Century-old former Russian Consulate in Hokkaido reborn as hotel
KYODO NEWS - 14 hours ago - 09:29 | All, Japan
The former Russian Consulate in Hakodate, Hokkaido, built in 1908 by the Russian Empire and featured in the popular manga "Golden Kamuy," will reopen as a luxury hotel in July after remaining vacant for nearly 30 years.
The redbrick building, perched on a hill with sweeping views of Hakodate Port, has been reborn as Hotel Biaclyn Hakodate, a six-suite wellness retreat featuring a blend of Western architecture and Japanese design.
After serving as a consulate for 36 years, it was acquired by the city following World War II and is the only surviving building of its kind in Japan from the imperial Russia era. The building was used as a youth training facility until 1996 and then remained closed to the public.
In 2021, Nagoya-based automotive chemicals wholesaler Sovereign Corp. purchased the property and set the gears of restoration in motion, starting renovations around two years later.
The company's president, Hiromasa Murase, and his wife Shiho Tanimura both have a strong connection to Hakodate as they previously lived in the city. They also studied at Hokkaido University.
The project was overseen by Tanimura, an author who featured the former Russian Consulate in her novel "Kurokami" (Black Hair).
Opening on July 12, Hotel Biaclyn Hakodate will feature two suites in the consulate wing and four in a newly added wellness wing, all equipped with private saunas. A one-night stay with two meals costs 319,000 yen ($2,200) for two adults.
The main dining restaurant, which launched in May together with a sushi restaurant and bar, offers dishes paying homage to Hokkaido ingredients, as well as Russian piroshki pies served as an amuse-bouche.
Hotel manager Yuichi Haseyama, 56, said that in addition to the building exterior, elements like the original fittings of the bar and wooden wainscoting have also been preserved.
"We want to protect and nurture this historical building that is loved by the local community," said Haseyama. "I believe this (hotel) will become a new attraction for Hakodate tourism."
Related coverage:
FEATURE: A reopened nuke launch site in Okinawa reveals a dark legacy
FEATURE: Condemned manor house gets reprieve as important cultural property
Castle in west Japan with 400-year history opened for overnight stays
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Kyodo News
2 hours ago
- Kyodo News
All 4 pandas at west Japan zoo depart for China, 2 remain in country
KYODO NEWS - 20 hours ago - 18:15 | Japan, All, World All four giant pandas on loan at a western Japan zoo departed the country for China on Saturday, leaving just two of the animals in Japan. Rauhin, a 24-year-old female, and her offspring -- Yuihin, 8, Saihin, 6, and Fuhin, 4 -- were loaded onto a charter flight that took off from Kansai International Airport at around 3 p.m. They are headed to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in China's Sichuan Province. The lease agreement for the four was set to expire in August. Japan's two remaining giant pandas, Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao, are at Tokyo's Ueno Zoological Gardens and are due to return to China by next February. Some 300 people including zoo staff and director Koji Imazu saw the pandas off in the morning at Adventure World amusement park in Shirahama, Wakayama Prefecture, as they left on two trucks. Zookeeper Yuka Nakaya said the four were "healthy this morning, and preparations proceeded smoothly." On Friday ahead of their departure, some 1,400 visitors had queued at the park before it opened for their final public display, with about 3,000 people attending a farewell ceremony. "It is sad that they leave Japan all at once. I wish for them to stay healthy in China," said Chisato Noda from Nagoya. "I want to visit China to see them. Maybe I'll plan a trip," said Yumi Yokoyama from Ageo, Saitama Prefecture, near Tokyo. The pandas were last on display in outdoor enclosures in May. Over the past month, the public had been able to see them in isolated rooms where they were quarantined ahead of their travel. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said Friday that China and Japan have established "sound cooperation ties" through panda conservation and research. "We stand ready to continue enhancing exchanges and cooperation with Japan and other partners in the world to jointly contribute to the protection of the endangered species," he told a press conference in Beijing. The Wakayama Prefecture zoo began a joint breeding program with the Chinese panda research base in 1994. It has successfully raised 17 cubs, the most outside China. "The breeding project is finished for now, but we are willing to prepare to accept new pandas in future," zoo director Imazu said Friday. Related coverage: FOCUS: China's "panda diplomacy" in focus as zero moment may come in Japan All 4 giant pandas at western Japan zoo to return to China in June Giant panda Eimei dies in China after repatriation from Japan
%25E7%25B8%25AE%25E3%2582%2580%25E5%25BB%25BA%25E8%25A8%25AD%25E6%25A5%25AD-1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1260%26fit%3Dcover%26gravity%3Dfaces%26dpr%3D2%26quality%3Dmedium%26source%3Dnar-cms%26format%3Dauto%26height%3D630&w=3840&q=100)
Nikkei Asia
2 hours ago
- Nikkei Asia
Japan's construction bottleneck hits $100bn as labor crunch deepens
TOKYO -- Backlogs in factory and commercial building projects are piling up across Japan, with unfilled orders soaring to an all-time high of more than 15 trillion yen ($103 billion). The construction slowdown, fueled by a chronic labor shortage, has intensified since last year, when new overtime limits further strained the sector's already thin workforce. Long a pillar of domestic demand, the construction industry makes up about 5% of Japan's gross domestic product and roughly a third of total capital spending. Unless the sector accelerates its project delivery rate, private investment and public infrastructure spending could stall, threatening broader economic growth. One company facing project delays due to the labor crunch is Aeon Mall. The retail developer has postponed the planned opening of its shopping mall in Date, Fukushima prefecture, north of Tokyo, from the end of 2024 to the second half of 2026, citing an inability to secure enough workers to complete construction on schedule. "The challenge in the Tohoku region lies not only in the limited pool of construction workers, but also in their wide geographic dispersion," a company official said. Similar cases have cropped up across Japan. As of March, the backlog of orders at construction companies reached 15.3 trillion yen on a 12-month moving average basis, according to statistics from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. Driven in part by rising prices, this is the highest level since April 2011, when comparable industrywide data first became available. The volume of order backlogs surged in the early 1990s, before the prolonged period of economic stagnation that hit like a delayed hangover years after the collapse of Japan's bubble economy. Today's delays are largely driven by labor shortages rather than swelling demand. As of 2024, the construction sector employed 4.77 million workers, down 6% from a decade earlier, according to a survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Of those, 800,000 were aged 65 or older, accounting for nearly 20% of the workforce, up 5 percentage points over the same period. The growing societal emphasis on work-life balance has made it more difficult for the construction industry to secure labor. Regulations that took effect in April 2024 generally limit construction workers' overtime to 45 hours per month and 360 hours per year. As a result, the industry's average working hours per person fell 32.3 hours in 2024 compared to the previous year, far exceeding the all-industry average decline of 14.3 hours. Competition for workers is intensifying. In Hokkaido, where Japanese semiconductor manufacturer Rapidus is building a mass-production plant for advanced chips, the number of construction workers employed by contractors with a workforce of 10 or more reached about 130,000 in 2023, up 23% from the previous year. Monthly basic salaries in the region averaged around 326,000 yen, an increase of more than 30,000 yen, compared with a national average rise of about 14,000 yen. Construction companies are tightening their criteria for new projects, with greater scrutiny of profit margins. In 2024, the average unit price of construction starts for private-sector industrial buildings climbed 18% from the previous year, reaching about 300,000 yen per square meter. "We carefully evaluate projects based on their profit potential and expected completion timelines," a top executive at a major construction company said. Unable to secure sufficient labor or win projects with healthy profit margins, many smaller companies have been forced out of business. The construction bottleneck has also been exacerbated by an industry-specific factor: the sector's continued reliance on a labor-intensive structure. "Japan's construction industry has been slow to adopt IT, largely because the sector is dominated by smaller companies," said Takayuki Sueyoshi, senior economist at Daiwa Institute of Research in Tokyo. Japanese builders invest only about one-fifth as much per worker in labor-saving and efficiency-enhancing software as their British and French counterparts, according to an estimate by the institute. Given the construction sector's vital role in the Japanese economy, enhancing builders' capacity to manage workloads should be a top priority. If labor shortages continue, the industry will need to accelerate digitization and implement other productivity-enhancing measures.
Kyodo News
3 hours ago
- Kyodo News
Japan tariff negotiator in Washington holds talks twice with Lutnick
KYODO NEWS - 1 hour ago - 12:39 | All, Japan, World Japan's top tariff negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, spoke with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick by phone twice on Saturday, an official said, as they try to iron out some of the most difficult issues in pursuit of a deal that will be beneficial to both countries. Akazawa, who has extended his stay in Washington, spoke to Lutnick for about 15 minutes in the morning and about 20 minutes in the evening, the Japanese government said, adding Tokyo will continue to work "strenuously" with Washington toward an agreement. Akazawa's calls with Lutnick came a day after they held a meeting that lasted about an hour, with sharp differences apparently remaining over U.S. President Donald Trump's hefty tariffs on foreign-made cars and auto parts. In the ongoing negotiations, Japan has placed top priority on mitigating the impact of the Trump administration's increase in April of the tariff on imported automobiles to 27.5 percent from 2.5 percent. Trump and his trade team have shown no signs of scrapping or lowering such sector-based tariffs, including on steel and aluminum, that the president has imposed on national security grounds. Akazawa arrived in Washington on Thursday for his seventh round of ministerial meetings on tariffs with U.S. Cabinet members. Akazawa, Japan's minister for economic revitalization, was initially due to leave for Tokyo on Saturday, but he extended his visit to explore a separate meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The official said it remains unclear how long Akazawa will stay in the U.S. capital. Related coverage: Japan wrestling with U.S. tariff talks as July deadline looms Trump could extend 90-day tariff pause in July, White House says Japan reiterates that higher U.S. auto tariffs are unacceptable
