Sakhalin (formerly also Karafuto (jap. 樺太) from the Ainu kamui-kara-puto-ya-mosir, which means "land of the mouth god") is an island located in the eastern part of Russia in the Far East and north of Japan. It is part of the Sakhalin region, the largest island in the Russian Federation. The Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan wash it. From the mainland part of Russia is separated by the Tatar Strait, and in the narrowest part - by the Nevelsky Strait, which has a width of 7.3 km and freezes in winter, from the Japanese island of Hokkaido - the Strait of La Perouse (distance to Japan 44 km).
Sakhalin Island resembles a fish with a fin and tail and the island is not proportional to the size.
Length: 948 km, the least width is - 26 km, the greatest width is - 160 km, an area of 76.6 thousand km2
Sakhalin – the real edge of the earth, an original region of almost untouched nature; diverse, unlike the mainland Far East with a unique ecosystem, formed in a certain isolation. Sakhalin is the place where Russian culture has most closely come into contact with the Japanese, and some traces of their interaction are still visible.
Most of the island of Sakhalin is covered with forests. In the southern part of Sakhalin forests from Ayan spruce, Sakhalin fir and stone birch predominate, as well as forests of broad-leaved species (Mongolian oak, maples, Sakhalin cherry). The island of Sakhalin in the southern part is covered with thickets of Kuril bamboo.
The rivers of Sakhalin have a mountain character in the upper reaches and a lowland in the lower reaches. In the Sakhalin Region, there are 65,175 rivers with a total length of 105,260 km; on Sakhalin there are 61178 rivers. For example, the largest rivers of Sakhalin: Poronay (350 km), Tym (330 km), flowing along the central part of the island in the meridional direction. All other rivers flow predominantly in latitudinal direction and have small dimensions. 98% of the total numbers of rivers are small rivers with a length of up to 10 km.
The administrative center of the Sakhalin Region is the largest city of the island of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, with a population of about 200,000.
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is the largest transport hub on the island: the intersection of highways of regional importance, there is a railway station and an airport. In the city there are more than 50 hotels, more than 100 restaurants and cafes, Chekov Theatre Center and one of the best ski resorts in Russia "GornyVozduh".
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is located in the time zone of MSC + 8 (Magadan time).
The distance from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to Moscow is 6400 km.
The flight time is 8 hours.
From Moscow to the airport Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, daily, on large and comfortable Boeing-777, Airbus A-319, Airbus A-320 here carries out flights of the airline:
- Aeroflot (Sheremetyevo Airport);
- "Russia" (airport "Vnukovo");
- "S7" (Domodedovo airport).
The airport is within the borders of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. In 2017, after modernization, the international airport of federal importance received permission to receive / release a wide-body Boeing-747 and the largest cargo aircraft An-124-100 (Ruslan).
International regular flights arrive in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk only from the territory of the Asian continent - from China, Japan and South Korea.
The natural resources deposit, which for decades became an apple of discord for the two powers, a place that sheltered thousands of political exiles and convicts, an island with a unique flora and fauna - all this is a beautiful and contradictory Sakhalin.
Anton Chekhov, who voluntarily went to Sakhalin for a census, described in detail Sakhalin life at the end of the 19th century in his documentary "Sakhalin Island." At that time, the island was one of the main places of exile, and the authorities thus solved two problems at once: they removed the unreliable citizens away from themselves and facilitated the development of new remote territories. The realities of the Sakhalin hard labor are bleak, and for the metropolitan public of that time Chekhov's story became a revelation (now he is more likely perceived as a harbinger of the camp literature of the twentieth century and, for all documentary, contains many psychological moments). The development of the topic was the book "Sakhalin" by VlasDoroshevich, who visited Sakhalin a few years after Chekhov, and the novel by ValentinPikul "Katorga", dedicated to the events of the Russo-Japanese War.
