By the mid-1950s, some 40,000 ethnic Koreans lived on the island of Sakhalin – then a newly acquired part of the Soviet Union (the southern part of the island was transferred from Japan in 1945). Most of them, being natives of what had become South Korea, dreamt about returning to their native land where many of them had families. However, because of the Cold War this was impossible, so they had no choice but to adjust to the realities of their new lives.

In the 1950s, the Sakhalin Koreans were overwhelmingly stateless people and, as a result, they faced a