Even when the COVID-19 pandemic kept us grounded, unable to embark on new adventures, my thoughts often drifted to travels—past journeys, future possibilities, and the threads connecting them all. Time often lends new perspective to past travels; fleeting scenes resurface, and their deeper meanings become clear. A journey, it seems, unfolds not just across physical distances, but through time, information, and countless other dimensions. With these reflections in mind, I want to share the story of a trip I took in January 2020—an off-season exploration of Nakhodka in the Russian Far East and its profound, historical ties to Japan.
On New Year's Day, I boarded an S7 Airlines flight from Narita Airport bound for Vladivostok. It was actually my second time making this exact trip at the start of the year, having done the same in 2019.
My initial reason for heading to the Russian Far East the previous year was the astonishingly low airfare for a New Year's Day departure. However, the haunting beauty of Vladivostok and Khabarovsk in the depths of winter, and the warmth of the people I met, left an indelible mark. I couldn't resist returning. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say I felt drawn back to that land. On the flight from Narita, which departed punctually, there were no special New Year's greetings—just the characteristically minimalist S7 service, which I enjoyed while passing the time.
As we crossed the Sea of Japan, the rugged coastline and white, snow-dusted landscapes of the Russian Maritime Province came into view, and the plane began its descent. Soon, we touched down at Vladivostok International Airport. Although the flight itself was brief, the comforting sense of familiarity with the place, combined with a flight time of just two and a half hours, made it feel almost like a domestic trip within Japan. There's a certain satisfaction in an international flight that offers such reliability, exceeding simple anticipation.
Stepping outside the terminal, the temperature hovered just below freezing in single digits Celsius. The sky was clear, with little snow accumulation. Compared to the previous year's bitter cold, where the wind chill could plunge temperatures near minus 30 degrees Celsius, this felt almost balmy. Even the locals seemed slightly less bundled up. I felt a mix of relief and, oddly, a slight sense of disappointment. Travelers, myself included, can be quite fickle.
A taxi ride along a highway that wasn't completely frozen brought me to my hotel in central Vladivostok. After dropping off my luggage, I immediately set out to find something to eat. It was gratifying to realize I had a general sense of the city's layout – the main streets, back alleys, bustling areas, and restaurant locations.
In the crisp air—not painfully cold, but still around minus 10 degrees Celsius—I headed to a familiar eatery for a light meal. On my way back, I stopped at the Vladivostok Railway Station. My plan was to check the train schedule to Nakhodka, one of the key destinations for this trip, and hopefully buy a ticket for the next day. Inside the station building, behind an information counter, sat a middle-aged woman who looked every bit the part of a long-serving railway employee. She was chatting animatedly in rapid-fire Russian with another woman standing outside the window. I couldn't understand their conversation, but they seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. Since I was in no rush, I waited nearby. Eventually, she beckoned me over, as if to say, "If you have a question, just ask loudly!" She politely informed me that the afternoon train to Nakhodka departed at 2:00 PM and that I could buy my ticket right there the next day.
By Rail to Nakhodka
The next morning dawned with a piercingly blue winter sky. I wandered through the standard tourist spots in central Vladivostok, but being January 2nd, the city felt somewhat deserted, even without the kind of extended New Year's holidays common in Japan. After noon, I leisurely made my way back to the railway station. There was still some time before the Nakhodka train's departure, but I had nothing urgent to attend to.
The 2:00 PM train I was taking was a local commuter train known as an "Elektrichka," connecting nearby towns. Scheduled to arrive at Nakhodka's Tikhookeanskaya Station at 7:14 PM, it would cover the roughly 200-kilometer distance in just over five hours. It didn't promise high speed, but it offered a chance to enjoy the scenery at a relaxed pace.
Several Elektrichkas run back and forth daily between Vladivostok and the nearby port town of Nakhodka. Besides the direct route, there are other options, including trains that travel via Ussuriysk (far north of Vladivostok) or require a transfer there, so it's wise to check the details when booking. Schedules showing journey times of 16 hours or more likely indicate these non-direct routes. Incidentally, the Elektrichka runs on the same wide-gauge tracks as the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway, which stretches all the way to Moscow and beyond.
At Vladivostok Station, the Elektrichka departs from a separate, outdoor platform without a dedicated station building or ticket gates. This setup likely prioritizes convenience for commuters traveling from nearby suburbs or shoppers heading downtown. However, in weather approaching minus 30 degrees Celsius, waiting to board felt like risking being frozen solid.
Right on time, the long, wide-gauge train pulled into the platform. Despite it being the afternoon of January 2nd, a considerable number of people disembarked and boarded. Inside, the carriages featured simple, face-to-face seating arrangements, with three seats on each side of the aisle forming basic compartments. I took a window seat. Soon, a burly father with his young daughter, perhaps five years old, sat next to me, and a woman who looked like she was returning from shopping sat opposite. The train was about ninety percent full.
The Elektrichka departed Vladivostok Station smoothly and on schedule. Perhaps because it was a commuter train, most passengers kept their coats and jackets on, and conversation was minimal. Only the sounds of the train moving and the tracks creaking filled the air. After a while, the vast expanse of Amur Bay, covered in pristine white snow and ice, came into view through the left-hand windows. Out on the ice, locals enjoyed ice fishing, dotting the frozen surface like penguins in Antarctica—a quintessential winter scene in the Russian Far East.
The tracks soon veered away from the coast, heading east into the interior. The train wound its way through mountainous terrain, the landscape dominated by coniferous forests with little else in sight. Occasionally, small settlements appeared, and the train would stop at modest stations. With each stop, passengers gradually disembarked, while few boarded. At one point, a family carrying skis got off—perhaps a ski resort was nearby? I spent some time gazing out the window at the coniferous forest slowly drifting by in the weak afternoon winter light.
Maizuru, 2019
My desire to visit Nakhodka stemmed from a visit the previous year to Maizuru, a city on the Sea of Japan coast in Kyoto Prefecture. It was there, quite by chance, that I explored the Maizuru Repatriation Memorial Museum.
"Repatriation" refers to the return of ordinary Japanese citizens from the Asian continent and the South Pacific islands to mainland Japan after World War II. Around 75 years ago, at the end of the war, approximately three million Japanese civilians were living abroad. With the war's conclusion, most had to return to Japan as "repatriates." Their journeys were entirely by sea, on "repatriation ships" that sailed irregularly from various ports across Asia and the Pacific to ports throughout Japan. While the majority of these voyages took place within a few years of the war's end, the last repatriation ship arrived in Japan 13 years later, in 1958. This long timeframe hints at the complexity and chaos surrounding the war and its aftermath, and the sheer scale of human displacement.
Crucially, repatriates returning from the Soviet Union at the time, including those released from Siberian internment, boarded their ships in the Siberian port of Nakhodka. Their destination was Maizuru Port on the Sea of Japan coast of Kyoto. Over 660,000 repatriates are said to have arrived in Maizuru.
The museum presented a vast collection of materials, detailing the facts of the repatriation and the immense hardships faced by those involved. Nearby stood the Taira Repatriation Pier, restored to its appearance at the time the ships arrived. Gazing at the pier, images from historical photographs and meticulously crafted dioramas I'd seen in the museum merged in my mind, creating a ghostly, almost real-time vision of the past.
Travel has historically encompassed various forms and purposes: pilgrimage, wandering, exploration, conquest, missionary work, research, drifting. The modern concept of leisure or tourism is relatively recent, spanning only a few centuries. Before that, travel was largely synonymous with hardship and challenge. However, the post-WWII repatriation of Japanese citizens represents a unique, large-scale movement of people that doesn't fit neatly into any of these categories. What emotions filled the hearts of the repatriates as they stepped ashore in Maizuru? Their goal was homecoming, yet their circumstances must have been tinged with near despair. Though I'm no expert in modern history, as a fellow traveler and mover, I could, in my own way, empathize with their arduous experiences and the harsh realities they faced.
On an observation deck near the museum overlooking the harbor, a direction plate points towards Nakhodka, 846.2 kilometers away. It stands as a monument, ensuring that the journeys and movements of those who arrived here remain etched in collective memory.
Ever since that visit, I had wanted to go to Nakhodka. As a modern traveler, I felt there was significance in tracing, even partially, the path taken by those predecessors across the Sea of Japan. Different journeys, different travels—they are all connected somewhere, somehow.
Arrival in Nakhodka at Dusk
Back on the Elektrichka bound for Nakhodka. Dusk began to settle, and the stations where the train occasionally stopped were now mostly in small, mountain villages. There were few lights around the stations, and only a handful of passengers got on or off. However, as 6:00 PM passed and we neared Tikhookeanskaya Station in Nakhodka, the number of boarding passengers started to increase slightly—likely commuters heading home to the city center from the outskirts.
We arrived at Tikhookeanskaya Station on schedule. The area around the station was already dimly lit. The dozens of passengers who disembarked quickly dispersed, picked up by private cars or waiting rides. Using Google Maps, I walked towards my nearby accommodation. By the time I checked into the small hotel perched on a hill, it was almost completely dark.
I realized I hadn't eaten dinner yet. The hotel restaurant was closed for the New Year period, and the city center was some distance away. Recalling a small shopping mall near the train station, I followed a traveler's intuition and went inside. The supermarket on the ground floor was preparing to close, but a pizza shop in the basement was still open. "Pizza, all the way in Russia?" I thought wryly, but there weren't any other options. The pizza itself wasn't bad, though, and quite satisfyingly sized. At a table in the back, a group of about six young men and women, likely high school or university students, chatted happily. Almost all of them fit the description many Japanese might vaguely picture for Western or Northern Europeans: tall figures, blue eyes, and blonde hair. Munching on my pizza and sipping cola, I watched the young people absently and chuckled to myself, "Where exactly am I again?"
The Port, the Bay, and the Sea of Japan
The next morning was bright and clear. The crisp, sub-zero air and the weak but bright mid-winter sun invigorated me as I walked outdoors. Only a few centimeters of snow covered the ground. The station I'd arrived at the previous day lay downhill from my hilltop hotel. Beyond it stretched Nakhodka Bay, with its intricate coastline. Below, the massive Nakhodka Port lined the shore. A short walk from there led me to the "Japanese Stone Garden" and the "Sister City Friendship Stone." The stone garden, complete with a Japanese-style roofed shelter and benches, was gifted by Tsuruga City (Fukui Prefecture) in 1983 to commemorate the first anniversary of its sister city relationship with Nakhodka.
A plaque bears inscriptions in both Japanese and Russian, stating the garden was presented "in hopes of strengthening peace and friendship between the two cities." The Friendship Stone and the surrounding park were established in 1978 by another of Nakhodka's sister cities: Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture. The large stone is inscribed in Russian and Japanese with the words: "May the Sea of Japan be a sea of peace and friendship forever." Both monuments stand on the outskirts of the city center. While they don't seem to attract many visitors, they are situated on high ground, facing Nakhodka Bay and Port, gazing out as if towards the Sea of Japan and Japan itself beyond the horizon.
From a nearby viewpoint, I gained an even wider panorama of the bay. This was the place from which, over a period of 13 years, repatriation ships departed for Maizuru Port. The surrounding natural landscape probably hasn't changed much since then. Countless Japanese people, carrying unimaginable burdens of circumstance, disappointment, and a deep yearning for home, boarded ships here bound for Maizuru.
Standing here as a lone traveler, I honestly couldn't be sure how much I truly understood this place as a waypoint on a journey of hardship, a fragment of history. Nor could I be certain if my attempts to imagine the experiences of those people held any real meaning. What was clear, however, was the undeniable fact that this city of Nakhodka had been deeply intertwined with Japan and the Japanese people amidst the turbulent currents of history—a fact that might perhaps fade from memory in the future. Recognizing the paths trodden by past travelers felt like one of the responsibilities I carried as a traveler myself. With that thought, I started walking towards the city center.
During the Soviet era, until the closed military city of Vladivostok was opened up in 1991, Nakhodka served as the primary maritime gateway to the Russian Far East for Western nations, including Japan. For a long time, a regular Soviet passenger-cargo ship route operated from Yokohama Port. From Nakhodka, travelers could board the Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow and onward to Europe—a classic route for backpackers in the 1960s, frequently mentioned in novels and travelogues still read today. Young adventurers seeking to see the world landed here in Nakhodka after sailing from Yokohama. In this respect too, Nakhodka holds numerous connections to Japan and the journeys of its people.
Today, Nakhodka is a commercial port city of about 200,000 people, nestled between the sea and forests. Roads and buildings cling to the shores of its complex bay. It possesses a calm beauty that transcends the atmosphere of a small Russian provincial town. The massive port facilities facing the sea, the cargo berths, the railway lines feeding into them, and the well-maintained commercial and residential areas nearby all speak to a sophistication and dignity distinct from Vladivostok or Khabarovsk—vestiges of its former status as an international gateway. While cafes and similar establishments are relatively few, the city offers all the essentials, conveniently and compactly arranged. Japanese business investment has reportedly been increasing in recent years as well.
As I strolled through the city, impressed by its curious sense of elegance and ease, I made a final stop at the MBUK Nakhodka Museum and Exhibition Center. Amidst modest exhibits tracing the region's history from ancient times, I came across a surprising mention in the 19th-century section: a significant number of settlers in Nakhodka had come from present-day Finland. Letters survived from the leader of that settlement effort, pleading with Moscow about the hardships of daily life. According to the explanation, even today, more than a century later, people and cultural elements with Finnish roots endure in the Nakhodka area.
Really? I wasn't familiar with the details of Russia's Siberian expansion and settlement policies (or the later history of exile and forced relocation), but the clear link between this land—only a few hundred kilometers from Japan—and Finland, a place so geographically distant, made my head spin slightly. And then a thought struck me: perhaps the blue-eyed, blonde-haired young people I'd seen relaxing in the pizza shop basement the night before were descendants of those very Finnish settlers? Though I couldn't know for sure, encountering this historical fact left me with a poignant sense of how vast and yet interconnected our world is.
Nakhodka, a city entirely unknown to me before, revealed deep connections to Japan through the lens of war history, which in turn connected to my own journey. Then, learning another piece of its past linked it to Finland. It reinforced my earlier thought: travel truly unfolds along multiple axes—not just distance, but time and information as well. And the fascinating part is how deeply intertwined all these axes are.
By Bus to Vladivostok
For the return trip from Nakhodka to Vladivostok, I took a bus. While the train journey had taken about five hours, the bus ride was only around three. The coastal bus route is shorter than the inland railway line (which is also slower), and the existence of a well-maintained highway likely accounts for the difference in travel time.
The following morning, indulging in a Vladivostok winter ritual, I walked out onto the frozen surface of Amur Bay. Exchanging silent greetings with the hardy ice fishermen, I gazed back at the city skyline from the ice. This too, is a unique travel pleasure found only here.
Aeroexpress to the Airport
On my departure day, I took the Aeroexpress airport train to Vladivostok International Airport. The Aeroexpress departs from a modern terminal separate from the main Vladivostok Railway Station building—a hub also serving long-distance trains to Moscow and international routes towards China and the Korean Peninsula. The departure gates leading to the platform featured barcode readers, much like Shinkansen gates in Japan or airport boarding gates. The train carriages were a more refined version of the Elektrichka I'd taken to Nakhodka, evoking the atmosphere of airport trains in major global cities. Leaving Vladivostok, the train initially ran on the same tracks as the Nakhodka-bound Elektrichka. This meant I was treated once more to the view of the frozen Amur Bay from the window. What a luxurious airport transfer, offering that spectacular panorama just before departure.
As the beautiful, snow-covered world streamed past my window, I reflected on my journey to Vladivostok and Nakhodka. My experiences hadn't solely been about the joys of travel. I was reminded yet again that the movement of people—travel, migration—continues ceaselessly, albeit in changing forms, and that these movements are invariably connected. I don't believe one must constantly dwell on difficulties or the world's darker aspects while traveling. However, knowing even a little about the history of a place and the people who lived there can profoundly enrich one's own travel experience. Perhaps what's needed for this realization is quiet observation and imagination. Maybe that's one of the essential truths underlying all human movement and travel. Mulling over these thoughts, I disembarked the Aeroexpress and headed towards the S7 check-in counter for my flight back to Narita.