Korsakov, Sakhalin Island, Russia.

 

24^th June 2014.

Korsakov is in the Russian Far East on Sakhalin Island in the Aniva gulf and the farthest north point of our cruises at 46.37N and 142.01E. Russia and Japan have disputed ownership of the island many times over the centuries. It’s currently a boom area with natural resources of oil and gas in contrast to the extreme pristine natural environment. There have been many cultures here. The original inhabitants were semi-nomadic Nivkh. The Russians claimed the island in 1853, handed it over to Japan with their defeat in 1904/5, and reclaimed it after the 2^nd WW.

The population of Korsakov is around the 33.000 while Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk  - where todays tour took us – is approx. 182.000. It was 12C for us – just as well it’s high summer! The people in the streets could be from home, dresses in bright colours, high heels or platforms with short skirts for the young ladies – even some in shorts, and us oldies – well who cares! We saw a class of school girls going – somewhere – all wearing the brightest tights you could imagine! The men we saw were dressed in suits or jeans – just like home.

The buildings were a huge contrast. Old derelict apartment buildings, obviously occupied, beside new buildings of the same style; a “subdivision” of angular two or three storied homes which looked far too big for one family but who would know. So many questions and really no-one to answer them. Tourism is very new to the area and the guides sticking to their scripts only. Those are the times when you wish you could spend more time there and get answers. The bus was well used and the roads not 100%. It looked like petrol was about NZ$1 pr litre – if that’s how they sell it and there was not a huge volume of traffic.

The trip from the port took about an hour. We first stopped at a Russian Orthodox church built from roundwood logs – rather beautiful. The interior was beautifully decorated with tiles and lots of gold. We had to visit the statue of Lenin of course, visited a cultural centre (mainly for souvenir shopping), a regional museum, then had a toilet stop at a fabulous “Ice Palace” which seemed to be a skating rink (we had to keep with the herd!) I was starving after fog had caused a delay with tendering – one of the tenders got lost – and this toilet stop was 7 hours after breakfast. I managed to get some very nice biscuits out of a vending machine for NZ$1.20. The food where ever we’ve been has reasonably priced at about the same or less than home.

So we’ve been to Russia albeit “off the beaten track”.

I was hoping to be up to date with these little epistles but that orange light which blocks the key pad came on again and while I knew it was ridiculously simple to correct I couldn’t remember what to do and its wasn’t til we came back from touring tonight that we could get the IT guy to fix the prob. Even tried to ring you William!! So here we are at 10pm, Wed 25^th and still one port behind!!

Hope you are all well. Hoppy’s lip is healing but still feels a bit strange. I would love more steri strips if you could loan me some!!! Can’t find any in the shops, nor any massage liniment for his neck – reckon he’s given himself whip lash, but he doesn’t complain. Bless him.

All three of these photos are of the church we visited. The other photos didn't work! It's actually now too late at night to get them back - they take a while to transfer - so I'm off to bed.