Kurils belong. History of the Kuril Islands

History of the Kuril Islands

The narrow strait that separates Kunashir from Hokkaido is called the Strait of Treason in Russian. The Japanese have their own opinion on this matter.

The Kuril Islands got their name from the people who inhabited them. “Kuru” in the language of these people meant “man”, “smokers” or “smokers” were called by the Cossacks, and they called themselves “Ainu”, which in meaning did not differ much from “kuru”. The culture of the Kurilians, or Ainu, has been traced by archaeologists for at least 7,000 years. They lived not only in the Kuril Islands, which they called "Kuru-misi", that is, "the land of people", but also on the island of Hokkaido ("Ainu-moshiri"), and in the southern part of Sakhalin. In their appearance, language and customs, they differed significantly both from the Japanese in the south and from the Kamchadals in the north.

A non-Mongoloid type of face, thick hair, a broad beard, pronounced vegetation on the whole body - ethnographers were looking for the ancestral home of the Ainu both in the Caucasus and in Australia. In accordance with one of the latest hypotheses, the Ainu, who have lived on their islands for centuries, are a "splinter" of a special, ancient race.

The Cossacks called them "hairy", and this nickname was used even in official Russian papers. One of the first researchers of Kamchatka, Stepan Krasheninnikov, wrote about the Kurils: “They are incomparably more courteous than other peoples: and at the same time they are constant, upright, ambitious and meek. They speak quietly without interrupting each other's speeches... Old people are held in great respect...”

In the 17th - 19th centuries, the Japanese had a different name for the island of Hokkaido - Ezo. The term "ezo" in the old days denoted the "northern savages" who did not obey anyone. Gradually, under Ezo in Japan, they began to mean in general all the lands north of about. Hondo (Honshu), including Sakhalin and the Kuriles. The Russians called Hokkaido Matsmai, since in its southwestern part there was a city of the same name built by the Matsumae samurai clan.

One of the first expeditions to the land of Ezo was undertaken by the Japanese in 1635. Presumably, a certain Kinfiro, a translator from the Ainu, who served with the Matsumae feudal lords, took part in it. Whether Kinfiro managed to get to Sakhalin and the Kuriles or received information about them from the Ainu is not known for certain, however, based on the results of his trip in 1644, a map was drawn up, on which, although conditionally, Karafuto (Sakhalin) and Tsisimi were indicated - “a thousand islands "- so the Japanese called the Kuril Islands. Almost at the same time, in 1643, the area of ​​the South Kuriles was explored by the Dutch expedition of Maarten Fries, who were looking for mythical countries rich in gold and silver. The Dutch not only compiled good maps, but also described the lands they discovered (the journal of the senior navigator Cornelius Kuhn has been preserved and published), among which it is easy to recognize Iturup, Kunashir, and other islands of the South Kuriles.

In Russia, the first information about the Kuril Islands appeared in the reports of Vladimir Atlasov, who in 1697 made the famous campaign against Kamchatka. But the first descriptions of the islands were not compiled by him, but by the Cossack Ivan Kozyrevsky, who, by a sad irony of fate, participated in the murder of Atlasov. In order to beg for forgiveness, Kozyrevsky went to the Kuriles in 1711, but visited only the first two islands - Shumshu and Paramushir, where he asked in detail the "hairy" who lived there. He supplemented his report with information received from the Japanese brought to Kamchatka during a storm in 1710.

In 1719, Peter I sent two surveyors to Kamchatka - Ivan Evreinov and Fyodor Luzhin. Officially - to find out "whether America has converged with Asia." However, the content of the secret instruction they had was obviously different, since the surveyors, against expectations, sent their ship not to the north, but to the south - to the Kuriles and Japan. They managed to pass only half of the ridge: near the island of Simushir, the ship lost its anchor and was thrown back by the winds to Kamchatka. In 1722, Evreinov personally submitted to Peter a report on the expedition and a map of the islands examined.

In 1738-1739, Martyn Shpanberg, a member of the Bering expedition, went south along the entire Kuril ridge and mapped the islands he encountered. Spanberg's ship rounded Matsmai and anchored off the coast of Hondo - here the first ever meeting of Russians with the Japanese took place. She was quite friendly, though not without mutual wariness. Avoiding risky voyages to the South Kuriles, the Russians mastered the islands closest to Kamchatka, subjugating the "shaggy" and demanding yasak (fur tax) from them with the skins of sea otters. Many did not want to pay yasak and went to distant islands. To keep the Kurilians, the Cossacks took amanats (hostages) from among their children and relatives.

In 1766, at the direction of the Siberian governor, a toyon (leader) from the island of Paramushir Nikita Chikin and a centurion from Kamchatka Ivan Cherny were sent to the southern Kuril Islands. They had to "persuade the Kurils into citizenship, without showing, not only by deed, but also by a sign of rude deeds and anger, but greetings and affection." Chikin himself was one of the "hairy" and easily found a common language with his fellow tribesmen, but, unfortunately, he died suddenly on Simushir and Cherny stood at the head of the party. The centurion went to the 19th island (Iturup), along the way, by force, bringing the "shaggy" into citizenship. From them he learned that the Japanese had a fortress on the 20th (Kunashir). During the winter on the 18th island (Urup) Cherny drank, poached and mocked both his companions - the Cossacks, and the "hairy ones". On the way back, the centurion took with him the "descended" (runaway) smokers, and kept them bound on the ship, which caused many deaths. Cherny's "exploits" did not go unnoticed, he fell under investigation, but died in Irkutsk from smallpox. Embittered by the actions of Chernoy and other merchants, the "hairy" rebelled in 1771 and killed many Russians on the islands of Chirpoi and Urup.

In 1778, the Siberian nobleman Antipin, who was familiar with the Japanese language, was sent to the South Kuriles. On Urup he was joined by the Irkutsk townsman, translator Shabalin. The instructions given by the head of Kamchatka, Matvey Bem, ordered "to establish peaceful relations with the Japanese and the furry ones", and "under the death penalty not to offend the wild, as happened in the Aleutian Islands ...". Antipin and Shabalin managed to win the sympathy and disposition of the "hairy", and in 1778-1779 more than 1,500 smokers from Iturup, Kunashir and Matsmay were brought into Russian citizenship. Contacts with the Japanese were unsuccessful. Strictly adhering to the state policy of self-isolation, Japanese officials gave Antipin a ban not only to trade on Matsmai, but also to go to Iturup and Kunashir. The expedition of Antipin and Shabalin did not continue: in 1780, their ship, anchored off the island of Urup, was thrown onto land by a strong tsunami at a distance of 400 meters from the coast! With great difficulty, sailors managed to return to Kamchatka on canoes ...

In 1779, by her decree, Catherine II freed the Kurilians, who had accepted Russian citizenship, from all taxes. Published in 1787 by the Highest Order of the Empress, “A vast land description of the Russian state ...” contains a list of the Kuril Islands, “of which 21 are now considered under Russian possession ...”. The 21st island was Shikotan, and about the 22nd, Matsmai, it was said that the Japanese have a city on its southern side, and how far their possession extends on the northern side of Matsmai is unknown.

Meanwhile, the Russians had no real control over the islands located south of the 18th (Urup). In the report of the navigator Lovtsov, who visited Matsmai in 1794, it was reported: “The Kuriles, both on the 22nd, and on the 19th, 20th and 21st islands, are revered by the Japanese as their subjects and are used by them in serious work... And from that it is noticeable that all the smokers are extremely dissatisfied with the Japanese... In 1788, in May, one Japanese merchant ship came to Matsmai. The Kurilians made an attack on the ship. All 75 Japanese were killed, and the goods, having taken, were divided. An official was sent from Matsmai - 35 people were executed ... "

In 1799, by order of the central government of Japan, two principalities founded outposts on Kunashir and Iturup, and since 1804, these islands have been constantly guarded.

An attempt to resume negotiations with the Japanese on trade was made in 1805, when in Nagasaki, the only port in Japan where foreign ships were allowed to enter, the founder of the Russian-American Company (RAC), acting State Councilor Nikolai Rezanov, arrived as an ambassador extraordinary. However, his audience with the governor failed. The acts handed over by the Japanese side finally formulated the rejection of trade relations with Russia. As for the Russian ships, they were asked not to stop at anchor and to set off from the Japanese coast as soon as possible. Offended by the refusal, Rezanov made it clear to Japanese officials that the Russian emperor had ways to teach him to respect him. In his report to the tsar, he also reported that the Japanese nobles, suffering from the despotism of the spiritual ruler "dairi", hinted to him, Rezanov, that the Japanese should be "moved" from the north and remove some industry - this would allegedly give the Japanese government an excuse to establish trade relations with Russia... Rezanov instructed Lieutenant Khvostov and Midshipman Davydov to fulfill this "hint", making up an expedition of two vessels.

In 1806, Khvostov expelled the Japanese from Sakhalin, destroying all trading posts in Aniva Bay. In 1807, he burned a Japanese village on Iturup, and distributed goods from shops to smokers. On Matsmay, Khvostov captured and plundered 4 Japanese ships, after which he left the following paper to the Matsmay governor: “The Russians, having now caused so little harm to the Japanese empire, wanted to show them only through ... that further stubbornness of the Japanese government could completely deprive them of these lands ".

Believing that Khvostov's pirate raids were sanctioned by the Russian government, the Japanese prepared to retaliate. That is why the completely peaceful appearance on Kunashir in 1811 of Captain Vasily Golovnin ended with his capture and imprisonment for more than 2 years. Only after official government papers were delivered from Okhotsk to the Matsmai governor from Okhotsk, stating that "Khvostov and Davydov were tried, found guilty, punished and are no longer alive", Golovnin and his friends were released.

After the release of Golovnin, the governor of Irkutsk forbade Russian ships and canoes to go further than the 18th island (Urup), on which a colony of the Russian-American Company had existed since 1795. In fact, by the middle of the 19th century, the strait between Urup and Iturup began to serve as a border between states, which was fixed by the treaty of 1855, signed by Admiral Putyatin in the Japanese city of Shimoda. In a secret instruction to Putyatin, endorsed by Nicholas I, it was written unambiguously: "Of the Kuril Islands, the southernmost, belonging to Russia, is the island of Urup, to which we could limit ourselves ...".

The 1855 treaty left the status of Sakhalin uncertain, and in 1875 a new treaty was signed in St. Petersburg, according to which Japan renounced the rights to Sakhalin, receiving in return all the Kuriles up to Kamchatka itself. The Ainu from Sakhalin did not take Russian citizenship and moved to Hokkaido. The Ainu of the northern Kuriles decided to stay on their islands, especially since the RAK, in which they were in virtual slavery, ceased its activities in 1867. Having accepted Japanese citizenship, they retained Russian surnames and the Orthodox faith. In 1884, the Japanese government resettled all the North Kuril Ainu (there were no more than 100 of them) to Shikotan, forcibly turning them from fishermen and hunters into farmers and cattle breeders. At that time, the population of the South Kuriles, concentrated mainly on Iturup and Kunashir, was about 3,000 people, of which 3/4 were Japanese.

After the defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War in Portsmouth in 1905, an agreement was signed under which the southern part of Sakhalin (below the 50th parallel) also went to Japan. In 1920, Japan also occupied the northern part of Sakhalin, where it began intensive oil development. Historian Dmitry Volkogonov found evidence that in 1923 Lenin was ready to sell northern Sakhalin to the Japanese, and the Politburo was going to ask for $1 billion for it. However, the deal did not go through, and in 1925, the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth were confirmed in a joint declaration in Beijing.

At the Yalta Conference in 1945, Stalin said that he would like to discuss the political terms under which the USSR would enter the war against Japan. Roosevelt remarked that he believed there would be no difficulty in handing over the southern half of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands to Russia at the end of the war.

On August 8, 1945, the USSR fulfilled its obligations and attacked Japan. In early September, Soviet troops occupied the Kuriles, including the occupied Shikotan Island and the Habomai ridge, which, both geographically and according to the Japanese territorial division, did not then belong to the Kuril Islands. In 1946-1947, all the Japanese from Sakhalin and the Kuriles, numbering about 400 thousand, were repatriated. All the Ainu were sent to Hokkaido. At the same time, more than 300,000 Soviet settlers arrived on Sakhalin and the islands. The memory of the almost 150-year stay of the Japanese in the South Kuriles was intensively erased and sometimes by barbaric methods. In Kunashir, Buddhist monuments along the entire coast were blown up, and many Japanese cemeteries were desecrated.

At the 1951 peace conference in San Francisco, the USSR delegation proposed to include in the text of the peace treaty with Japan a clause recognizing the sovereignty of the USSR over southern Sakhalin and the Kuriles, but in the circumstances of the Cold War, the position of the United States and Great Britain was already different than in 1945 , and the proposals of the USSR were not accepted. The final text of the treaty included a provision on Japan's renunciation of all rights and claims to the Kuril Islands and southern Sakhalin, but it was not said, firstly, in whose favor Japan was waiving these territories, and secondly, the concept of "Kuril Islands" was not deciphered. islands”, which each of the parties, of course, understood in its own way. As a result, the USSR did not sign the treaty, but Japan did, which gave it the formal right to immediately raise the issue of the return of the South Kuriles.

The refusal of the Soviet delegation in San Francisco to sign the peace treaty legally left Russia and Japan at war. In 1956, a joint declaration was signed in Moscow between the USSR and Japan, which contained the consent of the Soviet Union to return the island of Shikotan and the Habomai ridge to Japan immediately after the conclusion of the peace treaty. But in 1960, the government of the USSR unilaterally refused to fulfill the clause of the declaration on the return of the islands, motivating "

"his rejection of the content of the new Japanese-American security treaty.

Since 1990, Japanese citizens have been able to visit the burial places of their relatives in the South Kuril Islands (the first such visits began in 1964, but were subsequently discontinued). Many abandoned Japanese cemeteries have been restored by Russians - residents of the islands.

In 1993, a declaration on Russian-Japanese relations was signed in Tokyo, which fixes the need for an early conclusion of a peace treaty on the basis of resolving the issue of ownership of the South Kuriles. In 1998, the Moscow Declaration on the Establishment of a Creative Partnership between Russia and Japan was signed...

The strait separating Kunashir from Hokkaido is narrow. On Russian maps, it is called the Strait of Treason - in memory of the capture of Captain Golovnin. Many today believe that this name is unfortunate. But the time for renaming, apparently, has not yet come.

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 an island landmass called Hokkaido. A kind of 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 south side, the state border between Japan and Russia is stretched.

The lands in question are of inestimable economic and 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, and the Habomai group, is disputed by the Japanese authorities, which classifies the listed islands as part of the Hokkaido prefecture. Thus, you can find the Kuril Islands on the map of Russia, but Japan plans to legalize the ownership of some of them. These territories have their own characteristics. For example, the archipelago belongs entirely to the Far North, if you look at legal documents. And this is despite the fact that Shikotan is located in the same latitude as the city 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 impact 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 should be noted that the weather on the Kuril Islands is quite changeable. The landscapes of the local latitudes are characterized by less heat supply than the territories of the corresponding latitudes, but in the center of the mainland. The average minus temperature in winter is the same for each island included in the chain, and ranges from -5 to -7 degrees. In winter, prolonged heavy snowfalls, thaws, increased cloudiness and blizzards often occur. In summer, temperature indicators vary from +10 to +16 degrees. The further south the island is located, the higher the air temperature will be.

The main factor influencing the summer temperature index 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 coastal waters there does not rise above five to six degrees, therefore, these territories are characterized by the lowest summer rate for the Northern Hemisphere. During the year, the archipelago receives from 1000 to 1400 mm of precipitation, which is evenly distributed over the seasons. You can also talk about everywhere excess moisture. On the southern side of the chain in summer, the humidity index exceeds ninety percent, due to which fogs dense in consistency appear. If you carefully consider the latitudes where the Kuril Islands are located on the map, we can conclude that the area is particularly difficult. It is regularly affected by cyclones, which are accompanied by excessive precipitation, and can also cause typhoons.

Simushir Island

Population

Territories are populated unevenly. The population of the Kuril Islands lives year-round in Shikotan, Kunashir, Paramushir and Iturup. There is no permanent population in other parts of the archipelago. In total, there are nineteen settlements, 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 density of the territories during the Soviet Union is due to subsidies from those regions, as well as a large number of military personnel who inhabited the islands of Simushir, Shumshu and so on.

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

Uninhabited Ushishir Islands

How to get to the Kuriles

The easiest 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, so it was given the status of an international air point. The first flight, which later became regular, was accepted on September 22, 2014. They became the plane of the company "Aurora", which arrived from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. There were fifty passengers on board. This event was negatively perceived by the Japanese authorities, who attribute this territory to their country. Therefore, disputes about who owns the Kuril Islands continue to this day.

It is worth noting that a trip to the Kuriles must be planned in advance. Route planning should take into account that the total archipelago includes fifty-six islands, among which Iturup and Kunashir are the most popular. There are two ways to get to them. It is most convenient to fly by plane, but tickets should be bought a few months before the scheduled date, since there are quite a few flights. The second way is a trip by boat from the port of Korsakov. The journey takes from 18 to 24 hours, but you can buy a ticket only at the box office of the Kuriles 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 surveyed by Marten Fries and his team. The first information received by Russian scientists dates back to 1697, when V. Atlasov's campaign across Kamchatka took place. All subsequent expeditions led by I. Kozyrevsky, F. Luzhin, M. Shpanberg and others were aimed at systematic development of the area. After it became clear who discovered the Kuril Islands, you can familiarize yourself with several interesting facts related to the archipelago:

1. To get to the Kuriles, 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 Sakhalinsk. 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 very next day. Therefore, the traveler will definitely stay in the city for one day, which should be taken into account when planning a trip.
2. Due to the unpredictable climate, visiting the islands, you can get stuck here for a long time, because in case of bad weather, the airport of the Kuril Islands and their ports stop working. Frequent obstacles are high clouds and nebula. At the same time, we are not talking about a couple of hour flight delays. The traveler should always be prepared to spend an extra week or two here.
3. All five hotels are open for guests of the Kuriles. The hotel called "Vostok" is designed for eleven rooms, "Iceberg" - three rooms, "Flagship" - seven rooms, "Iturup" - 38 rooms, "Island" - eleven rooms. Reservations must be made in advance.
4. Japanese lands can be seen from the windows of local residents, but the best view opens on Kunashir. To verify this fact, the weather must be clear.
5. The Japanese past is closely connected with these territories. Japanese cemeteries and factories remained here, the coast from the Pacific Ocean is densely lined with fragments of Japanese porcelain, which existed even before the war. Therefore, here you can often meet archaeologists or collectors.
6. It is also worth understanding that the disputed Kuril Islands, first of all, are volcanoes. Their territories consist of 160 volcanoes, of which about forty remain active.
7. The local flora and fauna is amazing. Bamboo grows here along the highways, magnolia or mulberry tree can grow near the Christmas tree. The lands are rich in berries, blueberries, lingonberries, cloudberries, princesses, redberries, Chinese magnolia vines, blueberries and so on grow abundantly here. Locals say that you can meet a bear here, especially near the Tyati Kunashir volcano.
8. Almost every local resident has a car at his disposal, but there are no gas stations in any of the settlements. Fuel is delivered inside special barrels from Vladivostok and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
9. 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 skyscrapers and a rarity.
10. Until it is decided whose Kuril Islands, the Russians living here, the duration of the vacation will be 62 days a year. Residents of the southern ridge can enjoy a visa-free regime with Japan. This opportunity is used by about 400 people per year.

The Great Kuril Arc is surrounded by underwater volcanoes, some of which regularly make themselves felt. Any eruption causes a resumption of seismic activity, which provokes a “seaquake”. Therefore, local lands are subject to frequent tsunamis. The strongest tsunami wave about 30 meters high in 1952 completely destroyed the 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.

The name of the islands "Kuril" does not come from "smoking" volcanoes. It is based on the Ainu word "kur", "kuru", meaning "man". This is how the Ainu, the indigenous inhabitants of the islands, called themselves, this is how they presented themselves to the Kamchatka Cossacks, and they called them “Kurils”, “Kuril men”. Hence the name of the islands.

The Ainu gave a suitable name to each island: Paramushir means "wide island", Kunashir - "black island", Urup "salmon", Iturup - "big salmon", Onekotan - "old settlement", Paranay - "big river", Shikotan - " the best place". Most of the Ainu names have survived, although there have been attempts from both the Russian and Japanese sides to rename the islands in their own way. True, neither side sparkled with fantasy - both tried to assign serial numbers to the islands as names: the First Island, the Second, etc., but the Russians counted from the north, and the Japanese, naturally, from the south.
Russians, like the Japanese, learned about the islands in the middle of the 17th century. The first detailed information about them was provided by Vladimir Atlasov in 1697. At the beginning of the 18th century. Peter I became aware of their existence, and expeditions began to set off one after another to the “Kuril Land”. In 1711, the Cossack Ivan Kozyrevsky visited the two northern islands of Shumshu and Paramushir, in 1719 Ivan Evreinov and Fyodor Luzhin reached the island of Simushir. In 1738-1739. Martyn Spanberg, walking along the entire ridge, put the islands he saw on the map. The study of new places was followed by their development - the collection of yasak from the local population, the attraction of the Ainu into Russian citizenship, accompanied, as usual, by violence. As a result, in 1771 the Ainu rebelled and killed many Russians. By 1779, however, it was possible to establish relations with the smokers and bring more than 1,500 people from Kunashir, Iturup and Matsumai (present-day Hokkaido) into Russian citizenship. All of them were freed by Catherine II from taxes. The Japanese, however, did not like this situation, and they forbade the Russians to appear on these three islands.
By and large, the status of the islands south of Urup was not clearly defined at that time, and the Japanese also considered them theirs. In 1799 they founded two outposts on Kunashir and Iturup.
At the beginning of the 19th century, after the unsuccessful attempt by Nikolai Rezanov (the first Russian envoy to Japan) to resolve this issue, Russian-Japanese relations only worsened.
In 1855, according to the Shimoda Treaty, Sakhalin Island was recognized as “undivided between Russia and Japan”, the Kuril Islands north of Iturup were Russian possessions, and the southern Kuriles (Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan and a number of small ones) were Japanese possessions. Under an 1875 treaty, Russia handed over all the Kuril Islands to Japan in exchange for an official renunciation of claims to Sakhalin Island.
In February 1945, at the Yalta conference of the heads of powers of the anti-Hitler coalition, an agreement was reached on the unconditional transfer of the Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union after the victory over Japan. By September 1945, Soviet troops occupied the South Kuriles. However, in the Act of Surrender, signed by Japan on September 2, nothing was directly said about the transfer of these islands to the USSR.
In 1947, 17,000 Japanese and an unknown number of Ainu were deported to Japan from the islands that became part of the RSFSR. In 1951, Japan began to make claims to Iturup, Kunashir and the Lesser Kuril Ridge (Shikotan and Habomai), which were given to her under the Shimoda Treaty in 1855.
In 1956, diplomatic relations between the USSR and Japan were established and a Joint Treaty on the Transfer of the Shikotan and Habomai Islands to Japan was adopted. However, the actual transfer of these islands must be made after the conclusion of a peace treaty, which has not yet been signed due to Japan's remaining claims to Kunashir and Iturup.

The ridge of the Kuril Islands is a special world. Each of the islands is a volcano, a fragment of a volcano or a chain of volcanoes that have merged with their soles. The Kuriles are located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, in total there are about a hundred volcanoes on them, 39 of them are active. In addition, there are many hot springs. The ongoing movements of the earth's crust are evidenced by frequent earthquakes and seaquakes, causing tidal waves of enormous destructive tsunami power. The last powerful tsunami was formed during the November 15, 2006 earthquake and reached the coast of California.
The highest and most active of the Alaid volcanoes on Atlasov Island (2339 m). Actually, the whole island is the surface part of a large volcanic cone. The last eruption occurred in 1986. The volcano island has an almost regular shape and looks incredibly picturesque in the middle of the ocean. Many find that its forms are even more correct than those of the famous one.
Near the eastern underwater slopes of the Kuril Islands, there is a narrow deep-water depression - the Kuril-Kamchatka Trench, up to 9717 m deep and 59 km wide on average.
The relief and nature of the islands are very diverse: bizarre forms of coastal cliffs, multi-colored pebbles, large and small boiling lakes, waterfalls. A special attraction is Cape Stolbchaty on the island of Kunashir, which rises above the water with a sheer wall and consists entirely of columnar units - giant basalt five- and six-sided pillars formed as a result of the solidification of lava that poured into the water column and then raised to the surface.
Volcanic activity, warm and cold sea currents determine the unique diversity of flora and fauna of the islands, strongly elongated from north to south. If in the north, in a harsh climate, woody vegetation is represented by shrub forms, then coniferous and broad-leaved forests with a large number of lianas grow on the southern islands; Kuril bamboo forms impenetrable thickets and wild magnolia blooms. There are about 40 endemic plant species on the islands. There are many bird colonies in the South Kurils region, one of the main bird migration routes passes here. Salmon spawn in the rivers. Coastal zone - rookeries of marine mammals. The underwater world is particularly diverse: crabs, squids and other molluscs, crustaceans, sea cucumbers, sea cucumbers, whales, killer whales. This is one of the most productive areas of the oceans.
Iturup is the largest of the Kuril Islands. On an area of ​​about 3200 km 2 there are 9 active volcanoes, as well as the city and the unofficial "capital" of the islands, due to its central location, Kurilsk, founded in 1946 at the mouth of the river with the "speaking name" Kurilka.

Three administrative districts with centers in Yuzhno-Kurilsk (Kunashir).

Kurilsk (Iturup) and Severo-Kurilsk (Paramushir).
Largest island: Iturup (3200 km 2).

Numbers

Population: about 19,000 people (2007).

highest point: Alaid volcano (2339 m) on Atlasov island.

The length of the Great Kuril Ridge: about 1200 km.
The length of the Lesser Kuril Ridge: about 100 km.

Economy

Mineral resources: non-ferrous metals, mercury, natural gas, oil, rhenium (one of the rarest elements of the earth's crust), gold, silver, titanium, iron.

Fishing (chum salmon, etc.) and sea animals (seals, sea lions).

Climate and weather

Average annual rainfall: about 1000 mm, mostly in the form of snow.

A small number of sunny days occur in autumn.
Average temperature:-7°С in February, +10°С in July.

Attractions

Curious facts

One of the first documents regulating Russian-Japanese relations was the Shimoda Treaty, signed on January 26, 1855. According to the second article of the treatise, the border was established between the islands of Urup and Iturup - that is, all four islands now claimed by Japan today were recognized as the possession of Japan.

Since 1981, the date of the signing of the Shimoda Treaty has been celebrated in Japan as "Northern Territories Day". Another thing is that, relying on the Shimoda treatise as one of the fundamental documents, in Japan they forget about one important point. In 1904, Japan, having attacked the Russian squadron in Port Arthur and unleashed the Russo-Japanese War, itself violated the terms of the treaty, which provided for friendship and good neighborly relations between states.

The Shimoda treaty did not determine the ownership of Sakhalin, where both Russian and Japanese settlements were located, and by the mid-70s a solution to this issue was also ripe. The St. Petersburg Treaty was signed, which was ambiguously assessed by both parties. Under the terms of the treaty, all the Kuril Islands were now completely withdrawn to Japan, and Russia received full control over Sakhalin.

Then, following the results of the Russo-Japanese War, according to the Treaty of Portsmouth, Japan ceded the southern part of Sakhalin up to the 50th parallel.

In 1925, the Soviet-Japanese Convention was signed in Beijing, generally confirming the terms of the Portsmouth Treaty. As is known, the late 1930s and early 1940s were extremely tense in Soviet-Japanese relations and were associated with a series of military conflicts of various scales.

The situation began to change by 1945, when the Axis began to suffer heavy defeats and the prospect of losing the Second World War became more and more obvious. Against this background, the question arose about the post-war structure of the world. So, according to the terms of the Yalta Conference, the USSR was obliged to enter the war against Japan, and South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands went to the Soviet Union.

True, at the same time, the Japanese leadership was ready to voluntarily cede these territories in exchange for the neutrality of the USSR and the supply of Soviet oil. The USSR did not take such a very slippery step. The defeat of Japan by that time was a matter of maybe not a quick, but still time. And most importantly, by refraining from decisive action, the Soviet Union would actually hand the situation in the Far East into the hands of the United States and its allies.

By the way, this also applies to the events of the Soviet-Japanese War and the Kuril landing operation itself, which was not initially prepared. When it became known about the preparations for the landing of American troops on the Kuriles, the Kuril landing operation was urgently prepared in a day. Fierce fighting in August 1945 ended with the surrender of the Japanese garrisons in the Kuriles.

Fortunately, the Japanese command did not know the real number of Soviet paratroopers and, without fully using their overwhelming numerical superiority, capitulated. At the same time, the South Sakhalin offensive operation was also carried out. So, at the cost of considerable losses, South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands became part of the USSR.

Everything is simple. Hidden under Japanophilia is a desire to turn the Sea of ​​Okhotsk from inland Russian into a sea open to the "world community." With great consequences for us, both military and economic.

Well, so who was the first to master these lands? Why on earth does Japan consider these islands to be its ancestral territories?
To do this, let's look at the history of the development of the Kuril ridge.

The islands were originally inhabited by the Ainu. In their language, “kuru” meant “a person who came from nowhere,” from which their second name “smokers” came from, and then the name of the archipelago.

In Russia, the Kuril Islands were first mentioned in the reporting document of N. I. Kolobov to Tsar Alexei from 1646 on the peculiarities of the wanderings of I. Yu. Moskvitin. Also, data from the chronicles and maps of medieval Holland, Scandinavia and Germany testify to the indigenous Russian villages. N. I. Kolobov spoke about the bearded Ainu inhabiting the islands. The Ainu were engaged in gathering, fishing and hunting, lived in small settlements throughout the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin.

Founded after the campaign of Semyon Dezhnev in 1649, the cities of Anadyr and Okhotsk became bases for exploring the Kuril Islands, Alaska and California.

The development of new lands by Russia took place in a civilized manner and was not accompanied by the extermination or displacement of the local population from the territory of their historical homeland, as happened, for example, with the North American Indians. The arrival of the Russians led to the spread among the local population of more effective means of hunting, metal products, and, most importantly, contributed to the cessation of bloody tribal strife. Under the influence of the Russians, these peoples began to join agriculture and move on to a settled way of life. Trade revived, Russian merchants flooded Siberia and the Far East with goods, the existence of which was not even known to the local population.

In 1654, the Yakut Cossack foreman M. Stadukhin visited there. In the 60s, part of the northern Kuriles was mapped by the Russians, and in 1700 the Kurils were mapped by S. Remizov. In 1711, the Cossack ataman D. Antsiferov and the captain I. Kozyrevsky visited the Paramushir Shumshu Islands. The following year, Kozyrevsky visited the islands of Iturup and Urup and reported that the inhabitants of these islands live "autocratically."

I. Evreinov and F. Luzhin, who graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy of Geodesy and Cartography, traveled to the Kuril Islands in 1721, after which the Evreinovs personally handed over to Peter I a report on this voyage and a map.

Russian navigators Captain Spanberg and Lieutenant Walton in 1739 were the first Europeans to open the way to the eastern shores of Japan, visited the Japanese islands of Hondo (Honshu) and Matsmae (Hokkaido), described the Kuril ridge and mapped all the Kuril Islands and the eastern coast of Sakhalin.

The expedition found that under the rule of the "Japanese Khan" is only one island of Hokkaido, the rest of the islands are not subject to him. Since the 60s, interest in the Kuriles has noticeably increased, Russian fishing vessels are increasingly mooring to their shores, and soon the local population - the Ainu - on the islands of Urup and Iturup was brought into Russian citizenship.

Merchant D. Shebalin was ordered by the office of the port of Okhotsk to "convert the inhabitants of the southern islands to Russian citizenship and start bargaining with them." Having brought the Ainu into Russian citizenship, the Russians founded winter huts and camps on the islands, taught the Ainu how to use firearms, breed livestock and grow some vegetables.

Many of the Ainu converted to Orthodoxy and learned to read and write.
Russian missionaries did everything to spread Orthodoxy among the Kuril Ainu and taught them the Russian language. Deservedly the first in this line of missionaries is the name of Ivan Petrovich Kozyrevsky (1686-1734), Ignatius in monasticism. A.S. Pushkin wrote that “in 1713 Kozyrevsky conquered two Kuril Islands and brought news to Kolesov about the trade of these islands with the merchants of the city of Matmaia.” In the texts of Kozyrevsky’s “Drawing of the Sea Islands”, it was written: “On the first and other islands in Kamchatsky Nos, from the autocratic ones shown, he smoked in that campaign with caress and greetings, and others, in military order, again brought him to yasak payment.” Back in 1732, the well-known historian G.F. Miller noted in the academic calendar: “Before this, the inhabitants there had no faith. But in twenty years, by order of his imperial majesty, churches and schools have been built there, which give us hope, and this people will be led out of their error from time to time. Monk Ignatius Kozyrevsky in the south of the Kamchatka Peninsula, at his own expense, laid a church with a limit and a monastery, in which he later took the vows. Kozyrevsky succeeded in converting "the local people of other faiths" - the Itelmens of Kamchatka and the Kuril Ainu.

The Ainu fished, beat the sea animal, baptized their children in Orthodox churches, wore Russian clothes, had Russian names, spoke Russian and proudly called themselves Orthodox. In 1747, the "newly baptized" Kurils from the islands of Shumshu and Paramushir, who numbered more than two hundred people, through their toen (leader) Storozhev, turned to the Orthodox mission in Kamchatka with a request to send a priest "to confirm them in the new faith."

At the behest of Catherine II in 1779, all fees that were not established by decrees from St. Petersburg were canceled. Thus, the fact of the discovery and development of the Kuril Islands by the Russians is undeniable.

Over time, the crafts in the Kuriles were depleted, becoming less and less profitable than off the coast of America, and therefore, by the end of the 18th century, the interest of Russian merchants in the Kuriles had weakened. In Japan, by the end of the same century, interest in the Kuriles and Sakhalin was just awakening, because before that the Kurils were practically unknown to the Japanese. The island of Hokkaido - according to the Japanese scientists themselves - was considered a foreign territory and only a small part of it was inhabited and developed. In the late 70s, Russian merchants reached Hokkaido and tried to start trading with the locals. Russia was interested in acquiring food in Japan for Russian fishing expeditions and settlements in Alaska and the Pacific Islands, but it was not possible to start trade, as it forbade the Japan isolation law of 1639, which read: "For the future, until the sun illuminates world, no one has the right to land on the shores of Japan, even if he were an envoy, and this law can never be repealed by anyone on pain of death.

And in 1788, Catherine II sent a strict order to Russian industrialists in the Kuriles so that they "do not touch the islands under the jurisdiction of other powers," and a year before that, she issued a decree on equipping a round-the-world expedition to accurately describe and map the islands from Masmay to the Kamchatka Lopatka, so that they "formally rank them all as the possession of the Russian state." It was ordered not to allow foreign industrialists to "trade and crafts in places belonging to Russia and to deal with local residents peacefully." But the expedition did not take place due to the outbreak of the Russian-Turkish war of 1787-1791.

Taking advantage of the weakening of Russian positions in the southern part of the Kuriles, Japanese fishermen first appear in Kunashir in 1799, and the next year on Iturup, where they destroy Russian crosses and illegally set up a pillar with a sign indicating that the islands belong to Japan. Japanese fishermen often began to arrive on the shores of South Sakhalin, fished, robbed the Ainu, which was the reason for frequent skirmishes between them. In 1805, Russian sailors from the frigate "Yunona" and the tender "Avos" on the shores of Aniva Bay set up a pole with the Russian flag, and the Japanese parking lot on Iturup was devastated. The Russians were warmly welcomed by the Ainu.

At the beginning of 1855, in the city of Shimoda, Putyatin signed the first Russian-Japanese Treaty of Peace and Friendship, according to which Sakhalin was declared undivided between Russia and Japan, the border was established between the islands of Iturup and Urup, and the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate were opened for Russian ships and Nagasaki.

The Shimoda Treaty of 1855 in Article 2 defines:
“From now on, the border between the Japanese state and Russia will be established between the island of Iturup and the island of Urup. The entire island of Iturup belongs to Japan, the entire island of Urup and the Kuril Islands to the north of it belong to Russia. As for the island of Karafuto (Sakhalin), it is still not divided by the border between Japan and Russia.”

The government of Alexander II made the Middle East and Central Asia the main direction of its policy and, fearing to leave its relations with Japan uncertain in the event of a new aggravation of relations with England, agreed to sign the so-called Petersburg Treaty of 1875, according to which all the Kuril Islands in exchange for the recognition of Sakhalin Russian territory passed to Japan.

Alexander II, who had previously sold Alaska in 1867 for a symbolic and at that time amount of 11 million rubles, made a big mistake this time by underestimating the strategic importance of the Kuril Islands, which were later used by Japan for aggression against Russia. The tsar naively believed that Japan would become a peaceful and calm neighbor of Russia, and when the Japanese, substantiating their claims, refer to the treaty of 1875, they for some reason forget (as G. Kunadze "forgot" today) about his first article: ".. ... and henceforth eternal peace and friendship will be established between the Russian and Japanese empires."

Russia actually lost access to the Pacific Ocean. Japan, whose imperial ambitions continued to grow, actually got the opportunity at any moment to begin a naval blockade of Sakhalin and the entire Far East of Russia.

Immediately after the establishment of Japanese power, the population of the Kuriles was described in his notes on the Kuril Islands by the English captain Snow:
“In 1878, when I first visited the northern islands ... all the northern inhabitants spoke Russian more or less tolerably. All of them were Christians and professed the religion of the Greek Church. They were visited (and visited to this day) by Russian priests, and in the village of Mayruppo in Shumshir a church was built, the boards for which were brought from America. ... The largest settlements in the Northern Kuriles were in the port of Tavano (Urup), Uratman, on the shores of Broughton Bay (Simushir) and the above-described Mairuppo (Shumshir). In each of these villages, except for huts and dugouts, there was a church...”.

Our famous compatriot, Captain V. M. Golovnin, in the famous "Notes of the Navy of Captain Golovnin ..." mentions the Ainu, "who called himself Alexei Maksimovich." ...

Then there was 1904, when Japan treacherously attacked Russia.
At the conclusion of the peace treaty in Portsmouth in 1905, the Japanese side demanded from Russia as an indemnity the island of Sakhalin. The Russian side then stated that this was contrary to the 1875 treaty. What did the Japanese say to this?

The war crosses out all agreements, you have been defeated and let's proceed from the current situation.
Only thanks to skillful diplomatic maneuvers did Russia manage to keep the northern part of Sakhalin for itself, and South Sakhalin went to Japan.

At the Yalta Conference of the Heads of Powers, the countries participating in the anti-Hitler coalition, held in February 1945, it was decided after the end of the Second World War that South Sakhalin and all the Kuril Islands be transferred to the Soviet Union, and this was the condition for the USSR to enter the war with Japan - three months after end of the war in Europe.

On September 8, 1951, 49 states signed a peace treaty with Japan in San Francisco. The draft treaty was prepared during the Cold War without the participation of the USSR and in violation of the principles of the Potsdam Declaration. The Soviet side proposed to carry out demilitarization and ensure the democratization of the country. Representatives of the United States and Great Britain told our delegation that they had come here not to discuss, but to sign the treaty, and therefore they would not change a single line. The USSR, and with it Poland and Czechoslovakia, refused to sign the treaty. And interestingly, Article 2 of this treaty states that Japan waives all rights and title to Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Islands. Thus, Japan itself renounced its territorial claims to our country, backing it up with its signature.

1956, Soviet-Japanese negotiations on the normalization of relations between the two countries. The Soviet side agrees to cede the two islands of Shikotan and Habomai to Japan and offers to sign a peace treaty. The Japanese side is inclined to accept the Soviet proposal, but in September 1956 the United States sends a note to Japan stating that if Japan renounces its claims to Kunashir and Iturup and is satisfied with only two islands, then in this case the United States will not give up the Ryukyu Islands where the main island is Okinawa. The Americans put Japan before an unexpected and difficult choice - in order to get the islands from the Americans, you need to take ALL the Kuriles from Russia. ... Or neither Kuril nor Ryukyu with Okinawa.
Of course, the Japanese refused to sign a peace treaty on our terms. The subsequent security treaty (1960) between the United States and Japan made it impossible for Japan to transfer Shikotan and Habomai. Our country, of course, could not give the islands to American bases, nor could it bind itself to any obligations to Japan on the issue of the Kuriles.

A worthy answer about the territorial claims to us from Japan was given at the time by A.N. Kosygin:
- The borders between the USSR and Japan should be considered as the result of the Second World War.

This could be put an end to, but I would like to remind you that only 6 years ago, M.S. Gorbachev, at a meeting with a delegation of the SPJ, also strongly opposed the revision of borders, while emphasizing that the borders between the USSR and Japan were "legal and legally justified" .