Iturup

The native inhabitants of all the Kuril islands are the Ainu. They have lived there since at least the 14th century.

"Staten Eylant" between Hokkaido ("Eso") and the imaginary continent of "Companies Land" on Jan Janssonius's 1654 New and Accurate Description of Japan, the Land of Eso, and Adjacent Islands

Europeans are first recorded visiting this part of the Kurils in 1643[5] when the Castricum under Maarten Gerritsz Vries was exploring Hokkaido and the surrounding area for the Dutch East India Company (VOC).[6] As with neighboring Urup, Iturup is sometimes said to have been the particular island intended in his account,[7] but in fact his description of an enormous continental Company Land (named after the VOC) and a large and prosperous Staten Island (named after the States General) bear no relation to anything in the area,[8] a fact established by Vitus Bering's lieutenant Martin Spanberg in a series of voyages in 1738, 1739, and 1742.[9] The phantom Staten Island (Staten Eyland; French: Isle des États) still continued to appear on European maps for decades afterward, however,[9] and is now sometimes specifically conflated with Iturup despite its placement on most maps more closely matching Kunashiri.

The Japanese are first recorded reaching Iturup in 1661, when Shichirobei and his company drifted there by accident. Following Bering and Spanberg's voyages under the Russian flag, a settlement was established in the late 18th century, prompting the Japanese to establish a garrison around 1800 at the site of present-day Kurilsk. Japanese rule over Iturup was formally recognized in the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda.

Japanese residents of Iturup at a Buddhist temple (before 1939)

On 26 November 1941, a Japanese carrier fleet left Hitokappu Bay (now called Kasatka Bay[10]), on the eastern shore of Iturup, and sailed for an attack on the American base of Pearl Harbor.

Shana Village was located on Iturup (Etorofu) in the Showa era, before 1945. It was the administrative capital of the Kuril islands. There was a village hospital, an Etorofu Fisheries factory, a radio tower of the post office with a radio receiving antenna. The receiver was battery-powered.[11]

In 1945, according to decisions of the Yalta Conference, it was occupied by the Soviet Union after Japan's defeat in World War II. The Japanese inhabitants were expelled to mainland Japan.[12] In 1956 the two countries agreed to restore diplomatic relations, but a peace treaty, as of 2023, has not been concluded due to the disputed status of Iturup and some other nearby islands.

A Soviet Anti-Air Defense (PVO) airfield, Burevestnik (English: storm-petrel), is located on the island and was until 1993 home for a number of Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 fighter jets.[13] In 1968, Seaboard World Airlines Flight 253A was intercepted over the Kurils and forced to land at Burevestnik with 214 American troops bound for Vietnam. An older airfield, Vetrovoe, exists on the eastern part of the island and may have been used primarily by Japanese forces during World War II.

A new international airport, Iturup Airport, was opened in 2014, 7 kilometres (4+1⁄2 miles) east of Kurilsk. It was the first airport built from scratch in Russia's post-Soviet history. It has a 2.3-kilometre-long (7,500 ft), 42-metre-wide (138 ft) runway and can receive Antonov An-74-200 aircraft. It also has a military use. The Burevestnik military airfield 60 km (37 mi) to the south, in the past received civilian aircraft as well, but was often closed because of fog. Burevestnik is now a reserve airfield for the new airport.[14] On February 2, 2018, PBS NewsHour reported that Russia announced it is sending fighter planes to Iturup.[15] Su-35 aircraft landed on a reserve airfield on the island in March 2018[16][17] and Su-35s were then deployed to Iturup airport on a trial basis in August 2018.[18]

Administratively the island belongs to the Sakhalin Oblast of the Russian Federation. Japan claims Iturup as part of Nemuro Subprefecture.