Sinhanch'on

Sinhanch'on was an enclave of Koreans in Vladivostok that existed between 1911 and 1937, during which time the city was controlled for periods by the Russian Empire, Far Eastern Republic and finally the Soviet Union. The enclave was not the only one to use this name; several other Korean settlements in Primorskaya Oblast and Jiandao ("Gando" in Korean) went by this name. It holds an important place in the history of Koryo-saram (ethnic Koreans of the mainland former Soviet Union), and is now widely considered to have been a hub of the Korean independence movement. It hosted the first Korean provisional government, the Korean Independence Army Government. This organization secretly built an army intended to fight for Korea's liberation. These efforts were suppressed by both Russia and Japan, which culminated in a 1920 massacre known as the Sinhanch'on Incident. Vladivostok had a Korean population of around 10,000 from the mid-1910s until 1937, when the Koreans were forcibly deported to Central Asia. Few visible traces of the enclave remain today. A small memorial park on Khabarovskaya Ulitsa now exists near its former entrance.