Vladivostok is the largest city and the administrative centre of Primorsky Krai, Russia. The city is located around the Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, covering an area of 331.16 square kilometres (127.86 square miles), with a population of 606,561 residents, up to 812,319 residents in the urban agglomeration. Vladivostok is the second-largest city in the Far Eastern Federal District, as well as the Russian Far East, after Khabarovsk. The city was founded in 1860 as a Russian military outpost after the Treaty of Aigun and the Convention of Peking with the Qing dynasty. 

History

Foundation

For a long time, the Russian government was looking for a stronghold in the Far East; this role was played in turn by the settlements of Okhotsk, Ayan, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, and Nikolaevsk-on-Amur. By the middle of the 19th century, the search for the outpost had reached a dead end: none of the ports met the necessary requirement: to have a convenient and protected harbor, next to trade routes. The Aigun Treaty was concluded by the forces of the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia Nikolay Muravyov-Amursky, active exploration of the Amur region began, and later, as a result of the signing of the Treaty of Tientsin and the Convention of Peking, the territory of modern Vladivostok was annexed to Russia. The very name Vladivostok appeared in the middle of 1859, was used in newspaper articles and denoted a bay. On June 20, (July 2) 1860 the transport of the Siberian Military Flotilla "Mandzhur" under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Alexei Karlovich Shefner delivered a military unit to the Golden Horn Bay to establish a military post, which has now officially received the name of Vladivostok.

“ The port can be considered the best of all. He reminds many of Olga, but only less of her, more comfortable, but warmer and more fun. However, the same oaks all around, the same picturesque mountains. In the lowlands, rivers murmur; there are many springs on the banks. Our post, set up the other day, with its white tents, looks good in a group of oak trees that have not yet been cut down and have just cleared. ”

 — The first days of the port in the description of the ethnographer Sergei Maksimov.

19th century – early 20th century

On October 31, 1861, the first civilian settler, a merchant, Yakov Lazarevich Semyonov, arrived in Vladivostok with his family. On March 15, 1862, the first act of his purchase of land was registered, and in 1870 Semyonov was elected the first head of the post, and local self-government emerged. By this time, a special commission decided to designate Vladivostok as the main port of the Russian Empire in the Far East. In 1871, the main naval base of the Siberian Military Flotilla, the headquarters of the military governor and other naval departments were transferred from Nikolaevsk-on-Amur to Vladivostok.

In the 1870s, the government encouraged resettlement to the South Ussuri region, which contributed to an increase in the population of the post: according to the first census of 1878, there were 4,163 inhabitants. The city status was adopted and the city Duma was established, the post of the city head, the coat of arms was adopted, although Vladivostok was not officially recognized as a city.

Due to the constant threat of attack from the Royal Navy, Vladivostok also actively developed as a naval base.

In 1880, the post officially received the status of a city. The 1890s saw a demographic and economic boom associated with the completion of the construction of the Ussuriyskaya branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Chinese-Eastern Railway. According to the first census of the population of Russia on February 9, 1897, roughly 29,000 inhabitants lived in Vladivostok, and ten years later the city's population tripled.

The first decade of the 20th century was characterized by a protracted crisis caused by the political situation: the government's attention was shifted to Port Arthur and the Port of Dalny. As well as the boxing uprising in North China in 1900–1901, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, and finally the first Russian revolution led to stagnation in the economic activity of Vladivostok.

Since 1907, a new stage in the development of the city began: the loss of Port Arthur and Dalny again made Vladivostok the main port of Russia on the Pacific Ocean. A free port regime was introduced, and until 1914 the city experienced rapid growth, becoming an important economic centre in the Asia-Pacific, as well as an ethnically diverse city with a population exceeding over 100,000 inhabitants: during the time ethnic Russians made up less than half of the population, and large Asian communities developed in the city. The public life of the city flourished; many public associations were created, from charities to hobby groups.

World War I, Revolution and Occupation

During World War I, no active hostilities took place in the city. However, Vladivostok was an important staging post for the import of military-technical equipment for troops from allied and neutral countries, as well as raw materials and equipment for industry.

Immediately after the October Revolution in 1917, during which the Bolsheviks came to power, the Decree on Peace was announced, and as a result of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk concluded between the Bolshevik government of Russia and the Central Powers, led to the end of Soviet Russia's participation from World War I. On October 30, the sailors of the Siberian Military Flotilla decided to "rally around the united power of the Soviets", and the power of Vladivostok, as well as all of the Trans-Siberian Railway, passed to the Bolsheviks. During the Russian Civil War, from May 1918, they lost control of the city to the White Army-allied Czechoslovak Legion, who declared the city to be an Allied protectorate. Vladivostok became the staging point for the Allies' Siberian intervention, a multi-national force including Japan, the United States, and China; China sent forces to protect the local Chinese community after appeals from Chinese merchants. The intervention ended in the wake of the collapse of the White Army and regime in 1919; all Allied forces except the Japanese withdrew by the end of 1920.

Throughout 1919 the region was engulfed in a partisan war. To avoid a war with Japan, with the filing of the Soviet leadership, the Far Eastern Republic, a Soviet-backed buffer state between Soviet Russia and Japan, was proclaimed on April 6, 1920. The Soviet government officially recognized the new republic in May, but in Primorye, a riot occurred, where significant forces of the White Movement were located, leading to the creation of the Provisional Priamurye Government, with Vladivostok as its capital.

In October 1922, the troops of the Red Army of the Far Eastern Republic under the command of Ieronim Uborevich occupied Vladivostok, displacing the White Army formations from it. In November, the Far Eastern Republic liquidated and became a part of Soviet Russia.

Soviet period

By the time of the establishment of Soviet power, Vladivostok was in decline: the retreating forces of the Japanese army removed all material values from the city. Life was paralyzed: there was no money in the banks, the equipment of enterprises was plundered. Due to mass emigration and repression, the city's population decreased to 106,000 inhabitants. From 1923 to 1925, the government adopted a plan of the "three-year restoration", during which the commercial port was resumed, which became the most profitable in the country from 1924 to 1925. The recovery period was distinguished by its peculiarities: the Russian Far East did not find war communism, but immediately fell into the situation of the New Economic Policy.

In 1925, the government decides to accelerate the industrialization of the country. The first five-year plans changed the face of Primorye, making it an industrial region, partly as a result of the creation of numerous concentration camps in the region. In the 1930s–1940s, Vladivostok served as a transit point on the route of delivering prisoners and cargo for the Sevvostlag of the Soviet super-trust Dalstroy. The notorious Vladivostok transit camp was located in the city. In addition, in the late 1930s-early 1940s, the Vladivostok forced labor camp (Vladlag) was located in the area of Vtoraya Rechka railway station.

Vladivostok was not a place of hostilities during the Great Patriotic War, although there was a constant threat of attack from Japan. In the city, the first in the country, the "Defense Fund" was created, to which the residents of Vladivostok carried personal values. During the war years, Vladivostok handled imported cargo (lend-lease) almost four times more than Murmansk and almost five times more than Arkhangelsk.

By the decree of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union "Issues of the Fifth Navy" dated August 11, 1951, a special regime was introduced in Vladivostok (it began to operate on January 1, 1952); the city becomes closed to foreigners. It was planned to remove from Vladivostok not only foreign consulates but also the merchant and fish fleet and transfer all regional authorities to Voroshilov (now Ussuriysk). However, these plans were not implemented.

During the years of the Khrushchev Thaw, Vladivostok received special attention from state authorities. For the first time, Nikita Khrushchev visited the city in 1954 to finally decide whether to secure the status of a closed naval base for him. It was noted that at that time the urban infrastructure was in a deplorable state. In 1959, Khrushchev visited the city again. The result is a decision on the accelerated development of the city, which was formalized by the decree of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union on January 18, 1960. During the 1960s, a new tram line was built, a trolleybus was launched, the city became a huge construction site: residential neighbourhoods were being erected on the outskirts, and new buildings for public and civil purposes were erected in the centre.

In 1974, Gerald Ford paid an official visit to Vladivostok, to meet with Leonid Brezhnev, becoming the first President of the United States to visit the Soviet Union. Both sides signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which helped to contain the nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War.

On September 20, 1991, Boris Yeltsin signed decree No. 123 "On the opening of Vladivostok for visiting by foreign citizens", which entered into force on January 1, 1992, ceasing Vladivostok to be a closed city.

Modern period

In 2012, Vladivostok hosted the 24th APEC summit. Leaders from the APEC member countries met at Russky Island, off the coast of Vladivostok. With the summit on Russky Island, the government and private businesses inaugurated resorts, dinner and entertainment facilities, in addition to the renovation and upgrading of Vladivostok International Airport. Two giant cable-stayed bridges were built in preparation for the summit, the Zolotoy Rog bridge over the Zolotoy Rog Bay in the centre of the city, and the Russky Island Bridge from the mainland to Russky Island (the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world). The new campus of Far Eastern Federal University was completed on Russky Island in 2012.