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National Geographic Magazine October 1996
Highlights From this Month's Issue
MOROCCO IMAGE The Kuril archipelago, more than 30 islands, stretches across the North Pacific between Hokkaido and the Kamchatka Peninsula. Only five islands are permanently inhabited, all by Russians, and perhaps 7,000 Russian border guards are stationed throughout the islands. Japan lost the Kurils to Russia during World War II but has claimed the southern Kurils ever since. The dispute drags on. Most of the 16,000 Russian civilians work in the fishing industry, but nearly all the wealth from the fishery goes to Moscow in the form of taxes and fees. Since the end of the Soviet era, government support for the Pacific frontier has dwindled, and some Kuril Islanders see closer ties with Japan as a way to improve their lot. As author Charles E. Cobb, Jr., reveals, these rugged and beautiful islands are a hard place to live.
 

    
Delayed for days by fog, wind, and rain—weather as usual in the Kuril Islands—a passenger helicopter drops in on Paramushir, a piece of an island chain its Russian owners call “the end of the world.” The former Soviet Union won the Kurils from Japan at the end of World War II. Fifty-one years later Russia clings to its trophy in the rich fishing grounds of the North Pacific, defying Japan, which wants the southern Kurils back.

Photographs by Michael S. Yamashita.

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