The Aniva Lighthouse is an amazingly picturesque abandoned lighthouse located on Cape Aniva in the very south of Sakhalin Island in the Far East of Russia. The height of the building is 31 meters, the height of light – 40 meters above sea level.

This mysterious place is an important tourist attraction of Sakhalin. Tourists usually come here on private boats. The lighthouse is gradually destroyed by water and wind. In the coming years, it is quite possible that repairs will be carried out to preserve this unique building. The Aniva Lighthouse on Google Maps. Photos by: Slava Stepanov.

For the first time, the construction of a lighthouse on the Sivuchya rock near Cape Aniva was discussed in 1898, when the steamship “Cosmopolitan” with the governor of the Primorsky Region of the Russian Empire on board sank here. However, this remained only a suggestion, as the site for construction was too difficult to access.

In 1905, after the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the southern part of Sakhalin, under a peace treaty, passed into the possession of Japan. The Japanese organized the Karafuto prefecture on the new lands and began to develop the shipping infrastructure.

In 1938, the Japanese authorities decided to build a lighthouse here. In Japanese, Cape Aniva was called Cape Nakashiretoko – and the lighthouse itself also initially bore this name. The author of the project was the engineer Shinobu Miura; the construction cost was 600,000 yen and took a little over two years. The range of the lighthouse was about 28 km. Inside, living quarters for 12 lighthouse keepers were provided on several floors.

In 1945, after the Soviet-Japanese war, the southern part of Sakhalin became part of the USSR. Over time, the acetylene lamp was replaced with an electric one, and an engine was installed for rotation. The maintenance of this remote lighthouse was a problem. The equipment often broke down, it was difficult to deliver food and spare parts, to maintain normal conditions for the duty of the lighthouse team.

It was decided to make the Aniva Lighthouse autonomous. To do this, a nuclear battery was installed on the lighthouse – a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Therefore, in 1990, the lighthouse began to operate autonomously, and regular maintenance was carried out from a neighboring border post.

In 2006, the life of the nuclear battery ended, but they decided not to install a new one, since at that time satellite navigation systems appeared and the lighthouse was no longer needed.

Tags: Abandoned · Sakhalin oblast

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