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ISLANDS - in accordance with Article 121 of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, land formations of natural origin located in sea spaces, surrounded on all sides by water and constantly rising above sea level even during

Islands There are a lot of islands and archipelagos in the Arctic Ocean: Greenland (the largest island on Earth), the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Spitsbergen, Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, Severnaya Zemlya, the New Siberian Islands, Wrangel Island and others, with a total area

The islands of Kamenny, Krestovsky and Elagin - this group of islands on the northwestern outlet of St. Petersburg to the Gulf of Finland received the stable name “Islands” in city toponymy. By the end of the 19th century. they have become one of the most beloved city attractions: from one

The Kuril Islands are represented by a series of Far Eastern island territories; one side is the Kamchatka Peninsula, and the other is the island. Hokkaido in . The Kuril Islands of Russia are represented by the Sakhalin region, which stretches approximately 1,200 km in length with an area of ​​15,600 square kilometers.

The islands of the Kuril chain are represented by two groups located opposite each other - called Big and Small. A large group located in the south includes Kunashir, Iturup and others, in the center are Simushir, Keta and in the north are the remaining island territories.

Shikotan, Habomai and a number of others are considered the Lesser Kuril Islands. For the most part, all island territories are mountainous and reach a height of 2,339 meters. The Kuril Islands on their lands have approximately 40 volcanic hills that are still active. There are also springs with hot mineral water here. The south of the Kuril Islands is covered with forests, and the north attracts with unique tundra vegetation.

The problem of the Kuril Islands lies in the unresolved dispute between the Japanese and Russian sides over who owns them. And it has remained open since the Second World War.

After the war, the Kuril Islands became part of the USSR. But Japan considers the territories of the southern Kuril Islands, and these are Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan with the Habomai group of islands, its territory, without having a legal basis. Russia does not recognize the fact of a dispute with the Japanese side over these territories, since their ownership is legal.

The problem of the Kuril Islands is the main obstacle to a peaceful settlement of relations between Japan and Russia.

The essence of the dispute between Japan and Russia

The Japanese are demanding the Kuril Islands be returned to them. Almost the entire population there is convinced that these lands are originally Japanese. This dispute between the two states has been going on for a very long time, escalating after the Second World War.
Russia is not inclined to yield to Japanese state leaders on this issue. A peace agreement has not yet been signed, and this is connected specifically with the four disputed South Kuril Islands. About the legality of Japan's claims to the Kuril Islands in this video.

Meanings of the Southern Kuril Islands

The Southern Kuril Islands have several meanings for both countries:

1. Military. The Southern Kuril Islands are of military importance due to the only access to the Pacific Ocean for the country's fleet. And all because of the scarcity of geographical formations. At the moment, ships are entering ocean waters through the Sangar Strait, because it is impossible to pass through the La Perouse Strait due to icing. Therefore, submarines are located in Kamchatka - Avachinskaya Bay. The military bases operating during the Soviet era have now all been looted and abandoned.
2. Economic. Economic significance - the Sakhalin region has quite serious hydrocarbon potential. And the fact that the entire territory of the Kuril Islands belongs to Russia allows you to use the waters there at your discretion. Although its central part belongs to the Japanese side. In addition to water resources, there is such a rare metal as rhenium. By extracting it, the Russian Federation is in third place in the production of minerals and sulfur. For the Japanese, this area is important for fishing and agricultural needs. This caught fish is used by the Japanese to grow rice - they simply pour it onto the rice fields to fertilize it.
3. Social. By and large, there is no special social interest for ordinary people in the southern Kuril Islands. This is because there are no modern megacities, people mostly work there and their lives are spent in cabins. Supplies are delivered by air, and less frequently by water due to constant storms. Therefore, the Kuril Islands are more of a military-industrial facility than a social one.
4. Tourist. In this regard, things are better in the southern Kuril Islands. These places will be of interest to many people who are attracted by everything real, natural and extreme. It is unlikely that anyone will remain indifferent at the sight of a thermal spring gushing out of the ground, or from climbing the caldera of a volcano and crossing the fumarole field on foot. And there’s no need to talk about the views that open up to the eye.

For this reason, the dispute over the ownership of the Kuril Islands never gets off the ground.

Dispute over Kuril territory

Who owns these four island territories - Shikotan, Iturup, Kunashir and the Habomai Islands - is not an easy question.

Information from written sources points to the discoverers of the Kuril Islands - the Dutch. The Russians were the first to populate the territory of Chishimu. Shikotan Island and the other three were designated for the first time by the Japanese. But the fact of discovery does not yet provide grounds for ownership of this territory.

The island of Shikotan is considered the end of the world because of the cape of the same name located near the village of Malokurilsky. It impresses with its 40-meter drop into the ocean waters. This place is called the edge of the world due to the stunning views of the Pacific Ocean.
Shikotan Island translates as Big City. It stretches for 27 kilometers, measures 13 kilometers in width, and occupies an area of ​​225 square meters. km. The highest point of the island is the mountain of the same name, rising 412 meters. Part of its territory belongs to the state nature reserve.

Shikotan Island has a very rugged coastline with numerous bays, capes and cliffs.

Previously, it was thought that the mountains on the island were volcanoes that had ceased to erupt, with which the Kuril Islands abound. But they turned out to be rocks displaced by shifts of lithospheric plates.

A little history

Long before the Russians and Japanese, the Kuril Islands were inhabited by the Ainu. The first information from Russians and Japanese about the Kuril Islands appeared only in the 17th century. A Russian expedition was sent in the 18th century, after which about 9,000 Ainu became Russian citizens.

A treaty was signed between Russia and Japan (1855), called Shimodsky, where boundaries were established allowing Japanese citizens to trade on 2/3 of this land. Sakhalin remained no man's territory. After 20 years, Russia became the undivided owner of this land, then lost the south in the Russo-Japanese War. But during the Second World War, Soviet troops were still able to regain the south of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands as a whole.
A peace agreement was nevertheless signed between the victorious states and Japan, and this happened in San Francisco in 1951. And according to it, Japan has absolutely no rights to the Kuril Islands.

But then the signing by the Soviet side did not happen, which was considered by many researchers to be a mistake. But there were serious reasons for this:

• The document did not specifically indicate what was included in the Kuril Islands. The Americans said that it was necessary to apply to a special international court for this. Plus, a member of the Japanese delegation announced that the southern disputed islands are not the territory of the Kuril Islands.
• The document also did not indicate exactly who would own the Kuril Islands. That is, the issue remained controversial.

In 1956, the USSR and the Japanese side signed a declaration preparing a platform for the main peace agreement. In it, the Country of the Soviets meets the Japanese halfway and agrees to transfer to them only the two disputed islands of Habomai and Shikotan. But with a condition - only after signing a peace agreement.

The declaration contains several subtleties:

• The word “transfer” means that they belong to the USSR.
• This transfer will actually take place after the signatures on the peace treaty have been signed.
• This applies only to the two Kuril Islands.

This was a positive development between the Soviet Union and the Japanese side, but it also caused concern among the Americans. Thanks to Washington pressure, the Japanese government completely changed ministerial positions and new officials who took high positions began to prepare a military agreement between America and Japan, which began to operate in 1960.

After this, a call came from Japan to give up not two islands offered to the USSR, but four. America puts pressure on the fact that all agreements between the Country of Soviets and Japan are not necessary to be fulfilled, they are supposedly declarative. And the existing and current military agreement between the Japanese and the Americans implies the deployment of their troops on Japanese territory. Accordingly, they have now come even closer to Russian territory.

Based on all this, Russian diplomats stated that until all foreign troops are withdrawn from its territory, a peace agreement cannot even be discussed. But in any case, we are talking about only two islands in the Kuril Islands.

As a result, American security forces are still located on Japanese territory. The Japanese insist on the transfer of the 4 Kuril Islands, as stated in the declaration.

The second half of the 80s of the 20th century was marked by the weakening of the Soviet Union and in these conditions the Japanese side again raises this topic. But the dispute over who will own the South Kuril Islands remains open. The Tokyo Declaration of 1993 states that the Russian Federation is the legal successor of the Soviet Union, and accordingly, previously signed papers must be recognized by both parties. It also indicated the direction to move towards resolving the territorial affiliation of the disputed four Kuril Islands.

The advent of the 21st century, and specifically 2004, was marked by the raising of this topic again at a meeting between Russian President Putin and the Prime Minister of Japan. And again everything happened again - the Russian side offers its conditions for signing a peace agreement, and Japanese officials insist that all four South Kuril Islands be transferred to their disposal.

2005 was marked by the Russian president's readiness to end the dispute, guided by the 1956 agreement, and transfer two island territories to Japan, but Japanese leaders did not agree with this proposal.

In order to somehow reduce tensions between the two states, the Japanese side was asked to help develop nuclear energy, develop infrastructure and tourism, and also improve the environmental situation, as well as security. The Russian side accepted this proposal.

At the moment, for Russia there is no question of who owns the Kuril Islands. Without any doubt, this is the territory of the Russian Federation, based on real facts - based on the results of the Second World War and the generally recognized UN Charter.

The island arc of the Kuril Islands stretches for one thousand two hundred kilometers from Kamchatka to the Japanese island of Hokkaido. Thirty-six large islands and more than a hundred small islets and rocks make up this Far Eastern archipelago. It consists of two parallel island chains: the volcanic Greater Kuril Ridge and the Lesser Ridge located to the east, where there are no active volcanoes.

The Kuril Islands are the second area of ​​active volcanism in Russia after Kamchatka.

There are more volcanoes here than in the territory of their northern neighbor - more than a hundred, including forty active ones. But the Kuril volcanoes erupt less frequently than their Kamchatka counterparts, and only a few, like Alaid, Tyati or Sarychev Volcano, demonstrate a truly formidable character.

It is interesting that the names of most volcanoes, as well as bays, straits or waterfalls, are Russian or Japanese and appeared in the last two hundred years, and almost all the islands have retained the ancient names given to them by the indigenous inhabitants of the archipelago - the Ainu. Their names sound like some kind of strange, sometimes ringing, sometimes rustling music.

The Krusenstern and Bussol straits divide the Great Ridge into three parts:

• northern with the islands of Shumshu, Paramushir, Onekotan and Shiashkotan; the middle one, which includes a lot of small islands and only one large island, Simushir;
• and the southern one, in which the main, largest and

most populated islands:

• Urup,
• Iturup and,
• Kunashir.

This also includes the Lesser Kuril Ridge, which is only 105 km long and consists of a fairly large picturesque island of Shikotan and several small islands.

Atlasov Island, which is a giant cone of the Alaid volcano that grew out of the waters of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, is located separately in the north of the island chain to the west of Shumshu. This is the highest fire-breathing mountain in the Kuril Islands, rising almost 2.5 km above the sea, and at the same time the most beautiful in the Kuril Islands. Its regular conical top, crowned with a stream of smoke, is somewhat reminiscent of Fuji, glorified by artists and poets of Japan.

Alaid Volcano on Atlasov Island

In good weather, the peak of Alaid can be seen from Kamchatka, and most likely it was the discoverer of the peninsula, Pentecostal Cossack Vladimir Atlasov, who noticed it back in 1698, who later wrote in his report that “opposite the first river on the sea I saw there seemed to be islands.”

The Kamchadals tell a curious legend about this volcano and Lake Kuril, located in the south of Kamchatka, in the center of which is the island of Heart Alaid.

In the middle of the Kuril Lake, the legend says, there once stood a high and beautiful Mount Alaid. The surrounding mountains, as if by choice, small and inconspicuous, were jealous of the handsome Alaid and told all sorts of dirty tricks about him: he, they say, blocks the sun, and prevents the moon from rising to the sky, he clings to the top of Alaid with his horn, and the glacier is somewhere... I found it and sheltered it on my slope, and a lot more...

Alaid is tired of the evil gossip around him. He left the lake, left Kamchatka and found a new place for himself - in the sea, near the Kuril Islands. The lake water rushed after Alaid, but did not catch up with him. This is how the Ozernaya River was formed in Kamchatka. But Alaid’s love for his native land was strong, he could not part with it completely, and left his heart in the lake. So now the island of Uchichi stands in the middle of the lake, which means Heart-Stone.

Discovery of the Kuril Islands

Europeans discovered the Kuril Islands in 1643, when the Dutch navigator De Vries visited them. But thirty years before him, the Japanese had already landed on the southern islands, exploring and trying to settle Shikotan and Kunashir. However, in 1711, Russian Cossacks, led by Danila Antsiferov and Ivan Kozyrevsky, arrived from Kamchatka to the islands. They brought the local Ainu “under the sovereign’s hand” and imposed a tax-yasak. Since then, the islands have become part of Russia and for almost three centuries (with the exception of forty years between the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 and World War II) they have been our eastern outpost.

In the entire Russian Far East, deservedly famous for its natural beauty, you cannot find more picturesque corners than the Kuril Islands. Each island, with rare exceptions, is beautiful in its own way. The formidable grandeur of volcanoes, smoking with gas jets, coexists here with the bizarre beauty of coastal bays and cliffs, unusual exotic flora on land and marine wonders in the Okhotsk and Pacific waters.

And if a traveler who has visited Kamchatka, the Ussuri region or Sakhalin is filled with admiration, then he simply falls in love with the Kuril Islands once and for all.

Although the Kuril volcanoes do not threaten eruptions as often as the Kamchatka ones, they bring even more troubles. And the reason for this is their close proximity to the sea. Any eruption is accompanied by tremors, and these in turn cause “seaquakes”. And the angry sea hits the shores of the islands with giant destructive waves - tsunamis.

Tsunami on Paramushir Island

In 1952, a 30-meter tsunami wave completely destroyed the city of Severo-Kurilsk on the island of Paramushir. The few surviving residents, having lost loved ones, homes and property, left the island forever. Similar disasters have happened before.

Back in 1737, Kamchatka explorer Krasheninnikov described the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the coast of the peninsula and the Northern Kuril Islands.

“At about the third hour of midnight,” he writes, “a shaking began and lasted for a quarter of an hour... Meanwhile, a terrible noise and excitement arose on the sea, and suddenly water rushed onto the shores to a height of three fathoms, which, without standing still at all, ran away into the sea and moved a considerable distance away from the shore. Then the earth shook a second time, the water came opposite to the previous one, but when it ebbed it ran so far that it was impossible to see the sea. At that time, in the strait between the first and second Kuril Islands, stone mountains were seen at the bottom of the sea, which had never been seen before... About a quarter of an hour after that, a new terrible shaking followed, and moreover, water surged onto the shore by thirty fathoms... From Because of this flood, the local residents were completely ruined, and many died miserably...”

In 1770, during the eruption of the Alaid volcano, the resulting tsunami destroyed the houses and gardens of the residents of Paramushir and Shumshu. And in 1933, a wave 20 m high hit the island of Kharimkotan, where the Sarychev volcano erupted.

Since many volcano islands are uninhabited, eruptions themselves cause serious damage only when they occur on large islands, which are chains of several volcanoes that have grown on a common foundation. There are few such islands, but they are, naturally, better populated and developed by people.

In Kunashir, the Mendeleev, Golovnin and Tyatya volcanoes are active and dangerous.

There are as many as eight active volcanoes on Iturup: the most violent of them are the following volcanoes:

• Baransky,
• Tebenkova,
• Ivan groznyj,
• Stokap,
• Atsonupuri and,
• Berutarube.

On Simushir, Burning Sopka, Zavaritsky volcano and Prevo Peak show a restless character, on Shiashkotan-Sinarki and Kuntomintor, and on Onekotan - Krenitsyna and Nemo volcanoes.

A special case is the island of Paramushir. It consists of three parallel fused volcanic ridges, consisting of more than thirty volcanoes.

Six of them are active, and the most active Ebeko volcano is located just eight kilometers from Severo-Kurilsk. When on March 8, 1963, this fire-breathing mountain decided to “salute” Women’s Day, poisonous sulfur dioxide from the resulting fumaroles was blown towards the city by the wind, and residents could not leave their homes. Those who were caught in a gas attack in a cinema or club were forced to stay there overnight. Fortunately, in the morning the wind changed and the situation in the city returned to normal.

The Atlasov Island we have already mentioned is famous throughout the world for its active and very formidable Alaid volcano. It erupts every thirty to forty years. The last time this happened was in 1972. And before that, in 1933, as a result of an underwater eruption near Alaid, a new island, Taketomi, was formed. It gradually grew due to new eruptions, and in 1961 joined with its neighbor, forming a peninsula.

The mighty Alaid, like the Italian volcano Stromboli, since the time of Bering has served as a beacon for captains sailing from the Sea of ​​Okhotsk to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

Volcanic activity on the Kuril Islands

It must be admitted that the volcanic activity of the Kuril Islands has not only negative aspects. On many islands there are mineral springs, including hot ones.

On Shiashkotan, for example, there are up to a thousand hot springs. And on the island of Urup there is even a hot waterfall! Warm lakes have formed in the craters of some volcanoes, healing many ailments. The same Ebeko volcano has long served the residents of Severo-Kurilsk as a kind of “dispensary”. Every weekend, groups of Kuril residents go to it to swim in the warm lake located in its crater. The water in this natural pool is heated to almost 40 °C.

Hot Beach on the island of Kunashir is famous throughout the planet. You will not find such a miracle of nature anywhere else in the world. It’s not difficult to get to it from Yuzhno-Kurilsk. Just seven kilometers south along the Pacific coast, and from afar you can already see a stretch of coastline shrouded in thick steam. The beach is located at the foot of the Mendeleev volcano, and the volcanic rocks are covered here with a thin layer of sea sand. In some places it is very hot, and in some places there are streams of steam breaking through it. This steam, rising to the surface through cracks in volcanic rocks, seems to dissolve in the thickness of the sand and warms it. No matter where you dig a hole on the beach, steam immediately starts coming out of it.

A strip of hot sand stretches for almost a kilometer along the coast. The steam temperature is 100 °C, and the water in the hot springs gushing out everywhere is heated to 98 °C. Residents of the island heat their food on jets of underground steam and use them to heat their houses. The chickens here lay eggs all year round, as the steam-heated barns are warm even in winter. The bathhouse and laundry in the local village also do without stokers, and the children like to bake crabs caught nearby in the hot sand.

Despite the constant danger emanating from them, volcanoes are still amazingly beautiful natural structures. These are not always the right cones, like Alaid’s. Sometimes it is a double cone, so to speak, “a volcano within a volcano,” such as Tyatya. Sometimes it is a mountain topped with jagged walls, like the ruins of an ancient fortress, and sometimes only caldera depressions remain from volcanoes. And if these calderas end up on the seashore, stunningly beautiful bays are formed, such as the Lion's Mouth on the island of Iturup. The entrance to it is guarded by the Stone-Lev rock sticking out of the ocean. The Krenitsyn volcano on Onekotan is truly unique in its appearance. At the southern end of this long, narrow island is Koltsevoye Lake. In the center of the caldera lake, the cone of a young volcano rose almost one and a half kilometers. The top of the black mountain is powdered with snow and slightly smokes, reminiscent of its formidable origin.

And on the coast of the island of Kharimkotan, after the next eruption of the Severgin volcano, many small lakes were formed, fed by streams flowing from its slopes. The water of the streams is saturated with mineral salts, and at the bottom of the lakes these salts are deposited in concentric circles, forming multi-colored sediments: red, orange, yellow, green, white. Each lake has its own special color of the bottom, and in the sun’s rays the scattering of water saucers shines with all the colors of the rainbow. looking like a sleeping lion.

The structure of the Zavaritsky volcano on Simushir is unusual. Here, from the bottom of the ancient caldera, as on the Krenitsyn volcano, a new cone grew. But it, in turn, exploded, forming a “caldera within a caldera.” Its middle is occupied by Lake Turyuzov. This is probably the most beautiful lake in the archipelago: in good weather, its waters really sparkle with turquoise and gently shimmer in the sun. This is due to the fact that the water of the caldera lake contains tiny sulfur particles that reflect light.

Flora and fauna of the Kuril Islands

The living nature of the islands is a worthy frame for the volcanic landscape of the Kuril ridge. Its originality is explained by the large extent of the archipelago. Its northern islands are adjacent to snowy Kamchatka, where the largest bears in Russia roam the gloomy taiga, and the rarest bighorn sheep can still be found on the steep cliffs. And from the southern islands, in good weather, you can see Hokkaido, where cheerful macaques frolic in groves of tropical plants and warm volcanic springs.

In addition, the cold Oya Sio Current passes along the Pacific coast of the Kuril Ridge, bringing fog, rain and cold winds. The Okhotsk coast of the Southern Kuril Islands is washed by the warm Soya Current, one of the branches of the Pacific Gulf Stream - the Kuro-Sio Current. Therefore, the vegetation of the Kuril Islands differs sharply not only in the northern and southern parts of the archipelago, but even on opposite shores of the same islands.

The northern islands: Shumshu, Paramushir and others are the kingdom of cedar and alder dwarf trees, and the temperature here in summer does not rise above ten degrees. And in the south - on Iturup, Kunashir and their neighbors - there are real forests of fir, oak, maple, wild cherry with an undergrowth of bamboo. Even yew and velvet trees grow on Shikotan. This entire diverse tree stand is densely intertwined with wild grapes and other vines. Add to this the magnolia found in the south of Shikotan, and it becomes clear to you that the local flora is already close to subtropical. At the same time, on the southern, Pacific coast of the same Iturup, the slopes are covered with the same dwarf cedar as on Paramushir, and as soon as you cross the volcanic ridge to the Okhotsk coast, thickets of three-meter bamboo approach the path.

But the land fauna of the islands is not rich: bears, foxes and small rodents - voles, shrews. On several islands, however, there are also herds of mustangs grazing - feral horses brought here before the war by Japanese cavalrymen. But the sea coast pleases with the richness of the animal world. Killer whales and sperm whales, gray whales and dolphins frolic throughout the Kuril waters, from the Izmena Strait separating Kunashir from Hokkaido to the First Kuril Strait north of Shumshu. Here you can meet fur seals and sea otters, seals and the largest of the seals - sea lions. These huge animals, sometimes weighing a ton, sometimes engage in battle even with young sperm whales.

There are definitely bird colonies on every island or on the rocks off its shores. Hundreds of thousands of white-headed gulls, kittiwakes, cormorants, fulmars and puffins inhabit the Kuril Islands.

And they all have enough food - after all, places where warm and cold currents meet are always especially rich in fish. Huge schools of large silvery sardines, saury, pollock and halibut come here. Flounders, sea bass and gobies thrive here. And red fish rise into the rivers to spawn: chum salmon, pink salmon and char. It is clear that both animals and birds of the Kuril Islands are always provided with food.

It is still difficult to get to this Far Eastern volcanic archipelago. Only three ships go here from Vladivostok via Sakhalin. It takes two days to reach the southern Kuril Islands, and five days to reach the northern Kuril Islands. Kamchatka coastal ships that go around the peninsula also call at Paramushir. But in winter, when the Sea of ​​Okhotsk is frozen, the islands are connected to the mainland only by rare flights.

But inaccessibility only makes the goal more desirable. And if a traveler managed to get to the Kuril Islands, what he saw there will never be erased from his memory. Already sailing through the Catherine Strait (between Iturup and Kunashir), he will see five volcanoes from the deck at once, including the almost two-kilometer-long handsome Tyatya, which, like Alaid, serves as a lighthouse at the exit from the Sea of ​​Okhotsk to the Pacific Ocean.

Having landed on the shore in Yuzhno-Kurilsk, a tourist can, taking advantage of the low tide, walk in an hour or an hour and a half along the wave-rolled black sand to the Hot Beach, swim in its springs and marvel at this kilometer-long hot “frying pan” bursting with steam. And making your way through the Kunashir bamboo jungle and dwarf cedar to the top of the Mendeleev volcano, the traveler will be able to see fumaroles, mud volcanoes, and amazing sulfur fields on the slope of the volcano. Indeed, there are not many places on Earth where icicles of yellow sulfur grow right before our eyes on stone cornices near the outlets of gas jets. You can stick a dwarf branch into the stream, and in ten minutes it will turn into something like yellow coral.

There are no less natural wonders on the largest island of the Kuril Islands - Iturup. Here, the highest waterfall in Russia, the 140-meter Ilya Muromets, falls into the ocean from black basalt rocks. The picturesque Lion's Mouth Bay, the fumaroles of the Berutarube volcano and Lake Krasivoe in the Urbich caldera await tourists here. Iturup has the most beautiful forests, rich in berries and mushrooms. Local residents here collect some kind of special “Japanese mushroom”, the size of a good frying pan. They say that it is never wormy, and the taste is not inferior to white.

The bays and coastal skerries of Shikotan are not inferior in beauty to the famous fjords of New Zealand. In the main village of the island, Malokurilsk, where the plant processed whales for many years until Russia stopped their production, you can see probably the most unusual fences in the world - made of whalebone! And all this exoticism is seen so far, not counting the Kuril residents themselves and the border guards, it’s good if 40-50 people a year.

The tourist development of the amazing archipelago, the land of volcanoes and fumaroles, bamboo and magnolias, bird colonies and sea lion rookeries, waterfalls and bizarre rocks, has not even begun yet.

But an inquisitive traveler could already, if desired, take a cruise, say, along the route: Iturup - Kunashir - Shikotan. On this way, he would have looked into the fabulous Lion's Mouth with its five-hundred-meter steep walls and for the first time felt himself inside a real volcanic vent, felt the Hot Beach under his feet and heard the roar of the solfatars of Kunashir, sailed through the Shikotan fjords and met the dawn on a distant beautiful cape with an expressive called the End of the World. And, looking at the endless expanse of the Pacific Ocean, I would almost physically feel that the next land in the east is 8000 km away. The same distance as going west to Moscow...

Initially, the Ainu lived on the islands of Japan (then it was called Ainumoshiri - land of the Ainu), until they were pushed north by the proto-Japanese. But the ancestral lands of the Ainu are on the Japanese islands of Hokkaido and Honshu. The Ainu came to Sakhalin in the 13th-14th centuries, “finishing” their settlement in the beginning. XIX century.

Traces of their appearance were also found in Kamchatka, Primorye and Khabarovsk Territory. Many toponymic names of the Sakhalin region have Ainu names: Sakhalin (from “SAKHAREN MOSIRI” - “wave-shaped land”); the islands of Kunashir, Simushir, Shikotan, Shiashkotan (the endings “shir” and “kotan” mean “plot of land” and “settlement”, respectively). It took the Japanese more than 2 thousand years to occupy the entire archipelago up to and including Hokkaido (then called “Ezo”) (the earliest evidence of skirmishes with the Ainu dates back to 660 BC). Subsequently, almost all of the Ainu degenerated or assimilated with the Japanese and Nivkhs.

Currently, there are only a few reservations on Hokkaido where Ainu families live. The Ainu are perhaps the most mysterious people in the Far East. The first Russian navigators who studied Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands were surprised to note the Caucasoid facial features, thick hair and beards unusual for the Mongoloids. Russian decrees of 1779, 1786 and 1799 indicate that the inhabitants of the southern Kuril Islands - the Ainu - had been Russian subjects since 1768 (in 1779 they were exempt from paying tribute to the treasury - yasak), and the southern Kuril Islands were considered Russia as its own territory. The fact of the Russian citizenship of the Kuril Ainu and the Russian ownership of the entire Kuril ridge is also confirmed by the Instruction of the Irkutsk Governor A.I. Bril to the chief commander of Kamchatka M.K. Bem in 1775, and the “yasash table” - the chronology of the collection in the 18th century. c Ainu - inhabitants of the Kuril Islands, including the southern ones (including the island of Matmai-Hokkaido), the mentioned tribute-yasaka. Iturup means “the best place”, Kunashir - Simushir means “a piece of land - a black island”, Shikotan - Shiashkotan (the ending words “shir” and “kotan” mean “a piece of land” and “settlement”, respectively).

With their good nature, honesty and modesty, the Ainu made the best impression on Krusenstern. When they were given gifts for the fish they delivered, they took them in their hands, admired them and then returned them. It was with difficulty that the Ainu managed to convince them that this was being given to them as property. In relation to the Ainu, Catherine the Second prescribed to be kind to the Ainu and not to tax them, in order to alleviate the situation of the new Russian sub-South Kuril Ainu. Decree of Catherine II to the Senate on the exemption from taxes of the Ainu - the population of the Kuril Islands who accepted Russian citizenship in 1779. Eya I.V. commands that the shaggy Kurilians - the Ainu, brought into citizenship on the distant islands - should be left free and no tax should be demanded from them, and henceforth the peoples living there should not be forced to do so, but try to continue what has already been done with them through friendly treatment and affection for the expected benefit in trades and trade acquaintance. The first cartographic description of the Kuril Islands, including their southern part, was made in 1711-1713. according to the results of the expedition of I. Kozyrevsky, who collected information about most of the Kuril Islands, including Iturup, Kunashir and even the “Twenty-Second” Kuril Island MATMAI (Matsmai), which later became known as Hokkaido. It was precisely established that the Kuril Islands were not subordinate to any foreign state. In the report of I. Kozyrevsky in 1713. it was noted that the South Kuril Ainu “live autocratically and are not subject to citizenship and trade freely.” It should be especially noted that Russian explorers, in accordance with the policy of the Russian state, discovering new lands inhabited by the Ainu, immediately announced the inclusion of these lands in Russia, began to study and economic development, carried out missionary activities, and imposed tribute (yasak) on the local population. During the 18th century, all the Kuril Islands, including their southern part, became part of Russia. This is confirmed by the statement made by the head of the Russian embassy N. Rezanov during negotiations with the commissioner of the Japanese government K. Toyama in 1805 that “north of Matsmaya (Hokkaido) all lands and waters belong to the Russian emperor and that the Japanese did not extend their possessions further." The 18th century Japanese mathematician and astronomer Honda Toshiaki wrote that “... the Ainu look at the Russians as their own fathers,” since “true possessions are won by virtuous deeds. Countries forced to submit to force of arms remain, at heart, unconquered.”

By the end of the 80s. In the 18th century, enough evidence of Russian activity in the Kuril Islands was accumulated for, in accordance with the norms of international law of that time, to consider the entire archipelago, including its southern islands, to belong to Russia, which was recorded in Russian state documents. First of all, we should mention the imperial decrees (recall that at that time the imperial or royal decree had the force of law) of 1779, 1786 and 1799, which confirmed the Russian citizenship of the South Kuril Ainu (then called the “shaggy Kurilians”), and the islands themselves were declared possession Russia. In 1945, the Japanese evicted all the Ainu from occupied Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands to Hokkaido, while for some reason they left on Sakhalin a labor army of Koreans brought by the Japanese and the USSR had to accept them as stateless persons, then the Koreans moved to Central Asia. A little later, ethnographers wondered for a long time where in these harsh lands the people wearing the open (southern) type of clothing came from, and linguists discovered Latin, Slavic, Anglo-Germanic and even Indo-Aryan roots in the Ainu language. The Ainu were classified as Indo-Aryans, Australoids, and even Caucasians. In a word, the riddles became more and more, and the answers brought more and more new problems. The Ainu population consisted of socially stratified groups (“utar”), headed by families of leaders by the right of inheritance of power (it should be noted that the Ainu clan went through the female line, although the man was naturally considered the head of the family). "Uthar" was built on the basis of fictitious kinship and had a military organization. The ruling families, who called themselves “utarpa” (head of the Utar) or “nishpa” (leader), represented a layer of the military elite. Men of “high birth” were destined for military service from birth; high-born women spent their time doing embroidery and shamanic rituals (“tusu”).

The chief's family had a dwelling within a fortification ("chasi"), surrounded by an earthen mound (also called a "chasi"), usually under the cover of a mountain or rock jutting out over a terrace. The number of embankments often reached five or six, which alternated with ditches. Together with the leader's family, there were usually servants and slaves (“ushu”) inside the fortification. The Ainu did not have any centralized power. The Ainu preferred the bow as a weapon. No wonder they were called “people with arrows sticking out of their hair” because they carried quivers (and swords, by the way, too) on their backs. The bow was made from elm, beech or euonymus (a tall shrub, up to 2.5 m high with very strong wood) with whalebone guards. The bowstring was made from nettle fibers. The plumage of the arrows consisted of three eagle feathers. A few words about combat tips. Both "regular" armor-piercing and spiked arrowheads were used in combat (possibly to better cut through armor or to get an arrow stuck in a wound). There were also tips of an unusual, Z-shaped cross-section, which were most likely borrowed from the Manchus or Jurgens (information has been preserved that in the Middle Ages the Sakhalin Ainu fought back a large army that came from the mainland). Arrowheads were made of metal (early ones were made of obsidian and bone) and then coated with monkshood poison “suruku”. The root of aconite was crushed, soaked and placed in a warm place to ferment. A stick with poison was applied to the spider's leg; if the leg fell off, the poison was ready. Due to the fact that this poison decomposed quickly, it was widely used in hunting large animals. The arrow shaft was made of larch.

The Ainu swords were short, 45-50 cm long, slightly curved, with one-sided sharpening and a one-and-a-half-handed handle. The Ainu warrior - dzhangin - fought with two swords, not recognizing shields. The guards of all swords were removable and were often used as decoration. There is evidence that some guards were specially polished to a mirror shine in order to repel evil spirits. In addition to swords, the Ainu carried two long knives (“cheyki-makiri” and “sa-makiri”), which were worn on the right hip. Cheiki-makiri was a ritual knife for making sacred shavings "inau" and performing the ritual "pere" or "erytokpa" - ritual suicide, which was later adopted by the Japanese, calling it "harakiri" or "seppuku" (as, by the way, the cult of the sword, special shelves for sword, spear, bow). Ainu swords were put on public display only during the Bear Festival. An old legend says: Long ago, after this country was created by God, there lived an old Japanese man and an old Ain. The Ainu grandfather was ordered to make a sword, and the Japanese grandfather: money (it is further explained why the Ainu had a cult of swords, and the Japanese had a thirst for money. The Ainu condemned their neighbors for money-grubbing). They treated spears rather coolly, although they exchanged them with the Japanese.

Another detail of the Ainu warrior’s weapons were battle mallets - small rollers with a handle and a hole at the end, made of hard wood. The sides of the beaters were equipped with metal, obsidian or stone spikes. The beaters were used both as a flail and as a sling - a leather belt was threaded through the hole. A well-aimed blow from such a mallet killed immediately, or at best (for the victim, of course) disfigured him forever. The Ainu did not wear helmets. They had natural long thick hair that was matted together, forming something like a natural helmet. Now let's move on to the armor. Sundress-type armor was made from bearded seal leather (“sea hare” - a type of large seal). In appearance, such armor (see photo) may seem bulky, but in reality it practically does not restrict movement, allowing you to bend and squat freely. Thanks to numerous segments, four layers of skin were obtained, which with equal success repelled the blows of swords and arrows. The red circles on the chest of the armor symbolize the three worlds (upper, middle and lower worlds), as well as shamanic “toli” disks, which scare away evil spirits and generally have magical significance. Similar circles are also depicted on the back. Such armor is fastened at the front using numerous ties. There was also short armor, like sweatshirts with planks or metal plates sewn on them. Very little is currently known about the martial art of the Ainu. It is known that the proto-Japanese adopted almost everything from them. Why not assume that some elements of martial arts were also not adopted?

Only such a duel has survived to this day. The opponents, holding each other by the left hand, struck with clubs (the Ainu specially trained their backs to pass this test of endurance). Sometimes these clubs were replaced with knives, and sometimes they fought simply with their hands until the opponents lost their breath. Despite the cruelty of the fight, no cases of injury were observed. In fact, the Ainu fought not only with the Japanese. Sakhalin, for example, they conquered from the “Tonzi” - a short people, truly the indigenous population of Sakhalin. From “tonzi”, Ainu women adopted the habit of tattooing their lips and the skin around their lips (the result was a kind of half-smile - half-mustache), as well as the names of some (very good quality) swords - “toncini”. It is curious that the Ainu warriors - Dzhangins - were noted as very warlike; they were incapable of lying. Information about the signs of ownership of the Ainu is also interesting - they put special signs on arrows, weapons, and dishes, passed down from generation to generation, so as not to confuse, for example, whose arrow hit the beast, or who owns this or that thing. There are more than one hundred and fifty such signs, and their meanings have not yet been deciphered. Rock inscriptions were discovered near Otaru (Hokkaido) and on the island of Urup.

It remains to add that the Japanese were afraid of open battle with the Ainu and conquered them by cunning. An ancient Japanese song said that one “emishi” (barbarian, ain) is worth a hundred people. There was a belief that they could create fog. Over the years, the Ainu repeatedly rebelled against the Japanese (in Ainu “chizhem”), but lost each time. The Japanese invited the leaders to their place to conclude a truce. Piously honoring the customs of hospitality, the Ainu, trusting like children, did not think anything bad. They were killed during the feast. As a rule, the Japanese were unsuccessful in other ways to suppress the uprising.

“The Ainu are a meek, modest, good-natured, trusting, sociable, polite people who respect property; brave on the hunt

and... even intelligent.” (A.P. Chekhov - Sakhalin Island)

From the 8th century The Japanese did not stop slaughtering the Ainu, who fled from extermination to the north - to Hokkaido - Matmai, the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin. Unlike the Japanese, the Russian Cossacks did not kill them. After several skirmishes, normal friendly relations were established between the similar-looking blue-eyed and bearded aliens on both sides. And although the Ainu flatly refused to pay the yasak tax, no one killed them for it, unlike the Japanese. However, 1945 became a turning point for the fate of this people. Today only 12 of its representatives live in Russia, but there are many “mestizo” from mixed marriages. The destruction of the “bearded people” - the Ainu in Japan stopped only after the fall of militarism in 1945. However, cultural genocide continues to this day.

It is significant that no one knows the exact number of Ainu on the Japanese islands. The fact is that in “tolerant” Japan there is often still a rather arrogant attitude towards representatives of other nationalities. And the Ainu were no exception: their exact number is impossible to determine, since according to Japanese censuses they are not listed either as a people or as a national minority. According to scientists, the total number of Ainu and their descendants does not exceed 16 thousand people, of which no more than 300 are purebred representatives of the Ainu people, the rest are “mestizo”. In addition, the Ainu are often left with the least prestigious jobs. And the Japanese are actively pursuing a policy of assimilation and there is no talk of any “cultural autonomy” for them. People from mainland Asia came to Japan around the same time that people first reached America. The first settlers of the Japanese islands - YOMON (ancestors of the AIN) reached Japan twelve thousand years ago, and YOUI (ancestors of the Japanese) came from Korea in the last two and a half millennia.

Work has been done in Japan that gives hope that genetics can resolve the question of who the ancestors of the Japanese are. Along with the Japanese living on the central islands of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, anthropologists distinguish two other modern ethnic groups: the Ainu from the island of Hokkaido in the north and the Ryukyu people living mainly on the southernmost island of Kinawa. One theory is that these two groups, the Ainu and Ryukyuan, are descendants of the original Yomon settlers who once occupied all of Japan and were later driven from the central islands north to Hokkaido and south to Okinawa by the Youi newcomers from Korea. Mitochondrial DNA research conducted in Japan only partially supports this hypothesis: it showed that modern Japanese from the central islands have much in common genetically with modern Koreans, with whom they share much more of the same and similar mitochondrial types than with the Ainu and Ryukuyans. However, it is also shown that there are practically no similarities between the Ainu and Ryukyu people. Age assessments have shown that both of these ethnic groups have accumulated certain mutations over the past twelve thousand years - this suggests that they are indeed descendants of the original Yeomon people, but also proves that the two groups have not had contact with each other since then.

Why do the Japanese claim the Kuril Islands? I'll try to retell it as briefly as possible.

The beginning of the conflict goes back to the distant past, when there were neither Russians nor Japanese on the islands. In the Kuril Islands then

lived the Ainu - an indigenous people, today represented in Russia by only a hundred people.

When the Cossacks first began to develop the Far Eastern territories, they, for the most part, were only concerned with trade with

Ainu, so no one dealt with the status of the lands for a long time. The Japanese, on the contrary, began to try to settle these lands -

fortunately they were within walking distance of the islands. In 1855, the Shimoda Treaty on Trade and Borders between Russia and

Japan. This document for the first time defined the border of the possessions of the two countries in the Kuril Islands - it passed between the islands of Iturup and

By that time, Japan had just emerged from two centuries of self-isolation and began to behave quite aggressively. This

resulted in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, which ended in a humiliating defeat for us. Russian empire

lost control not only over the Kuril Islands, but also over South Sakhalin. Then, during World War II, the USSR carried out

landing operation against Japanese troops with the aim of capturing the Kuril Islands. It was successful, and on February 2, 1946

In 2010, the Yuzhno-Sakhalin Region was formed in these territories as part of the Khabarovsk Territory of the RSFSR.

Thus, de facto South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands passed to the Union. But this was not legally established, that

subsequently resulted in a long conflict and confrontation - Japan sees the situation in its own way, the USSR and subsequently Russia

otherwise. However, in fact, the disputed islands are still ours. Russians live there, our laws apply, etc.

And now I propose to see what the city of Kurilsk on the disputed island of Iturup looks like...

2. Kurilsk (1500 people) is divided into two parts - the upper city and the lower one. Behind them is the village of Kitovoe. Kurilsk by

By and large, it has one street, to the right and left of which houses are chaotically stuck together:

3. The lower city is partly located on the shores of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, partly inside the island:

4. The first thing that catches your eye is the “tsunami danger zone” signs:

5. The sign shows where to run in the event of a cataclysm. Curiously, however, there has never been a tsunami on the island, even when it shook

Fukushima:

6. The second thing that catches your eye is the huge number of parks decorated with pebbles. They were collected on the beach under

called Rattle (due to the sound of pebbles during the waves). True, today all the stones from it have gone into architectural

sculptures, so they go to another part of the island for new material:

7. The entire city is owned by the company Gidrostroy, which, despite the name, deals with... fish. She owns almost everything

what is in the city, and its head is a fan of all kinds of sculptures and compositions:

9. The park was made in a very original and futuristic way; you wouldn’t expect to see something like this in the center of Kurilsk:

10. In Kitov, everything is also very nice: the observation deck is designed in the shape of a boat:

11. There is no embankment here, but there is an open-air gazebo with benches and a table screwed to the floor:

12. The coolest entertainment in Kurilsk is the baths. They are made in hot springs and cost mere pennies (200

rubles per hour). Each bath is separated from the others; in the center there is a rotating faucet from which you get hot water. Order

you need in advance:

13. Water is not only hot, but also contains all sorts of minerals and compounds. You won’t lie in it for particularly long:

14. There are also strange things in Kurilsk, for example, a paid toilet for 30 rubles. Moreover, a controller sits in it and sells tickets.

I wonder how much the city makes from this business?

A road is being built next to the toilet. It should be noted that asphalt came to the island about five years ago; before that there was not a single road here:

15. Panorama of the lower city:

16. There are three hotels in the city, I lived in this one:

17. But there is also an expensive hotel, intended, as the locals told me, “for generals and FSB officers.” In the understanding of the residents

In the Kuril Islands, only those with a rank can be wealthy people. Notice how original it is made

flowerbed in the form of lightning:

18. There is a fountain in front of the hotel, and fish are bred in the lake:

19. There are quite a lot of playgrounds in Kurilsk:

20. There are puddles in the courtyards, the rains here almost never stop:

21. Private sector:

22. And this barn is the tax office building. It’s very unusual to see this, considering the kind of offices they are building in the rest of Russia:

23. Hair salon with bars on the windows:

24. Funeral services combined with a photo studio and copy center:

26. The city center consists of only stores - grocery, hardware, department stores and others:

27. Central street. There are storm drains on the roadsides, they are now being actively cleaned. In general, a lot of city residents are employed in the field

landscaping:

28. They plant trees and make walking paths:

29. Center of the upper city, residential courtyard:

30. Kindergarten building:

32. And this, so to speak, is a residential area (3 minutes from the center):

33. Paths between houses are either concreted or tiled:

34. There are three houses built with violations - you can clearly see how the building is shrinking:

35. How such a house was handed over and accepted is unclear:

36. Several new piers were built in the port. Now any ships can come here:

37. The tent in which the international forum “Iturup” was held. They say that Dmitry Medvedev was a special guest:

38. Finally, the Kuril airport is the only airport built from scratch after the USSR. It is called “Clear” and this reads

some irony - sometimes passengers wait for two weeks for the weather to fly away from the island.