The Twentieth Century through the History of the House at Sanatornaya Station in Vladivostok

Abstract

Regional history and local history are of increasing interest to researchers due to the worldwide trend of increasing interest in the history of individual territories. The history of the mansion in the suburb of Vladivostok was not previously the subject of local historians. The article also raises the question concerning the importance of preserving the cultural and historical heritage. The author provides a literary and historical sketch about the history of the house, reflecting the history of the twentieth century with its wars and social cataclysms. The people, whose shelter was the mansion at Sanatornaya Station, were involved in many "Great Upheavals" that changed the world and Russia. They became symbols of cultural and political life in the last century. The house was built by the seaside oligarch Boris Briner and was used as a dacha. The mansion remembers the mischievous boy Yulia (Yula), grandson of the founder of the Briner dynasty who became a favorite of the postwar cinema audience, the world-famous actor Yul Brynner, the American Robin Hood from the famous western "The Magnificent Seven". In the 1930s the NKVD (Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del or People's Commisariat for Internal Affairs) turned the house into a special school for training world revolutionary fighters. In 1942, a young Korean guerrilla, Kim Song-joo, mastered the subtleties of sabotage and intelligence activities in this "training institution". In 1946 he became known to the world as Kim Il-sung, the leader of North Korea. In the 1990s the Oriental School successfully operated in the building of the Briner's former dacha, where Russian children studied the history of the foreign Far East, ancient and mysterious cultures.