Qualla: Strait of Tartary

Strait of Tartary: Introduction

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wldland, CC BY 2.0. Explorer after explorer turned back. In 1787, La Perouse sailed north into the narrowing channel between Sakhalin and the Asian mainland, watched the water grow shallow, and concluded he had reached the head of a bay. He reversed course, even though local people had told him Sakhalin was an island. A decade later, William Broughton reached the same conclusion and also turned south. In 1805, Adam Johann von Krusenstern failed to push through from the north. The Strait of Tartary kept its secret for decades -- a waterway connecting the Sea of Okhotsk to the Sea of Japan that looked, from every angle of approach, like a dead end. It was not until 1848 that the Russian admiral Gennady Nevelskoy finally proved the passage existed. The Russians then classified the discovery and used it to evade a British fleet during the Crimean War.

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Image: Wldland | CC BY 2.0

Strait of Tartary: A Name from a Vanished World

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. "Tartary" was the European name for the vast steppe lands stretching from Inner Asia to the Pacific -- a label applied indiscriminately to the domains of Turkic and Mongol empires. When La Perouse charted the waters between Sakhalin and what Europeans called "Chinese Tartary" in ...

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Image: Public domain

Strait of Tartary: Cold War Waters

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Efim Petelin, Public domain. On September 1, 1983, the southeastern part of the strait became the site of one of the Cold War's most harrowing incidents. Korean Air Lines Flight 007, carrying 269 people including U.S. Congressman Larry McDonald, strayed into Soviet airspace and was attacked by a Soviet Su-15...

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Image: Efim Petelin | Public domain

Strait of Tartary: The Passage Nobody Uses

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stefan Ertmann, CC BY-SA 4.0. A glance at the map suggests the Strait of Tartary should be a natural shipping corridor between the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk. In practice, it rarely works that way. The Sakhalin Shipping Company, which operates the route from Vanino to Magadan, sends its vessels aroun...

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Image: Stefan Ertmann | CC BY-SA 4.0

Strait of Tartary: Between Two Seas

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peutro, CC BY-SA 4.0. The strait's fundamental character has not changed since it baffled La Perouse: it remains shallow, difficult, and easy to underestimate. In 1956, the Soviet government proposed building a causeway to block cold water from flowing south into the Sea of Japan, claiming it would ra...

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Image: Peutro | CC BY-SA 4.0