The names of the Kuril Islands claimed by Japan. Attraction of unprecedented generosity. The problem of the Kuril Islands

Disputes over the four South Kuril Islands that currently belong to Russian Federation, have been going on for quite some time. This land, as a result of agreements and wars signed at different times, changed hands several times. Currently, these islands are the cause of the unresolved territorial dispute between Russia and Japan.

Discovery of the islands

The issue of opening the Kuril Islands is controversial. According to the Japanese side, the Japanese were the first to set foot on the land of the islands in 1644. The map of that time with the designations applied to it - “Kunashiri”, “Etorofu”, etc. is carefully preserved in National Museum Japanese history. And the Russian pioneers, according to the Japanese, first came to the Kuril ridge only during the time of Tsar Peter I, in 1711, and on the Russian map of 1721 these islands are called "Japanese Islands".

But in reality, the situation is different: firstly, the Japanese received the first information about the Kuriles (from the Ainu language - “kuru” means “a person who came from nowhere”) from the local residents of the Ainu (the oldest non-Japanese population of the Kuril Islands and the Japanese Islands) during an expedition to Hokkaido in 1635. Moreover, the Japanese did not reach the Kuril lands themselves due to constant conflicts with the local population.

It should be noted that the Ainu were hostile to the Japanese, and initially they treated the Russians well, considering them their "brothers", because of the similarity in appearance and methods of communication between Russians and small peoples.

Secondly, the Kuril Islands were discovered by the Dutch expedition of Maarten Gerritsen de Vries (Vries) in 1643, the Dutch were looking for the so-called. "Golden Lands" The Dutch did not like the land, and they sold a detailed description of them, a map to the Japanese. It was on the basis of Dutch data that the Japanese compiled their maps.

Thirdly, the Japanese at that time did not own not only the Kuriles, but even Hokkaido, only in its southern part there was their stronghold. The Japanese began to conquer the island at the beginning of the 17th century, and the struggle against the Ainu went on for two centuries. That is, if the Russians were interested in expansion, then Hokkaido could become a Russian island. This was facilitated by the good attitude of the Ainu towards the Russians and their enmity towards the Japanese. There are records of this fact. The Japanese state of that time did not officially consider itself the sovereign of not only Sakhalin and the Kuril lands, but also Hokkaido (Matsumae) - this was confirmed in his circular by the head of the Japanese government, Matsudaira, during the Russian-Japanese negotiations on the border and trade in 1772.

Fourthly, Russian explorers visited the islands before the Japanese. In the Russian state, the first mention of Kuril lands refers to 1646, when Nehoroshko Ivanovich Kolobov gave a report to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich about the campaigns of Ivan Yuryevich Moskvitin and spoke about the bearded Ainu inhabiting the Kuriles. In addition, Dutch, Scandinavian and German medieval chronicles and maps report the first Russian settlements in the Kuriles of that time. The first reports about the Kuril lands and their inhabitants reached the Russians in the middle of the 17th century.

In 1697, during the expedition of Vladimir Atlasov to Kamchatka, new information about the islands appeared, the Russians explored the islands up to Simushir (an island of the middle group of the Great Kuril Islands).

18th century

Peter I knew about the Kuril Islands, in 1719 the tsar sent to Kamchatka secret expedition under the leadership of Ivan Mikhailovich Evreinov and Fedor Fedorovich Luzhin. The marine surveyor Evreinov and the surveyor-cartographer Luzhin had to determine whether there was a strait between Asia and America. The expedition reached the island of Simushir in the south and brought local residents and rulers to the Russian state.

In 1738-1739, the navigator Martyn Petrovich Shpanberg (a Dane by origin) traveled along the entire Kuril ridge, mapped all the islands he encountered, including the entire Lesser Kuril ridge (these are 6 large and a number of small islands that are separated from the Greater Kuril ridge by the South - Kuril Strait). He explored the lands up to Hokkaido (Matsumaya), bringing the local Ainu rulers to the Russian state.

In the future, the Russians avoided sailing to the southern islands, mastered the northern territories. Unfortunately, at that time, abuses against the Ainu were noted not only by the Japanese, but also by the Russians.

In 1771, the Lesser Kuril Ridge was withdrawn from Russia and passed under the protectorate of Japan. The Russian authorities, in order to rectify the situation, sent the nobleman Antipin with the translator Shabalin. They were able to persuade the Ainu to restore Russian citizenship. In 1778-1779, Russian envoys brought over 1.5 thousand people from Iturup, Kunashir and even Hokkaido into citizenship. In 1779, Catherine II freed those who accepted Russian citizenship from all taxes.

In 1787, in the Extensive Land Description Russian state... "a list of the Kuril Islands was given up to Hokkaido-Matsumai, the status of which has not yet been determined. Although the Russians did not control the lands south of Urup Island, the Japanese operated there.

In 1799, by order of the sei-taishogun Tokugawa Ienari, he headed the Tokugawa Shogunate, two outposts were built on Kunashir and Iturup, and permanent garrisons were placed there. Thus, the Japanese secured the status of these territories within Japan by military means.

Agreements

In 1845, the Japanese Empire unilaterally announced its power over all of Sakhalin and the Kuril ridge. This naturally caused a violent negative reaction from the Russian Emperor Nicholas I. But, the Russian Empire did not have time to take action, the events of the Crimean War prevented it. Therefore, it was decided to make concessions and not bring the matter to war.

On February 7, 1855, the first diplomatic agreement between Russia and Japan was concluded - Shimoda Treaty. It was signed by Vice Admiral E. V. Putyatin and Toshiakira Kawaji. According to the 9th article of the treatise, "permanent peace and sincere friendship between Russia and Japan" was established. Japan moved the islands from Iturup and to the south, Sakhalin was declared a joint, indivisible possession. Russians in Japan received consular jurisdiction, Russian ships received the right to enter the ports of Shimoda, Hakodate, Nagasaki. The Russian Empire received the most favored nation treatment in trade with Japan and received the right to open consulates in ports open to Russians. That is, in general, especially given the difficult international situation of Russia, the treaty can be assessed positively. Since 1981, the Japanese have celebrated the signing of the Shimoda Treaty as the Day of the Northern Territories.

It should be noted that in fact the Japanese received the right to the "Northern Territories" only for "permanent peace and sincere friendship between Japan and Russia", the most favored nation treatment in trade relations. Their further actions de facto annulled this agreement.

Initially, the provision of the Shimoda Treaty on the joint ownership of the island of Sakhalin was more beneficial for the Russian Empire, which was actively colonizing this territory. The Japanese Empire did not good fleet, therefore, at that time did not have such an opportunity. But later, the Japanese began to intensively populate the territory of Sakhalin, and the question of its ownership began to become more and more controversial and acute. The contradictions between Russia and Japan were resolved by signing the St. Petersburg Treaty.

St. Petersburg Treaty. It was signed in the capital of the Russian Empire on April 25 (May 7), 1875. Under this agreement, the Empire of Japan transferred Sakhalin to Russia in full ownership, and in exchange received all the islands of the Kuril chain.

As a result of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 and Treaty of Portsmouth On August 23 (September 5), 1905, the Russian Empire, in accordance with the 9th article of the agreement, ceded to Japan the south of Sakhalin, south of 50 degrees north latitude. Article 12 contained an agreement on the conclusion of a convention on fishing by the Japanese along the Russian coasts of the Sea of ​​Japan, the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and the Bering Sea.

After the death of the Russian Empire and the beginning of foreign intervention, the Japanese occupied Northern Sakhalin and participated in the occupation of the Far East. When the Bolshevik Party won the civil war, Japan did not want to recognize the USSR for a long time. Only after the Soviet authorities in 1924 annulled the status of the Japanese consulate in Vladivostok and in the same year the USSR recognized Great Britain, France and China, did the Japanese authorities decide to normalize relations with Moscow.

Beijing Treaty. On February 3, 1924, official negotiations between the USSR and Japan began in Beijing. Only on January 20, 1925, the Soviet-Japanese convention on the basic principles of relations between countries was signed. The Japanese undertook to withdraw their forces from the territory of Northern Sakhalin by May 15, 1925. The declaration of the government of the USSR, which was attached to the convention, emphasized that the Soviet government did not share with the former government of the Russian Empire political responsibility for the signing of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty of 1905. In addition, the agreement of the parties was enshrined in the convention that all agreements, treaties and conventions concluded between Russia and Japan before November 7, 1917, except for the Portsmouth Peace Treaty, should be revised.

In general, the USSR made great concessions: in particular, Japanese citizens, companies and associations were granted the rights to exploit natural resources throughout the territory. Soviet Union. On July 22, 1925, a contract was signed to provide the Empire of Japan with a coal concession, and on December 14, 1925, an oil concession in Northern Sakhalin. Moscow agreed to this agreement in order to stabilize the situation in the Russian Far East in this way, since the Japanese supported the Whites outside the USSR. But in the end, the Japanese began to systematically violate the convention, create conflict situations.

During the Soviet-Japanese negotiations that took place in the spring of 1941 regarding the conclusion of a neutrality treaty, the Soviet side raised the question of liquidating Japan's concessions in Northern Sakhalin. The Japanese gave their written consent to this, but delayed the implementation of the agreement for 3 years. Only when the USSR began to gain the upper hand over the Third Reich did the Japanese government agree to the implementation of the agreement given earlier. So, on March 30, 1944, a protocol was signed in Moscow on the destruction of the Japanese oil and coal concessions in Northern Sakhalin and the transfer to the Soviet Union of all Japanese concession property.

February 11, 1945 at the Yalta Conference three great powers - the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain - reached an oral agreement on the entry of the USSR into the war with the Empire of Japan on the terms of the return of South Sakhalin and the Kuril ridge to it after the end of World War II.

In the Potsdam Declaration dated July 26, 1945, it was said that Japanese sovereignty would be limited only to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and other smaller islands, which the victorious countries would indicate. The Kuril Islands were not mentioned.

After the defeat of Japan, on January 29, 1946, by Memorandum No. 677 of the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Powers, American General Douglas MacArthur of Japanese territory the Tisima Islands (Kuril Islands), the Khabomadze (Khabomai) Islands and Sikotan Island (Shikotan) were excluded.

According to San Francisco Peace Treaty dated September 8, 1951, the Japanese side renounced all rights to South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. But the Japanese argue that Iturup, Shikotan, Kunashir and Habomai (the islands of the Lesser Kuril ridge) were not part of the Tisima Islands (Kuril Islands) and they did not refuse them.

Further agreements

joint declaration. On October 19, 1956, the Soviet Union and Japan adopted a Joint Declaration. The document ended the state of war between the countries and restored diplomatic relations, and also spoke of Moscow's consent to the transfer of the Habomai and Shikotan islands to the Japanese side. But they were to be handed over only after the signing of the peace treaty. However, later Japan was forced to refuse to sign a peace treaty with the USSR. The United States threatened the Japanese not to give up Okinawa and the entire Ryukyu archipelago if they gave up their claims to the other islands of the Lesser Kuril chain.

After Tokyo signed the Cooperation and Security Treaty with Washington in January 1960, extending the American military presence on the Japanese islands, Moscow announced that it refused to consider the issue of transferring the islands to the Japanese side. The statement was substantiated by the security of the USSR and China.

In 1993 was signed Tokyo Declaration O Russian-Japanese relations. It said that the Russian Federation is the legal successor of the USSR and recognizes the 1956 agreement. Moscow expressed its readiness to start negotiations on Japan's territorial claims. In Tokyo, this was assessed as a sign of the coming victory.

In 2004, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Sergei Lavrov, made a statement that Moscow recognizes the 1956 Declaration and is ready to negotiate a peace treaty based on it. In 2004-2005, this position was confirmed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But the Japanese insisted on the transfer of 4 islands, so the issue was not resolved. Moreover, the Japanese gradually increased their pressure, for example, in 2009, the head of the Japanese government at a government meeting called the Lesser Kuril Ridge "illegally occupied territories." In 2010-early 2011, the Japanese got so excited that some military experts began to talk about the possibility of a new Russo-Japanese war. Only a spring natural disaster - the consequences of a tsunami and a terrible earthquake, the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant - cooled the ardor of Japan.

As a result, the loud statements of the Japanese led to the fact that Moscow announced that the islands are the territory of the Russian Federation legally following the results of the Second World War, this is enshrined in the UN Charter. And the Russian sovereignty over the Kuriles, which has the appropriate international legal confirmation, is beyond doubt. Plans were also announced to develop the economy of the islands and strengthen the Russian military presence there.

The strategic importance of the islands

economic factor. The islands are economically underdeveloped, but they have deposits of valuable and rare earth metals - gold, silver, rhenium, titanium. The waters are rich in biological resources, the seas that wash the shores of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands are one of the most productive areas of the World Ocean. The shelves, where hydrocarbon deposits have been found, are also of great importance.

political factor. The cession of the islands will sharply lower Russia's status in the world, and there will be a legal opportunity to review other results of the Second World War. For example, they may be required to give Kaliningrad region Germany or part of Karelia Finland.

military factor. The transfer of the islands of the South Kuril chain will provide the naval forces of Japan and the United States with free access to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. It will allow our potential adversaries to exercise control over strategically important strait zones, which will drastically impair the deployment of the forces of the Russian Pacific Fleet, including nuclear submarines with intercontinental ballistic missiles. This will be a strong blow to the military security of the Russian Federation.

Recently, Shinzo Abe announced that he would annex the disputed islands of the South Kuril chain to Japan. “I will solve the problem of the northern territories and conclude a peace treaty. As a politician, as a prime minister, I want to achieve this at all costs,” he promised his compatriots.

According to Japanese tradition, Shinzo Abe will have to do hara-kiri if he doesn't keep his word. It is quite possible that Vladimir Putin will help the Japanese prime minister live to a ripe old age and die a natural death. Photo by Alexander Vilf (Getty Images).

In my opinion, everything goes to the fact that the long-standing conflict will be settled. The time for establishing decent relations with Japan was chosen very well - for the empty hard-to-reach lands, which their former owners now and then look nostalgically, you can get many material benefits from one of the most powerful economies in the world. And the lifting of sanctions as a condition for the transfer of the islands is far from the only and not the main concession that our Foreign Ministry is now seeking, I am sure.

So the quite expected surge of quasi-patriotism of our liberals, directed at the Russian president, should be prevented.

I have already had to analyze in detail the history of the islands of Tarabarov and Bolshoy Ussuriysky on the Amur, the loss of which Moscow snobs cannot come to terms with. The post also discussed the dispute with Norway over maritime territories, which was also settled.

I also touched upon the secret negotiations between the human rights activist Lev Ponomarev and the Japanese diplomat about the "northern territories", filmed on video and posted online. Generally speaking, one of this video it is enough for our caring citizens to bashfully swallow the return of the islands to Japan, if it takes place. But since concerned citizens will definitely not keep silent, we must understand the essence of the problem.

background

February 7, 1855 Shimodsky treatise on trade and borders. The now disputed islands of Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the Habomai group of islands have been ceded to Japan (therefore, February 7 is annually celebrated in Japan as Northern Territories Day). The question of the status of Sakhalin remained unresolved.

May 7, 1875 Petersburg treaty. Japan transferred the rights to all 18 Kuril Islands in exchange for the entire Sakhalin.

August 23, 1905- Treaty of Portsmouth resultsRusso-Japanese War.Russia ceded the southern part of Sakhalin.

February 11, 1945 — Yalta conference. THE USSR, US and UK reached a written agreement on the entry of the Soviet Union into the war with Japan, subject to the return of South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands to it after the end of the war.

February 2, 1946 on the basis of the Yalta agreements in the USSR Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk region was created - on the territory of the southern part of the island Sakhalin and Kuril Islands. January 2, 1947 she was merged with Sakhalin Oblast Khabarovsk Territory, which expanded to the borders of the modern Sakhalin region.

Japan enters the Cold War

September 8, 1951 The Treaty of San Francisco was signed between the Allied Powers and Japan. Regarding the now disputed territories, it says the following: "Japan renounces all rights, titles and claims to the Kuril Islands and to that part of Sakhalin Island and the islands adjacent to it, sovereignty over which Japan acquired under the Portsmouth Treaty of September 5, 1905."

The USSR sent a delegation to San Francisco headed by Deputy Foreign Minister A. Gromyko. But not in order to sign a document, but to voice their position. The said clause of the contract was formulated as follows:"Japan recognizes the full sovereignty of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics over the southern part of Sakhalin Island with all the islands adjacent to it and the Kuril Islands and renounces all rights, titles and claims to these territories."

Of course, in our wording, the treaty is specific and more in line with the spirit and letter of the Yalta agreements. However, the Anglo-American version was adopted. The USSR did not sign it, Japan did.

Today, some historians believe that The USSR had to sign the San Francisco Peace Treaty in the form in which it was proposed by the Americans This would strengthen our negotiating position. “We should have signed a contract. I don’t know why we didn’t do this - perhaps because of vanity or pride, but above all, because Stalin overestimated his capabilities and the degree of his influence on the United States, ”N.S. wrote in his memoirs .Khrushchev. But soon, as we shall see later, he himself made a mistake.

From today's standpoint, the lack of a signature under the notorious treaty is sometimes considered almost a diplomatic failure. However, the international situation of that time was much more complicated and was not limited to the Far East. Perhaps, what seems to someone a loss, in those conditions became a necessary measure.

Japan and sanctions

It is sometimes erroneously believed that since we do not have a peace treaty with Japan, we are in a state of war. However, this is not at all the case.

December 12, 1956 The exchange of letters took place in Tokyo, marking the entry into force of the Joint Declaration. According to the document, the USSR agreed to "the transfer of the Habomai Islands and the Shikotan Islands to Japan, however, that the actual transfer of these islands to Japan will be made after the conclusion of a peace treaty between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan."

The parties came to this wording after several rounds of lengthy negotiations. Japan's initial proposal was simple: a return to Potsdam - that is, the transfer of all the Kuriles and South Sakhalin to it. Of course, such a proposal by the losing side of the war looked somewhat frivolous.

The USSR was not going to cede an inch, but unexpectedly for the Japanese, Habomai and Shikotan suddenly offered. This was a reserve position, approved by the Politburo, but announced prematurely - the head of the Soviet delegation, Ya.A. On August 9, 1956, during a conversation with his counterpart in the garden of the Japanese embassy in London, the reserve position was announced. It was she who entered the text of the Joint Declaration.

It must be clarified that the influence of the United States on Japan at that time was enormous (however, as now). They closely monitored all her contacts with the USSR and, undoubtedly, were the third participant in the negotiations, although invisible.

At the end of August 1956, Washington threatened Tokyo that if, under a peace treaty with the USSR, Japan renounces its claims to Kunashir and Iturup, the United States will forever retain the occupied island of Okinawa and the entire Ryukyu archipelago. The note included a wording that clearly played on the national feelings of the Japanese: “The US government has come to the conclusion that the islands of Iturup and Kunashir (along with the islands of Habomai and Shikotan, which are part of Hokkaido) have always been part of Japan and should rightly be considered as belonging to Japan. ". That is, the Yalta agreements were publicly disavowed.

The affiliation of the "northern territories" of Hokkaido, of course, is a lie - on all military and pre-war Japanese maps, the islands have always been part of the Kuril ridge and have never been identified separately. However, the idea was well received. It was on this geographical absurdity that entire generations of politicians in the Land of the Rising Sun made their careers.

The peace treaty has not yet been signed - in our relations we are guided by the Joint Declaration of 1956.

Issue price

I think that even in the first term of his presidency, Vladimir Putin decided to settle all disputed territorial issues with his neighbors. Including with Japan. In any case, back in 2004, Sergey Lavrov formulated the position of the Russian leadership: “We have always fulfilled and will continue to fulfill our obligations, especially ratified documents, but, of course, to the extent that our partners are ready to fulfill the same agreements . So far, as we know, we have not been able to reach an understanding of these volumes as we see it and as we saw it in 1956.

“Until Japan's ownership of all four islands is clearly defined, a peace treaty will not be concluded,” responded then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. The negotiation process has again reached an impasse.

However, this year we again remembered the peace treaty with Japan.

In May, at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, Vladimir Putin said that Russia was ready to negotiate with Japan on the disputed islands, and the solution should be a compromise. That is, none of the parties should feel like a loser. “Are you ready to negotiate? Yes, ready. But we were surprised to hear recently that Japan has joined some kind of sanctions - and here Japan, I don’t really understand - and is suspending the negotiation process on this topic. So we are ready, is Japan ready, I haven’t learned for myself, ”said the President of the Russian Federation.

It seems that the pain point is found correctly. And the negotiation process (I hope, this time in offices tightly closed from American ears) has been in full swing for at least six months. Otherwise, Shinzo Abe would not have made such promises.

If we fulfill the terms of the 1956 Joint Declaration and return the two islands to Japan, 2,100 people will have to be resettled. All of them live on Shikotan, only a frontier post is located on Habomai. Most likely, the problem of the presence of our armed forces on the islands is being discussed. However, for complete control over the region, the troops deployed on Sakhalin, Kunashir and Iturup are quite enough.

Another question is what reciprocal concessions we expect from Japan. It is clear that the sanctions should be lifted - this is not even discussed. Perhaps access to credits and technologies, expansion of participation in joint projects? Not excluded.

Be that as it may, Shinzo Abe faces a difficult choice. The conclusion of the long-awaited peace treaty with Russia, spiced with "northern territories", would certainly have made him the politician of the century in his homeland. It will inevitably lead to tension in relations between Japan and the United States. I wonder what the Prime Minister would prefer.

And we will somehow survive the internal Russian tension that our liberals will inflate.

The Habomai group of islands is labeled "Other Islands" on this map. These are several white spots between Shikotan and Hokkaido.
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Everyone knows about Japan's claims to Southern Kuriles, but not everyone knows in detail the history of the Kuril Islands and their role in Russian-Japanese relations. This is what this article will be devoted to.

Everyone knows about Japan's claims to the South Kuriles, but not everyone knows in detail the history of the Kuril Islands and their role in Russian-Japanese relations. This is what this article will be devoted to.

Before turning to the history of the issue, it is worth explaining why the Southern Kuriles are so important for Russia *.
1. Strategic position. It is in the non-freezing deep-sea straits between the South Kuril Islands that submarines can enter the Pacific Ocean in a submerged position at any time of the year.
2. Iturup has the world's largest deposit of the rare metal rhenium, which is used in superalloys for space and aviation technology. World production of rhenium in 2006 amounted to 40 tons, while Kudryavy volcano emits 20 tons of rhenium every year. This is the only place in the world where rhenium is found in its pure form, and not in the form of impurities. 1 kg of rhenium, depending on the purity, costs from 1000 to 10 thousand dollars. There is no other rhenium deposit in Russia (in Soviet times, rhenium was mined in Kazakhstan).
3. The reserves of other mineral resources of the South Kuriles are: hydrocarbons - about 2 billion tons, gold and silver - 2 thousand tons, titanium - 40 million tons, iron - 270 million tons
4. The Southern Kuriles is one of 10 places in the world where, due to the turbulence of water due to the meeting of warm and cold sea currents, food for fish rises from the seabed. It attracts huge herds of fish. The cost of seafood produced here exceeds 4 billion dollars a year.

Let us briefly note the key dates of the 17th-18th centuries in Russian history associated with the Kuril Islands.

1654 or, according to other sources, 1667-1668- Sailing of a detachment led by Cossack Mikhail Stadukhin near the northern Kuril island of Alaid. In general, among the Europeans, the expedition of the Dutchman Martin Moritz de Vries was the first to visit the Kuriles in 1643, which mapped Iturup and Urup, but these islands were not assigned to Holland. Friz became so confused during his journey that he mistook Urup for the tip of the North American continent. The strait between Urup and Iturup now bears the name of de Vries.

1697 Siberian Cossack Vladimir Atlasov led an expedition to Kamchatka to conquer local tribes and tax them. The descriptions of the Kuril Islands he heard from the Kamchadals formed the basis of the earliest Russian map of the Kuriles, compiled by Semyon Remezov in 1700. 2

1710 the Yakut administration, guided by the instructions of Peter I “on finding the state of Japan and conducting trades with it,” instructs the Kamchatka clerks, “having done the courts, which are decent, for overflowing land and people on the sea with all sorts of measures, how it is possible to see through; and people will appear on that land, and those people of the great sovereign under the tsar’s highly autocratic hand again, as quickly as possible, by all means, according to local conditions, bring and collect yasak from them with great zeal, and make a special drawing for that land. 3

1711- A detachment led by ataman Danila Antsiferov and Yesaul Ivan Kozyrevsky examines the northern Kuril Islands - Shumshu and Kunashir 4 . The Ainu living on Shumshu tried to resist the Cossacks, but were defeated.

1713 Ivan Kozyrevsky leads the second expedition to the Kuril Islands. On Paramushir, the Ainu gave the Cossacks three battles, but were defeated. For the first time in the history of the Kuriles, their inhabitants paid yasak and recognized the power of Russia 5 . After this campaign, Kozyrevsky made a "Drawing map of the Kamchadal nose and sea ​​islands". This map depicts the Kuril Islands for the first time from Cape Lopatka in Kamchatka to the Japanese island of Hokkaido. A description of the islands and the Ainu, the people who inhabited the Kuriles, is also attached to it. Moreover, in the descriptions attached to the final "drawing", Kozyrevsky also reported a number of information about Japan. In addition, he found out that the Japanese were forbidden to sail north of Hokkaido. And that "Iturups and Uruptsy live autocratically and not in citizenship." Also independent were the inhabitants of another large island of the Kuril chain - Kunashir 6 .

1727 Catherine I approves the "Opinion of the Senate" on Eastern Islands. It pointed out the need to "take possession of the islands lying near Kamchatka, since those lands belong to Russian possession and are not subject to anyone. The Eastern Sea is warm, not icy ... and may in the future follow commerce with Japan or China Korea " 7 .

1738-1739- The Kamchatka expedition of Martyn Shpanberg took place, during which the entire ridge of the Kuril Islands was passed. For the first time in Russian history, contact with the Japanese took place on their territory - at the anchorage near the island of Honshu, sailors purchased food from local residents 8 . After this expedition, a map of the Kuriles was published, which in 1745 became part of the Atlas of the Russian Empire 9, which was published in Russian, French and Dutch. In the 18th century, when not all territories on the globe were surveyed by European countries, the established "international law" (which, however, applied only to the countries of Europe), gave a priority right to own "new lands" if the country had a priority in publishing a map of the corresponding territories 10 .

1761 The Senate Decree of August 24 allows the free fishing of sea animals in the Kuriles with the return to the treasury of the 10th part of the production (PSZ-XV, 11315). During the second half of the 18th century, the Russians explored the Kuril Islands and created settlements on them. They existed on the islands of Shumshu, Paramushir, Simushir, Urup, Iturup, Kunashir 11 . Yasak is regularly collected from local residents.

1786 December 22 On December 22, 1786, the Collegium of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire was to officially declare that the lands discovered in the Pacific Ocean belonged to the Russian crown. The reason for the decree was "an attempt on the part of the English merchant industrialists on the production of trade and animal trade on the East Sea" 12 . In pursuance of the decree, it was drawn up on highest name a note about "the announcement through the Russian ministers at the courts of all maritime European powers that these open lands by Russia cannot otherwise be recognized as belonging to your empire." Among the territories included in the Russian Empire was also "the ridge of the Kuril Islands, touching Japan, discovered by Captain Spanberg and Walton" 13 .

In 1836, the jurist and historian of international law Henry Wheaton published the classic work Fundamentals of International Law, which, among other things, dealt with the ownership of new lands. Wheaton singled out the following conditions for the acquisition by the state of the right to new territory 14:

1. Discovery
2. First development-first occupation
3. Long-term uninterrupted possession of the territory

As you can see, by 1786 Russia had fulfilled all these three conditions in relation to the Kuriles. Russia was the first to publish a map of the territory, including in foreign languages, the first to establish its own settlements there and began to collect yasak from local residents, and its possession of the Kuriles was not interrupted.

Above, only Russian actions in relation to the Kuriles in the 17-18th century were described. Let's see what Japan has done in this direction.
Today, Hokkaido is the northernmost island in Japan. However, it was not always Japanese. The first Japanese colonists appeared on south coast Hokkaido in the 16th century, but their settlements received administrative registration only in 1604, when the administration of the principality of Matsumae was established here (in Russia it was then called Matmai). The main population of Hokkaido at that time was the Ainu, the island was considered as a non-Japanese territory, and the principality of Matsumae (which did not occupy the whole of Hokkaido, but only its southern part) was considered "independent" from the central government. The principality was very small in number - by 1788 its population was only 26.5 thousand people 15 . Hokkaido became fully part of Japan only in 1869.
If Russia had more actively developed the Kuriles, then Russian settlements could have appeared on Hokkaido itself - it is known from documents that at least in 1778-1779 Russians collected yasak from the inhabitants of the northern coast of Hokkaido 16 .

Japanese historians, in order to assert their priority in the discovery of the Kuriles, point to the “Map of the Shoho period” dated 1644, on which the group of Habomai islands, the islands of Shikotan, Kunashir and Iturup are indicated. However, it is unlikely that this map was compiled by the Japanese based on the results of the expedition to Iturup. Indeed, by that time, the successors of the Tokugawa shogun continued his course of isolating the country, and in 1636 a law was issued according to which the Japanese were forbidden to leave the country, as well as to build ships suitable for long-distance voyages. As the Japanese scholar Anatoly Koshkin writes, the “Map of the Shoho period” “is not so much a map in the true sense of the word, but a plan-scheme similar to a drawing, most likely made by one of the Japanese without personal acquaintance with the islands, according to the stories of the Ainu” 17 .

At the same time, the first attempts of the principality of Matsumae to arrange a Japanese trading post on the island of Kunashir closest to Hokkaido date back only to 1754, and in 1786 an official of the Japanese government, Tokunai Mogami, examined Iturup and Urup. Anatoly Koshkin notes that “neither the principality of Matsumae nor the central Japanese government, having official relations with any of the states, could legally put forward claims to “exercise sovereignty” over these territories. In addition, as documents and confessions of Japanese scientists testify, the government of the bakufu (the headquarters of the shogun) considered the Kuriles "foreign land." Therefore, the above actions of Japanese officials in the southern Kuriles can be regarded as arbitrariness perpetrated in the interests of seizing new possessions. Russia, in the absence of official claims to the Kuril Islands by other states, according to the then laws and according to generally accepted practice, re-included open lands into the composition of his state, notifying the rest of the world about it. 18

The colonization of the Kuril Islands was complicated by two factors - the difficulty of supply and the general shortage of people in the Russian Far East. By 1786, the southernmost outpost of the Russians was a small village on southwest coast O. Iturup, where three Russians and several Ainu, who had moved from Urup, settled 19 . The Japanese, who began to show an increased interest in the Kuriles, could not help but take advantage of this. In 1798, on the southern tip of Iturup Island, the Japanese knocked over Russian signposts and set up posts with the inscription: "Etorofu - the possession of Great Japan." In 1801, the Japanese landed on Urup and arbitrarily set up an index pole, on which an inscription of nine hieroglyphs was carved: "The island has belonged to Great Japan since ancient times." 20
In January 1799, small Japanese military units were posted in fortified camps at two points on Iturup: in the area of ​​the modern Good Start (Naibo) Bay and in the area of ​​the modern city of Kurilsk (Syana) 21 . The Russian colony on Urup languished, and in May 1806 Japanese envoys did not find any Russians on the island - there were only a few Ainu 22 .

Russia was interested in establishing trade with Japan, and on October 8, 1804, on the ship Nadezhda (participating in the round-the-world expedition of I.F. Kruzenshtern) Russian ambassador, State Councilor Nikolai Rezanov arrived in Nagasaki. The Japanese government was playing for time, and only six months later, on March 23, 1805, Rezanov managed to meet with the inspector of secret surveillance K. Toyama Rezanov. In an insulting form, the Japanese refused to trade with Russia. Most likely, this was due to the fact that the Western Europeans who were in Japan set up the Japanese government anti-Russian. For his part, Rezanov made a sharp statement: “I, the undersigned of the most eminent sovereign Emperor Alexander 1, the real chamberlain and cavalier Nikolai Rezanov, declare to the Japanese government: ... So that the Japanese empire does not extend its possessions beyond the northern tip of the island of Matmay, since all the lands and waters to north belong to my sovereign" 23

As for the anti-Russian sentiments that were fueled by Western Europeans, there is a very revealing story of Count Moritz-August Beniovsky, who was exiled to Kamchatka for participating in hostilities on the side of the Polish Confederates. There, in May 1771, together with the Confederates, he captured the St. Peter galliot and sailed for Japan. There he gave the Dutch several letters, which they in turn translated into Japanese and delivered to the Japanese authorities. One of them later became widely known as "Beniovsky's warning". Here it is:

“Highly respected and noble officers of the glorious Republic of the Netherlands!
The cruel fate that had carried me across the seas for a long time brought me a second time to Japanese waters. I went ashore in the hope that I might be able to meet Your Excellencies here and get your help. I am truly very sorry that I did not have the opportunity to talk with you personally, because I have important information that I wanted to tell you. The high respect that I have for your glorious state prompts me to inform you that this year two Russian galliots and one frigate, following a secret order, sailed around the coast of Japan and put their observations on the map, preparing for the attack on Matsuma and the islands adjacent to it, located at 41 ° 38' north latitude, to the offensive scheduled for the next year. For this purpose, on one of the Kuril Islands, which is closer than the others to Kamchatka, a fortress was built and shells, artillery and food depots were prepared.
If I could talk to you personally, I would tell more than what can be trusted to paper. Let Your Excellencies take such precautions as you deem necessary, but, as your fellow believer and zealous well-wisher of your glorious state, I would advise, if possible, to have a cruiser ready.
On this I will allow myself to introduce myself and remain, as follows below, your obedient servant.
Baron Aladar von Bengoro, army commander in captivity.
July 20, 1771, on the island of Usma.
P.S. I left a map of Kamchatka on the shore, which may be of use to you.”

There is not a word of truth in this document. “It is puzzling what purpose Beniovsky was pursuing by giving the Dutch such false information,” noted the American researcher Donald Keane. There can be no doubt about their unreliability. Far from having any aggressive intentions towards Japan, the Russians strained every effort to preserve their Pacific possessions... Beniovsky undoubtedly knew the real state of affairs, but the love of truth was never one of his virtues. Perhaps he hoped to curry favor with the Dutch by exposing to them the fictitious plot of the Russians.

However, let us return to Nikolai Rezanov. After unsuccessful negotiations in Japan, Rezanov went with an inspection to the Russian colonies on the northwestern coast of America and the Aleutian Islands.
From the Aleutian island of Unalashka, where one of the offices of the Russian-American Company was located, on July 18, 1805, he wrote letter 25 to Alexander I:

By strengthening the American institutions and building up the courts, we can also force the Japanese to open a market, which the people very much desire among them. I do not think that Your Majesty will be charged with a crime when I now have worthy employees, what Khvostov and Davydov are, and with the help of which, having built ships, I will set off next year to the Japanese shores to devastate their village on Matsmay, drive them out of Sakhalin and smash them along the shores fear, in order to take away fisheries, and deprive 200,000 people of food, the sooner to force them to open a bargain with us, to which they will be obliged. Meanwhile, I heard that they had already dared to establish a trading post on Urup. Your will, Most Merciful Sovereign, is with me, punish me as a criminal, that without waiting for a command, I get down to business; but my conscience will reproach me even more if I waste time and do not sacrifice Your glory, and especially when I see that I can contribute to the fulfillment of Your great Imperial Majesty intentions.

So, Rezanov, in the interests of the state, under his own responsibility, made an important decision - to arrange a military operation against Japan. He instructed Lieutenant Nikolai Khvostov and midshipman Gavriil Davydov, who were in the service of the Russian-American Company, to lead it. For this, the Juno frigate and the Avos tender were transferred under their command. The task of the officers was to make a voyage to Sakhalin and the Kuriles and find out whether the Japanese, having penetrated these islands, were oppressing the Kurilians brought into Russian citizenship. If this information was confirmed, the officers were to "drive out" the Japanese. That is, it was about protecting the territories belonging to the Russian Empire from the illegal actions of the Japanese.

In South Sakhalin, which Khvostov and Davydov visited twice, they liquidated a Japanese settlement, burned two small ships, and captured several merchants from Matsumae. In addition, the local Ainu foreman Khvostov issued a letter of acceptance of the inhabitants of Sakhalin into Russian citizenship and under the protection of the Russian emperor. At the same time, Khvostov hoisted two Russian flags (RAC and state) on the shore of the bay and landed several sailors who founded a settlement that existed until 1847. In 1807, the Russian expedition liquidated the Japanese military settlement on Iturup. The captured Japanese were also released there, with the exception of two left as interpreters.
Through the released prisoners, Khvostov conveyed his demands to the Japanese authorities 27:

“Russia's neighborhood with Japan made us wish for friendly ties to the true well-being of this last empire, for which an embassy was sent to Nagasaki; but the rejection of it, insulting to Russia, and the spread of Japanese trade in the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin, as the possessions of the Russian Empire, forced this power to finally use other measures, which will show that the Russians can always harm Japanese trade until they are notified through the inhabitants of Urup or Sakhalin about the desire to trade with us. The Russians, having now caused so little harm to the Japanese empire, wanted to show them only through the fact that the northern countries of it can always be harmed by them, and that further stubbornness of the Japanese government can completely deprive it of these lands.

Characteristically, the Dutch, having translated Khvostov's ultimatum to the Japanese, added on their own behalf that the Russians were threatening to conquer Japan and send priests to convert the Japanese to Christianity.

Rezanov, who gave the order to Khvostov and Davydov, died in 1807, so he could not protect them from punishment for military actions that were not coordinated with the central government. In 1808, the Admiralty Board found Khvostov and Davydov guilty of unauthorized violation of government instructions on the purely peaceful development of relations with Japan and outrages against the Japanese. As a punishment, the awards to officers for the bravery and courage shown in the war with Sweden were annulled. It should be noted that the punishment is very lenient. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the Russian government understood the correctness of the actions of the officers who actually drove the invaders from Russian territory, but they could not help but be punished for violating instructions.
In 1811, Captain Vasily Golovnin, who landed on Kunashir to replenish water and food supplies, was captured by the Japanese along with a group of sailors. Golovnin was in circumnavigation, to which he went in 1807 from Kronstadt, and the purpose of the expedition, as he wrote in his memoirs, was "the discovery and inventory of the little-known lands of the eastern edge of the Russian Empire" 29 The Japanese accused him of violating the principles of self-isolation of the country and, together with his comrades spent more than two years in captivity.
The government of the shogun also intended to use the incident with the capture of Golovnin to force the Russian authorities to formally apologize for Khvostov's and Davydov's raids on Sakhalin and the Kuriles. Instead of an apology, the governor of Irkutsk sent an explanation to the deputy of the shogun on Ezo Island that these officers had taken their actions without the consent of the Russian government. This was enough to free Golovnin and other prisoners.
The monopoly right to develop the Kuril Islands belonged to the Russian-American Company (RAC), established in 1799. Its main efforts were aimed at the colonization of Alaska, as a region much richer than the Kuriles. As a result, by the 1820s, the actual border in the Kuriles was established along the southern tip of Urup Island, on which there was a RAK 30 settlement.
This fact is confirmed by the decree of Alexander I of September 1, 1821 "On the limits of navigation and the order of coastal relations along the coasts of Eastern Siberia, North-West America and the Aleutian, Kuril Islands, etc." The first two paragraphs of this decree state (PSZ-XXVII, N28747):

1. Production of the trade of whale and fishing and every industry in the islands, in ports and bays, and in general throughout the entire Northwest coast of America, starting from Bering Strait up to 51 "North latitude, also along the Aleutian Islands and along the Eastern coast of Siberia; since along the Kuril Islands, that is, starting from the same Bering Strait to southern cape Urupa Islands, and it is up to 45 "50" North latitude that is provided for use only by Russian citizens.

2. Accordingly, it is forbidden for any foreign ship not only to moor to the shores and islands subject to Russia, indicated in the previous article; but also to approach them at a distance of less than a hundred Italian miles. Anyone who violates this prohibition will be subject to confiscation with the entire cargo.

Nevertheless, as A.Yu. Plotnikov, Russia could still lay claim to, at least, Iturup Island, tk. Japanese settlements were only in the southern and central parts of the island, and Northern part remained uninhabited 31 .

Russia made the next attempt to establish trade with Japan in 1853 on July 25, 1853 in the Country rising sun the Russian ambassador Evfimy Putyatin arrived. As in the case with Rezanov, negotiations began only six months later, on January 3, 1854 (the Japanese wanted to get rid of Putyatin by starving him out). The question of trade with Japan was important for Russia, because the population of the Russian Far East was growing, and it was much cheaper to supply it from Japan than from Siberia. Naturally, during the negotiations, Putyatin also had to resolve the issue of territorial demarcation. On February 24, 1853, he received an "Additional Instruction" from the Russian Foreign Ministry. Here is an excerpt from it 32:

On this subject of boundaries, it is our desire to be as lenient as possible (without, however, betraying our interests), bearing in mind that the achievement of another goal - the benefits of trade - is of essential importance to us.

Of the Kuril Islands, the southernmost, belonging to Russia, is the island of Urup, to which we could confine ourselves, appointing it the last point of Russian possessions to the south, so that from our side the southern tip of this island was (as it is now in essence) the border with Japan, and that from the Japanese side the northern tip of Iturup Island was considered the border.

At the beginning of negotiations on the clarification of the border possessions of ours and the Japanese, the question of the island of Sakhalin seems to be important.

This island is of particular importance to us because it lies opposite the very mouth of the Amur. The power that will own this island will own the key to the Amur. The Japanese Government, no doubt, will firmly stand up for its rights, if not for the entire island, which it will be difficult for it to support with sufficient arguments, then at least for the southern part of the island: in Aniva Bay, the Japanese have fisheries that provide food for many to the inhabitants of their other islands, and for this circumstance alone they cannot but cherish the aforesaid point.

If, in negotiations with you, their Government shows compliance with our other demands - the demands regarding trade - then you can be compliant on the subject of the southern tip of Sakhalin Island, but this compliant should be limited to this, i.e. we can in no way recognize their rights to other parts of Sakhalin Island.

When explaining all this, it will be useful for you to point out to the Japanese Government that in the situation in which this island is located, if the Japanese cannot maintain their rights to it - rights that are not recognized by anyone - the said island can become in the very shortest time the prey of some strong maritime power, whose neighborhood is unlikely to be as beneficial and safe for the Japanese as the neighborhood of Russia, whose disinterestedness they have experienced for centuries.

In general, it is desirable that you arrange this question about Sakhalin in accordance with the existing interests of Russia. If, however, you encounter insurmountable obstacles on the part of the Japanese Government to the recognition of our rights to Sakhalin, then it is better in this case to leave this matter in its current state ( those. undelimited - statehistory).

In general, in giving you these additional instructions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by no means prescribes them for indispensable execution, knowing full well that nothing unconditional and indispensable can be prescribed at such a distant distance.

Your Excellency is therefore left with complete freedom of action.

So, we see, this document recognizes that the actual border between Russia and Japan runs along the southern tip of Urup. Putyatin's main task is to at least reject Japan's claims to the whole of Sakhalin, and as a maximum - to force the Japanese to recognize it as completely Russian, because. This island is of strategic importance.
Putyatin, however, decided to go further and in his message to the Supreme Council of Japan dated November 18, 1853, he proposed to draw a border between Iturup and Kunashir. As A. Koshkin notes, the Japanese government, which at that moment was under pressure from the United States and Western European countries that wanted to open Japan for trade, was afraid that Russia might join them, and therefore did not exclude the possibility of a demarcation, along which all the islands, including the most southern - Kunashir, were recognized as Russian. In 1854, Japan compiled a "Map of the most important maritime boundaries of great Japan", on which its northern border was drawn along the northern coast of Hokkaido. Those. under favorable circumstances, Putyatin could return Iturup and Kunashir to Russia 33 .

However, the negotiations reached an impasse, and in January 1854 Putyatin decided to break them off and return to Russia to learn about the course of the Crimean War. This was important, because Anglo-French squadron also operated off the Pacific coast of Russia.
March 31, 1854 Japan signed a trade treaty with the United States. Putyatin again went to Japan in order to achieve for Russia the establishment of relations with Japan at a level no lower than with the United States.
The negotiations dragged on again, and on December 11, 1854, they were complicated by the fact that, as a result of the tsunami, the Diana frigate, on which Putyatin arrived (during his second arrival in Japan, he specially sailed on only one ship, so that the Japanese would not get the impression that Russia wants to demonstrate strength), crashed, the team ended up on the shore and the Russian ambassador was completely dependent on the Japanese. The negotiations were held in the city of Shimoda.

As a result of the intransigence of the Japanese on the issue of Sakhalin, Putyatin, for the sake of signing an agreement with Japan, went to the maximum compromise. On February 7, 1855, the Shimodsky Treaty was signed, according to which Sakhalin was recognized as undivided, and Russia recognized Japan's rights to Habomai, Shikotan, Kunashir and Iturup. Thus, the situation with the South Kuriles, which had de facto existed for many years, was officially recognized. However, since legally, these 4 islands were part of the Russian Empire, which was officially announced back in 1786, many historians of the Russian ambassador are now reproached for the fact that the South Kuriles were given to Japan without any compensation and that he should have defended to the end at least the largest of them is the island of Iturup 34 . Under the agreement, three Japanese ports were opened for trade with Russia - Nagasaki, Shimoda and Hakodate. In strict accordance with the Japanese-American treaty, the Russians in these ports received the right of extraterritoriality, i.e. they could not be judged in Japan.
To justify Putyatin, it is worth noting that the negotiations were conducted at a time when there was no telegraph connection between Japan and St. Petersburg, and he could not promptly consult with the government. And the way, both by sea and by land, from Japan to St. Petersburg, only in one direction, took a little less than a year. Under such conditions, Putyatin had to take full responsibility upon himself. From the moment he arrived in Japan until the signing of the Shimoda Treaty, the negotiations lasted 1.5 years, so it is clear that Putyatin really did not want to leave with nothing. And since the instructions he received gave him the opportunity to make concessions on the South Kuriles, he made them, after first trying to bargain for Iturup.

The problem of using Sakhalin, caused by the absence of a Russian-Japanese border on it, required a solution. On March 18, 1867, the "Temporary Agreement on Sakhalin Island" was signed, drawn up on the basis of the "Proposals for a Temporary Agreement on Cohabitation" of the Russian side. Under this agreement, both parties could move freely throughout the island and build buildings on it. This was a step forward, because earlier, although the island was considered undivided, the Russians did not use the southern part of Sakhalin, which the Japanese considered theirs. After this agreement, by order of the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia M. Korsakov, the Muravyevsky military post was founded in the vicinity of Busse Bay, which turned into a center for Russian development of South Sakhalin. It was the southernmost post on Sakhalin and was located well south of the Japanese posts 35 .
The Japanese at that time did not have the opportunity to develop Sakhalin as actively, so this agreement was more beneficial for Russia than for Japan.

Russia sought to solve the problem of Sakhalin finally and completely get it into its possession. For this, the tsarist government was ready to cede part of the Kuril Islands.

The Russian Foreign Ministry authorized the military governor A.E. Crown and E.K. Byutsov, appointed Russian chargé d'affaires in China, to continue negotiations on Sakhalin. Instructions were prepared for them. Butsov was instructed to convince the Japanese Foreign Ministry to send their representatives to Nikolaevsk or Vladivostok to finally resolve the issue of Sakhalin on the basis of establishing a border along the La Perouse Strait, exchanging Sakhalin for Urup with adjacent islands, and preserving the rights of the Japanese to fisheries.
Negotiations began in July 1872. The Japanese government declared that the cession of Sakhalin would be perceived by the Japanese people and foreign states as Japan's weakness and that Urup with the adjacent islands would be insufficient compensation 35 .
The negotiations that began in Japan were difficult and intermittent. They resumed in the summer of 1874 already in St. Petersburg, when Enomoto Takeaki, one of the most educated people of Japan at that time, arrived in the Russian capital in the rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary.

On March 4, 1875, Enomoto spoke for the first time about giving up Sakhalin in exchange for compensation in the form of all the Kuril Islands, from Japan to Kamchatka 36 . At that time, the situation in the Balkans was aggravated, the war with Turkey (which, like during the Crimean War, England and France could again support) became more and more real, and Russia was interested in solving the Far Eastern problems as soon as possible, incl. Sakhalin.

Unfortunately, the Russian government did not show due perseverance and did not appreciate the strategic importance of the Kuril Islands, which blocked access to the Pacific Ocean from Sea of ​​Okhotsk, and agreed to the demands of the Japanese. On April 25 (May 7), 1875, in St. Petersburg, Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov on the part of Russia and Enomoto Takeaki on the part of Japan signed an agreement under which Japan renounced its rights to Sakhalin in exchange for the cession of all the Kuril Islands by Russia. Also, under this agreement, Russia allowed Japanese ships to visit the port of Korsakov in South Sakhalin, where the Japanese consulate was established, for 10 years without paying trade and customs duties. Japanese ships, merchants and fishermen were granted the most favored nation treatment in the ports and waters of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and Kamchatka 36 .

This agreement is often called an exchange agreement, but in fact we are not talking about the exchange of territories, because. Japan did not have a strong presence on Sakhalin and no real opportunities to keep it - the waiver of rights to Sakhalin became a mere formality. In fact, we can say that the 1875 treaty fixed the surrender of the Kuriles without any real compensation.

Next point in history Kuril issue- Russo-Japanese War. Russia lost this war and, under the Portsmouth Peace Treaty of 1905, ceded to Japan the southern part of Sakhalin along the 50th parallel.

This treaty has such an important legal significance that it actually terminated the treaty of 1875. After all, the meaning of the "exchange" treaty was that Japan renounced the rights to Sakhalin in exchange for the Kuriles. At the same time, at the initiative of the Japanese side, a condition was included in the protocols of the Portsmouth Treaty that all previous Russian-Japanese agreements were annulled. Thus, Japan deprived itself of the legal right to own the Kuril Islands.

The Treaty of 1875, which the Japanese side regularly refers to in disputes about the ownership of the Kuriles, after 1905 became just a historical monument, and not a legally binding document. It would not be superfluous to recall that by attacking Russia, Japan also violated paragraph 1 of the Shimodsky Treaty of 1855 - "From now on, let there be permanent peace and sincere friendship between Russia and Japan."

Next key point- The Second World War. On April 13, 1941, the USSR signed a neutrality pact with Japan. It was concluded for 5 years from the date of ratification: from April 25, 1941 to April 25, 1946. According to this pact, it could be denounced a year before the expiration of the period.
The United States was interested in the entry of the USSR into the war with Japan in order to accelerate its defeat. Stalin, as a condition, put forward the demand that after the victory over Japan, the Kuriles and South Sakhalin would pass to the Soviet Union. Not everyone in the American leadership agreed with these demands, but Roosevelt agreed. The reason, apparently, was his sincere concern that after the end of World War II, the USSR and the USA would maintain good relations achieved in the course of military cooperation.
The transfer of the Kuriles and South Sakhalin was recorded in the Yalta Agreement of the Three Great Powers on the Far East on February 11, 1945. 37 It is worth noting that paragraph 3 of the agreement reads as follows:

The leaders of the three great powers - the Soviet Union, the United States of America and Great Britain - agreed that two or three months after the surrender of Germany and the end of the war in Europe, the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan on the side of the Allies, on the condition that:
…
3. Transfer to the Soviet Union of the Kuril Islands.

Those. we are talking about the transfer of all the Kuril Islands without exception, incl. Kunashir and Iturup, who were ceded to Japan under the Shimoda Treaty of 1855.

On April 5, 1945, the USSR denounced the Soviet-Japanese neutrality pact, and on August 8 declared war on Japan.

On September 2, the act of surrender of Japan was signed. South Sakhalin with the Kuriles went to the USSR. However, after the act of surrender, it was still necessary to conclude a peace treaty, in which new borders would be fixed.
Franklin Roosevelt, who was kind to the USSR, died on April 12, 1945, and was replaced by the anti-Soviet Truman. On October 26, 1950, American considerations on concluding a peace treaty with Japan were handed over to the Soviet representative in the UN in order to get acquainted. In addition to details unpleasant for the USSR, such as the retention of American troops on Japanese territory for an indefinite period, they revised the Yalta agreement, according to which South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands passed to the USSR 38 .
In fact, the United States decided to remove the USSR from the process of negotiating a peace treaty with Japan. In September 1951, a conference was to be held in San Francisco, at which a peace treaty between Japan and the allies was to be signed, but the United States did everything so that the USSR considered it impossible for itself to participate in the conference (in particular, they did not receive invitations to the conference PRC, North Korea, Mongolia and Vietnam, which the USSR insisted on and what was fundamental for it) - then a separate peace treaty would have been concluded with Japan in its American formulation without taking into account the interests of the Soviet Union.

However, these calculations of the Americans did not materialize. The USSR decided to use the San Francisco conference to expose the separate nature of the treaty.
Among the amendments to the draft peace treaty proposed by the Soviet delegation were the following 39:

Paragraph "c" shall be stated in the following wording:
"Japan recognizes the full sovereignty of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics over the southern part of Sakhalin Island with all the islands adjacent to it and the Kuril Islands and renounces all rights, titles and claims to these territories."
According to article 3.
Rewrite the article as follows:
"Japanese sovereignty will extend to the territory consisting of the islands of Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, Hokkaido, as well as Ryukyu, Bonin, Rosario, Volcano, Pares Vela, Marcus, Tsushima and other islands that were part of Japan before December 7, 1941, with the exception of those territories and islands referred to in Art. 2".

These amendments were rejected, but the US could not ignore the Yalta agreements at all. The text of the treaty included a provision stating that "Japan renounces all rights, titles and claims to the Kuril Islands and to that part of Sakhalin Island and the islands adjacent to it, sovereignty over which Japan acquired under the Treaty of Portsmouth of September 5, 1905." 40. From a philistine point of view, it may seem that this is the same as the Soviet amendments. From a legal point of view, the situation is different - Japan renounces claims to the Kuriles and South Sakhalin, but does not recognize the sovereignty of the USSR over these territories. With this wording, the agreement was signed on September 8, 1951 between the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition and Japan. Representatives of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Poland, who participated in the conference, refused to sign it.

Modern Japanese historians and politicians differ in their assessments of Japan's renunciation of South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands contained in the text of the peace treaty. Some demand the cancellation of this clause of the treaty and the return of all the Kuril Islands up to Kamchatka. Others are trying to prove that the South Kuril Islands (Kunashir, Iturup, Khabomai and Shikotan) are not included in the concept of the "Kuril Islands", which Japan refused in the San Francisco Treaty. The latter circumstance is refuted both by the established cartographic practice, when the entire group of islands - from Kunashir to Shumshu on maps is called the Kuril Islands, and by the texts of Russian-Japanese negotiations on this issue. Here, for example, is an excerpt from Putyatin's talks with Japanese representatives in January 1854. 41

« Putyatin: The Kuril Islands have belonged to us for a long time, and now Russian chiefs are on them. The Russian-American Company annually sends ships to Urup to buy furs, etc., and Russians had their settlement on Iturup even before, but since it is now occupied by the Japanese, we have to talk about it.

Japanese side: We considered all Kuril Islands long time ago owned by Japan, but since most of of them passed one by one to you, then there is nothing to say about these islands. Iturup but it was always considered ours and we considered it a matter settled, as well as the island of Sakhalin or Krafto, although we do not know how far the latter extends to the north ... "

From this dialogue it can be seen that the Japanese in 1854 did not divide the Kuriles into "Northern" and "South" - and recognized Russia's right to most of the islands of the archipelago, with the exception of some of them, in particular, Iturup. Fun fact - the Japanese claimed that the whole of Sakhalin belonged to them, but they did not have its geographical map. By the way, using a similar argument, Russia could lay claim to Hokkaido on the grounds that in 1811 V.M. Golovnin in his "Remarks on the Kuril Islands" ranked Fr. Matsmai, i.e. Hokkaido, to the Kuriles. Moreover, as noted above, at least in 1778-1779, Russians collected yasak from the inhabitants of the northern coast of Hokkaido.

The unsettled relations with Japan hindered the establishment of trade, the resolution of issues in the field of fisheries, and also contributed to the involvement of this country in the anti-Soviet policy of the United States. At the beginning of 1955, the USSR representative in Japan turned to Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu with a proposal to start negotiations on the normalization of Soviet-Japanese relations. On June 3, 1955, Soviet-Japanese negotiations began in the building of the Soviet embassy in London. The Japanese delegation, as a condition for concluding a peace treaty, put forward obviously unacceptable demands - for "the islands of Habomai, Shikotan, the Chisima archipelago (Kuril Islands) and the southern part of Karafuto Island (Sakhalin)".

In fact, the Japanese understood the impossibility of these conditions. The secret instruction of the Japanese Foreign Ministry provided for three stages of putting forward territorial demands: “First, demand the transfer of all the Kuril Islands to Japan, with the expectation of further discussion; then, retreating somewhat, seek the cession of the southern Kuril Islands to Japan for "historical reasons", and, finally, insist on at least the transfer of the islands of Habomai and Shikotan to Japan, making this demand an indispensable condition for the successful completion of negotiations.
The fact that Habomai and Shikotan were the ultimate goal of diplomatic bargaining was repeatedly said by the Japanese Prime Minister himself. So, during a conversation with a Soviet representative in January 1955, Hatoyama stated that "Japan will insist during negotiations on the transfer of the islands of Habomai and Shikotan to her." There was no talk of any other territories 42 .

Such a "soft" position of Japan did not suit the United States. Thus, it was precisely for this reason that in March 1955 the American government refused to receive the Japanese Foreign Minister in Washington.

Khrushchev was ready to make concessions. On August 9, in London, during an informal conversation, the head of the Soviet delegation, A.Ya. Malik (during the war years he was the USSR ambassador to Japan, and then, in the rank of deputy foreign minister, the representative of the Soviet Union to the UN) suggested that the Japanese diplomat in the rank after Shun'ichi Matsumoto transfer the islands of Habomai and Shikotan to Japan, but only after the signing of a peace treaty.
Here is the assessment of this initiative by one of the members of the Soviet delegation at the London talks, later Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences S.L. Tikhvinsky43:

"I. A. Malik, acutely experiencing Khrushchev’s dissatisfaction with the slow progress of the negotiations and without consulting with the rest of the delegation members, prematurely expressed in this conversation with Matsumoto the spare position without exhausting the defense of the main position in the negotiations. His statement caused at first bewilderment, and then joy and further exorbitant demands on the part of the Japanese delegation ... N. S. Khrushchev's decision to renounce sovereignty over part of the Kuril Islands in favor of Japan was a rash, voluntaristic act ... The cession to Japan of part of the Soviet territory, which, without permission Khrushchev went to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the Soviet people, destroyed the international legal basis of the Yalta and Potsdam agreements and contradicted the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which recorded the refusal of Japan from South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands ... "

As this quote makes clear, the Japanese perceived Malik's initiative as a weakness and put forward other territorial demands. The negotiations have ceased. This suited the US as well. In October 1955, J. Dulles, in a note to the Japanese government, warned that the expansion of economic ties and the normalization of relations with the USSR "may become an obstacle to the implementation of the US government's assistance program to Japan."

Inside Japan, fishermen were primarily interested in concluding a peace treaty, who needed to obtain licenses to fish in the Kuriles. This process was greatly hampered by the lack of diplomatic relations between the two countries, which, in turn, was due to the absence of a peace treaty. Negotiations resumed. The United States exerted serious pressure on the Japanese government. So, on September 7, 1956, the State Department sent a memorandum to the Japanese government stating that the United States would not recognize any decision confirming the sovereignty of the USSR over the territories that Japan had renounced under the peace treaty.

As a result of difficult negotiations, on October 19, the Joint Declaration of the USSR and Japan was signed. It proclaimed the end of the state of war between the USSR and Japan, the restoration of diplomatic relations. Paragraph 9 of the declaration read 44:

9. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan agreed to continue negotiations on the conclusion of a peace treaty after the restoration of normal diplomatic relations between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan.
At the same time, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, meeting the wishes of Japan and taking into account the interests of the Japanese state, agrees to the transfer of the Habomai Islands and the Shikotan Islands to Japan, however, that the actual transfer of these islands to Japan will be made after the conclusion of a peace treaty between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan .

However, as we know, the signing of the peace treaty never took place. Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama Ichiro, who signed the Declaration, resigned, and the new cabinet was headed by Kishi Nobusuke, an openly pro-American politician. Back in August 1956, the Americans openly proclaimed through Secretary of State Allen Dulles that if the Japanese government recognizes the Kuril Islands as Soviet, the United States will forever retain the island of Okinawa and the entire Ryukyu archipelago, which were then under American control.

On January 19, 1960, Japan signed the US-Japan Interoperability and Security Treaty with the United States, according to which the Japanese authorities allowed the Americans to use military bases on their territory for the next 10 years, to maintain ground, air and naval forces there. . On January 27, 1960, the USSR government announced that since this agreement was directed against the USSR and the PRC, the Soviet government refused to consider the transfer of the islands to Japan, since this would lead to an expansion of the territory used by American troops.

Now Japan claims not only Shikotan and Habomai, but also Iturup and Kunashir, referring to the bilateral Treatise on Trade and Borders of 1855 - therefore, signing a peace treaty based on the 1956 declaration is impossible. However, if Japan abandoned its claim to Iturup and Kunashir and signed a peace treaty, would Russia have to fulfill the terms of the Declaration and give up Shikotan and Khabomai? Let's consider this question in more detail.

On April 13, 1976, the United States unilaterally passed the Fisheries Conservation and Management Act, according to which, effective March 1, 1977, they moved the border of their fishing zone from 12 to 200 nautical miles from the coast, establishing strict rules for access to it by foreign fishermen. Following the United States in 1976, by adopting relevant laws, the United Kingdom, France, Norway, Canada, Australia and a number of other countries, including developing ones, unilaterally established 200-mile fishing or economic zones.
In the same year, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of December 10 “On temporary measures for the conservation of living resources and the regulation of fisheries in sea ​​areas adjacent to the coast of the USSR" The Soviet Union also established sovereign rights over fish and other biological resources in its 200-mile coastal zone 46 .
New realities were fixed in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982. The concept of an "exclusive economic zone" was introduced, the width of which should not exceed 200 nautical miles. Article 55 of the convention provides that a coastal state in the exclusive economic zone has “sovereign rights for the purposes of exploration, exploitation and conservation natural resources both living and non-living, in the waters covering the seabed, in the seabed and in its subsoil, as well as for the management of these resources, and in relation to other activities for the economic exploration and development of the specified zone, such as the production of energy through the use water, currents and wind. At the same time, it exercises jurisdiction in this zone regarding the “creation and use of artificial islands, installations and structures; marine scientific research; protection and conservation of the marine environment” 47 .

Earlier, in 1969, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties was adopted.
Article 62 "Radical change of circumstances" of this convention reads (emphasis in bold is ours) 48:

1. A fundamental change that occurred in relation to the circumstances that existed at the conclusion of the contract, and which was not foreseen by the parties, cannot be referred to as a basis for terminating the contract or withdrawing from it, except when:
a) the existence of such circumstances constituted an essential basis for the consent of the parties to be bound by the treaty; And
b) the consequence of a change in circumstances fundamentally changes the scope of obligations still to be performed under the contract.
2. A fundamental change in circumstances cannot be invoked as grounds for terminating or withdrawing from a treaty:
A) if the treaty establishes a boundary; or
b) if such a fundamental change, to which a party to the treaty refers, is the result of a violation by that party of either an obligation under the treaty or another international obligation assumed by it in relation to any other party to the treaty.
3. If, in accordance with the preceding paragraphs, the parties are entitled to invoke a fundamental change in circumstances as a ground for terminating or withdrawing from a treaty, he may also invoke that change as a ground for suspending the operation of the treaty.

The introduction of the 200-mile economic zone is a circumstance that fundamentally changes the scope of commitments. It is one thing to transfer the islands when there was no talk of any 200-mile exclusive zone, and quite another thing when this zone appeared. However, can it be considered that the 1956 declaration falls under paragraph 2a, i.e. under the boundary? The declaration refers to sovereignty over land areas, while the border between maritime states runs along the sea. After the transfer of the islands to Japan, an additional agreement would be required to determine the maritime border.
Thus, it can be argued that the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was signed by both the USSR and Japan, is a fundamental change that falls under paragraph 1b of Article 62 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Those. Russia is not obliged to comply with the terms of the 1956 Declaration on the transfer of Habomai and Shikotan, if suddenly Japan agreed to sign a peace treaty.

On November 14, 2004, the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Sergei Lavrov, on the air of the NTV channel, made a statement that Russia recognizes the 1956 Declaration "as existing."
The next day, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia is always ready to fulfill its obligations, especially with regard to ratified documents. But these obligations will be fulfilled "only to the extent that our partners are ready to fulfill the same agreements."
On May 24, 2005, deputies of the Sakhalin Regional Duma published an open appeal to Sergey Lavrov before his trip to Japan, where they pointed out that the 1956 Declaration was no longer binding:

“However, in 1956 there were no internationally recognized 200-mile economic zones, the starting point of which is, in this case, the coast of the Kuril Islands. Thus, now in the case of the transfer of territories, the object of transfer is not only and not only the islands, but also the adjacent economic zones that are inseparable from them, which only produce smuggled seafood worth up to 1 billion US dollars a year. Isn't the emergence of maritime economic zones in the world after 1956 a significant change in the situation?

Summarizing, we briefly note the main points.

1. The Portsmouth Treaty of 1905 annulls the 1875 treaty, so references to it as a legal document are not valid. The reference to the Shimodsky treatise of 1855 is irrelevant, because Japan violated this treaty by attacking Russia in 1904.
2. The transfer of South Sakhalin and the Kuriles to the Soviet Union is fixed in the Yalta Agreement of February 11, 1945. The return of these territories can be considered both as a restoration of historical justice and as a legitimate military trophy. This is a completely normal practice, which has a huge number of examples in history.
3. Japan may not recognize Russia's sovereignty over these territories, but it also has no legal rights to them - its refusal to claim South Sakhalin and the Kuriles is recorded in the peace treaty signed in San Francisco in 1951.
4. The Japanese indications that Habomai, Shikotan, Kunashir and Iturup are not part of the Kuril Islands (and, therefore, are not subject to the 1951 treaty) do not correspond to either geographical science or the history of previous Russian-Japanese negotiations.
5. After the signing of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of ​​1982 and legalization in international law 200-mile exclusive zone, following the Declaration of 1956 becomes optional for Russia. Its possible implementation today, as Putin and Lavrov announced, is not an obligation, but a gesture of goodwill.
6. The Southern Kuriles are of great strategic and economic importance, so there can be no question that these are just pieces of land that you don’t feel sorry for.
7. The Kuril Islands - from Alaid to Kunashir and Habomai - Russian land.

* Anatoly Koshkin. Russia and Japan. Knots of contradictions. M.: Veche, 2010. S. 405-406.

The Southern Kuril Islands are a stumbling block in relations between Russia and Japan. The dispute over the ownership of the islands prevents our neighboring countries from concluding a peace treaty, which was violated during the Second World War, negatively affects the economic ties between Russia and Japan, contributes to an ever-preserving state of distrust, even hostility, of the Russian and Japanese peoples

Kurile Islands

Disputed islands - Kunashir, Shikotan, Iturup, Habomai

Kunashir Island

habomai

The history of the discovery of the Kuril Islands

- In October-November 1648, he was the first of the Russians to pass the First Kuril Strait, that is, the strait separating the northernmost island of the Kuril ridge Shumshu from the southern tip of Kamchatka, under the command of the clerk of the Moscow merchant Usov Fedot Alekseevich Popov. It is possible that Popov's people even landed on Shumshu.
- The first Europeans to visit the Kuril Islands were the Dutch. On February 3, 1643, the two ships Castricum and Breskens, which left Batavia in the direction of Japan, under the general command of Martin de Vries, approached the Lesser Kuril Ridge on June 13. The Dutch saw the shores of Iturup, Shikotan, discovered the strait between the islands of Iturup and Kunashir.
- In 1711, the Cossacks Antsiferov and Kozyrevsky visited the Northern Kuril Islands Shumsha and Paramushir and even unsuccessfully tried to rip off tribute from local population- Ainu.
- In 1721, by decree of Peter the Great, an expedition of Evreeinov and Luzhin was sent to the Kuriles, who explored and mapped 14 islands in the central part of the Kuril ridge.
- In the summer of 1739, a Russian ship under the command of M. Spanberg rounded the islands of the South Kuril ridge. Spanberg mapped, although inaccurately, the entire ridge of the Kuril Islands from the Kamchatka nose to Hokkaido.

Ainu lived on the Kuril Islands. The Ainu, the first population of the Japanese islands, were gradually forced out by newcomers from Central Asia to the north to the island of Hokkaido and further to the Kuriles. From October 1946 to May 1948, tens of thousands of Ainu and Japanese were taken from the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin to the island of Hokkaido

The problem of the Kuril Islands. Briefly

- February 7, 1855 ( a new style) - in the Japanese port of Shimoda, the first diplomatic document in relations between Russia and Japan, the so-called Treaty of Simond, was signed. On behalf of Russia, it was endorsed by Vice-Admiral E. V. Putyatin, on behalf of Japan - authorized Toshiakira Kawaji.

Article 2: “From now on, the borders between Russia and Japan will pass between the islands of Iturup and Urup. The whole island of Iturup belongs to Japan, and the whole island of Urup and the other Kuril Islands to the north are the possession of Russia. As for the island of Crafto (Sakhalin), it remains undivided between Russia and Japan, as it has been until now.

- 1875, May 7 - a new Russian-Japanese treaty "On the exchange of territories" was concluded in St. Petersburg. On behalf of Russia, it was signed by Minister of Foreign Affairs A. Gorchakov, and on behalf of Japan, by Admiral Enomoto Takeaki.

Article 1. “His Majesty the Emperor of Japan ... cedes to His Majesty the All-Russian Emperor part of the territory of the island of Sakhalin (Krafto), which he now owns .. so that from now on the aforementioned Sakhalin Island (Krafto) will completely belong to the Russian Empire and the border line between the Empires of Russia and The Japanese will pass in these waters through the La Perouse Strait "

Article 2. “In return for the cession of rights to Sakhalin Island to Russia, His Majesty the All-Russian Emperor cedes to His Majesty the Emperor of Japan a group of islands called the Kuril Islands. ... This group includes ... eighteen islands 1) Shumshu 2) Alaid 3) Paramushir 4) Makanrushi 5) Onekotan, 6) Harimkotan, 7) Ekarma, 8) Shiashkotan, 9) Mus-sir, 10) Raikoke, 11) Matua , 12) Rastua, 13) the islets of Sredneva and Ushisir, 14) Ketoi, 15) Simusir, 16) Broughton, 17) the islets of Cherpoy and Brother Cherpoev, and 18) Urup, so that the border line between the Russian and Japanese Empires in these waters will pass through the strait located between Cape Lopatkoy of the Kamchatka Peninsula and Shumshu Island"

- May 28, 1895 - An agreement between Russia and Japan on trade and navigation was signed in St. Petersburg. On behalf of Russia, it was signed by Minister of Foreign Affairs A. Lobanov-Rostovsky and Minister of Finance S. Witte; on behalf of Japan, it was signed by Nishi Tokujiro, Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Russian Court. The treaty consisted of 20 articles.

Article 18 stated that the treaty supersedes all previous Russo-Japanese treaties, agreements and conventions

- 1905, September 5 - Portsmouth Peace Treaty was concluded in Portsmouth (USA), which completed. On behalf of Russia, it was signed by Chairman of the Committee of Ministers S. Witte and Ambassador to the United States R. Rosen, on behalf of Japan by Foreign Minister D. Komura and envoy to the United States K. Takahira.

Article IX: “The Russian Imperial Government cedes to the Imperial Japanese Government in perpetual and complete possession the southern part of the island of Sakhalin and all the islands adjacent to the latter .... The fiftieth parallel of northern latitude is taken as the limit of the ceded territory.

- 1907, July 30 - An agreement between Japan and Russia was signed in St. Petersburg, consisting of a public convention and a secret treaty. The convention stated that the parties were obliged to respect the territorial integrity of both countries and all the rights arising from the agreements existing between them. The agreement was signed by Minister of Foreign Affairs A. Izvolsky and Ambassador of Japan to Russia I. Motono
- 1916, July 3 - in Petrograd Petrograd established the Russo-Japanese alliance. It consisted of a vowel and a secret part. In the secret one, the previous Russian-Japanese agreements were also confirmed. The documents were signed by Minister of Foreign Affairs S. Sazonov and I. Motono
- 1925, January 20 - the Soviet-Japanese Convention on the Basic Principles of Relations, ... the declaration of the Soviet government ... was signed in Beijing. The documents were endorsed by L. Karahan from the USSR and K. Yoshizawa from Japan

convention.
Article II: “The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics agrees that the treaty concluded at Portsmouth on 5 September 1905 shall remain in full force and effect. It is agreed that the treaties, conventions and agreements, other than the said Treaty of Portsmouth, concluded between Japan and Russia before November 7, 1917, will be revised at a conference to be held subsequently between the Governments of the Contracting Parties, and that they may be amended or canceled as necessary. changing circumstances require."
The declaration emphasized that the government of the USSR does not share political responsibility with the former tsarist government for the conclusion of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty: “The Plenipotentiary of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has the honor to declare that the recognition by his Government of the validity of the Treaty of Portsmouth of September 5, 1905 does not in any way mean that The government of the Union shares with the former tsarist government the political responsibility for the conclusion of the said treaty.

- 1941, April 13 - Neutrality Pact between Japan and the USSR. The pact was signed by Foreign Ministers Molotov and Yosuke Matsuoka
Article 2 "In the event that one of the contracting parties becomes the object of hostilities by one or more third powers, the other contracting party shall remain neutral throughout the entire conflict."
- 1945, February 11 - at the Yalta Conference of Stalin Roosevelt and Churchill, an agreement was signed on the Far East.

"2. The return of the rights that belonged to Russia, violated by the perfidious attack of Japan in 1904, namely:
a) the return to the Soviet Union of the southern part of about. Sakhalin and all adjacent islands, ...
3. Transfers of the Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union"

- 1945, April 5 - Molotov received the Japanese ambassador to the USSR, Naotake Sato, and made a statement to him that in the conditions when Japan was at war with England and the USA, allies of the USSR, the pact loses its meaning and its extension becomes impossible
- August 9, 1945 - The USSR declared war on Japan.
- 1946, January 29 - Memorandum of the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces in the Far East, American General D. MacArthur, to the government of Japan determined that the southern part of Sakhalin and all the Kuril Islands, including the Lesser Kuril ridge (the Habomai group of islands and Shikotan Island), are withdrawn from the sovereignty of the Japanese state
- 1946, February 2 - By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, in accordance with the provisions of the Yalta Agreement and the Potsdam Declaration, the South Sakhalin (now Sakhalin) Region of the RSFSR was created in the returned Russian territories

The return of South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands to the Russian territory made it possible to ensure access to the Pacific Ocean of the ships of the Navy of the USSR, to find a new frontier for the forward deployment of the Far Eastern group of ground forces and military aviation of the Soviet Union, and now the Russian Federation, carried far beyond the continent

- 1951, September 8 - Japan signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty, according to which it renounced "all rights ... to the Kuril Islands and to that part of Sakhalin ..., sovereignty over which it acquired under the Portsmouth Treaty of September 5, 1905." The USSR refused to sign this treaty, because, according to Minister Gromyko, the text of the treaty did not enshrine the sovereignty of the USSR over South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.

The San Francisco Peace Treaty between the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition and Japan officially ended World War II, fixed the procedure for paying reparations to allies and compensation to countries affected by Japanese aggression

- 1956, August 19 - in Moscow, the USSR and Japan signed a declaration ending the state of war between them. According to it (including) the island of Shikotan and the Habomai ridge were to be transferred to Japan after the signing of a peace treaty between the USSR and Japan. However, soon Japan, under pressure from the United States, refused to sign a peace treaty, since the United States threatened that if Japan withdraws its claims to the Kunashir and Iturup islands, the Ryukyu archipelago with the island of Okinawa would not be returned to Japan, which, on the basis of Article 3 of the San Francisco Peace the treaty was then administered by the United States

“President of Russia V.V. Putin has repeatedly confirmed that Russia, as a successor state of the USSR, is committed to this document…. It is clear that if it comes to the implementation of the 1956 Declaration, a lot of details will have to be agreed upon ... However, the sequence that is set out in this Declaration remains unchanged ... the first step before everything else is the signing and entry into force of a peace treaty "(Russian Foreign Minister S . Lavrov)

- 1960, January 19 - Japan and the United States signed the "Treaty of Interaction and Security"
- January 27, 1960 - The government of the USSR announced that since this agreement was directed against the USSR, it refuses to consider the transfer of the islands to Japan, since this will lead to the expansion of the territory used by American troops
- 2011, November - Lavrov: "The Kuriles were, are and will be our territory in accordance with the decisions that were made following the results of the Second World War"

Iturup, the largest of the South Kuril Islands, became ours 70 years ago. Under the Japanese, tens of thousands of people lived here, life was in full swing in the villages and markets, there was a large military base from where the Japanese squadron left to smash Pearl Harbor. What have we built here over the past years? Recently, here is the airport. A couple of shops and hotels also appeared. And in the main settlement - the city of Kurilsk with a population of just over one and a half thousand people - they laid an outlandish attraction: a couple of hundred meters (!) Of asphalt. But in the store, the seller warns the buyer: “The product is almost expired. Do you take it? And he hears in response: “Yes, I know. Of course I will." And how not to take it if there is not enough food (with the exception of fish and what the garden gives), and there will be no delivery in the coming days, more precisely, it is not known when it will be. Local people like to repeat: we have 3,000 people and 8,000 bears here. There are more people, of course, if you count the military and border guards, but no one counted the bears - maybe there are more of them. From the south to the north of the island, one has to get along a harsh dirt road through the pass, where hungry foxes guard each car, and roadside burdocks are the size of a person, you can hide with them. Beauty, of course: volcanoes, hollows, springs. But it is safe to ride on the local dirt trails only during the day and when
there is no fog. And in rare settlements, the streets are empty after nine in the evening - curfew in fact. A simple question - why did the Japanese live well here, while we only get settlements? - most of the inhabitants simply do not occur. We live - we guard the earth.(“Rotational sovereignty”. “Spark” No. 25 (5423), June 27, 2016)

Once a prominent Soviet figure was asked: “Why don't you give Japan these islands. She has such a small territory, and you have such a large one? “That’s why it’s big because we don’t give it back,” the activist answered.

In view of recent events, many inhabitants of the planet are interested in where the Kuril Islands are located, as well as to whom they belong. If there is still no concrete answer to the second question, then the first can be answered quite unambiguously. The Kuril Islands are a chain of islands approximately 1.2 kilometers long. It runs from the Kamchatka Peninsula to an island landmass called Hokkaido. A kind of convex arc, consisting of fifty-six islands, is located in two parallel lines, and also separates the Sea of ​​​​Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean. The total territorial area is 10,500 km 2. On the south side, the state border between Japan and Russia is stretched.

The lands in question are of inestimable economic and military-strategic importance. Most of them are considered part of the Russian Federation and belong to the Sakhalin region. However, the status of such components of the archipelago, including Shikotan, Kunashir, Iturup, and the Habomai group, is disputed by the Japanese authorities, which classifies the listed islands as part of the Hokkaido prefecture. Thus, you can find the Kuril Islands on the map of Russia, but Japan plans to legalize the ownership of some of them. These territories have their own characteristics. For example, the entire archipelago belongs to Far North when looking at legal documents. And this is despite the fact that Shikotan is located in the same latitude as the city of Sochi and Anapa.

Kunashir, Cape Stolbchaty

Climate of the Kuril Islands

Within the area under consideration, a temperate maritime climate prevails, which can be called cool rather than warm. The main impact on climatic conditions is exerted by baric systems, which usually form over the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, the cold Kuril Current, and the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. The southern part of the archipelago is covered by monsoon atmospheric flows, for example, the Asian winter anticyclone also dominates there.

Shikotan Island

It should be noted that the weather on the Kuril Islands is quite changeable. The landscapes of the local latitudes are characterized by less heat supply than the territories of the corresponding latitudes, but in the center of the mainland. The average minus temperature in winter is the same for each island included in the chain, and ranges from -5 to -7 degrees. In winter, prolonged heavy snowfalls, thaws, increased cloudiness and blizzards often occur. In summer, temperature indicators vary from +10 to +16 degrees. The further south the island is located, the higher the air temperature will be.

The main factor influencing the summer temperature index is the nature of the hydrological circulation characteristic of coastal waters.

If we consider the components of the middle and northern group of islands, it is worth noting that the temperature of coastal waters there does not rise above five to six degrees, therefore, these territories are characterized by the lowest summer rate for the Northern Hemisphere. During the year, the archipelago receives from 1000 to 1400 mm of precipitation, which is evenly distributed over the seasons. You can also talk about everywhere excess moisture. IN south side chains in summer, the humidity index exceeds ninety percent, due to which fogs dense in their consistency appear. If you carefully consider the latitudes where the Kuril Islands are located on the map, we can conclude that the area is particularly difficult. It is regularly affected by cyclones, which are accompanied by excessive precipitation, and can also cause typhoons.

Simushir Island

Population

Territories are populated unevenly. The population of the Kuril Islands lives year-round in Shikotan, Kunashir, Paramushir and Iturup. There is no permanent population in other parts of the archipelago. In total, there are nineteen settlements, including sixteen villages, an urban-type settlement called Yuzhno-Kurilsk, as well as two large cities, including Kurilsk and Severo-Kurilsk. In 1989, the maximum value of the population was recorded, which was equal to 30,000 people.

The high population density of the territories during the Soviet Union is due to subsidies from those regions, as well as a large number of military personnel who inhabited the islands of Simushir, Shumshu and so on.

By 2010, the rate had dropped significantly. In total, 18,700 people occupied the territory, of which approximately 6,100 live within the Kuril District, and 10,300 in the South Kuril District. The rest of the people occupied the local villages. The population has decreased significantly due to the remoteness of the archipelago, but the climate of the Kuril Islands also played its role, which not every person can withstand.

Uninhabited Ushishir Islands

How to get to the Kuriles

The easiest way to get here is by air. local airport called "Iturup" is considered one of the most important aviation facilities built from scratch in post-Soviet times. It was built and equipped in accordance with modern technological requirements, so it was given the status of an international air point. The first flight, which later became regular, was accepted on September 22, 2014. They became the plane of the company "Aurora", which arrived from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. There were fifty passengers on board. This event was negatively perceived by the Japanese authorities, who attribute this territory to their country. Therefore, disputes about who owns the Kuril Islands continue to this day.

It is worth noting that a trip to the Kuriles must be planned in advance. Route planning should take into account that the total archipelago includes fifty-six islands, among which Iturup and Kunashir are the most popular. There are two ways to get to them. It is most convenient to fly by plane, but tickets should be bought a few months before the scheduled date, since there are quite a few flights. The second way is a trip by boat from the port of Korsakov. The journey takes from 18 to 24 hours, but you can buy a ticket only at the box office of the Kuriles or Sakhalin, that is, online sales are not provided.

Urup is desert island volcanic origin

Interesting Facts

Despite all the difficulties, life on the Kuril Islands is developing and growing. The history of the territories began in 1643, when several sections of the archipelago were surveyed by Marten Fries and his team. The first information received by Russian scientists dates back to 1697, when V. Atlasov's campaign across Kamchatka took place. All subsequent expeditions led by I. Kozyrevsky, F. Luzhin, M. Shpanberg and others were aimed at systematic development of the area. After it became clear who discovered the Kuril Islands, you can familiarize yourself with several interesting facts related to the archipelago:

1. To get to the Kuriles, a tourist will need a special permit, since the zone is a border zone. This document is issued exclusively by the border department of the FSB of Sakhalinsk. To do this, you will need to come to the institution at 9:30 - 10:30 with your passport. The permit will be ready the very next day. Therefore, the traveler will definitely stay in the city for one day, which should be taken into account when planning a trip.
2. Due to the unpredictable climate, visiting the islands, you can get stuck here for a long time, because in case of bad weather, the airport of the Kuril Islands and their ports stop working. Frequent obstacles are high clouds and nebula. At the same time, we are not talking about a couple of hour flight delays. The traveler should always be prepared to spend an extra week or two here.
3. All five hotels are open for guests of the Kuriles. The hotel called "Vostok" is designed for eleven rooms, "Iceberg" - three rooms, "Flagship" - seven rooms, "Iturup" - 38 rooms, "Island" - eleven rooms. Reservations must be made in advance.
4. Japanese lands can be seen from the windows of local residents, but the best view opens on Kunashir. To verify this fact, the weather must be clear.
5. The Japanese past is closely connected with these territories. Japanese cemeteries and factories remained here, the coast from the Pacific Ocean is densely lined with fragments of Japanese porcelain, which existed even before the war. Therefore, here you can often meet archaeologists or collectors.
6. It is also worth understanding that the disputed Kuril Islands, first of all, are volcanoes. Their territories consist of 160 volcanoes, of which about forty remain active.
7. local flora and the fauna is amazing. Bamboo grows here along the highways, magnolia or mulberry tree can grow near the Christmas tree. The lands are rich in berries, blueberries, lingonberries, cloudberries, princesses, redberries, Chinese magnolia vines, blueberries and so on grow abundantly here. Locals say that you can meet a bear here, especially near the Tyati Kunashir volcano.
8. Practical everyone local has a car at his disposal, but there are no gas stations in any of the settlements. Fuel is delivered inside special barrels from Vladivostok and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
9. Due to the high seismicity of the region, its territory is built up mainly with two- and three-story buildings. Houses with a height of five floors are already considered skyscrapers and a rarity.
10. Until it is decided whose Kuril Islands, the Russians living here, the duration of the vacation will be 62 days a year. Inhabitants southern ridge can enjoy a visa-free regime with Japan. This opportunity is used by about 400 people per year.

The Great Kuril Arc is surrounded by underwater volcanoes, some of which regularly make themselves felt. Any eruption causes a resumption of seismic activity, which provokes a “seaquake”. That's why local lands prone to frequent tsunamis. The strongest tsunami wave about 30 meters high in 1952 completely destroyed the city on the island of Paramushir called Severo-Kurilsk.

The last century was also remembered for several natural disasters. Among them, the most famous was the 1952 tsunami that occurred in Paramushir, as well as the 1994 Shikotan tsunami. Therefore, it is believed that such a beautiful nature of the Kuril Islands is also very dangerous for human life, but this does not prevent local cities from developing and the population from growing.