Sakhalin and the Island of Sleeping Volcanoes

Iturup in the Ainu language means «big salmon» — the largest island of the Kuril chain, about two hundred kilometres north to south, with nine active volcanoes and a coastline where black titanomagnetite sand sits next to a wall of white pumice. But to get there from Moscow or St Petersburg, you first pass through Sakhalin — and this route uses the Sakhalin leg not as a transfer but as a separate short programme: two days in southern Sakhalin before the flight to the Kurils.

The route splits into two unequal parts: two days in southern Sakhalin and five on Iturup, divided by an hour in the air.

Sakhalin: two days before the flight. Day one — a city tour of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, a city of one hundred and eighty thousand with the original Japanese street grid intact and the regional museum building from 1937; from 1907 to 1945 this was the capital of the Karafuto governorate. Day two — boat trip to Aniva Lighthouse, a Japanese 1939 structure on a sheer rock at the cape of the same name, and an oyster lunch at Busse Lagoon, where oysters have been farmed since the 1970s. That's enough to enter the Russian Far East gradually, without jumping straight from a mainland flight to a Kuril volcanic cone.

Flight to Iturup. Just over an hour in the air — a scheduled flight from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk to Yasny Airport. Below the wing the volcanic ridge runs south, and Iturup's separate triple cone rises above the cloud band. From the plane you switch to a minibus and the same day head out to Baransky Volcano.

Iturup: five days of volcanoes and coast. Baransky is an active stratovolcano 1,132 metres high; at its foot runs the «Boiling River» at eighty to ninety degrees. Belye Skaly — a wall of pale pumice about twenty-eight kilometres long, honey-pink at sunset. The Zharkie Vody thermal springs — open-air mineral baths a few paces from the ocean surf. Kasatka Bay with its sea stacks and the Yankito lava plateau — a frozen flow with a trail across black terraces and cliffs to the bay of the same name. On day six — a thermal-water spa complex before the return flight. Day seven on Sakhalin is free, with an optional jeep trip to Cape Velikan on the east coast.

Group of up to eight, accommodation in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and at the Kasatka Guesthouse in Kurilsk, local guides throughout, border zone permits processed for you. Air ticket to Iturup and entry fees for Zharkie Vody and the Boiling River — separate. Season: 16 June to 18 August — the best Kuril weather window.

Eight days — two different Russian Far Easts in one trip: an unhurried Japanese-mark Sakhalin with oysters by the water, and a volcanic Iturup with boiling streams and a basalt plateau, separated by a one-hour flight. The combo route is what we know best — fewer than ten Russian operators run it routinely. Tell us your travel month and we'll build the schedule around the Aurora flight grid.