Yuzhno Sakhalinsk museum @ Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Sakhalin Oblast. Formerly known as Toyohara, Karafuto Prefecture

From Wiki:
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (Russian: Ю́жно-Сахали́нск) is a city on Sakhalin Island, Russia, administrative center of Sakhalin Oblast (which includes the whole island and the Kurils). The city was formerly called Vladimirovka between 1882-1905, then Toyohara (豊原) between 1905-1946. Population: 175,085 (2002 Census); 187,000 (2000 est.).

History -

The city began as a small Russian settlement called Vladimirovka, founded by convicts in 1882. The Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905, which brought an end to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, awarded the southern half of Sakhalin Island to Japan. Vladimirovka was renamed to Toyohara (meaning "Valley of the fecundity"), and was the prefect capital of Japanese Karafuto.

After the end of World War II, the Japanese portion of Sakhalin island was occupied by Soviet troops. Ownership of the city transferred back to Russia (then the RSFSR) and it was renamed Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, meaning Southern Sakhalin City in Russian.

Demographics -

Most residents are ethnic Russians, but there also exists a sizable population of Koreans. Of the 43,000 Sakhalin Koreans, half are estimated to live in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, comprising roughly 12% of the city's population. Also smaller numbers of indigenous minorities, such as Ainu, Nivkhs, and Oroks can be found.


http://h.imagehost.org/0982/yo1.jpg

http://h.imagehost.org/0401/yo2.jpg

http://h.imagehost.org/0309/yo3.jpg

http://h.imagehost.org/0099/yo4.jpg

Interesting. Thank you StormShadow.

it is a cool place,i really want to take a visit to japan

http://www.photosnag.com/img/4685/n09x0302vnsn/clear.gif

These are the fantasy, do not exist in reality at least, any longer. I'd prefer to visit China than to Russia. Go to Thailand and the sceneries are much more breathtaking than these. It is also good for you to keep fit and tidy up your space clean. Do you want to swallow down the raw-meats and running around the streets in naked, like some primitive people chasing the animals to eat for? Do not aspire to come and conquer towards the north. Stay where you are. The Northen territories are not even culturally well-bred. Earn some cash nice and comfy in expensive and elegant Tokyo. I'd welcome those cultured immigrants to stay. But I am warning you, never in the North, eager to be abused, that is not mentally healthy at all! Then I will be calling some really beautifully smiled and educated wealthy girls to give you the hospitality as the proper human-being. Do not go and be trashed about in Shibuya or Roppongi's dirty districts. Never listen to the Japanese music influencing you to be addicted in some really dangerous drugs that leading to the fictional land of Midgard, where imprisoned the criminals (in fact that is the creation of Tokyo but ignore, no-one really likes it).

These are the fantasy, do not exist in reality at least, any longer. I'd prefer to visit China than to Russia. Go to Thailand and the sceneries are much more breathtaking than these. It is also good for you to keep fit and tidy up your space clean. Do you want to swallow down the raw-meats and running around the streets in naked, like some primitive people chasing the animals to eat for? Do not aspire to come and conquer towards the north. Stay where you are. The Northen territories are not even culturally well-bred. Earn some cash nice and comfy in expensive and elegant Tokyo. I'd welcome those cultured immigrants to stay. But I am warning you, never in the North, eager to be abused, that is not mentally healthy at all! Then I will be calling some really beautifully smiled and educated wealthy girls to give you the hospitality as the proper human-being. Do not go and be trashed about in Shibuya or Roppongi's dirty districts. Never listen to the Japanese music influencing you to be addicted in some really dangerous drugs that leading to the fictional land of Midgard, where imprisoned the criminals (in fact that is the creation of Tokyo but ignore, no-one really likes it).
Um, yeah ok. :?

These are the fantasy, do not exist in reality at least, any longer. I'd prefer to visit China than to Russia. Go to Thailand and the sceneries are much more breathtaking than these. It is also good for you to keep fit and tidy up your space clean. Do you want to swallow down the raw-meats and running around the streets in naked, like some primitive people chasing the animals to eat for? Do not aspire to come and conquer towards the north. Stay where you are. The Northen territories are not even culturally well-bred. Earn some cash nice and comfy in expensive and elegant Tokyo. I'd welcome those cultured immigrants to stay. But I am warning you, never in the North, eager to be abused, that is not mentally healthy at all! Then I will be calling some really beautifully smiled and educated wealthy girls to give you the hospitality as the proper human-being. Do not go and be trashed about in Shibuya or Roppongi's dirty districts. Never listen to the Japanese music influencing you to be addicted in some really dangerous drugs that leading to the fictional land of Midgard, where imprisoned the criminals (in fact that is the creation of Tokyo but ignore, no-one really likes it).

tastes differ and what do you mean by - Do you want to swallow down the raw-meats and running around the streets in naked, like some primitive people chasing the animals to eat for?-:bash:

Well, like someone landed on Hastings in naked and fully tatooed with long beard to conquer the Iberian aboriginal people who now rediculously try speaking Latin since realised of being barbaric and not very sophisticated in manner. Go to London, killing the plus and minus factors to become zero so that you can never be invaded. And, you have to say Japan is declining all the time, who is supposed to impair your ability to do so. If the Japanese do something evil, ask the pretty and sweaty girls from Scandinavia to calm those dirty drug addicts down, since they do not listen to my words that will result in the release of their slavery. I am not afraid of Sweden, you know, I can play them around without destroying their quality being a Londoner. This is entirely up to their choice, if it's eventually bombed all over the place like Nagasaki & Hiroshima, and the symbol barely avoided the death penalty. You all must listen to me, since I know everything you would want to become. I hope the Australians will listen to it and be nice and rich. My love is all for the Anglo-Saxons!

:wave:

Is a shame that this Islands chinese existense got totally destroy by the Russian

Is a shame that this Islands chinese existense got totally destroy by the Russian

what Chinese existence? the Ming and Qing only built a few out posts which were NOT constantly manned, you can find this information in 聖武記 by 魏源. The real shame is that the Russians expelled nearly all of the Ainus who are native to Sakhalin, into Japan. The only indigenous people left on Sakhalin are the Nivkh and Oroks.

If anyone has any more images of other sites I don't know about that is located in the island, please post.

Yes, Chinese dynasties never controlled Sakhalin Island from what I know, as a province of Chinese dynasties or empires or kingdoms. There are also Sakhalin Koreans who are still dwelling in the island. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakhalin_Koreans (English)

Earlier in history, 1400-1700 & ect, Japanese clans had never settled Sakhalin or proposed expansion into the area ?

If anyone has any more images of other sites I don't know about that is located in the island, please post.

Yes, Chinese dynasties never controlled Sakhalin Island from what I know, as a province of Chinese dynasties or empires or kingdoms. There are also Sakhalin Koreans who are still dwelling in the island. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakhalin_Koreans (English)

Earlier in history, 1400-1700 & ect, Japanese clans had never settled Sakhalin or proposed expansion into the area ?

Your access to the information was highly restricted. according to the Nibuchu(尼布楚)treaty, singned between Russia and Qing Empire in 1689,September 7th, the Sakhalin (库页岛) was clearly identified as China's territory, but lately got robed away with other over 150 million square km terriotry by the Imperial Russia in the late of 19th centry, until the 1949, China had never acknowledge the illegal occupation.
and your claim over the arear was just for the rise of Japan after the 3rd Sino-Japanese war, which is unable to be said as "traditionally" and l"egitimately"

ありがとうStormShadow 。

karafuto,chishimaから絶対いつかロシア人を追い出します。
日本がアメリカと戦争して弱ってるのをいいことにアメリカから言われたからと言って（極東密約（ヤルタ協定））
ソ連は日ソ条約を一方的に破棄してロシア人の土地でもない島にまったく関係ない（ソ連）ロシアが
占領しロシア人を住まわせました。

ここは昔からアイヌ日本人など東洋人の土地です。
（近年の遺伝学的研究では日本人（本州、北海道アイヌ、沖縄県の3地域を比較）の
遺伝子はほぼ同じで、北アジアを起源に持つことが明らかにされ、従来定説化されてきた
縄文人（アイヌ含）を南方系・弥生人を北方系とする埴原和郎の「二重構造説」は否定されている。）

神社や日本人墓地なども今も残っています。
ロシアはほとんどの東洋人を排除しロシア人を樺太や千島列島に移住させました。一生忘れない。
それと日本兵をシベリアに送り強制労働させた事実も近頃資料で発見されました。それもこれから追求するでしょう。

またウラジオストクでは東洋人の遺跡が発掘されました。ロシア人が東洋人の遺跡を発掘してるのも見るに耐えない。

これからは中国や米国、ロシアの周りの国と連携してロシアに奪われた土地を１０００年かかろうが
２０００年かかろうが土地を奪い返します。もう既に中国はシベリアに移民を沢山送り込んでるけどね。

Your access to the information was highly restricted. according to the Nibuchu(尼布楚)treaty, singned between Russia and Qing Empire in 1689,September 7th, the Sakhalin (库页岛) was clearly identified as China's territory, but lately got robed away with other over 150 million square km terriotry by the Imperial Russia in the late of 19th centry, until the 1949, China had never acknowledge the illegal occupation.
and your claim over the arear was just for the rise of Japan after the 3rd Sino-Japanese war, which is unable to be said as "traditionally" and l"egitimately"

Yes, that is also known as the "Treaty of Nerchinsk" and the later "Treaty of Aigun" is another. The earlier treaty was with the Tsardom of Russia and Qing Empire, the other with the Empire of Russia and Qing Empire once again. However, these treaties are results of the Manchu border conflicts which took place around the Amur river. Which drew the borders around the River Amur in Manchuria, north of the Amur went to Russia, while the south went to China. I don't know of any mention of Sakhalin islands or even the Kuril islands, the conflicts that that lead to those treaties were based in Manchuria, Amur river area.

Your access to the information was highly restricted. according to the Nibuchu(尼布楚)treaty, singned between Russia and Qing Empire in 1689,September 7th, the Sakhalin (库页岛) was clearly identified as China's territory, but lately got robed away with other over 150 million square km terriotry by the Imperial Russia in the late of 19th centry, until the 1949, China had never acknowledge the illegal occupation.
and your claim over the arear was just for the rise of Japan after the 3rd Sino-Japanese war, which is unable to be said as "traditionally" and l"egitimately"

why should we even consider it Chinese territory to begin with? All of these negotiations for these lands never involved the actual natives of the islands such as the Ainu, Nivkhs and Oroks. I'm not really sure why some would try to defend old Chinese territorial claims when the area was essentially conquered by the Yuan and sporadically enforced by the Qing.. yet complaining that the Russians took it unfairly even though they essentially used the same process of conquest.

Historic pictures of Sakhalin's Ainu

http://www.japanfocus.org/data/Fig%2016%20Sakhalin%20Ainu%20Man.jpg

http://photography.si.edu/upload/Images/md_1801_Image_07034800.jpg

http://enviro-map.com/maps/sakhalin_native.jpg

a link to oral literature of Sakhalin Ainu
http://www.aa.tufs.ac.jp/~mmine/kiki_gen/murasaki/asai01e.html

why should we even consider it Chinese territory to begin with? All of these negotiations for these lands never involved the actual natives of the islands such as the Ainu, Nivkhs and Oroks. I'm not really sure why some would try to defend old Chinese territorial claims when the area was essentially conquered by the Yuan and sporadically enforced by the Qing.. yet complaining that the Russians took it unfairly even though they essentially used the same process of conquest.

which of your eyes saw me complain about? on the contrary your response prooved you quite Childlish. Territory wanes and waxes with national power. just some race tradtionally uselss would never have any prospect and only vainly cry

which of your eyes saw me complain about? on the contrary your response prooved you quite Childlish. Territory wanes and waxes with national power. just some race tradtionally uselss would never have any prospect and only vainly cry

what is contrary is that you make claims on legitimacy and traditionality when "Chinese" lands are being robbed, yet downplay claims by other legitimate and traditional claimants by dismissing them as "useless" and bringing in the "territory always changes".

Well well...

It seems Sakhalin / the Northern Territories(Kuril Islands) / Takeshima island (Liancourt Rocks) / Senkaku islands, etc. are touchy border/terrirory-related topics that should be avoided on this forum....

Let's simply enjoy pics rather than talking about the ownership of the terrirories.....

one of the things from the period of Japanese occupation that remain in use by Russia today is the rail line.

current line
http://www.travelbyrail.net/images/sakhalin.jpg

old line
http://www.k3.dion.ne.jp/~karafuto/rosen20.png

http://wikitravel.org/upload/shared/1/1f/Sakhalin_train.jpg

only recently has Russia decided to switch from the older Japanese rail gauges to match their national standard gauge
Railway a Gauge of Sakhalin's Future

07.07.2008 (16:08) | The Moscow Times
Sakhalin is not only separated from the rest of Russia by several kilometers of water, but also by the 457-millimeter difference between the width of its train tracks.

This legacy of Japanese control over part of the island, however, is not stopping Russian Railways from setting out to succeed where Josef Stalin and others have failed -- linking Sakhalin with the rest of Russia by bridge or tunnel.

"No resident of Sakhalin should feel that they are separated from the rest of the Russian Federation," Governor Alexander Khoroshavin said at a recent news conference in the Pacific island's capital, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.

"Developing the links to the mainland are the most important social and economic task for Sakhalin," Khoroshavin said.

The project, which would be completed by 2030, is part of a 14 trillion ruble nationwide development program from Russian Railways. The program, which could one day lead to an overland transportation corridor running all the way to Japan, was given a tentative thumbs up by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin last month.

But as yet, officials have no idea where to build the 10- to 20-kilometer link, how much it would cost and when work will start. And first, Sakhalin's peculiar history means that there are several major obstacles to overcome.

The island's history has seen it go from a Russian penal colony into Japanese hands, only to be closed to outsiders for more than 40 years after reverting to Soviet control.

Perched in the hills above the crumbling port town of Kholmsk, on the western shore of Sakhalin, stands a memorial to Soviet soldiers who died during a two-week war with the Japanese in August 1945 for the island.

But perhaps the most enduring legacy of the Japanese time on Sakhalin are the railway tracks that crisscross the island. A peace agreement negotiated by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt to end Russian-Japanese fighting in 1905 handed the southern half of the island to Japan, which then embarked on a radical program to develop its infrastructure.

Now, almost 60 years after the Soviets forcibly cleared away the last Japanese residents, the Japanese railway and, more important, the narrower Japanese gauges are still being used.

The first step before any rail link to the mainland can be contemplated is to switch all the island's tracks to the Russian gauge.

Over the next seven years, 4.5 billion rubles will be spent on modernizing Sakhalin's tracks, said Sergei Tishkin, head of island's railroad, during a recent press tour to the island.

But work is slow. Several dozen kilometers outside Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Vyacheslav Steklyevich, deputy director for innovation and technologies on the Sakhalin railroad, waited for the first train to go over a new 10-meter bridge of iron and concrete on a recent afternoon.

Running parallel to it, aging and fragile, is the original wooden Japanese bridge built in 1940. The new rails being laid across the bridge have both the Japanese and Russian gauges and can be switched easily.

"This is the 25th bridge to be built in the past few years, and we still have more than 100 to go," Steklyevich said.

As the first train trundled slowly across the bridge, the passengers gawked out of the windows -- seemingly oblivious of the fact that they were making a little bit of history.

But many residents seem proud of the symbolic shift toward the mainland. Near Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk's main train station, a monument topped with a Russian double-headed eagle has even been erected to mark the start of work on changing the gauges.

Tsarist officials first conceived a plan to link Sakhalin to the mainland about 150 years ago. After World War II, thousands of prisoners in Soviet labor camps actually began work on a tunnel under the strait, said Yury Prosyolkov, curator of the Sakhalin railroad museum.

The project was dropped after Stalin's death in 1953, but remnants of the tunnel can still be seen, he said, standing in his memorabilia-filled museum.

Officials promise, however, that should the link be built, the advantages for the island's economy and 700,000 inhabitants would be much more than symbolic.

Over the past few years, the island's infrastructure has continued to crumble outside the island's capital, and far-flung towns around the island have slumped further into poverty and isolation.

The Kholmsk port, complete with stray dogs and peeling paint, represents one of Sakhalin's major transportation lifelines to the mainland. It is here that trains arrive by ferry from the rest of Russia.

A set of tracks lead up to the berth, allowing train cars filled with fish, fuel and building materials to be brought ashore and converted to the island's narrower gauge.

Currently, a fleet of four ferries negotiates the 16-hour journey to the mainland port of Vanino, said the director of the town's port, Vladimir Pak, as he peered out across the Tatar Strait toward the mainland.

Traffic at the Kholmsk port has slumped since the Soviet collapse, and just a few years ago the fleet comprised 10 ferries, Pak said. Despite the multibillion-dollar oil and gas boom that has bought a host of international energy giants to Sakhalin, the railroad and port have seen little increase in traffic, Pak said.

Sakhalin Energy, the company operating the world's largest energy project, Sakhalin-2, relies mainly on ship and plane and transports only 5 percent of its total cargo by rail through Russia, company spokesman Ivan Chernyakovsky said.

"Closer integration with the mainland would be of benefit to the island, but it would only benefit us in an indirect way," he said.

Next door to the Kholmsk port, inside a cavernous warehouse, a solitary laborer shifted machinery to hoist up wagons and switch them to the island's gauge. Switching gauges costs 11,000 rubles per train car, said warehouse director Alexander Kornaukh.

Although Russian Railways is pumping in 30 million rubles in investment this year and the situation is improving, Kornaukh said, most of the machinery is Soviet and desperately in need of replacement.

In Kholmsk, a town blighted by high unemployment and few opportunities, the trains have brought more than 70 precious jobs, and Kornaukh said he was not too worried about a link to the mainland costing him his job anytime soon.

"I won't be alive to see it," he said.

The other question, he said, is who will pay local companies to convert their rolling stock to the Russian gauge. "I don't know which investors will be keen to put their money into this project," he said.

Well, like someone landed on Hastings in naked and fully tatooed with long beard to conquer the Iberian aboriginal people who now rediculously try speaking Latin since realised of being barbaric and not very sophisticated in manner. Go to London, killing the plus and minus factors to become zero so that you can never be invaded. And, you have to say Japan is declining all the time, who is supposed to impair your ability to do so. If the Japanese do something evil, ask the pretty and sweaty girls from Scandinavia to calm those dirty drug addicts down, since they do not listen to my words that will result in the release of their slavery. I am not afraid of Sweden, you know, I can play them around without destroying their quality being a Londoner. This is entirely up to their choice, if it's eventually bombed all over the place like Nagasaki & Hiroshima, and the symbol barely avoided the death penalty. You all must listen to me, since I know everything you would want to become. I hope the Australians will listen to it and be nice and rich. My love is all for the Anglo-Saxons!

:wave:

So... you say "impair your ability". I'd be interested in learning more about this. BTW, I must congratulate you on your elegant prose and lack of spelling errors. Bravo!

The Black Raven in Sakhalin is cool.


Wonder if those buildings have already been burnt.

Sakhalin is so fascinating...

I always wonder how Russia somehow got to the far east

interesting...