Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky is a city (since 1917) in Russia, the
administrative center of the urban district
"Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky District" of the Sakhalin Region of
Russia.
Named after Russian Emperor Alexander II. It was
organized as a military post of Alexander in 1881, the year of
foundation of the settlement is controversial, usually 1869 is used.
Later it became one of the places of hard labor in the Russian
Empire, mainly for criminals who worked in logging and coal mines.
It is located on the western coast of Sakhalin
Island, on the shores of the Tatar Strait, 561 km north of
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 60 km from the Tymovskoye railway station and 75
km from Zonalnoe airport.
Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky is connected
with the village. Tymovskoe by road P491 with a ground-crushed stone
surface.
Aleksandrovsk was previously in the time
zone designated according to the international standard as
Vladivostok Time Zone (VLAT / VLAST). The offset from UTC is +10:
00. The offset relative to Moscow time (MSK / MSD) is +7: 00 and was
designated in Russia as MSK + 7, respectively.
Currently,
since 2015, Aleksandrovsk, like the entire Sakhalin Island, is
located in the time zone designated by the international standard as
Magadan Time Zone. The offset relative to UTC is +11: 00 The time
zone has a constant offset of +8: 00 hours relative to Moscow time
and is designated in Russia as MSK + 8, respectively.
The year the Alexandrovsky post was founded is controversial; local
historians count it from different events:
1881 - the foundation
of the military settlement of the post of Alexandrovsky (the city
bore this name until 1926);
1869 - foundation of a farm at the
site of the future post;
1864 - the first four settlers in the
Alexander Valley (also called 1862, when 8 settlers arrived on
Sakhalin).
Since 1909 it was the center of the Sakhalin region of
the Russian Empire. From 1918 to 1920, power in the city belonged to
the government of Admiral Alexander Kolchak. In the period from 1920
to 1925, the city was occupied by Japan.
From 1932 to 1947,
Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky was the administrative center of the
Sakhalin Oblast of the RSFSR.
The city houses the A.P. Chekhov Museum of Local Lore and the
Chekhov and Sakhalin Historical and Literary Museum.
An
architectural monument is the building of the former treasury, built
in 1880. In the park of the museum there is a monument to A.P.
Chekhov by Mikhail Anikushin.
3 km from the city - a
lighthouse built in 1864 on Cape Jonquière. As of July 2013, the
lighthouse and the building adjacent to it are in disrepair and are
being destroyed by natural influences. Convicts manually cut a
tunnel to the lighthouse through the rock, named after the Russian
Emperor Alexander II (Alexander tunnel). And three years after the
construction of the tunnel, a bypass road was built to the
lighthouse through the hill. The tunnel has the form of an integral
and its length is 87 m. The bending of the tunnel is associated with
the absence of specialists in the construction of tunnels at the
Aleksandrovsky post during construction. The tunnel was able to be
connected only after the appearance of the exiled convict, who made
the calculations, as a result of which the tunnel was straightened
and connected. The leadership of the Prison Administration, having
learned about the crooked tunnel, issued an order in which it was
necessary to find the person responsible for the “crooked”
construction and punish him with 200 lashes. The administration of
the penal servitude lined up 200 convicts and each punished one blow
with a whip, thus the order of the Prison Administration was
executed.
The legendary Russian adventurer "Sonya Zolotaya
Ruchka" (Sonya Goldenhand), who died of a "cold" in 1902, was
serving hard labor at the Alexandrovsky post, as evidenced by the
report of the prison authorities. She was buried at the local
cemetery.
In front of the cape in the sea, not far from the
coast, there are three picturesque rocks called "Three Brothers",
which have become a symbol not only of Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky,
but of the entire Sakhalin Island.
Alexandrovsk in literature
In Chekhov's book "Sakhalin Island" several chapters are devoted to
the description of Aleksandrovsk. The writer called the city
“Sakhalin Paris”.
The main events of Valentin Pikul's novel
“Hard labor” (1987) take place in Aleksandrovsk.
The city of Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky is equated to
the regions of the Far North.
Average annual air temperature
- 0.9 ° C
Relative air humidity - 78%
Average wind speed - 4.1
m / s