Vanino, Khabarovsk Krai
Encyclopedia
Vanino is an urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement ; , selyshche mis'koho typu ) is an official designation for a type of locality used in some of the countries of the former Soviet Union...

 and the administrative center of Vaninsky District
Vaninsky District
Vaninsky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the seventeen in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. Its administrative center is the urban locality of Vanino. District's population: Population of Vanino accounts for 45.4% of the district's population....

 of Khabarovsk Krai
Khabarovsk Krai
Khabarovsk Krai is a federal subject of Russia , located in the Russian Far East. It lies mostly in the basin of the lower Amur River, but also occupies a vast mountainous area along the coastline of the Sea of Okhotsk, an arm of the Pacific Ocean. The administrative center of the krai is the...

, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. It is an important port on the Strait of Tartary
Strait of Tartary
Strait of Tartary is a strait in the Pacific Ocean dividing the Russian island of Sakhalin from mainland Asia , connecting the Sea of Okhotsk on the north with...

 (northernmost part of Sea of Japan
Sea of Japan
The Sea of Japan is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, between the Asian mainland, the Japanese archipelago and Sakhalin. It is bordered by Japan, North Korea, Russia and South Korea. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure from the Pacific...

), served by the BAM railway line. Population: 18,900 (2005 estimate);

Vanino is located some 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) north (straight-line distance) from the better-known city of Sovetskaya Gavan
Sovetskaya Gavan
Sovetskaya Gavan is a town in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, and a port on the Strait of Tartary which connects the Sea of Okhotsk on the north with the Sea of Japan on the south. Population: 29,100 ; The name of the town is often informally abbreviated to "Sovgavan".-History:The bay on which...

, but the actual road distance is about twice as much, as the sea coast is highly indented.

History

Vanin Bay on the Strait of Tartary
Strait of Tartary
Strait of Tartary is a strait in the Pacific Ocean dividing the Russian island of Sakhalin from mainland Asia , connecting the Sea of Okhotsk on the north with...

 was named after a topographer who worked in a team that prepared maps of the coast in 1874.

The Vanino Harbor, then considered part of Sovetskaya Gavan
Sovetskaya Gavan
Sovetskaya Gavan is a town in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, and a port on the Strait of Tartary which connects the Sea of Okhotsk on the north with the Sea of Japan on the south. Population: 29,100 ; The name of the town is often informally abbreviated to "Sovgavan".-History:The bay on which...

, received an overland connection with the rest of the USSR with the construction of railway from Komsomolsk-na-Amure (the easternmost section of the future Baikal-Amur Mainline), which was started in 1943 and completed in 1945. That caused quick growth of the port in Vanino Harbor.

During the 1940s, Vanino, along with Vladivostok, was a major port for shipping convicts from the "mainland" USSR to Magadan
Magadan
Magadan is a port town on the Sea of Okhotsk and gateway to the Kolyma region. It is the administrative center of Magadan Oblast , in the Russian Far East. Founded in 1929 on the site of an earlier settlement from the 1920s, it was granted the status of town in 1939...

, the port for the Kolyma
Kolyma
The Kolyma region is located in the far north-eastern area of Russia in what is commonly known as Siberia but is actually part of the Russian Far East. It is bounded by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Sea of Okhotsk to the south...

 Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...

 labor camps. In post-Stalin era, the importance of the port continued to increase, as it provided the shortest connection to the seaports of Russian north-east. The cargo volumes handled by the port peaked in 1989, at 11.5 million tons. In 2005, the volume was 6.2 million tons.

In 1958, Vanino was administratively separated from Sovetskaya Gavan
Sovetskaya Gavan
Sovetskaya Gavan is a town in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, and a port on the Strait of Tartary which connects the Sea of Okhotsk on the north with the Sea of Japan on the south. Population: 29,100 ; The name of the town is often informally abbreviated to "Sovgavan".-History:The bay on which...

, becoming an urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement ; , selyshche mis'koho typu ) is an official designation for a type of locality used in some of the countries of the former Soviet Union...

. In 1973, it became the administrative center of the newly created Vanino District.

Economy

Vanino's economic significance is based on its port, which is among the ten largest ports of Russia measured by its cargo-handling volume.

Presently (2009), Vanino is a hub (and the main mainland railway connection) for the Sakhalin Shipping Company
Sakhalin Shipping Company
Sakhalin Shipping Company is a Russian shipping company. Headquartered in Kholmsk, on Sakhalin Island's west coast, the company was created in 1945, and privatized in 1992....

, which runs regular cargo boats from this port to Magadan
Magadan
Magadan is a port town on the Sea of Okhotsk and gateway to the Kolyma region. It is the administrative center of Magadan Oblast , in the Russian Far East. Founded in 1929 on the site of an earlier settlement from the 1920s, it was granted the status of town in 1939...

, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is the main city and the administrative, industrial, scientific, and cultural center of Kamchatka Krai, Russia. Population: .-History:It was founded by Danish navigator Vitus Bering, in the service of the Russian Navy...

, and Pusan. Since 1973, this company has also operated an icebreaker
Icebreaker
An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller vessels .For a ship to be considered an icebreaker, it requires three traits most...

 vehicular, passenger, and rail ferry service from Vanino to Kholmsk
Kholmsk
Kholmsk is a town in Sakhalin Oblast, Russia, the administrative center of Kholmsky District. Population: 35,141 .-History:The town was founded in 1870 as a military post. After the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, the town was transferred to Japanese control, along with the rest of southern...

, providing an important connection between Sakhalin
Sakhalin
Sakhalin or Saghalien, is a large island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N.It is part of Russia, and is Russia's largest island, and is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast...

 and the Russian mainland.

Vanino also has an oil terminal, as well as an oil refinery
Oil refinery
An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...

, run by Transbunker Group; it is the only oil refinery in Russia that is designed specifically for producing fuel oil for ship engines.

Vanino is Russia's second largest coal port on the Pacific after Vostochny Port
Vostochny Port
Vostochny Port is intermodal container port at the Eastern end of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the largest port in the Russian Far East. It is located in Vrangel , Primorsky Krai. A deep-water port on the Nakhodka Bay , it operates year round and is suitable for handling large tonnage ships...

 (near Nakhodka
Nakhodka
Nakhodka is a port city in Primorsky Krai, Russia, situated on the Trudny Peninsula jutting into the Nakhodka Bay of the Sea of Japan, about east of Vladivostok...

), with between 1.5 million tonnes and 2 million tonnes of coal being handled per year. Russia's largest coal producer Mechel
Mechel
Mechel is one of Russia’s leading mining and metallurgical companies, producing coal, iron ore, nickel steel, rolled steel products, hardware, heat and electric power. Headquartered in Moscow, the company operates facilities in Russia, Romania, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, and the United...

 is constructing its own terminal in Vanino to supply coal-hungry Asian markets. The new terminal is expected to be ready in 2012 and will have the capacity to handle 25 million tonnes per year.

Sister cities

Vanino is twinned with the following sister cities: Ishikari
Ishikari, Hokkaido
is a city located in Ishikari Subprefecture, Hokkaidō, Japan.The city was born out of Ishikari Town on September 1, 1996.On October 1, 2005, the village of Atsuta, from Atsuta District, and the village of Hamamasu, from Hamamasu District, merged into Ishikari.As of March 1, 2008, the city has an...

, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. Yeosu
Yeosu
Yeosu is a city in South Jeolla Province, South Korea. Old Yeosu City, which was founded in 1949, Yeocheon City, founded in 1986, and Yeocheon County were merged into a new city in 1998....

, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

.

External links

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