Russia (Россия, Rossiya in Russian) is by far the world's largest country, spanning a little over 150° in longitude. It is organized as the Russian Federation (Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) with members known as federal subjects (sub'yekty federatsii). Russia is primarily a continental nation but it has important coastlines on the Baltic, Black, and Caspian Seas and very long coastlines on the Arctic Ocean and North Pacific Ocean. To guard these coasts it operates hundreds of lighthouses, many of them historic. This page covers lighthouses of the northern half of Khabarovsk Krai, a huge province on Russia's far eastern coast. The northern coastline of the province faces the Sea of Okhotsk. The southern coastline faces the Tartar Strait, which separates the mainland from the large island of Sakhalin. This page includes lighthouses of the Okhotsky, Tuguro-Chumikansky and Nikolayevsky Districts, all in the north. The only important port in this area is Nikolayevsk na Amure on the lower Amur River. The region is named for Yerofey Khabarov, who explored the area for Russia in 1649-50. However, the region was also claimed by China, and in the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk Russia gave up its claim to the heart of the territory, the Amur Basin. The situation was reversed in the 19th century as Russians occupied the area and in the 1858 Treaty of Aigun Russian sovereignty was established. Nearly all the lighthouses in this region were built by the Soviet Union (1917-1991). The Russian word for a lighthouse is mayak (маяк); ostrov is an island, poluostrov is a peninsula, kosa is a sandy spit, rif is a reef, mys is a cape, bukhta is a bay, zaliv is a larger bay or gulf, proliv is a strait, reka is a river, and gavan' is a harbor. Russian lighthouses are owned by the Russian Navy and maintained by the Office of Navigation and Oceanography (Управление навигации и океанографии). ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. Admiralty numbers are from volume M of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 112.
|
Okhotsky District Lighthouses
|
![]() Mys Duga Vostochnaya Light, Sea of Okhotsk unattributed photo posted by Lighthouses of the USSR |
Tuguro-Chumikansky District Lighthouse
|
![]() Kukhtuy Light, Okhotsk, September 2014 ex-Panoramio photo copyright Igor Savitskiy; used by permission |
Nikolayevsky District Lighthouses
|
![]() Mys Menshikova Light, Amur Bay unattributed photo posted by Lighthouses of the USSR |
|
![]() Nikolayevsk Range Rear Light, Nikolayevsk, August 2012 ex-Panoramio photo copyright Alexander Barkov; used by permission |
|
|
![]() Mys Pronge Range Rear Light, mouth of the Amur River, August 2010 ex-Panoramio Creative Commons photo by Malefesenta |
|
![]() North Range Rear (left) and South Range Front Lights, Mys Dzhaore, March 2012 ex-Panoramio Creative Commons photo by Malefesenta |
|
![]() Mys Lazarev Light, Nevel'skoy Strait, 2012 ex-Panoramio Creative Commons photo by Sergey Lysov |
Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses:
Adjoining pages: North: Magadan | Southeast: Northern Sakhalin | South: Southern Khabarovsk Krai
Return to the Lighthouse Directory index | Ratings key
Posted May 19, 2006. Checked and revised August 12, 2024. Lighthouses: 33. Site copyright 2024 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.