The Kuril Islands

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Russia borders Japan at it’s far east end, but a few know that those two countries don’t have a peace treaty signed for already 60 years since the World War II has ended.

The reason for that a group of volcanic islands located North from Japan and called Kuril islands. Those territories were recaptured by Russian army at the end of WW2 and now are under Russian administration, though Japan considers them their own lost territories.

There were a lot of offers from Japan in order to return the islands. During the 1990s, when the Soviet government resigned and the new Russian authorities have been forming Japan offered billions dollars for those territories hoping to get the islands back, but patriotic motive was stronger that the profit one.

Those islands could be vital for Japan, which is suffering from over-population. Its lands are tens or even hundreds time more densely populated than the nearby lying Kuril islands, which stay almost untouched by civilization. Well, it’s hard to say what would be better – to let people live and destroy nature or to preserve nature at its virgin state but deprive hundreds thousands of people from the land.

Below are some photos from those lands in question.

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via manual_r

57 thoughts on “The Kuril Islands”

  1. Please, my Russian friends, keep these islands!! The Japanese will just build another high-tech automotive factory, some nice houses, a shopping mall, a Disney Park, a bunch of sushi bars, a Manga publishing and distribution center, and a geisha house!! Who needs such things?!

    Watch out for the Japanese peoples, as they like to dominate all the time. Just try having sex with one of them–always wanting the higher-up position, forcing your head down, slapping and yelling, “Hai! Hai! Hai!” until the moment of satisfaction, then sighing with contentment like they had just cut off their enemy’s head with a samurai sword, then tossing you off to the side like a severed head tossed into a bamboo basket.

    Sorry.

    Anyway–Yours in resistance to Japanese dominance,
    M. Ahmadinejad

  2. ничё фотки,но я видел в сети покруче.иногда лажу по инету смотрю фотки Сахалина,Камчатки и Курил.на некоторых островах даже остались танки и обломки американских самолётов.

    • why oh why Russians always have border conflicts with all of its neighbours from lapland to baltic and to blacksea, thorughout central asia to china to mongolia to korea to japan? Such an unruly neihgbour I am not surprised everyone hates them 🙁

        • I love Americans! They are going to turn my brothers loose from Guantanamo!

          I can’t wait to get them back and debrief them and learn all the American interrogation techniques, so I can train my other operatives in how to resist if they are captured.

          Thank God Americans don’t just shoot everyone on the battlefield. What a waste of my operatives that would be. Think how many new people I would have to train!

          Thanking America for seeing things my way on Guantanamo (next is Israel!!),
          M. Ahmadinejad

  4. Why to use word “recaptured”, use true word – conquered. Conquered and kept without any reason. US has returned even Okinawa to Japanise authorities, except small areas of military bases. On first two pictures you can see building which is clearly with Japanise origin. Houses on later pictures are only cabins or scheelings, small, old and ruined. Japan is also very mountainous country and has much unused land in mountains. If they could get Kurils, they surely will use them mostly for recreation and preserve nature.

    • Tough luck. Don’t go starting wars and maybe you won’t lose your islands.

      They look sparsely populated and they are on a border with Russia. A much different situation the Okinawa.

    • I can’t agree with you. These islands are surrounded with nice 200 miles of privileged economical zone of sea that are full of fish and they provide nice 30-miles of national waters that means that our ships may go from sea to the ocean and back with comfort and without asking any permissions from any neighbour countries.

      On pictures from Moscow Kremlin you can see buildings which are clearly with Portuguese origin, and the Kremlin itself is a typical Florence style fort. Who cares?

      • Absolutely agree with you. Japanese don’t need the islands, but their main target is exactly the aquatory adjacent to them, which is full of fish and crabs and gives open corridor to the ocean.

    • Recaptured is the correct word. These islands were part of the Russian Empire until 1904-1905 Russian-Japanese war, when Japan conquered them (both with a half of Sakhalin and Manchuria (Manchuria was at that time leased to Russians by the Chinese Empire)). In 1945, USSR took the Kuril Islands and the whole Sakhalin back, and liberated Manchuria and returned it to China (though, it was a 85-years lease treaty, and they could have kept it if they wanted).

      So, I really do not see on what legal basis Japan requests that islands.

      And there is one interesting thing about these islands, not related to politics: There is still a quite large Ainu community there. Ainu are white people who once inhabited all of Japan, until the yellow race came from the Asian mainland. They are almost extinct in Japan (or, if you will, assimilated during the centuries). It would be a great loss for mankind that these interesting people, and their even more interesting language (not related to any of other world’s languages) vanish from the face of the Earth. Of course, nobody would kill them, but in highly industrialized society, they would be assimilated very fast.

      • >And there is one interesting thing about these islands, not
        >related to politics: There is still a quite large Ainu
        >community there.

        Ah yes, the Hairy Ainus. Quite intriguing people.

      • The Ainu were there first, but the Russians and Japanese didn’t see them as the true owners and both treated them bad. Before Kazan was conquered by the Russians on the Tatars in 1552 the Ainu probably lived on the Kurils for over a few thousand years.

  8. Japan… overpopulated ?

    You’ve never been there don’t you ?

    Yeah Tokyo/Nagoya?Osaka are crowded sh1tholes. But drive 20 minutes and you are lost in the middle of the jungle with little village dwelle by racists inbreds.

    And this is for the main Island. In Hokkaido the main population are cows, not humans. I’m not even sure they already heard about indoor plumbing upthere…

    It’s not because Ginza is expensive as hell and so full of prostitutes/w4nker posing as yakusa because they saw it on tv and found it looked cool that you can’t see the floor that you can say the country is overpopulated.

    1 numeral example: Nagoya, same population as Paris… but with 4 times the size.

    • “Even remote Japanese village will be more cleaner and comfortable than any of your stinking Russian Metropolis.”
      100% agree

  10. Top photograph is the Central Museum in Yuzhno-Sakhalink, Sakhalin Island.

    This is NOT JAPAN, it is RUSSIA…….

    Lets keep it that way. And the Kuriles.

    Thank you.

  11. I believe, the Japanese looking building on 1st two pics is actually on Sakhalin island. Pretty, though rough places pictured, thanx.

  13. Truck looks like GMC pickup, but hard to tell.

    Islands belong to Japan. Treaty of San Francisco says so but US told Japan not to press issue at the beginning of cold war so free world alliance could focus on matters more important to US.
    Stalin took other lands from Japan but these are the only ones Japan still claims because they have long history on the islands and have a good legal argument for their claim. I believe 20,000 Japanese were relocated after war when Stalin stole this land.

    The main argument is not so much oil, gas, or fish since Japan has made it’s claim even before these resources had any value (before the economic zones were extended) but certainly that has given the Russian dogs more reason to cling to their stolen property. Like an illiterate beggar in the gutter clutching a stolen book that it can not read.

  14. КУРИЛЫ будут пренадлежать РОССИИ!!!
    Я видел секретные карты министерства обороны России-на ней нет Америки…

    • For now until the Japanese buy it from you because you are so desperate for the cash you would sell your mother to a slaughter house.That or the Japanese just wipe the floor with your military and take it.

  17. The Russians didn’t steal it. They took it. See the difference? And they also took some of the Germans’ land.
    So – if you want to kep your land intact – do not go to war with Russia. Simple like that.

  18. Не дадим лупогоазым оккупантам топтать землю наших дедов!
    КУРИЛЫ – ИСКОННО ЯПОНСКАЯ ЗЕМЛЯ!!!

  21. Every country has its own propaganda history. I wonder that what made the difference between Soviet states gained indepence (Latvia, Estonia…) and them that not gained indepence? (Chechen Republic)

  22. The Japanese are interested in “buying” the islands perhaps there could be lots of whales and dolphins along the seas of the Kurile Islands. The Japanese love to eat these animals.

  25. Those islands are too beautiful. Hopefully there won’t be a conflict over those pieces of land. Why don’t they just divide the island chain, give a half to the Russians then the other one to the Japanese… it’s easier that way.

  26. When Japs first came to these islands there already were russian settlements. Even japan historics accept this fact. We have these islands from 16-17th century. Japs captured them in 19th century. So we just returned them.

  27. Don´t give them back. In the world, militarily speaking, there are only 3 countries: USA, Russia, China. And one of them is CRAZY building bases all over the world (including Africa, of all places!) Menacing everyone with “You´re with me or against me” rhetoric..invading everyone they wish…The thing is: If Russia gives them back, in a year or two, there gonna be US Army bases in the Kuril islands..thus completing the encirclement of Russia. So don´t give them back.

  28. The Japanese palace of first photos is situated in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, on Sakhalin, not in Kurils.
    The islands of Small Kurils + Kunasir and Iturup are too small to solve overpopulation problem. Japan needs them for their rich aquatory.
    By the way, these islands historically belonged to Russia till 1855, when Japan occupied them.
    To Japans: vae victis!

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  32. Looks very nice. No computer jobs there I guess or I would leave the U.S. and go there. I can’t take all these politicains anymore. I want to leave.

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  35. These islands belong to Russia.
    First, these islands are occupied by Japan, and then reoccupied by Russia..
    If a thief steals your money and you take them back, does that too make you a thief?

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