A cable car can take you up along the funicular rail constructed in 1962: it offers a breath-taking view of all of central Vladivostok.  The Funicular provides a shortcut from Pushkin Street up the precipitous slope of Orlinoye Gnezdo (Eagle’s Nest) Hill to its spectacular overlook.  The name was earned when the first settlers climbed to the top of the hill and there found an eagle’s nest with the eaglets still inside.

     On visiting Vladivostok, Norwegian arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930) wrote: “Seen from the harbor the town appears very picturesque, rising in terraces up the many heights.  One can scarcely conceive a more beautiful situation; it reminds one a good deal of Naples; of course, there is here no Vesuvius in the background, but to make up for it there is this beautiful harbor and all the islands outside.”

     The viewing point provides vistas across the waters to the hilly islands scattered over the Bay of Peter the Great that frames the whole scene.  Twenty-two islands dot the approaches to the city from the sea.   The largest and most impressive of these, Russian Island, is clearly visible from this site.  Legendary in ancient tales, Russian Island is indicated as the “Moonlight Fortress” on some 18th century East-Asian maps.  The legend tells that, inspecting Bokhai--the powerful sedentary state that flourished from approximately 700 to 900 AD on the territory of present-day Primorye--the emperor ordered the establishment of a fortress on the hilly island not far from the continental shore.   But this had to be approved by the gods, and to the despair of the participants in the venture, the gods did not respond.  Suddenly, when everything seemed lost, a thin moonbeam pierced through thick and ominous clouds and pointed to a bay, believed to be on Russian Island.  This legend explains the name of the Moonlight Fortress on what we today call Russian Island.

     Further out is Popov Island, in ancient times known as the Lonely Star Island and sometimes “Treasure Island.”   Two reasons may be given for this nickname: on the one hand, speaking figuratively, many rare species of trees and shrubs grow on Popov, and the island has recently been incorporated into the first marine preserve in the country.  On the other hand, speaking literally, the island used to serve as a hideout of khun-khuzy, the “red-bearded” Chinese pirates who robbed passing ships, threw the victims from high cliffs, and hid their treasures.  Rumors have it that the treasures are still there...  While most of the islands near Vladivostok are pragmatically named after the area’s first explorers, navigators, or their vessels--including Reinike, Rikord, Pakhtusov, Tsivolko, and Zheltukhin--almost all of them have an underlying legend.

     Being one of the largest in the Sea of Japan, the Bay of Peter the Great comprises six smaller bays: those of Posyet, Amur, Ussuri, Strelok, Vostok, and Nakhodka.  Two of these--the Amur and Ussuri Bays, with the Strait of the Eastern Bosphorus between them--wash the Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula from east and west.  It is on the tip of this peninsula that Vladivostok is located.

     Across the spectacular Bay of the Golden Horn with the Merchant Fleet on the right, the Dalzavod shipyard on the left, the base of the Pacific Navy in the middle, and the Fishery Port on the opposite side, there is the Goldobin Peninsula, locally known as the Churkin neighborhood.  This area was quite rural until recent decades, and there used to be a fashionable garden here, the Italia, which was one of the favorite recreational goals of the townspeople of pre-Revolutionary Vladivostok.  Now this is a booming residential district.