Matua Island

Matua is an island located in the Great Range of the Kuril Archipelago. It is part of the North Kuril city district, Sakhalin region of the Russian Federation. The island is currently uninhabited.

The area of the island is 52 square kilometers, the maximum length is 11 kilometers, the width is 6.5 kilometers. On Matua there is an uninhabited, abandoned village of Sarychevo. At the eastern shore, at a distance of a kilometer, is Toporkovy Island, an area of 1 square kilometer.

On Matua there is an active volcano Sarychev, whose height is 1446 meters, as well as a stream with drinking water Jesupo and anchorage in the harbor of Double. Matua is separated by the Golovin Strait from the island of Raikoke, the Strait of Hope from the island of Rassua.

Basically, the island is covered with shrub and shrub, in its hollows grows shrub alder. Among the animals, foxes and small rodents live here, and there are also rookeries of fowls. In the vicinity lives ringed seal, nesting cormorants, gulls and gulls. The island was once inhabited by the Ainu people, numbering about 200 people, but later they were resettled. Then a Japanese garrison was built on the island, with an airfield, the buildings of which are still in normal condition. During the earthquake in 1952, 16 soldiers died on the island, in memory of which a concrete obelisk was erected here. The last volcanic eruption on the island was in 2009.