The Kuril Islands

Russia borders Japan at it’s far east end, but a few know that those two countries don’t have a peace treaty signed for already 60 years since the World War II has ended.

The reason for that a group of volcanic islands located North from Japan and called Kuril islands. Those territories were recaptured by Russian army at the end of WW2 and now are under Russian administration, though Japan considers them their own lost territories.

There were a lot of offers from Japan in order to return the islands. During the 1990s, when the Soviet government resigned and the new Russian authorities have been forming Japan offered billions dollars for those territories hoping to get the islands back, but patriotic motive was stronger that the profit one.

Those islands could be vital for Japan, which is suffering from over-population. Its lands are tens or even hundreds time more densely populated than the nearby lying Kuril islands, which stay almost untouched by civilization. Well, it’s hard to say what would be better - to let people live and destroy nature or to preserve nature at its virgin state but deprive hundreds thousands of people from the land. LINK