This island is one of the few uninhabited islands included in the Great Kuril Ridge. But it is he, this small piece of land, that contains so many secrets that they would be enough for all the Kuril Islands. A little more than half a century ago, life was raging here - and not only on the ground, but also underground.
FULLY FOUNDED OWNERS
Today the island of Matua is completely deserted, although we have owned the Kuril Islands since 1945. There are no fishing points here, although the fish around the island is teeming with, no tourist bases, although there is something to see. At the mouth of the only river in the entire island, the Khesupo River, once inhabited by the Ainu tribe in the amount of two hundred people. In 1885, all the Ainu from the Kuriles were resettled by the Japanese to the island of Shikotan. Today, nothing reminds of the aborigines, but every piece of land reports the Japanese occupying the island. Having evicted the Ainu, the inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun put a guard post, a meteorological station, a station for the protection of seals, a fishing station, and a polar fox receiver at Hesupo. And that was just the beginning. Over time, the descendants of the samurai decided to transfer the 41st separate regiment of the Japanese army to Matua. The island is already reliably protected from all sides by impregnable rocks and high banks,so the new owners also erected here a whole network of fortifications. As a labor force, they used either Chinese prisoners of war, or Koreans, or both. And here is the first riddle: there is not a single burial place on the island. The question arises: did not people die? The climate there is harsh, and the Japanese hardly stood on ceremony with the prisoners. Maybe the bodies were taken away from here and buried in another place? Or thrown into the sea? The latest version looks the most plausible. Be that as it may, but the Japanese still do not give out this secret, as, indeed, the rest.did not people die? The climate there is harsh, and the Japanese hardly stood on ceremony with the prisoners. Maybe the bodies were taken away from here and buried in another place? Or thrown into the sea? The latest version looks the most plausible. Be that as it may, but the Japanese still do not give out this secret, as, indeed, the rest.did not people die? The climate there is harsh, and the Japanese hardly stood on ceremony with the prisoners. Maybe the bodies were taken away from here and buried in another place? Or thrown into the sea? The latest version looks the most plausible. Be that as it may, but the Japanese still do not give out this secret, as, indeed, the rest.
BY ALL LAWS OF MILITARY ARTS
By the end of the war, Matua had become an impregnable fortress in the middle of the ocean. It looked like an anthill - it was so pitted with underground passages, galleries, passages, anti-tank and anti-personnel trenches, artillery and machine-gun pillboxes. These underground corridors, sometimes two- and even three-story, constantly twisted, forming dead ends and labyrinths. Ground structures, no less serpentine, were interconnected by a single underground gallery. That is, being at one end of the island, one could quite safely get to the other via an underground passage. Almost everywhere along the upper line of defense there was a narrow-gauge railway, along which trolleys for centralized supply of ammunition went. All the pillboxes were located not just anyhow, but in a certain sequence - in order to use the crossfire as best as possible. Now all the pillboxes are in excellent condition, despite the fact that the Japanese have not been observed here since 1945. Needless to say, military engineers did not receive their yen for their pretty eyes.
The way the Japanese have arranged their life on the island is also particularly delightful. Each officer in a separate barracks was assigned his own small room with a narrow corridor. The rooms were heated by stoves, and several stoves heated the bath. The steam room had a small pool, the water in which, apparently, was constantly heated. Water procedures certainly gave the Japanese pleasure: having undressed, they went into a bathhouse, sat on warm stone seats at the edge of the pool, or splashed in hot water.
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Another attraction is a hill almost 125 meters high, towering above the surroundings and second only to the owner of the island - the Fuyo volcano, or Sarychev. The hill has such a regular shape that it is immediately clear that it is artificial. A whole complex of structures was located in the hill - barracks for soldiers, a hospital, headquarters, warehouses, etc. And here the builders showed everything they were capable of: all the stones were carefully hewn and perfectly fitted to each other.
HEATED AERODROME
However, all the buildings cannot be compared with the airfield. This is just a masterpiece of military engineering art, it is not for nothing that the Japanese were so proud of it. Two parallel strips 1570 meters long and 35 meters wide were covered with excellent concrete. Its quality can be judged at least by the fact that it is preserved in its best condition, there are absolutely no cracks on it. But for a long time no one looks after the runway. The airfield is located so that the winds blowing on Matua did not interfere with either takeoff or landing of aircraft. But the most striking thing is the… heated takeoff field! Water was supplied to the strips from local thermal springs, gushing on the slope of the volcano, through a special concrete ditch, which has the same high temperature all year round. The gutters ran between two parallel runways, and pipes were laid under each of them. Hot water circulated through them. And so - the entire length of the strips, after which it went into the third strip, then turned around and walked back. As a result, the airfield was in full combat readiness all year round. Even in the most severe frosts and snowstorms he stood as good as new. It did not need to be cleaned of any ice or snow. But it was the airfield that turned out to be the "weak link" - the Americans regularly bombed it. After each bombing, the Japanese patched holes on the runway, as evidenced by the well-preserved patches in our time. But it was the airfield that turned out to be the "weak link" - the Americans regularly bombed it. After each bombing, the Japanese patched holes on the runway, as evidenced by the well-preserved patches in our time. But it was the airfield that turned out to be the "weak link" - the Americans regularly bombed it. After each bombing, the Japanese patched holes on the runway, as evidenced by the well-preserved patches in our time.
SPIRIT OF THE ISLAND
In August 1945, after the surrender of Japan, power in Matua changed once again. The Japanese took care to hide their secrets from the Russians. There was plenty of time to destroy all the military property available there or to scrupulously hide it until better times. No matter how later ours were looking for trophies, nothing worthy was found. But there was so much equipment that every sane person understood that it was impossible to take everything out. But it could not sink into the ground! And this is another mystery. There is an opinion that the Japanese really "buried" everything underground and blew up the entrances to the underground warehouses. It is possible that all military equipment was drowned in the sea, like those poor prisoners of war, of whom there was no trace left on the island. And then nature itself took care of hiding everything unnecessary from the new owners. Here is how it was.
In 1946, the island was already under the Soviet flag. There was a frontier post and a military unit, there were two villages - Sarychevo and Gubanovka. On November 4, locals noticed a suspicious smoke over the neighboring island of Rasshua - there was also a volcano there. But he puffed a little, but calmed down, and after him the inhabitants also calmed down. And suddenly on November 7 - like a salvo from the "Aurora" for the anniversary of the October Revolution - the volcano exploded. An eruption of such power occurred that all living things were destroyed on the island. Hailstones fell into the ocean at a distance of five kilometers from the coast. Even the neighboring Toporkovy Island, which is seven kilometers away, fell asleep. Our troops used all the ships and boats that were on Matua to take the people away.
After some time, the outpost resumed its work, but ours were fatally unlucky for Matua. In 1952, sixteen border guards died under an avalanche. Then a whole group of soldiers fell into the adit. No matter how many searches for their bodies - to no avail. In 2000, the border post burned down, and the border guards left the island forever. Since then, it has remained abandoned, and only birds and animals are the master of this piece of land. It seems that the spirit of Matua - and he was told by the Ainu - does not allow strangers to settle down on the island.
Lyubov SHAROVA