Arriving in Vladivostok by sea last month, there is still snow on the shore, tucked into folds of the ground so that the dark hills and bright white shadows give the landscape the look of a photographic negative. The sea lanes are clear, however, allowing the nuclear icebreakers to rest in dock, and the port of Russia's easternmost major city is already busy, looking at once godforsaken (the lack of vegetation creates a lot of dust) and pleasantly busy (there are cranes, of every sort, everywhere).
The bay that the city commands has been called the Golden Horn since the 1860s, but a faint geographical resemblance aside, it is hard to defend the comparison. While Istanbul was a fulcrum between east and west, this city's name betrays which way it leans: Vostok is Russian for 'east.' From here it's cheaper to fly to Japan than to major cities in Siberia. Residents have just one hour of their workday to do business with Moscow, due to the seven-hour time difference. Korean-branded buses ply the streets, and the best hotel in town is called the Hyundai.
Yet this easternness is fashionable in Putin's Russia, as the country seeks greater co-operation with China. Next year, Vladivostok will host the annual Apec summit, with leaders from all the major Asian-Pacific countries coming together for discussions on trade and economic co-operation. Moscow has flooded the region with money in preparation, creating a state-led infrastructure boom matched only by Russia's hosting of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Most visible is a billion-dollar bridge over to the nearly empty 'Russian Island,' where the summit will be held; the piers of the bridge dominate the skyline, along with those of a second crossing, nearly as grandiose, across the Horn itself. The city's airport is due to be spruced up, the crewing agencies and old trading houses on the waterfront are getting their facades cleaned, and the undrinkable tap water will receive better filtration. Twenty thousand mostly Chinese and central Asian workers are in town to effect this transformation.
While the state has given, it has also taken away. In one respect the city was already serving as an excellent conduit between Russia and the far east, through its role in the used-car trade. The nearby Japanese lacked a taste for second-hand motors, while Russia lacked good domestic brands and had the money to import Japan’s old stock (pre-financial crisis, Russia was the one of the fastest-growing car markets in the world). Vladivostok's moment seemed to have arrived. In a city where many of the streets still lack functional pavements, Nissan Skylines were in hot demand. Then the government, in a sop to domestic carmakers, put a tariff on the trade. The citizens of Vladivostok took to the streets; they were ignored, and the trade withered.
The used-car trade has not always been held up as a model for ethical business, and boom-era Vladivstok became the first major city in Russia to elect an ex-convict mayor, prompting the legendary headline "'Winnie the Pooh' elected mayor of Vladivostok after rival 'trips' on grenade." However, the courts caught up with him, and in 2008 he was replaced by a more respectable figure, drawn from Putin's United Russia party. At night now, the regional government building is the most brightly floodlit in the city, topped by a Russian flag as big as a tennis court: so big that it seems to flutter in slow motion. Its clear message is that wide-boy politics have given way to centralising technocracy at last.
However, even if the days of the 'wild east' are passing, the centralisers seem unlikely to achieve their goal. This city has always been a little too far from Moscow to be absorbed into the government's orbit. Used Japanese cars have given way to new Japanese cars, as Mazda and other firms look to build local factories in the Russian far east. With the Pacific Rim regaining its status as the economic centre of the Earth, the logic of listening to Moscow is unlikely to grow stronger for Vladivostok, however many bridges the Kremlin builds.
