Putyatin Island is located in the northern part of Peter the Great Bay, opposite the village of Dunay, 50 km southeast of Vladivostok and 35 km west of Nakhodka. It is named in honor of the Russian admiral and statesman E.V. Putyatin. Administratively, Putyatin Island belongs to the city of Fokino. The island’s entire population is concentrated in a single village of the same name.

The island is separated from the mainland by the Strelok Strait, which is 1.5 to 4 km wide and 13 km long. The island is mountainous, with its highest point being the conical Mount Startseva.

In 1859, the island was discovered and charted by officers of the clipper expedition “Strelok” and named in honor of Vice-Admiral Putyatin.

Evfimy Vasilyevich Putyatin, a distinguished sailor and diplomat, was born in St. Petersburg on November 17, 1803, and was the twelfth generation of the Putyatin family. This family name has been known in Rus’ since the 15th century, when the clerk Sumorok Putyatin lived. His father served in the navy, and following family tradition, his son became a sailor.

From 1852 to 1855, Admiral Putyatin led a diplomatic mission to Japan on the ship “Pallada,” inviting the writer I.A. Goncharov. Travel essays about the voyage were compiled into a book entitled “The Frigate Pallada.”

During the survey of the eastern coast of Korea, Posyet Bay and the adjacent islands of Peter the Great Bay, Askold Island, and Putyatin Island were discovered and mapped.

The history of Putyatin Island is inextricably linked with the name of its pioneering entrepreneur, Alexei Dmitrievich Startsev.

This man’s name has forever entered the history of Primorye. Aleksey Startsev, a Commerce Councilor and First Guild merchant, was one of the wealthiest and most educated men in old Vladivostok. He was a sinologist, a major philanthropist, and a member of the Amur Region Study Society. He became famous for his tireless work to ensure the prosperity of the Russian land on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. A cape and a mountain on Putyatin Island are named after A.D. Startsev. His house remains on Svetlanskaya Street. His grandsons, Dmitry Alexandrovich and Alexander Alexandrovich, live in Vladivostok.

Botanist V.P. Vradiy wrote in the journal “Nature and People” for 1906: “Until the summer of 1891, the island was uninhabited.” In 1891, news circulated in Vladivostok that Selenga merchant Alexei Startsev had purchased Putyatin Island, located near Vladivostok, from the treasury.

The “Chronicle” section of the Vladivostok newspaper, No. 25, dated June 23, 1891, stated: “One of the major owners near Vladivostok is Mr. Startsev, who purchased 1,000 dessiatines (1,000 acres) on Putyatin Island from the treasury and leased the rest of the island for 99 years.”

During the nine years of his use of the island (1891-1900), A.D. Startsev erected numerous buildings, founded factories, plants, and various industries, and revived agriculture and horticulture.

The Startsev factories are a series of one-story stone buildings, spread parallel to the shore. The main source of income was a large brick factory, which mastered the production of red and granite bricks, as well as Marseille tiles. Almost all work there was mechanized: 10,000 bricks were produced per day, with hand presses producing up to 2,000 bricks per day. The factory’s output in 1897-1898 was 4.5 million bricks. The bricks were delivered to Vladivostok on special barges. Many brick buildings in Vladivostok were made from Startsev bricks, including the house on Svetlanskaya Street.

In 1895, using local kaolin, Startsev established the first and then only porcelain factory in the region, producing 12,000 pieces monthly. A pottery and terracotta department was opened at the porcelain factory, where large cups, barrels, and pedestals were crafted from black refractory clay. A life-size bust of Pushkin was sculpted in the sculpture department. The sculptures adorned the island and were displayed at the Khabarovsk exhibition in 1899. A tall, beautiful vase and a commemorative plate are in the collection of the V.K. Arsenyev Museum of Local History. The plate’s center features a relief image of Putyatin Island, and on the inner ring is an inscription in Slavic script: “A.D. Startsev’s estate ‘Rodnoe’ on Putyatin Island. Ussuri Region.”

Sericulture, beekeeping, and horse breeding were developing successfully. Startsev attempted to breed a special breed of horse by crossing Orlov trotters with Mongolian mares. This breed proved hardy and well-suited to the local region. The herd grew to 170 animals. The Mongolian mares sold well in Vladivostok at a low price. “The pig farm could be considered a model not only for the Ussuri region, but also for Western Europe,” noted V.P. Vradiy. The farm raised poultry: Chinese ducks, geese, chickens, and turkeys.

The land was sown with oats, wheat, and millet. Fruit trees were planted in two orchards: apple, pear, peach, walnut, mulberry, and chestnut trees. Vineyards, tobacco plantations, and ginseng were cultivated. 2,500 raspberry bushes were planted, and several hundred pounds of raspberries were harvested and sold in Vladivostok.

Transportation was handled by the steamship “Chaika,” the sailing schooner “Lebed,” and three cargo schooners.

Despite his advanced age, Startsev “personally oversaw all branches of industry.” People of various nationalities, approximately 700 hired workers, including former convicts and exiles, worked on his “Rodnoye” farm.

The porcelain factory, the only one in the region, produced outstanding products, including vases, fine tea sets, and tableware.

At the agricultural exhibition in Khabarovsk in 1889, the entrepreneur was awarded a gold medal for the success of his experimental farm and received the following awards: a silver medal “for a light gray stallion”; “extensive culture,” “fruit,” a bronze medal from the Imperial Free Economic Society for “cow butter” and “Yorkshire boar.”

Alexei Dmitrievich’s interests were unusually broad. The newspaper “Priamurskie Vedomosti” wrote: “Startsev spent colossal sums on the benefit of science. His collection of Buddhist religious objects, unique in the world in its completeness, was known to foreign scholars, and the Louvre Museum in Paris offered 3 million francs for it, but Startsev refused to sell his collection for any amount.”

Startsev’s library “contained extremely rare and ancient books on Oriental studies, both printed and manuscript, and was unrivaled in the world; the value of this library cannot be measured by any amount.”

The news of A.D. Startsev’s death came as a surprise to the public of the Amur region. He was known as an energetic, healthy, and active man. A.D. Startsev died on June 30, 1900.

Journalist V. Barayev established that the owner of Putyatin Island was the illegitimate son of Decembrist Nikolai Bestuzhev. The book “People and Fates” by the renowned Siberian explorer E. Petryaev also documents that the island’s first entrepreneur was the Decembrist’s son.

Alexei Dmitrievich Startsev is buried at the foot of a mountain marked on the map as Mount Startsev. The first brick monument was erected by Alexei Dmitrievich’s sons. In 1989, a monument by sculptor E.V. Barsegov was unveiled with the inscription: “Born of a Decembrist, he remained true to his ideals.” A cape and a mountain on Putyatin Island are named after A.D. Startsev. Startsev’s beautiful daughters were called the “Putyatin Amazons.” Startsev’s descendants—his grandson Alexander and great-grandson Alexei—presented their book about their famous great-grandfather at the Nakhodka library. Lyudmila Alekseyevna Basnina, a teacher of Russian language and literature and a resident of the village of Dunay, spent many years working in the archives of the Far East, collecting materials on the history of the exploration of the Askold and Putyatin Islands, the naval commander and admiral E. Putyatin, and Alexei Startsev, a prominent entrepreneur. Thus, the book “Primorye Flourished in Their Names: E.V. Putyatin and A.D. Startsev in the History of the Region” was born.