Sakhalin island has always been closely connected with fishery. It has the warm Japanese Sea from one side and the cold Okhotsk Sea from the other, besides there are a lot of rivers, lakes and creeks on the island itself. No other part of Russia can boast of such diversity of seafood and fish.
Everything started long long ago, there were no Russians on the island, only different indigenous peoples who were hunting and fishing. Later Japanese fishing boats started to sail to the island. By 1787 there had been formed two small Japanese settlements of fishermen which spread all over the southern part of the island very fast.
In 1853 the Russian government remembered about the island but the Japanese did not plan to leave. Till 1875 the island had been divided into the Russian and Japanese parts. Subsequently the Japanese exchanged their part of the island for the Kuril Islands.
However Japan didn’t stop to develop the natural resources of the island. In the end of the XIX century it annually caught 40-45 thousand of fish on Sakhalin (3-4 times more than Russian fishermen did).
In 1920 Japan declared Sakhalin to be its territory again. They built railway, cities and ports there. The island was finally returned to Russia only in 1945.
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