Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is the largest city and the administrative center of the Russian island of Sakhalin. The history of the town started with the founding of the village of Vladimirovka in 1882. Three years later, there were 57 inhabitants in the town, and ten years later the population grew to 130. The city was Russian until 1905, when Japan gained dominion over southern Sakhalin after the Russo-Japanese War. In 1908, the Japanese moved their administration to Vladimirovka, which they later named Toyohara. In the following years, the Japanese expanded the city significantly with, among other things, a government building and a post office along the main street Jinja dori, and in 1911 Karafuto opened the jinja temple, which was given the status of one of Japan’s 67 imperial temples.

Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk was Japanese until 1945, when the Soviet Union regained Toyohara after heavy fighting on August 25, which happened as part of the end of World War II in the Pacific region. The city changed to its current name on 4 June 1946, when it had become the capital of a newly formed administrative area. Over the following decades, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk grew significantly with the incorporation of several villages into the city, which was also expanded with new suburbs. The population has also grown sharply from 130 inhabitants in 1895 to 177,000 a hundred years later, and today the city is home to approximately 200,000 citizens.

Today, you can experience sights that originate from both the Russian and Japanese times, and this provides some exciting historical contrasts in the streetscape. You can start a stroll on Ploshad Lenina, the city’s central square in front of the railway station in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. On the square you can see the city’s statue of the head of state Lenin, which was inaugurated in 1970. The railway station is located west of Lenin, while on the east side of the square you can see the town hall of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. From the square, you can walk east along Kommunistichesky Prospect, which leads to the city center, which houses the Sakhalin Oblast government building to the north and the city’s international theater center to the south.

If you continue along Kommunistichesky Prospect, you can visit the Sakhalin Regional Museum, which is the city’s and the island’s largest museum with fine collections in natural history, archaeology, history and ethnography. In this way, a visit here provides a good introduction to Sakhalin in many ways. The large museum building is in a distinctly Japanese style, and it was also built 1935-1937, when the city was under Japanese control. The museum was built on land belonging to the Karafuto Jinja Shrine, which can no longer be seen. In this part of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, you can also go for a walk in Gagarin Park, where there are various activities such as amusements, a zoo and the Children’s Railway, which opened in 1954 as a ring track with a length of two kilometers.

The impressive square Ploshad Pobedy in the east of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is also one of the city’s highlights. On the square is the Patriotic Memorial Museum of the Victory in World War II and of the Military Historical Heritage of the Sakhalin Region. The museum was built in 2017, and just south of it is the Cathedral of the Nativity, a beautiful Russian Orthodox cathedral from 2016. Next to the cathedral, you can visit the Historical Park Russia – My History, which depicts various topics in Russian history. East of Ploshad Pobedy you can enjoy some of the beautiful nature around Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Here lies Gornyj Vozdukh, which offers hiking routes in the mountains and good ski slopes in season.