Even Dmitry Medvedev was on the Kuriles, and you were not. Therefore, a blogger, before blathering on the issue from the couch, read at least the materials of the Yalta conference, since you still don’t know your country. Although this, of course, does not help.
Trite and superficially thinking still think that the Kuriles are from the word "smoking", although in reality from the self-name of the Ainu tribe that lived here. But usually these are the same people who think that life and history are black and white cinema. And in the question “give / not give” there is only one answer. But no. Kuriles are not one or two islands, they are many islands - and they are all different. This is something like a huge frontier post along with a fish factory. And life there is very different, but, having lived 28 years in Kamchatka, I would not want to live in the Kuriles. The weather - horror, logistics, too. And this is all 1,200 kilometers in length - almost the entire length of Finland from south to north. Who is interested in looking at the runways of Japanese airfields coming straight out of the cliff, that, of course, can recover - for amateur historians there is just beauty. And just from any point of view there is beauty. Abundantly watered with the blood of Russian and non-Russian people.
Who wants to stand at the conveyor at the fish factory in rubber boots to the ears - for God's sake, there are a lot of beautiful girls. Right by this conveyor with trumpeter cans. And environmentalists may admire the bottom of the bay, littered with hundreds of tons of shells from Swift's scallop. But this is all on those islands that, at any conference, will forever remain Russian.
I was on all the big islands of the Kuril Ridge and even on the so-called disputed ones - Iturup and Shikotan. Only a small group of Habomai was not there, there is absolutely nothing to do except to serve as a border guard, but he looked at them from Japanese territory - they are clearly visible. So I understand about how people live in Kuriles. It is not easy. Although it is interesting, where do people just live? In the Soviet Harbor or what? Or in Anadyr? Yes, nowhere!
The problem with the Kuriles and Japan is several fathers, and one of them, of course, is the US Senate, with its resolution when discussing the San Francisco Peace Treaty - a resolution on which the USSR seemed to have nothing at all. At the same time, Japan is the country of the “axis”, and it would be strange, as it were, to defend the territorial interests of the losing side of the “evil”. It’s like putting the Poles in place, and at the same time Kaliningraders.
But the Americans had already begun to turn Japan into an “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” as Soviet newspapers liked to say. And the longer the aircraft carrier’s takeoff deck, the better. If you think that Japan has ceased to be an aircraft carrier, then you are funny people.
I understand that the very question of the ownership of the islands of Kunashir, Iturup and Habomai, and all the more, discussions of post-war documents began only after perestroika, before that it was such a taboo. And therefore, in the 1990s, public sentiments about this were rather foolishly romantic — like: “transfer (sell) the islands of Japan, but not for multibillion-dollar loans that we still don't know how to use (spend for the next“ project of the century ”like turning rivers ), and in exchange for Japan’s commitment, say, by 1993, to provide each Soviet family (in the USSR about 70 million families) via a video recorder ”(“ Arguments and Facts ”). Well, where would these video recorders be now? Funny and bitter.
On the surface, so far only that the Japanese have given up their half of Sakhalin, then we must give them a group of islands designated as “northern territories”. History in general is a dumb thing: so suddenly you can quite accidentally recall that the Russians who came to the Kuril Islands also considered the island of Hokkaido, which at that time was not at all Japan, as part of the Kuril Ridge. And in general: to what Old Testament should historical claims extend? You can, of course, ask the Israelis, but it is unlikely to help in this case.
The world is changing rapidly, and trade replaces big wars. Everybody bargain with everyone. And the issue with the Kuriles has long and persistently interfered with at least the signing of a peace treaty with Japan - as long as there is only an act of surrender. If this contract is needed, it would seem that a simple thing can be done - such as giving away. But there are other treaties, for example, Japan and the United States, under which the Americans build military bases wherever they wish. Who doubts that the first building in the new-found territories will be anything but a fish factory or a club of Russian-Japanese friendship with Nikka whiskey at reduced prices?
Therefore, when the Kremlin, through the mouth of Peskov, says that the absence of a peace treaty is “a kind of limiter” for Japan, which, according to him, does not allow to use the full potential of relations between the two countries, it is understood that the Kremlin excludes the possibility of automatic transfer of the Kuril Islands to Japan. It is due to the possible expansion of the American military machine.
But you can start small - with the smallest of the Habomai archipelago. And see what happens.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.