Earlier this month I spent about eight days in Vladivostok, researching stories on the Russian Far East’s rampant illegal logging trade and the city’s transformation ahead of next year’s APEC Summit. For all the rhetoric about being Russia’s “Asian” city, some 9,000 kilometres east of Moscow, Vladivostok is surprisingly occidental in its bearing, like a slab of Central Europe excised and deposited on the shores of the Golden Horn Bay.
The view from the top of Vladivostok’s funicular railway, opened in May 1962. Compare with this interesting photo of the funicular in 1992.
One part of the city’s bustling container port in the Golden Horn Bay.
The new bridge crossing the Golden Horn Bay.
The belfry of an Orthodox church in Vladivostok’s historic city center.
The new Golden Horn Bridge is transforming the center of the city.
Wild cranberries on sale at the street market facing the railway station.
A mural in an alley off Aleutskaya Street, central Vladivostok.
Sportivnaya Harbour, the home of Russian Pacific Fleet.
A naval memorial and Orthodox church close to Sportivnaya Harbour.
Monument to the Red Army’s conquest of Vladivostok in October 1922.
A communist mural on the side of a Soviet-era housing bloc.
Fruit seller on Pushkinskaya Street.
The sun sets over Vladivostok’s suburbs.
Room 706 at the Hotel Equator: my home for the duration of my stay.
