APEC 2012 → Vladivostok Guide → DISCOVERY

In June, 1787, white sails of the French frigates La Boussole and L’Astrolabe unfurled by the coast of the current Primorsky region. The ships brought the expedition of Jean François de Galaup, Count de La Pérouse, a prominent researcher of the Northern Pacific. For the first time European sailors set their eyes on the distant shores of the Eurasian continent. Sailing along the coastline, La Pérouse and his companions did not discover any settlements or glimpse any natives, only bears looming in the distance and deer grazing near the water. In early July, 1787, the frigates left the region on their way to Sakhalin Island and never returned.    

For about 70 years Europe did not give the slightest thought to the abandoned lands on the northern coasts of the Pacific Ocean. Only with the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1853-56 did French and English men-of-war show up in these waters. In 1854-1855 the English and French Navies cruised along the western shores of the Sea of Japan in search of Russian ships.  At the same time they made the first charts of the coastline. Thus, English sailors were the first Europeans to call at the bay where Vladivostok is presently located and to chart the current Amur and Ussury Bays, including Zolotoy Rog Bay.

Strong concerns about a western military presence at the very edge of Siberia prompted Tsar Alexander II’s government to launch several research parties to the Ussury region and to establish the first kazak settlements along the Ussury River. Although the Peking treaty of Nov. 2, 1860, which fixed the borders between Russia and China, had not yet been signed, the Tsar’s government claimed this no man’s lands for the Russian Empire.

Vladivostok was founded on July 2, 1860, when the supply ship Manchur brought 30 soldiers of the East Siberian squad to the area presently known as Zolotoy Rog Bay. Initially, they set up a small military outpost, one of numerous Russian outposts scattered on the Pacific coast. The outpost was surrounded by primeval forests with their ferocious master – the Siberian tiger.

Its strategic location within a short distance of China and Japan hastened the development of Vladivostok.  Within only two decades, it became the largest Russian port on the Pacific Ocean. In April, 1880, the Vladivostok outpost was officially granted city status. Vladivostok’s emblem reflects the history of the city with its depiction of a fortress, crossed anchors, and a tiger. It is not by chance that the Primorsky Region’s capital was called Vladivostok, which means “possessing the East”, proclaiming permanent Russian presence on the Pacific coast.