Sakhalin is an elongated island in Northeast Asia, located just 6.5 km (4.0 mi) off the southeastern coast of Russia's Khabarovsk Krai, and 40 km (25 mi) north of Japan's Hokkaido. A marginal island of the West Pacific, Sakhalin divides the Sea of Okhotsk to its east from the Sea of Japan to its southwest. It is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast and is the largest island of Russia with an area of 72,492 km2 (27,989 sq mi). The island has a population of roughly 500,000, the majority of whom are Russians. The indigenous peoples of the island are the Ainu, Oroks, and Nivkhs, who are now present in very small numbers.
The Japanese diaspora and its individual members, known as Nikkei (日系) or as Nikkeijin (日系人), comprise the Japanese emigrants from Japan residing in a country outside Japan. Emigration from Japan was recorded as early as the 15th century to the Philippines, but did not become a mass phenomenon until the Meiji period (1868–1912), when Japanese emigrated to the Philippines and to the Americas. There was significant emigration to the territories of the Empire of Japan during the period of Japanese colonial expansion (1875–1945); however, most of these emigrants repatriated to Japan after the 1945 surrender of Japan ended World War II in Asia.
Sakhalin Oblast is a federal subject of Russia comprising the island of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in the Russian Far East. The oblast has an area of 87,100 square kilometers (33,600 sq mi). Its administrative center and largest city is Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. As of the 2021 Census, the oblast has a population of roughly 500,000.
Karafuto Agency, from 1943 Karafuto Prefecture, commonly known as South Sakhalin, was a colony of the Empire of Japan on Sakhalin from 1907 to 1943 and later a prefecture until 1945.
Japanese South and North Koreans comprise ethnic Koreans who have permanent residency status in Japan or who have become Japanese citizens, and whose immigration to Japan originated before 1945, or who are descendants of those immigrants. They are a group distinct from South Korean nationals who have emigrated to Japan after the end of World War II and the division of Korea.
Korsakov is a town and the administrative center of Korsakovsky District of Sakhalin Oblast, Russia. It is located 42 kilometers (26 mi) south from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, at the southern end of Sakhalin Island, on the coast of the Salmon Cove in the Aniva Bay. The town has a population of 33,526 as of the 2010 census.
Oroks, sometimes called Uilta, are a people in the Sakhalin Oblast in Russia. The Orok language belongs to the Southern group of the Tungusic language family. According to the 2002 Russian census, there were 346 Oroks living in Northern Sakhalin by the Okhotsk Sea and Southern Sakhalin in the district by the city of Poronaysk. According to the 2010 census there were 295 Oroks in Russia.
Relations between the Soviet Unionand Japan between the Communist takeover in 1917 and the collapse of Communism in 1991 tended to be hostile. Japan had sent troops to counter the Bolshevik presence in Russia's Far East during the Russian Civil War, and both countries had been in opposite camps during World War II and the Cold War. In addition, territorial conflicts over the Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin were a constant source of tension. These, with a number of smaller conflicts, prevented both countries from signing a peace treaty after World War II, and even today matters remain unresolved.
Sakhalin Koreans are Russian citizens and residents of Korean descent living on Sakhalin Island, who can trace their roots to the immigrants from the Gyeongsang and Jeolla provinces of present-day South Korea during the late 1930s and early 1940s, the latter half of the Japanese colonial era.
Lee Hoesung is a Zainichi Korean novelist in Japan. He writes under the pen name Ri Kaisei, the Japanese reading of his Korean name. In 1972, he became the first ethnic Korean to win the Akutagawa Prize for his story "The Woman Who Fulled Clothes". Other representative works of his include Mihatenu Yume and Hyakunen no tabibitotachi.
Japanese language education in Russia formally dates back to December 1701 or January 1702, when Dembei, a shipwrecked Japanese merchant, was taken to Moscow and ordered to begin teaching the language as soon as possible. A 2006 survey by the Japan Foundation found 451 teachers teaching the language to 9,644 students at 143 institutions; the number of students had grown by 4.8% since the previous year. Aside from one Japanese-medium school serving Japanese people in Russia, virtually all Japanese language education in Russia throughout history has been aimed at non-native speakers.
Russia–South Korea relations or Russian–South Korean relations are the bilateral foreign relations between Russia and South Korea. Modern relations between the two countries began on September 30, 1990.
Relations between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire (1855–1917) were minimal until 1855, mostly friendly from 1855 to the early 1890s, but then turned hostile, largely over the status of Manchuria and of Korea. The two empires established diplomatic and commercial relations from 1855 onwards. The Russian Empire officially ended in 1917, and was succeeded by Communist rule formalized in 1922 with the formation of the Soviet Union.
Ethnic Chinese in Russia officially numbered 39,483 according to the 2002 census. However, this figure is contested, with the Overseas Community Affairs Council of Taiwan claiming 998,000 in 2004 and 2005, and Russian demographers generally accepting estimates in the 200,000–400,000 range as of 2004. Temporary migration and shuttle trade conducted by Chinese merchants are most prevalent in Russia's Far Eastern Federal District, but most go back and forth across the border without settling down in Russia; the Chinese community in Moscow has a higher proportion of long-term residents. Their number in Russia has been shrinking since 2013.
The territorial conquests of the Empire of Japan in the Western Pacific Ocean and East Asia began in 1895 with its victory over Qing China in the First Sino-Japanese War. Subsequent victories over the Russian Empire and German Empire expanded Japanese rule to Taiwan, Korea, Micronesia, southern Sakhalin, several concessions in China, and the South Manchuria Railway. In 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria, resulting in the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo the following year; thereafter, Japan adopted a policy of founding and supporting puppet states in conquered regions. These conquered territories became the basis for the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in 1940.
Sakhalin Railway is one of the railway division under Far Eastern Railway that primarily serves in Sakhalin Island. Due to its island location, the railway becomes the second isolated 1520mm gauge network in Russia, like the Norilsk railway. The only main connection to the mainland is the Vanino–Kholmsk train ferry. The management is located at Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
The evacuation of Karafuto (Sakhalin) and the Kuriles refers to the events that took place during the Pacific theater of World War II as the Japanese population left these areas, to August 1945 in the northwest of the main islands of Japan.
The Soviet assault on Maoka was carried out at the port of Maoka, Southern Sakhalin during August 19-22, 1945, by the forces of the Soviet Northern Pacific Flotilla of the Pacific Fleet during the South Sakhalin Offensive of the Soviet–Japanese War at the end of World War II. It was the second amphibious assault on South Sakhalin, after the Soviet assault on Toro on August 16.
Gonza (1718?–1739), sometimes also Gonzo, was a Japanese castaway who drifted ashore together with Sōza, sometimes also Sozo, in the environs of Kamchatka in 1729, after the wreck of their ship, the Wakashio Maru (若潮丸) from Satsuma. The fifteen survivors from the two ships that went down were set upon by a contingent of Cossacks under Andrei Shtinnikov: thirteen were killed, Gonza and Sōza enslaved. Shtinnikov was later jailed and then executed for his pains.
The Sakhalin Regional Museum of Local Lore, also known as the Sakhalin Regional Museum, is a museum in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk on the island of Sakhalin, Sakhalin Oblast, Russian Federation. It is the largest-scale museum in the federal subject. The Museum collects, researches, and displays materials relating to the natural history, archaeology, history, and ethnography of the region.
