The Sea of Okhotsk

The Sea of Okhotsk is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, between the Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the sourtheast, the island of Hokkaido to the south, the island of Sakhalin along the west and a stretch of  eastern Siberian coast.  Inside the sea there is a gulf in its northetern corner, the Shalikhov Gulf.
The sea is named after Okhotsk, the first Russian settlement in the Far East.

It covers an area of 1,583,000 square kilometres with a mean depth of 859 metres and a maximum depth of 3,372 metres.

Because of its high latitude (45 to 63 degrees latitude North) in winter, navigation becomes difficult due to the formation of large ice floes due to the large amount of freshwater from the Amur river which discharge in the sea western shore, lowering the salinity of upper levels, often raising the freezing points of the sea surface.

The Okhotsk sea is located in a geologically highly unstable area, where seismic activity is common. There are several volcanoes in the surrounding coastal areas and islands, many of which are presently active.

Human geography

The Okhotsk region has been occupied since, at least, 3,000 years by coastal fishing communities (the Okhotsk archaeological culture) that were probably ancestors of the more recent inhabitants. A distinctive trait of the Okhotsk culture was its subsistence strategy, traditionally categorised as a specialised system of marine resource gathering. This is in accord with the geographic distribution of archeological sites in coastal regions and confirmed by studies of animal remais and tools, that pointed to intensive marine hunting, fishing, and gathering activitiea.

These historical Okhotsk people were probably related to the Ainu, the Nivkhs and the Itelments, that have inhabited the region In more recent times, and still survive. It is suggested that the Okhotsk culture was the result of the combination of cultures from Hokkaido and the Amur River area. It is suggested that the bear cult, a practice shared by the Ainu and the Nivkhs, was an important element of the Okhotsk culture.

The main contemporary native cultures are  precisely the Ainu, the Nivkh and the Itelmen.

The Ainu extended from the island of Hokkaido to the Kuril islands , south of Sakhalin island and north of Honshu island. Today there are about 50,000 Ainu living mostly in Hokkaido, of which only 10% or less speak their native tongue.

The Nivkh are an indigenous ethnic group which inhabited (and still do) the northern half of Sakhalin Island and the lower Amur River and coast on the adjacent Russian mainland. Nivkh were traditionally fishermen, hunters, and dog breeders. Presently there are about 5,000 of which 4,500 live in Russia and 500 in Japan.

The Itelmens are an ethnic group native to the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia. There are still about 3,500 Itelmen in Kamchatka.The Itelmen language is distantly related to the Chukchi and Koryak peoples who live further north, forming the Chukotko-Kamchatka language family. Presently this language it is now virtually extinct.

History of Russian colonization

The Okhostk area was explored, visited, and finally, conquered by Russia from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.

Russian explorers Ivan Moskvitin and Vassili Poyarkov were the first Europeans to visit the Okhotsk region (in the 1640s).

The first and foremost Russian settlement on the shore was the port of Okhostk (which gave the name to this geographic feature).

A second Kamchatka expedition under Vitus Bering systematically mapped the entire coast of the sea, starting in 1733.  The first detailed summary of the hydrology of the Okhotsk sea was prepared and published by Stepan Makaron in 1894.

With the exception of Hokkaido, one of the Japanese home islands, the sea is surrounded on all sides by territory administered by the Russian Federation. 

Some geographic features

Some of the Sea of Okhotsk's islands are quite large, including Japan's second largest island, Hokkaido (78,000 km2), as well as Russia's largest island, Sakhalin (76,400 km2). 

Practically all of the sea's islands are either in coastal waters or belong to the various islands making up the Kuril Islands chain. These fall either under undisputed Japanese or Russian ownership or disputed ownership between Japan and Russia. Iony island is the only island located in open waters and belongs to the Khabarovsk Krai of the Russian Federation. The majority of the sea's islands are uninhabited making them ideal breeding grounds for seals, sea lions, seabirds and other sea island fauna. Large colonies, with over a million individuals, of crested auklets use the Sea of Okhotsk as a nesting site.

There are 29 zones of possible oil and gas accumulation have been identified on the Sea of Okhotsk shelf, which runs along the coast. Total reserves are estimated at 3.5 billion tons of equivalent fuel, including 1.2 billion tons of oil and 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas.