The carriage attendant woke us all an hour before arrival. The skies were leaden grey and all around was the Pacific Ocean. I always have a sense of “homecoming” when I see our Pacific. The track wound closely to the shoreline for most of the last hour over what would otherwise have been prime seaside real estate. As we neared the city centre a row of Russian warships came into sight, 11 in all perfectly lined up and with flags up to “dress ship” suggesting some sort of inspection was imminent.
Vladivostok has been the headquarters of the Russian Pacific fleet and this is very much a military town with warships in both harbours and lots of uniformed men in the streets. Strategically it is not at all surprising as there across the sea a veritable stone’s throw away is Japan and to the south about 100 miles away are China and North Korea. It goes without saying that whoever controls Vladivostok controls Eastern Siberia.
The city itself matches the grey skies and is without any major tourist feature. It is also blighted by busloads of gaggling, noisy Chinese tourists who delight in posing in front of everything with their selfie sticks posing garishly and looking utterly retarded in the process.
With some effort I managed to avoid them as much as possible and spent a pleasant day walking around this harbour city. The new suspension bridge linking the city to Russky Islnd has some tourist brochures branding this the San Francisco of the east. Sadly it falls well short of that.
What I did find moving was the park around the submarine museum which has an eternal flame and is dedicated to the Russian war dead in WW2. The walls filled with names of fatalities from this city alone dwarf the corresponding board for all Australian casualties in the Canberra war memorial. Hardly surprising as to defeat Hitler Russia lost 24 million men, If that is too big to really appreciate remember that Australia’s present population is only 24 million. Think about it!
