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Vladivostok is the largest city and capital of Primorsky Krai in the Russian Far East, built on hills around the Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, and it is famous as the eastern end of the Trans-Siberian Railway, as the home of the Pacific Fleet and for its two great cable-stayed bridges. About 600,000 people live in the city.
Its name means Ruler of the East. Vladivostok was founded on 2 July 1860 as a Russian military post, soon after the region passed to Russia, and in 1872 the main Russian naval base on the Pacific moved here. By 1914 it had over 100,000 people, with large Asian communities, and after the Civil War foreign troops stayed until 1922. In Soviet times the city was closed to foreigners.
Today it is the chief port and tourist centre of the Russian Far East. Visitors ride the funicular, climb Eagle's Nest Hill for the view of the bay and the Zolotoy Bridge, walk Svetlanskaya Street to the submarine museum, and cross the Russky Bridge to Russky Island for its aquarium, beaches and the old forts of the Vladivostok Fortress.
The Russky Bridge in Vladivostok crosses the Eastern Bosphorus strait to Russky Island, and with a central span of 1,104 metres it is the second-longest cable-stayed bridge in the world. It was finished in July 2012 for the APEC summit held on the island, and its tall pylons dominate the coast.
The Zolotoy Bridge crosses the Golden Horn Bay in the centre of Vladivostok and opened on 11 August 2012, built like the Russky Bridge for the APEC summit. It cut the trip from the city centre to Cape Churkin from up to two hours to about ten minutes, and it is lit up at night.
Tokarevsky Lighthouse is a working lighthouse at the southern tip of a long stony spit in Vladivostok, guiding ships into the Eastern Bosphorus strait. Visitors walk out along the 800-metre spit to the little tower, a favourite place to watch ships pass and the sun go down.
Eagle's Nest Hill is the highest point of the historic centre of Vladivostok at 199 metres. It was once called Klykov Hill and was renamed in memory of the Russian defence of the Shipka Pass in 1877, and its viewing platform looks over the Golden Horn Bay and the Zolotoy Bridge.
Svetlanskaya Street is the main street of Vladivostok, running along the Golden Horn Bay. First named after the corvette Amerika, it was renamed in 1873 after the frigate Svetlana, and it is lined with listed old buildings, among them the house where the future Tsar Nicholas II stayed in 1891.
The Nicholas Triumphal Arch in Vladivostok was built in 1891 for the visit of the heir to the throne, the future Tsar Nicholas II, who came to open work on the Trans-Siberian Railway. It was pulled down in 1930 because it blocked traffic, and it was rebuilt in its old form in 2003.
The S-56 Submarine is a Second World War submarine now set up as a museum on the Korabelnaya Embankment in Vladivostok. Assembled in the city and commissioned in 1941, it sailed to the Northern Fleet by way of the Panama Canal, and visitors can walk through its narrow compartments.
The Vladivostok Funicular has carried passengers up a steep hillside in the city centre since May 1962, and until 2024 it was the only funicular in Russia working as public transport. It was built under the plan for a Greater Vladivostok promoted by Nikita Khrushchev in the 1950s.
The Primorsky Aquarium on Russky Island in Vladivostok opened on 6 September 2016 in a white building shaped like a seashell. It has 135 tanks for about 500 species of fish and sea mammals, a 70-metre tunnel under the main tank and a dolphin arena, and it is also a research centre.
The Voroshilov Battery on Russky Island in Vladivostok is a coastal battery with two turrets of 305-millimetre guns. Under each turret lie three floors of living quarters and stores, joined by a deep tunnel 250 metres long, and the battery is now a museum of the Vladivostok Fortress.
The Arsenyev Museum is the first local history museum of Primorye and the main museum of Far Eastern history in Vladivostok. It grew from a society founded in 1884 to study the Amur region, opened its museum in 1890, and since 1945 has carried the name of the explorer Vladimir Arsenyev.
The Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre in Vladivostok opened on 18 October 2013 as the opera and ballet theatre of Primorsky Krai, and since 2016 it has been a branch of the Mariinsky in Saint Petersburg. Its horseshoe-shaped hall is counted among the best in Russia.
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