Ilyinskoye (, until 1946 Kusunai or is a rural locality ( selo) in

Tomarinsky District Tomarinsky District () is an administrative district (raion) of Sakhalin Oblast, Russia; one of the seventeen in the oblast.Law #25-ZO Municipally, it is incorporated as Tomarinsky Urban Okrug.Law #524 It is located in the southwest of the Islan ...

Sakhalin Oblast Sakhalin Oblast ( rus, Сахали́нская о́бласть, r=Sakhalinskaya oblastʹ, p=səxɐˈlʲinskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast) comprising the island of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in the Russian ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. A settlement on the western coast of

Sakhalin Island Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, p=səxɐˈlʲin) is an island in Northeast Asia. Its north coast lies off the southeastern coast of Khabarovsk Krai in Russia, while its southern tip lies north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. An islan ...

, by the mouth of the Kusunai River was founded in 1853 by Dmitry Orlov, however, it was later abandoned when all Russian settlements were removed from the island due to the

Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...

. A successor settlement, known as Ilyinsky Post or Kusunai Post, was founded at the same location by

Nikolay Rudanovsky Nikolay Vasilyevich Rudanovsky (, 1819 — 1882) was a Russian marine officer and explorer, notable for leading several expeditions in 1853–54 to survey and to map the southern part of Sakhalin. In particular, he became the first cartographer wh ...

on 20 August 1857. In the 1860s this was one of the two settlements on Sakhalin, along with Due, which had a permanent Russian population. In 1906, after the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the ...

, following the

Treaty of Portsmouth The Treaty of Portsmouth is a treaty that formally ended the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War. It was signed on September 5, 1905, after negotiations from August 6 to 30, at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, United States. U.S. P ...

, the Southern Sakhalin was transferred to Japan. Ilyinskoye was renamed Kusunai and became part of

Karafuto Prefecture , was established by the Empire of Japan in 1907 to govern the southern part of Sakhalin. This territory became part of the Empire of Japan in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War, when the portion of Sakhalin south of 50°N was ceded by the R ...

. In 1945, following World War II, it was reoccupied by the Soviet Union. Administratively, on 2 February 1946 South Sakhalin Oblast was created, which was part of

Khabarovsk Krai Khabarovsk Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krai) of Russia. It is located in the Russian Far East and is administratively part of the Far Eastern Federal District. The administrative centre of the krai is the types of ...

. Kusunai was renamed Ilyinsky, made an

urban-type settlement Urban-type settlement, abbreviated: ; , abbreviated: ; ; ; ; . is an official designation for lesser urbanized settlements, used in several Central and Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern European countries. The term was primarily used in the So ...

, and included into

. On 2 January 1947 South Sakhalin Oblast was abolished and merged into Sakhalin Oblast. On 1 January 2005, the urban-type settlement of Ilyinsky was downgraded to selo and renamed Ilyinskoye. On 25 November 2019, a large power station was opened in Ilyinskoye.

References

{{Authority control Rural localities in Sakhalin Oblast