he had to drive along a dusty dirt road to Mendeleevo Airport. Local officials feared that the prime minister's security car, which would travel ahead of the motorcade, would raise a cloud of dust, which would prevent Medvedev from seeing anything. They planned to water the road with hoses before the escort. But on the eve of the arrival of the head of government, it began to rain and did not stop falling throughout the day. Medvedev saw Kunashir and was even pleased with what he saw.

“There is no work at all on Shikotan. There are only two ways to earn money - serve in the army or work at one of the two local fish factories. I don’t understand how the locals live. There are no serious employers there. You can only do your own business - catch fish or deliver food from the mainland,” - surprised blogger Boca Typik.

From tanks to sea cucumbers

The southern islands have close ties to the military. Here lies the border with Japan, a country that fought several wars with Russia in the last century and has yet to sign a peace treaty. On the island of Shikotan, points of long-term defense have been preserved from those times - old IS-2 tanks, the barrels of which are turned towards Japan. The cars are dug deep into the hill, trenches are dug between them, which in some places are concreted. Local residents claim that the gun mechanisms are still in good condition.

Now there are FSB border service officers on almost every island. Some of them have no settlements, no roads, not even trees - only border posts. One of the main tasks of border guards is to suppress the illegal fishing of marine biological resources - crab, sea cucumber, sea urchin. The Japanese believe that daily consumption of sea cucumber prolongs life by at least ten years, which is why it is expensive. Border guards tell a story about how they once detained three Japanese schooners. During interrogation, the violators admitted that only three poaching exits allowed them to build themselves a large house with a swimming pool.

It is also a sin for the guardians of the Russian border themselves to complain about financial difficulties. By local standards, with a salary of 120 thousand rubles, they are almost oligarchs. They can afford to travel to the mainland when necessary and fly to Sochi on vacation.

Japan is close and inaccessible

The Japanese topic in the Kuril Islands is discussed very carefully. In the 90s, the Japanese authorities actively helped the Russian population to survive when the region experienced interruptions in electricity and food supplies. Old-timers remember with gratitude the humanitarian aid, including to poor pensioners: chocolate, flour, sugar, butter, rice. Power plants built by the Japanese still continue to provide light to the homes of Kuril residents.

“There was a time when there were no shops on the island, and goods were imported from Japan. Previously, ships often came here, people often traveled to the neighboring country. Some houses still have Japanese appliances. Refrigerators, microwaves - everything has been preserved from the 90s, everything works. Now they don’t bring anything because customs duties have increased significantly,” says Stasya Svetlaya.

The Japanese past is visible everywhere on the Kuril Islands. There are former Japanese factories, Japanese cemeteries, and the Pacific coast of Kunashir near the river mouths is strewn with fragments of pre-war Japanese porcelain and empty bottles of Japanese beer.

Residents of the southern islands of the Kuril chain (Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the Habomai group) enjoy a visa-free regime with Japan. However, in reality, locals rarely use this right - on average, about 400 people travel there from the Kuril Islands per year (less than 0.25% of the region’s population).

Now no one wants to offend close neighbors, whose houses are clearly visible from the Kuril hills in clear weather. But local residents categorically do not agree to give up the territory. The vast majority of them, despite everyday difficulties, support the country's President Vladimir Putin and believe that in the coming years the Kuril Islands will catch up with the rest of the country's living standards. For them, Japan is only a good example, but not a home port to which they should return.

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