'Sakhalin' (, ;
Japanese: or ;
Chinese: 庫頁), also 'Saghalien', is a large elongated
island in the North
Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N. It is part of
Russia and is its largest island, administered as part of
Sakhalin Oblast. Southern Sakhalin, the
Kuril Islands, and northern
Japan were the indigenous lands of the
Ainu peoples before they were displaced by force.
The European names derived from misinterpretation of a
Manchu name ''sahaliyan ula angga hada'' (peak of the mouth of
Amur River). ''Sahaliyan'' means ''black'' in Manchu and refers to Amur River (''sahaliyan ula''). Its Japanese name, ''
Karafuto'' (樺太) comes from
Ainu Kamuy-Kara-Puto-Ya-Mosir (Kara Puto), which means "God of mouth of water land". The name was restored to the island by the
Japanese during their possession of its southern part (1905-1945).
History
Sakhalin was inhabited in the
Neolithic Stone Age.
Flint implements, like those found in
Siberia, have been found at
Dui and
Kusunai in great numbers, as well as polished stone hatchets, like European examples, primitive pottery with decorations like those of the
Olonets, and stone weights for nets. Afterwards a population to whom
bronze was known left traces in earthen walls and kitchen-middens on the
Aniva Bay.
Among the
indigenous people of Sakhalin are the
Ainu and the
Nivkh, as well as others. Chinese chronicled the
Xianbei and
Hezhe tribes, who had a way of life based on fishing. The Chinese in the
Ming dynasty knew the island as Kuyi (), and later as Kuye (). For a short period (1409-1435) Kuye was under the administration of set up by the
Ming dynasty and a Ming boundary stone still exists on the island. According to
Wei Yuan's work ''Military history of the Qing Dynasty'' (), the
Later Jin sent 400 troops to Sakhalin in 1616, after a newfound interest because of northern Japanese contacts with the area, but later withdrew as it was considered there was no threat from the island.
A Japanese settlement in the southern end of Sakhalin of Ootomari was established in 1679 in a colonialization attempt. Cartographers of the
Matsumae clan created a map of the island and called it "Kita-Ezo" (Northern Ezo, Ezo is the old name of
Hokkaidō). The 1686
Nerchinsk Treaty between Russia and China, which defined the
Stanovoy Mountains as the border, made no explicit mention of the island. Nevertheless Russia started occupying the island, with an army made up of convicts, from the 18th century onwards. The
Qing Empire also claimed sovereignty over the island. However, as the Chinese governments did not have a military presence on the island, people from both Japan and Russia attempted to
colonise the island, albeit from different ends.
Sakhalin became known to Europeans from the travels of
Ivan Moskvitin and
Martin Gerritz de Vries in the 17th century, and still better from those of
Jean-François de La Pérouse (1787) and
Ivan Krusenstern (1805). Both, however, regarded it as a peninsula, and were unaware of the existence of the
Mamiya Strait or
Strait of Tartary, which was discovered in 1809 by
Mamiya Rinzo.
Sakhalin Island
On the basis of it being an extension of
Hokkaidō, geographically and culturally, Japan unilaterally proclaimed sovereignty over the whole island in 1845, as well as the
Kuril Islands, as there were competing claims from Russia. However, the Russian navigator
Gennady Nevelskoy in 1849 definitively recorded the existence and navigability of this strait and - in defiance of the Qing and Japanese claims; Russian
settlers established coal mines, administration facilities, schools, prisons, churches on the island.
In 1855, Russia and Japan signed the
Treaty of Shimoda, which declared that both nationals could inhabit the island: Russians in the north, and Japanese in the south, without a clear boundary between. Russia also agreed to dismantle its military base at Ootomari. Following the
Opium War, Russia forced the Qing to sign the unequal
Treaty of Aigun and
Convention of Peking, under which China lost claim to all territories north of
Heilongjiang (
Amur) and east of
Ussuri, including Sakhalin, to Russia. A ''
katorga'' (
penal colony) was established by Russia on Sakhalin in 1857, but the southern part of the island was held by the Japanese until the 1875
Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1875), when they ceded it to Russia in exchange for the Kuril Islands. After the
Russo-Japanese War, Russia and Japan signed the
Treaty of Portsmouth of 1905, which resulted in the southern part of the island below 50° N reverting to Japan; the Russians retained the other three-fifths of the area. South Sakhalin was administrated by Japan as
Karafuto-chō (樺太庁), with the capital
Toyohara, today's
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, and had quite a large number of migrants from Japan and Korea.
In August 1945, according to
Yalta Conference agreements, the
Soviet Union took over the control of Sakhalin. The Soviet attack on South Sakhalin started on
11 August 1945, as a part of
Operation August Storm, four days before the
Surrender of Japan, after the bombing of
Hiroshima. The 56th Rifle Corps consisting of the 79th Rifle Division, the 2nd Rifle Brigade, the 5th Rifle Brigade and the 214 Armored Brigade attacked the Japanese 88th Division. Although the Red Army outnumbered the Japanese by a factor of three, they were unable to advance due to strong Japanese resistance. (Japan had quite a presence here, and developed much infrastructure.) It was not until the 113th Rifle Brigade and the 365th Independent Naval Infantry Rifle Battalion from Sovietskaya Gavan (Советская гавань) landed on Tōrō (�"路), a seashore village of western Sakhalin on
16 August, that the Soviets broke the Japanese defence line. Japanese resistance grew weaker after this landing. Actual fighting, mostly petty skirmishes, continued until
21 August. From
22 August to
23 August, most of the remaining Japanese units announced a truce. The Soviets completed the conquest of Sakhalin on
25 August 1945 by occupying the capital, Toyohara. Japanese sources claim that 20,000 civilians were killed during the invasion.
No final peace treaty has been signed and the status of four neighbouring islands remains disputed. Japan renounced its claims of sovereignty over southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in the
Treaty of San Francisco (1951), but claims that four islands currently administered by Russia were not subject to this renunciation. However, Japan has granted mutual exchange visas for Japanese and Ainu families divided due to Russian occupation. Recently, economic and political cooperation has gradually improved between the two nations in spite of it.
Korean Air Flight 007, a
South Korean civilian airliner, flew over Sakhalin and was shot down just west of the island by the Soviet Union on
1 September 1983. For the U.S. electronic intercept and the Soviet military transcripts of the shootdown, see
[1]. The airplane flew into Soviet airspace illegally and without permission (albeit unknowingly), and it also did not respond to repeated attempts to contact it by Soviet authorities who claim they thought it was a spy plane, although this version of events is debatable (see
KAL Flight 007 Investigations). All 269 passengers and crew died (for the theory of passenger and crew survival of the KAL 007 shootdown, see
[2]). Increases in military preparedness by the
United States of America and NATO allies in Europe is considered by some to be at least partly responsible for the disaster.
On
May 28 1995, an
earthquake measuring 7.5 on the
Richter scale occurred, killing 2,000 people in the
town of
Neftegorsk.
Geography
Sakhalin is separated from the mainland by the narrow and shallow
Mamiya Strait or
Strait of Tartary, which often freezes in winter in its narrower part, and from
Hokkaidō (
Japan) by the
Soya Strait or
Strait of La Pérouse. Sakhalin is the largest island of
Russia, being 948
km (589 miles) long, and 25 to 170 km (16 to 105 miles) wide, with an area of 78,000 km² (30,100 mi²).
Its
orography and
geological structure are imperfectly known. Nearly two-thirds of Sakhalin is mountainous. Two parallel ranges of mountains traverse it from north to south, reaching 600–1500
m (2000–5000 ft). The Western Sakhalin Mountains peak in
Mount Ichara, 1481 m (4860 ft), while the Eastern Sakhalin Mountains's highest peak is
Mount Lopatin 1609 m (5279 ft) is also the island's highest mountain. Tym-Poronaiskaya Valley separates the two ranges. Susuanaisky and Tonino-Anivsky ranges traverse the island in the south, while the swampy Northern-Sakhalin plain occupies most of its north.
Crystalline rocks crop out at several capes;
Cretaceous limestones, containing an abundant and specific fauna of gigantic
ammonites, occur at
Dui on the west coast, and
Tertiary conglomerates,
sandstones,
marls and
clays, folded by subsequent upheavals, in many parts of the island. The clays, which contain layers of good coal and an abundant fossil vegetation, show that during the Miocene period Sakhalin formed part of a continent which comprised north
Asia,
Alaska and
Japan, and enjoyed a comparatively warm climate. The
Pliocene deposits contain a
mollusc fauna more arctic than that which exists at the present time, indicating probably that the connection between the
Pacific and
Arctic Oceans was broader than it is now.
Main
rivers: the
Tym, 400 km (250 miles) long and navigable by rafts and light boats for 80 km (50 miles), flows north and north-east with numerous rapids and shallows, and enters the
Sea of Okhotsk. The
Poronai flows south-south-east to the
Gulf of Patience or Shichiro Bay, on the south-east coast. Three other small streams enter the wide semicircular
Gulf of Aniva or Higashifushimi Bay at the southern extremity of the island.
Demographics
At the beginning of the 20th century, some 32,000 Russians (of whom over 22,150 were convicts) inhabited Sakhalin along with several thousand native inhabitants. The island's population has grown to 546,695 according to the 2002 census, 83 percent of whom are ethnic
Russians and followed by
Koreans at about 30,000 (5.5%),
Ukrainians and
Tatars. The native inhabitants consist of some 2,000
Nivkhs, 750
Oroks, 200
Evenks and some
Yakuts. The Nivkhs in the north support themselves by fishing and hunting.
The capital
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, a city of about 175,000, has a large
Korean minority, typically referred to as
Sakhalin Koreans, who were forcibly brought by the Japanese during
World War II to work in the coal mines. Most of the population lives in the southern half of the island, centered mainly around Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and two ports,
Kholmsk and
Korsakov (population 50,000 each).
The 400,000 Japanese citizen inhabitants of Sakhalin (including all indigenous
Ainu) were deported following the conquest of the southern portion of the island by the
Soviet Union in 1945 at the end of World War II.
Climate
Owing to the influence of the raw, foggy
Sea of Okhotsk, the climate is very cold. At Dui the average yearly temperature is only 0.5 °C (January -15.9 °C; July 16.1 °C), 1.7 °C at Kusunai and 3.1 °C at Aniva (January, −12.5 °C; July, 15.7 °C). At
Alexandrovsk-Sakhalinsky near Dui the annual range is from 27 °C in July to −39 °C in January, while at Rykovsk in the interior the minimum is −45 °C. The rainfall averages 570 mm. Thick clouds for the most part shut out the sun; while the cold current from the
Sea of Okhotsk, aided by north-east winds, brings immense ice-floes to the east coast in summer.
Flora and fauna
The whole of the island is covered with dense
forests, mostly
coniferous. The Yezo (or Yeddo) spruce (''Picea jezoensis''), the
Sakhalin Fir (''Abies sachalinsis'') and the
Dahurian larch (''Larix gmelinii'') are the chief trees; on the upper parts of the mountains are the
Siberian dwarf pine (''Pinus pumila'') and the
Kurile bamboo (''Sasa kurilensis'').
Birches, both
Siberian silver birch (''Betula platyphylla'') and
Erman's birch (''B. ermanii''),
poplar,
elm,
Bird cherry (''Prunus padus''),
Japanese yew (''Taxus cuspidata'') and several willows are mixed with the conifers; while farther south the
maple,
rowan and
oak, as also the Japanese ''Panax ricinifolium'', the
Amur cork tree (''Phellodendron amurense''), the
Spindle (''Euonymus macropterus'') and the
vine (''Vitis thunbergii'') make their appearance. The underwoods abound in berry-bearing plants (e.g.
cloudberry,
cranberry,
crowberry, red whortleberry),
Red-berried elder (''Sambucus racemosa''), wild
raspberry and Spiraea.
Bears,
foxes,
otters and
sables are numerous, as also the
reindeer in the north, and the musk deer, hares, squirrels, rats and mice everywhere. The
bird fauna is mostly the common east Siberian, but there are some
endemic or near-endemic breeding species, notably the
endangered Spotted Greenshank (''Tringa guttifer'') and the
Sakhalin Leaf Warbler (''Phylloscopus borealoides''). The rivers swarm with fish, especially species of
salmon (''Oncorhynchus''). Numerous whales visit the sea coast, including the
critically endangered Western Pacific
Gray Whale, for which the coast of Sakhalin is the only known feeding ground.
Transport
Transport, especially by sea, is an important segment of the economy. Nearly all the cargo arriving for Sakhalin (and the
Kuril Islands) is delivered by cargo boats, or by ferries, in railway wagons, through a sea ferry passage at
Vanino-
Kholmsk. The ports of
Korsakov and
Kholmsk are the largest and handle all kinds of goods, while
coal and
timber shipments often go through other ports. In 1999, a ferry service was opened between the ports of Korsakov and
Wakkanai,
Japan.
About 30% of all inland transport volume is realized through railways. Sakhalin has railway lines stretching from
Nogliki in the north to Korsakov in the south. There is also a departmental narrow-gauge line at Nogliki–
Okha, extending . With the existence of a ferry serving Vanino-Kholmsk, Sakhalin has railway connection with the railway network of the rest of
Russia.
Sakhalin is connected by regular flights to
Moscow,
Khabarovsk,
Vladivostok, and other cities of Russia. The airport of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk has regularly scheduled international flights to
Hakodate, Japan and
Seoul and
Busan, Korea. There are also charter flights to the Japanese cities of
Tokyo,
Niigata, and
Sapporo and the Chinese cities of
Shanghai,
Dalian, and
Harbin. The city was formerly served by
Alaska Airlines from
Anchorage,
Petropavlovsk and
Magadan.
The idea of building a
fixed link between Sakhalin and the Russian mainland was first mooted in the 1930s. In the 1940s, an abortive attempt was made to link the island via a 10 km long undersea
tunnel. The workers supposedly made it almost to the half-way point before the project was abandoned under
Nikita Khrushchev. In 2000, the Russian government revived the idea, adding a suggestion that a 40 km long bridge could be constructed between Sakhalin and the Japanese island of Hokkaidō, providing Japan with a direct connection to the Euro-Asian railway network. It was claimed that construction work could begin as early as 2001. The idea was received skeptically by the Japanese government and appears to have been shelved, probably permanently, after the cost was estimated at as much as US$50 billion.
Economy
Sakhalin is a classic "resource economy" relying on
oil and
gas exports,
coal mining,
forestry, and
fishing. Limited quantities of
rye,
wheat,
oats,
barley and
vegetables are grown, although the
growing season averages less than 100 days.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and economic liberalization, Sakhalin has experienced an oil with extensive petroleum exploration and mining by most large oil
multinationals. The oil and natural gas reserves contain an estimated 14
billion barrels (2.2 km³) of oil and 96
trillion cubic feet (2,700 km³) of gas and are being developed under production-sharing agreement contracts involving international oil companies like
ExxonMobil and
Shell.
In 1996, two large consortiums signed contracts to explore for oil and gas off the northeast coast of the island,
Sakhalin-I and
Sakhalin-II. The two consortia were estimated to spend a combined $21 billion
U.S. dollars on the two projects which almost doubled to $37 billion as of September 2006, triggering Russian governmental opposition. This will include an estimated $1 billion (US) to upgrade the island's infrastructure: roads, bridges, waste management sites, airports, railways, communications systems, and ports. In addition, Sakhalin-III-through-VI are in various early stages of development.
The Sakhalin I project, managed by Exxon Neftgas Limited (ENL), completed a production-sharing agreement (PSA) between the Sakhalin I consortium, the Russian Federation, and the Sakhalin government. Russia is in the process of building a 136 mile (219 km) pipeline across the Tatar Strait from Sakhalin Island to
De-Kastri on the Russian mainland. From De-Kastri it will be loaded onto tankers for transport to East Asian markets, namely Japan, South Korea, and China.
The second consortium, Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd. (Sakhalin Energy) is managing the Sakhalin II project. They completed the first ever production-sharing agreement (PSA) with the Russian Federation. Sakhalin Energy will build two 800 km pipelines running from the northeast of the island to Prigorodnoye (Prigorodnoe) in Aniva Bay at the southern end. The consortium will also build, at Prigorodnoye, the first ever liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant to be built in Russia. The oil and gas is also bound for East Asian markets.
Sakhalin II has come under fire from environmental groups, namely Sakhalin Environment Watch, for dumping dredging material in Aniva Bay. The groups were also worried about the offshore pipelines interfering with the migration of whales off the island. The consortium has (as of Jan 2006) re-routed the pipeline to avoid the whale migration. After a doubling in the projected cost, the Russian government threatened to halt the project for environmental reasons.
[3] There have been suggestions that the Russian government is using the environmental issues as a pretext for obtaining a greater share of revenues from the project and/or forcing involvement by the state-controlled
Gazprom. The cost overruns (at least partly due to Shell's response to environmental concerns), are reducing the share of profits flowing to the Russian treasury.
[4][5][6][7]
In 2000, the oil and gas industry accounted for 57.5% of Sakhalin's industrial output. By 2006, it is expected to account for 80% of the island's industrial output. Sakhalin's economy is growing rapidly thanks to its oil and gas industry. By 2005, the island had become the largest recipient of foreign investment in Russia, followed by
Moscow. Unemployment in 2002 was only 2%. However, all of the oil and gas is for export and none is available to the island's population.
As of 18 April 2007 Gazprom have taken a 50% plus one share interest in Sakhalin II by purchasing 50% of Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubish's shares.
Sister cities
★
Gig Harbor
References
★ C. H. Hawes, ''In the Uttermost East'' (London, 1903). (P. A. K.; J. T. BE.)
★ ''A Journey to Sakhalin'' (1895), by
Anton Chekhov, including:
★
★ ''Saghalien [or Sakhalin] Island'' (1891–1895)
★
★ ''Across Siberia''
★ ''Sakhalin Unplugged'' (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 2006) by Ajay Kamalakaran
See also
★
Sakhalin-I
★
Sakhalin-II
External links
★
Sakhalin 2 project, ecological problems
★
The Sakhalin Times (Weekly English Language newspaper published in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk)
★
Map of the Sakhalin Hydrocarbon Region at Blackbourn Geoconsulting
★
TransGlobal Highway - Proposed Sakhalin-Hokkaidō Friendship Tunnel.
★
Photos of Sakhalin @ Flickr
★
Photos of Sakhalin @ Panoramio.com
★
Sakhalin Autumn Photos
★
Sakhalin Snowboarding Federation
★
"The Sakhalin II Phase 2 Project The New Energy Source for the Asia Pacific: Transforming the Vision into Reality" presentation by David J. Greer Дэйвид Дж. Гриер, OBE Eur. Ing., C. Eng., FIMechE, Sakhalin II Deputy CEO/Project Director, Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd. to
Scottish Oil Club, October 2005.
★
Russia - To Be Feared... For Now (analysis of Sakhalin II project in context of Russian policy)
★
Visit Sakhalin — growing travel guide
★
Steam and the Railways of Sakhalin
★
[8] - site of the International Committee for the Rescue of KAL 007 Survivors.
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
