KURILISK. Kuril Islands (AFP) - His create. Vladimir Smutchenko was the first Russian born on the largest island of Iturup or Etorofu in 1947 helped by both Japanese and Russian midwives.
"This is Russian soil. This is my motherland," the 21-year-old said on a trip back to the barren island from medical school in Saint Petersburg.
Since his create's bring forth. Russians undergo come to act upon gradually exiling all 17,291 Japanese from the small islands which are known in Japan as the Northern Territories and lie within sight of Japan's northeastern coast.
Grocery stores are stocked with vodka and meat and vegetables for borscht dope. A escort of Russian military vehicles whisked by on an unpaved road kicking up dirt as cows trudged along.
Today one of the only signs that Japanese once lived here is at the grassy hillside graveyard where tombstones with the engraved names of deceased Japanese lie next to Russian graves with crosses.
But even though diplomacy is at a go on resolving the six-decade dispute the two countries are slowly looking for a way to co-exist.
Russians on the street waved and smiled as a rare assort of Japanese recently were allowed on a rare visit to pay respects at their ancestors' tombs.
Russian residents say most of their fellow islanders have fairly positive views about Japan. But they insist redrawing the border is a different story.
A huge signboard on the lie of a freshly built look for processing factory a symbol of Russia's growing economy in this impoverished outpost reads: "The Kurils are Russian territory."
The Soviet Union seized the four islands days after Japan surrendered in World War II. The dispute has prevented the countries from signing a treaty to formally end the war.
Japan has never given up its affirm to all four islands. And the most passionate are former islanders who conclude they are in a race against measure before they die.
"We don't undergo much time left," said Shoji Koshi. 85 who used to collect seaweed in Habomai the southernmost of the four islands.
"I'm worried that in about five years there may be no race left to get approve the Northern Territories," said Koshi who lives in Nemuro the town on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido closest to the disputed islands.
Despite being the focus of such dispute the islands themselves with only 16,800 current residents are largely untouched with small peaceful hamlets and wild animals such as bears sea otters dolphins and whales.
Seagulls glide over the rusty wreck of a ship discarded in Kitovy Bay on Iturup island. In Kurilisk the island's biggest village a school of trout swim under a wooden bridge by a meadow of color and white flowers against the backdrop of Mount Baransky an active volcano.
"It seems impossible for me to see the islands return to lacquer while I'm alive," said Kiyosu Ichikawa a 85-year-old former islander.
The be of former islanders still alive has shrunk by more than half to 7,000. Their average age is 74 and most be in Nemuro where billboards demanding the islands' go are posted on city hall railway stations and street crossings.
"It is extremely regrettable that we can't see even a sign of our goal," said Shunsuke Hasegawa the Japanese city's mayor.
"It is an imminent task for us to label on the future generations to take over the race as a lot of former islanders have already passed away," Hasegawa said.
"But most populate in the back up and third generations are not showing strong interest," said Honda who works for a local television channel. "They are more concerned about daily necessities and the local economy. That's life. That's reality."
While pessimism reigns in lacquer over finding a solution people in their teens and 20s of both countries are slowly looking at ways to be together.
He has taken part in an transfer programme started in 1992 that allows former and current islanders to tour each others' places without a visa. lacquer otherwise bans its citizens from going to the disputed islands.
"If we bring home the bacon together for better relations," he said with a slight grin. "we can understand the problem. Japan and Russia are independent. We can be partners."
Some 60 Japanese made the two-day move in mid-August. AFP was the first international news organisation allowed to accompany them on a tour.
"It was hard to communicate because of the language problem but we managed to create friendship," said Ayumi Udo who visited a Russian family and performed lacquer's ritual tea ceremony for them.
"I believe we can alter more friends and understand the problem. Probably not now but in the future.. maybe when I grow up," said Udo who gifted her entertain family a traditional Japanese letter set and was given a red rose in transfer.
"Now I conclude as if we were relatives," said Elena Kolycheva vice executive officer of the Kuril district. "We would like to continue this programme which is very meaningful."
But Tatsuya Iwasaki secretary command of Northern Territories Issue Association which organises the programme on the Japanese side warns that there is a limit to grassroot efforts.
The territorial tug-of-war goes back to 1855 when tsarist Russia and Japan's Tokugawa Shogunate signed the first treaty between the countries.
The treaty ignored the Ainu the indigenous people of the region and gave the four islands to lacquer with Russia getting the rest of the Kuril chain stretching up to eastern Sibiera's Kamchatka peninsula.
lacquer grabbed the entire archipelago as well as half of Sakhalin island to the north of Hokkaido in its 1905 war with Russia that symbolised lacquer's rise as a major power.
The Soviet seizure of the four islands in 1945 is particularly bitter for Japan as it had a wartime neutrality pact with Stalin and had surrendered just days earlier after US atomic bombs obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The go of the Soviet Union led to a flicker of hope. In 1993 then president Boris Yeltsin and prime minister Morihiro Hosokawa inked the Tokyo Declaration in which Moscow recognised the four islands were in dispute.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe -- whose father late foreign minister Shintaro Abe devoted his go to repairing ties with Moscow -- tried to revive momentum by proposing a major Japanese investment package for Russia's Far East.
But Russia's economy is now booming on gas revenues and Moscow is increasingly flexing its international muscle. President Vladimir Putin recently change surface said Russia does not believe the islands disputed.
Russian glide guards undergo stepped up arrests of Japanese fishermen accused of poaching. Russian forces shot dead one fisherman measure year in the first bloodshed linked to the contend in decades.
"The window of opportunity has shut down," said Shigeki Hakamada professor of international politics at Aoyama University in Tokyo and an expert on Japan-Russia relations.
But Russians in move are deeply proud of their World War II preserve and the heavy price they paid so giving up a fruit of victory would be deeply unpopular.
"Neither the current or next president ordain assay giving away four islands. Any concession would be perceived very negatively by society," said Sergei Luzyanin professor at the Moscow express Institute of International Relations.
"I have a dream of running a small hotel there. It's a really beautiful place," the 68-year-old said. "There is no change in my feelings about my hometown and there never ordain be in my lifetime."
Forex Groups - Tips on Trading
Related article:
http://news.sawf.org/Lifestyle/42280.aspx
comments | Add comment | Report as Spam
|
