| "Lord of the East " or
Vladivostok is the administrative centre of Russia’s far eastern region and the
capital of Primorsky Kray, the maritime territory also known as Ussuriland. |
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Russia’s Far East stretches
along the Pacific Ocean from the icy waters of the Arctic to the Sea of Japan. This
port-city lies just 100km short of the Chinese border and across the sea from the
Japanese island of Honshu. It was established as a frontier outpost in 1860, an integral
part of the grand design of Imperial Russia’s expansion plans. Its deep natural harbour proved to be perfect as a port, trading post and link between the eastern
extremes of the empire to the western reaches of Russia.
Interestingly enough, an
international community of sailors, labourers, hoteliers, financiers and merchants from
Russia, China, Japan, Korea and from Europe and America made up its highly cosmopolitan
population. The city developed into a thriving tradepost and a multicultural
commercial centre. When Tsar Nicholas II arrived in Vladivostok to inaugurate the new
Trans-Siberian railway line in 1891, he actually laid the foundations to connect
Vladivostok to Moscow, 9000 km and 7 time zones away. Vladivostok became journeys end for
this mammoth train journey from the heart of European Russia to the farthest shores in
northeast Asia.
The fall of Port Arthur during the
Russo-Japanese War made it imperative for the Russians to develop Vladivostok as their
main naval base in the Pacific. Vladivostok’s distance fromthe rest of Russia kept it
insulated from the upheavals in the early years of the 20th century. Unaffected by the
communist ideology sweeping Russia, the city served as base for the counter-revolutionary
forces in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the fall of Moscow and St.
Petersburg; Vladivostok continued to be the rallying point for monarchists before it
finally fell to the Bolsheviks in 1922. Under the Soviets, Vladivostok was fortified with
bunkers, gun emplacements and embankments strong enough to withstand the most ferocious of
attacks - some of them are very much in evidence even today. As the home base of Russian
Pacific Fleet, Vladivostok was closed to Russians and foreigners from 1958 till the end of
the communism in 1991.
In the years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Vladivostok has been steadily
transformed into a commercial, moneymaking, fast-spending, high living centre often
compared to San Francisco because of its picturesque hillside locale and beautiful
waterfront. Foreign businesses are returning to Vladivostok - cashing in on the new
boomtown situated most strategically on the junction of northern Asia, the Far East and
Europe.
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Museums and churches - renovated and
back in business are amongst the main attractions in Vladivostok. The Russian Orthodox
Church "Our Lady Grieving" built in 1908, was dedicated to the
dead in the Russo-Japanese war. |
The church has recently been restored to its former glory, after
nearly a century of disrepair and disuse. The Arsenev
Regional Museum, the Border Guards' Museum, the Museum of the Pacific Fleet, the
Sukhanov Museum and the Primorsky Art Gallery to name just a few. The Border Guards'
Museum is dedicated to the soldiers who manned the frontiers of the Soviet Union in
the Russian Far East. The exhibits at the museum include weapons and other military
equipment, photo archives etc. A far more interesting location for a museum is onboard the
famous C-56 Soviet Submarine that sent 11 German ships to their watery graves during World War II. Decommissioned and
converted into a museum, the C-56 offers an insight into the tough life onboard a
submarine.
| The city’s main square and the
waterfront are the hub around which the city and its life revolve. Apart from a monument
to Soviet war heroes, the square is the site of a bustling market on Mondays and Fridays.
The terminus of the Trans-Siberian RR has to be one of the most fascinating railway
stations anywhere -the Vladivostok Central Station built in 1912 is an
architectural gem, an amalgamation of styles that somehow manage to hold their own. |
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The Okeanarium on the
waterfront is a large aquarium with marine animals including a pen of Beluga whales. The Far
East Maritime Reserve and the Ussuri Nature Reserve surround the
city and are home to black and brown bears, Siberian boars, Ussuri tigers, the rare Amur
leopard and hundreds of local and migratory birds.
Getting There: Three daily flights connect
Vladivostok to/from Moscow, daily filghts between Vladivostok, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and
Irktusk, twice a week to Khabarovsk, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and weekly flights to Ulan
Ude, Magadan and Yakutsk. International destinations with direct connections to
Vladivostok are Seattle, Anchorage (USA), Seoul, Pusan (South Korea), Niigata (Japan) and
Bangkok (Thailand). In the summers, it is possible to travel to the ports of Fushiki and
Niigata on the Japanese island of Honshu by ferry from Vladivostok.
The Trans-Siberian train 'The Rossia' connects Moscow to Vladivostok,
via the enroute destinations of Yaroslavl, Exaterinburg, Irkutsk and Khabarovsk. Direct
trains also connect to Khabarovsk and Novosibirisk, Siberia's biggest cities.
Kharkiv in Ukraine and Harbin in China are linked by twice a week express trains, the
latter further connects to trains to Beijing. Transport in the city includes trolley
buses, trams, buses, taxis, suburban train and ferries to places across the bay.
Accommodation: To stay in Vladivostok, choose from
well furbished hotels, to mid range and budget accommodation or the really down at the
heel kind of places. The better the accommodtion, the more the chance of finding English
speaking staff. Good reasonably priced accommodation can be found in Sanatornaya, the the
coastal suburb 30 minutes driving timefom the city centre. Eating out can mean either in
style and at great expense at smart Italian, Russian or Japanese restaurants or
dining cheap off pizzas, burgers or sandwiches in Vladivostok's cafés and wayside stalls.
It is also a party city with casinos, discos, bars, nightclubs, theatres, concert halls
and cinemas. On sale are matryoshka dolls, painted trays, jewellery, military memorabilia
like buttons, medals and badges.
Currency can be exchanged at the Vostok Business Bank at
Verkhneportovaya and at the Marine Terminal as wellas at counters in the major hotels.
Vladivostok's main post office is located on ulitsa Aleutskaya. Next door is a
business centre with an excellent email facility. The adventurous have many choices -
trekking, camping, rafting and adventure trips – pre-arrange these or check with the
travel agents located at ulitsa Admirala Fokina and at the ulitsa Russkaya.
For detailed country and visitor
information, see Russia. |
