Black Island of the Kurils — Kunashir 6-day volcano tour

The ferry Admiral Nevelskoy leaves Korsakov in the evening — ahead lie roughly twenty hours at sea and a first morning on Kunashir. A four-berth cabin, dinner in the ship's restaurant, hot water on a schedule; Sakhalin's lights fade astern, and by morning a different coastline moves past the porthole — dark, steep, a band of cloud over Tyatya Volcano. The Ainu called Kunashir the Black Island: a chain of active volcanoes in miniature, with boiling lakes, fumarole fields and basalt columns lifted off the ocean floor.

Six days gather around three parts of the island:

Mendeleev Volcano — an active stratovolcano in the south of the island, with a fumarole field at its base: dozens of hot vents release steam jets with the unmistakable smell of sulphur. Gas temperatures reach one hundred degrees, and at the hazardous points the guide hands out masks and marks the safe lines. You can shoot, but not for long — the steaming zone has to be crossed at a brisk pace. Around it, a green slope and cooled lava fields crossed by wooden boardwalks.

Golovnin Caldera — a closed bowl about three kilometres across, left by an ancient massive eruption. On its floor lie two lakes: Boiling Lake, which actually boils with sulphur vents at up to one hundred degrees, and neighbouring Hot Lake, with calmer and warmer water. Between them runs an artificial channel cut by the Japanese in the first half of the twentieth century, when sulphur was mined here. Boiling Lake has an overlook eighty metres from the water — coming closer is forbidden.

Cape Stolbchaty and the sea leg — basalt hexagonal columns about two kilometres long, set fifty million years ago and carried up to the surface by the ocean. The approach runs along wooden boardwalks through an overgrown slope where the smell shifts with every step: from salt sea to damp Kuril taiga. A separate day — a sea trip to Rogachev Island with views of sheer cliffs and seabird colonies; in calm water the boat approaches the leeward side, and kelp forests and sea urchins are clearly visible below.

Group of up to twelve, accommodation on Kunashir at Iceberg Hotel in Yuzhno-Kurilsk, local guide throughout, border zone permits included in the price. The ferry ticket (from ₽5,700 one way) and meals on board are paid separately. Navigation season: mid-July to early September.

Six days on Kunashir is not a sightseeing loop but the dense, expedition-weight part of the route: boiling lakes, steam vents, basalt columns and two twenty-hour sea crossings. Guests come back feeling they've been somewhere far. AMIST has been running Kuril expeditions out of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk since 2001 — we know which captains run the Korsakov–Kunashir line and we book your seats first. Drop a note via the office — we'll come back with availability and the full price.