South Sakhalin

Before the Second World War, the southern half of the now Russian island Sakhalin was Japanese, called Karafuto. There were a lot of Japanese who lived there. There were a lot of investments made, and economy thrived. Most of the Japanese were evacuated, however, when the Soviet Union invaded in 1945. The island has since been neglected, not least under the Soviet Union regime. A few Japanese families stayed on Sakhalin, the story of one of them is quite interesting. I agree with the analysis of the journalist writing the story, that if South Sakhalin would have stayed Japanese, the biggest city Yuzhno-Sakhalin could well have been a shining metropolis and the south half of the island criss-crossed by modern railways and roads. It is a pity it did not turn out this way.