Yokohama - St. Petersburg in Japan?

Yokohama: the city by the sea, through which Japan opened to the world

Russia and Japan have much more unexpected roll call than it seems at first glance. One of them is associated with Yokohama, a city that is sometimes compared to St. Petersburg.

Of course, this is not an outward resemblance. Yokohama is not like St. Petersburg in architecture, climate or cityscape. But the two cities have a close historical role: both have become a meeting point for their countries.

For Russia, St. Petersburg was a window to Europe. Yokohama for Japan became one of the main sea entrances to the Western world.

Back in the middle of the XIX century it was a small settlement near the bay. But after the opening of the port in 1859, the city began to change rapidly. Through Yokohama, foreign goods, new technologies, commercial practices, photography, newspapers, Western fashion and new elements of urban life came to the country.

Thus, the former fishing village gradually turned into one of the most important centers of Japanese modernization.

Today, Yokohama is interesting not only in history. This is a city with a very recognizable mood: sea air, embankments, old brick warehouses, foreign quarters, Chinatown, Yamashita Park, views of the bay and futuristic Minato Mirai.

Yokohama is easily mistaken for a pleasant half-day trip from Tokyo. But in fact, it is an independent city-history - a place where Japan once began to truly live close to the outside world.

This photo album is about Yokohama as a port city, a city by the sea and one of the key symbols of the Japanese exit into modernity.