Most of the eight hour-long journey had been spent in darkness, but as we neared the skies over Vladivostok, where morning had already broken, I peeped down from the window to see what was in store for me. 

Vladivostok, like Timbuktu is one of those city names one has not forgotten since coming across it in school geography books. So, does one have an expectation from a city that has occupied a tiny part of one’s memory and sometimes even imagination? 

Frankly, my knowledge of Vladivostok was limited to it being one end of the Trans-Siberian rail, often romanticized as one of the world’s greatest train journey. But I, as you might have realised, had not been on the train. I had traversed the distance of over 6000 kilometres, over seven time zones, in an eight hour flight from Moscow. 

It was a dull grey day, but as we drove to the city the verdant green hill slopes merging into the azure sea invited us to discover the history of this Russian outpost on the Sea of Japan, not too far from the Chinese and the North Korean borders.

During Soviet times Vladivostok was a closed city. Foreigners were allowed access only in 1992, after the country had opened up post-Perestroika. I may have been 30-years too late as an explorer, but I still felt a sense of excitement. Russians who I met there told me that even they needed a permit to enter the city till 1988. But it was not always the case. The city, during part of the time under Tsarist control, was referred to by some as the San Francisco of the east. In other references as a ‘city of sin’, an adage given to many a port city! 

I could go back into the detailed history of the tribes that lived in this region, which I got to know from a wonderful guide at the Arseniev Museum (named after the explorer Vladimir K Arseniev). But I will confine myself to a broad brush of its relatively recent history. The conquest of the Balhae people who lived around this region by the Liao dynasty of China around the 900s, put this area under the Chinese influence for a long period. In 1860, under the treaty of Peking, it was handed over and became a part of Imperial Russia. The city was established and called Vladivostok, literally meaning- possess the east.  

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It seems daunting to even think how control could have been kept thousands of miles away from St. Petersburg across the cold expanse of Russia. But that would be a topic for a separate article. As it happened, the city flourished as both a military outpost and a port where sailors not just from Japan and Korea but also Canada, Britain and the America converged, people mingled and goods were traded and exchanged. The completion and opening of the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1904 helped in its integration with the Russian core.

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To populate the area and to give it more of a Russian feel, the tsarist regime gave people in the western parts of the country incentives to move east. Free landholdings, tax benefits were just were some of them. Receiving land without having to pay taxes led people to undertake perilous journeys that often took over a year or at least months even if they chose the sea route. Subsequently, with the arrival of rail and air transport, traveling may have become easier, but subsidies continued during the Soviet Union and exist even today. 

During World War I, the port of Vladivostok was where the US supplies of military and railway equipment arrived before being sent to the western front to beef-up the Entente forces. With the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917, Vladivostok did not instantly fall to the revolutionary forces. It was only after much fighting, in 1922, that Bolshevik power was established here. 

The Communist period saw Vladivostok became home to the country’s pacific fleet, and in true Soviet style the city closed itself not only to outside ships and but also to all foreigners. An old submarine museum, made inside the original, stands in the city today as a sign of past glory. The city was fortified too, but battles never had to be fought from these during wartime. Today, these fortifications, which fell into disuse and were vandalised after the collapse of the Soviet Union, serve as museums, inviting tourists not just to explore the set-up and machines but also underground tunnels which formed part of them. 

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In the 2000s there was a push by the Russian Government to revitalise the city and by 2019 three million tourists were visiting the city. Two new bridges were built across the bay to enhance connectivity, giving it even more of a San Francisco-ish feel.  A new high-tech university campus was constructed across on Russky island and the Eastern Economic Forum was established to push for trade ties with the Asian neighbours. 

As one walks around the city, old buildings from the Tsarist times – including the beautiful train station -can be seen side by side with dull communist era residential blocks, reminiscent of any other Russian city. But the landscape along with the eastern influence gives Vladivostok a considerably different feel. It is especially visible in the Millionka, once a Chinese neighbourhood where opium dens crowed the by-lanes, now a trendy hangout. Unfortunately, since in today’s day and age, no city can call itself modern without a few metal and glass high-rises, Vladivostok too has its share of these. 

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Revival of the church along with the ruling dispensations’ desire to manifest old grandeur, a big new Russian orthodox cathedral in the main city square is ready for inauguration. Though, I must say, I saw more churches of other dispensations in Vladivostok than in Moscow. The city used to have trams snaking up and down the hillsides, but now it is crowded with cars much like any other town. Luckily, a 2-minute funicular ride remains, preserving the old charm.  

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It’s September 2022, as I walk around the city with its museums, theatres, street-art; its bustling restaurants and bars and look at the alluring views of the Golden Horn bay; I can’t help but wonder, if once again, Vladivostok will lose its vibrancy. Will it be shorn of its energy of the past decade turning it into a paler and subdued version – not out of choice but circumstances?