Japan’s Russian Village Theme Park sprawls empty and forlorn atop a small hill set back from the main road, shrouded by a thick raft of cedar trees that hide its embarassing failed extravangance from the world. Built 2002 and abandoned after just 6 months, the endeavour was ill-fated from the start: a theme park in the middle of nowhere with no rides.
Russian church in Japanese mountains.
Now its giant fake mammoths rest unseen in their dark and musty show hall, the vibrant blue onion-domes of its vaulting ‘Russian’ church slowly tarnish to white, and the shops once filled with Matroska dolls and Russian jewellry lie in vandalized ruin.
Fake mammoth bones in the park’s central attraction.
I went to this haikyo with 3 friends- Mike, Jason, and Scott, the largest group I’ve been with yet. We rented an X-trail and set off from Tokyo around mid-day, hoping vaguely we might make it to the Russian Village before nightfall. We came close, but as the twisting roads of our ‘short-cut’ round Niigata city sucked the light out of the sky, and the actual Village proved to be located one large block over from where our map had instructed us to look- we ended up entering in darkness.
Various biblical scenes in technicolor glory adorn the church’s gables.
The baby Jesus holds court in a pocket of Mary’s gown, rather like a baby kangaroo.
It was my third night haikyo, second for camping, but the first for the rest of the guys (though Mike did a non-camp night haikyo before). Entering in a boisterous group though is very different from entering solo- but still, some of the emptiness of the place sank into us- such that later on when cooped up in a pristine hotel room, no-one dared to step out of the door into the empty corridor outside.
Entering by night and camping over is by far the best way to experience a haikyo. Haikyo at night and by day are two different places- one of them filled with mystery and intrigue, rippling shadows, noises in the dark- you miss all the detail and nuance, but catch the grand strokes, and the place at its emptiest and bleakest. By day it’s a cheerier affair, noisier, you can clearly see all the doors and the details you missed before. It’s time for video and photos- most of the exploring is already done.
The Russian Village has two main areas, one around the grand onion-domed church at the top by the entrance, and the other at the bottom, connected by a long covered walkway, the courtyard of shops and restaurants ringed by several cultural attractions and animal pens, including the show hall of the fake mammoths.
Mapboard, peeling.
We started with the church interior- stumbling upon a huge harp box but no harp, a working accordion which Mike wheezed some notes out of, numerous bibles written in both Japanese and Russian, and a giant fake pipe organ. The walls were covered with religious artwork, lots of angels brandishing swords, men halo-ed by light, and Jesus himself set into a light parabola on the ceiling, plus a few stained glass windows with angels looking down on the pews benignly.
Crosses and ties like rigging on a ship.
Splattered with fallen plaster, faux-grandiose walk down the aisle.
Pony-tailed Jesus watching down.
Jesus in the sky-hole.
Feeding fishes to the 5,000.
After that we meandered into the very large hotel complex, following in the footsteps of vandals who’d torn down the chandelier, trashed the gift shop, and gone to a lot of work to break into the various rooms- not always successfully. Most of the rooms were in good condition despite this- except for the penthouse, which had been thoroughly torn up.
Somebody smashed the heck out of this lock. And still failed to open the door.
Next we took the long and spider-infested walkway to the shop square. There we found lots of splintered Matroska dolls in various crafts shops, a working piano which I played the eerie Terminator theme music on in a ghoulash restaurant, a micro-brewery emptied of all vats and tubes, and a shop that once sold diamond rings- I suppose for use in the functioning church.
Overgrown car park.
Model castle in a broken shopfront selling candy-canes and Matroska dolls.
Around that time it started to rain, and we all took up various rain-proofing paraphernalia- I used a box, others used Russian Village branded plastic bags. We studied the map- searching for the mammoth show-room. We had to rustle through chest-high weeds to find it, but once in it was really quite impressive, a high-ceilinged black-painted room with two giant mammoths, in front only a skeleton, in back a life-like rendering with matted brown hair. Of course the bones were fake, but the overall effect was impressive.
Toy mammoth on wheels. Of course I rode it, see in the video.
After the mammoth we were finished, and headed back to the hotel to pick a room to stay overnight in. There was a lot of debate about the cleanliness of the beds, and some talk even of putting up tents inside to avoid breathing the dust- but in the end we all bedded down on the hotels mattresses and sheets anyway. I had a wonderful sleep, unlike some of the others who barely slept- perhaps the atmosphere was a little too oppressive to sleep easily.
Executive suite. We didn’t sleep in here.
Bed-legs smashed into the wall like darts.
The next day dawned grey and dreary, with a fine drizzle of rain. We mostly split up and went our separate ways, documenting the place in our own style. I spent a lot of time around the church- I definitely admire it’s architecture, the sham art, the multiple cupolas. Scott called it ‘the Tetris building’ after a similar building in the game.
After that I tried my hand at interacting constructively with the ruins, for example by heaping chairs in the function room, gathering trash cans in an odd place, righting a giant owl on a perch, riding a toy mammoth, and setting up still-life mannequins in various poses round the lower half of the park.
Stacking chairs for kicks.
Mannequins strolled around the park like zombies.
Posing with the other grand old men of the park.
Gossiping in the walkway.
Arranged trash cans. I wanted to make a Stonehenge arch, but the darn things were too heavy to lift. See that failure in the video.
After I shot the mammoth for the second time, I was about haikyo-ed out. Haikyo fatigue has set in before- when exploring the Nichitsu Mining Town in Saitama. We were just going in and out of many apartments in a long row- with no joy of discovery anymore, mechanically looking in them all as if it were a repetitive job. When you get to that stage and the fun has drained away, it’s time to leave- and we did, with the added excitement of Mike seeing some kind of worker stalking the ruins with a measuring tape. We high-tailed it out of there and hit the road.
We had hoped to make it to another haikyo in Tochigi before the day was out, but it was already 2pm, we were hungry, and it seemed like wishful thinking to hope to arrive at a new place at least 100km away with enough daylight left to do it justice. So we called it a day, and headed back to Tokyo.
UPDATE
4 years later, in 2012, I revisited the Russian Village, to see how it had fared in that time. There had been a lot of damage. If you’re interested in how the Village changed, see that post here.
You can also see more haikyo here.
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Comments 30
So now I know what you were doing all that time in the afternoon. Playing with the mannequins and trash cans and riding the mammoth.
Thanks for plotting the course out to this haikyo.
Awesome write up Mikey. You had a lot of great shots and footage. I’m surprised you got it up so quickly!
Definitely – thanks for organizing the trip.
Wow,
The video was really impressive. Your take is totally different from what I was thinking of doing, kind of happy go lucky while I was thinking it should be eerie and depressing. Anyway nice job. I missed a lot of stuff! All that chair stacking in fast forward was cool. No idea what you were doing with the trash cans though.
Pics looked good too, very clear and colourful shots of the church.
Yeah, like Scott said, very fast upload! Probably won’t get mine up until next week, have something else I want to post first.
Crazy that the place is only about six years old. It gets run down quickly without up keep.
Where is the Haikyo you mentioned in Tochigi? I would like to visit any if there are some in Northern Tochigi near Otawara when I visit there.
Author
Jason- No worries on trip planning, would’ve been good if we could’ve fit in the Tochigi haikyo too, but I think we ended up doing plenty.
Scott- Thanks bud, wanted to get it up before I go to the USA, which is in a few hours now!
the Can- I’m glad you liked the video Mike, I want to do more of this kind of thing, sort of temporary art installation type stuff, creative non-destructive interaction, etc.. About spooky and depressing style videos, I think I already made enough of those for the time being, plus I just didn’t get the spooky vibe from that place- probably due to going in a large group. Looking forward to your post and pics.
Tornadoes- I know, it gets run down fast, though this place still has about 10 years to go to catch up with the extreme growth of a place like Sports World. Now it’s mostly just weeds in the pathways- not many vines growing up and over buildings. It’ll happen though- if they don’t demolish it first. The Tochigi haikyo- I can send you a map some time, though not right now as am going to the USA in a few hours.
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Ohhh.. how eerie! I would have loved to have been there.
Author
Melanie- Eerie, exactly, though would’ve been more so had I gone solo. Probably too eerie in that case actually.
I live in russian villadge in 1996
It was a super plase and we live there for 1 year
all people from japan came to our perfomens
Look on our website slavjnski-hod.narod.ru
We were in Russian village in 1996. It was an excellent place. Daily hundreds tourists came there. About beauty of these places wrote newspapers and shot films it is very a pity that all has come to desolation. Look us on our site
http://slavjnski-hod.narod.ru
Nice report, sadly, some turds burnt most of the place down recently.
Hi,
Is the park burnt down completely? I heard it was just the hotel that was affected? Are there any recent photos…
Author
Daniil- Wow, that`s awesome you found my site. I looked at yours, fascinating. I loved exploring the place, and feel sad that it failed. I guess it was just too ambitious. If you have any photos of the place from that time, I`d love to see them. Thanks for getting in touch!
Vic & Ik- Hmm, seems you both know more than me. Anyone have any info on this?
I found this post fascinating, I think I like Haikyo now 🙂
This is incredible! I am really interested in visiting this haikyo, buy I’m not quite sure how I can get there. :/ Maybe I’ll make it out during my fall vacation.
Author
GumCloud- Excellent, I’m glad to hear it 🙂
Angel- It is a great haikyo, though important to note the big church may (or may not) have been burned down. I’ve heard reports that indicate it was (in the comments above), but no confirmation. Good luck with it either way.
Privet! I did design their first website as well as a TV commercial. It’s all got to do with the corporate corruption of the local bank who was running the place. They just ran out of business. I have been away from Niigata for about 10 years and now I’m back here.
Hi Tom,
How can I get in touch with you, I’d love to ask you a few questions about the website&TV commercial.
I went there a few days ago, and it’s been re-opened as “Suntopia World” :
http://www.suntopi.com/
No, Suntopia World has been there way before Russian Village was open. It was used to be called Yasuda Island, an amusement park.
Hello. I love looking at this post and the photos of this theme park and am completely awed by it. I was wondering, is the park still around to this day, and if so, do you know its address? Thanks so much!
I visited this haikyo with some friends about a month or so ago, and indeed the hotel had been well charred, leaving all the rooms looking like something right out of a horror film. Needless to say, this led us to abandon our plans to follow your lead and stay in a hotel room. Only one of the big suites remains “intact,” which is to say torn apart but untouched by fire. The mannequins were MIA, as were most of the tables in that room with the model houses seen in your video above. The toy mammoth was either somewhere we didn’t look, or someone rode it off into the Niigata sunset. I do believe I saw the fruits of your chair-stacking labor, though now it just looks more like a tangled heap of chairs out of some survival horror game, deliberately placed to give you the heebie-jeebies. The church, while strewn with debris, is still standing. I didn’t notice the harp case or the accordion, but there was a pair of giant work pants slung over a moved pew, as though someone were drying them. All quite spooky stuff in the waning hours of a cloudy day.
You have my e-mail if you want some new pictures, though you’ll have to forgive my point-and-shoot camera and its inability to capture low-light spookiness…I had to use the flash in most instances just so I could bring home some shots with something in them, especially once the sun set behind the clouds.
Author
Hi JS- thanks for sharing your experience, and sure I’d like to see what photos you took- in particular the state of the burned rooms and any other changes since I was last there (the chairs!). If you’d have it I’d post them up here, maybe in the comments or perhaps in a separate post- of course all linked to wherever you wanted.
The toy mammoth has been moved indoors I think, not entirely sure where but I saw it in a recent set, perhaps Lee of Tokyo Times.
Oh, and that trashed executive suite was trashed when we were there too. Was a bed-leg still sticking out of the wall? It was when we went by. Very curious.
Anyways, very nice photos and Report !
I’ll go to the Russian village in snow time 🙂
Author
Thanks ikumi! I’m going to head back up to Niigata sometime soon too. North Korean school, if I can find it.
It is a very good plans.
Korean schools in Niigata? That information is new to me.
I look forward to your report 🙂
In your original article from 2008 it said the village was built in 2002, yet in this post it says the village has been abandoned for 20 years. Not meaning to be an annoying pedant as I love your work but I’m just a little confused. Or maybe I’m tired and I’ve missed something.
Wow,
I can’t believe that place is so new. It looks so run down when not kept up. It is so cool. What a shame…
Do you have some nice photographs of the Russian Orthodox Church that you might share with me>
william.wurthmann4@gmail.com