Century-old former Russian Consulate in Hokkaido reborn as hotel
KYODO NEWS - 13 minutes 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
Asahi Shimbun
an hour ago
- Asahi Shimbun
FTC curbs Harley-Davidson Japan's coercive dealer policy
The Fair Trade Commission will issue a cease-and-desist order to and fine U.S. motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson's Japanese subsidiary about 200 million yen ($1.4 million) for setting excessive sales quotas on dealers, sources said. The FTC recognized that the company had violated the Anti-Monopoly Law by mandating the unfair sales quotas, which forced dealers to buy motorcycles with their own funds to retain contract dealerships. Harley-Davidson Japan KK is headquartered in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward. According to sources, since at least January 2023, the company has imposed strict sales quotas on dozens of dealers under contract without sufficient prior discussions or negotiations. The company allegedly implied that failure to meet the quotas would result in the non-renewal of contracts. Dealers, placed in a weak position, were effectively forced to purchase the motorcycles themselves. They temporarily registered the bikes under the names of the dealer, its president, or staff, and counted these as sales. After the dealers purchased the vehicles, the vehicles were considered 'registered but unused.' The dealers often had no choice but to sell them at discounted prices. 2 BMW EXECUTIVES JOINED HARLEY A similar case occurred at the Japanese subsidiary of German automaker BMW, which was punished by the FTC in 2021 for imposing excessive quotas on dealers between 2015 and 2019. According to sources, individuals involved with BMW at that time were later appointed as president and executive at Harley-Davidson Japan in 2020. It is believed that the practice of forcing dealers to buy vehicles out-of-pocket began at Harley under their leadership. The two top officials reportedly resigned after the FTC's on-site inspection in July 2024. According to Tokyo Shoko Research Ltd., Harley-Davidson Japan's sales for the fiscal year ending December 2023 rose by 24 percent year-over-year to 28 billion yen. However, sales for the year ending December 2024 declined by 21 percent to 22 billion yen. Data from the Japan Automobile Importers Association shows that Harley held the top share of newly registered imported small motorcycles in the last fiscal year, with 30.6 percent, representing 8,000 units.
Asahi Shimbun
an hour ago
- Asahi Shimbun
China resumes Japan seafood imports, but not from Fukushima
Visitors check products sold at the Lalamew seafood market near the Onahama fish port in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, on Oct. 19, 2023. (AP file photo) BEIJING—China partially lifted its nearly two-year ban on Japanese seafood imports over radiation fears but maintained the restriction for marine products from 10 prefectures, including Fukushima, Chinese customs officials said June 29. Japanese exporters can now send seafood from outside those prefectures to China after completing registration procedures and providing certification confirming both radiation safety and product origin, they said. However, China will continue to reject marine products from 10 prefectures: Fukushima, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano, Saitama, Tokyo and Chiba. China immediately imposed its blanket ban on all Japanese seafood after the Japanese government began releasing treated radioactive water from the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant into the ocean in August 2023. The plant site was quickly running out of space to store and treat the contaminated water that has accumulated since the 2011 triple meltdown there. The discharged water was filtered and diluted to remove most radioactive substances. A report from the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed the water-treatment and discharge project met global safety standards. China, however, rejected the findings. Beijing's ban had a serious economic impact on Japan's fisheries industry. Before the ban, China was Japan's largest seafood export market. In talks between officials from the two countries in September last year, China agreed to ease the restrictions. The two sides discussed the necessary procedural details in May.
SoraNews24
2 hours ago
- SoraNews24
App that lets you hunt down discounted food about to expire available at the Expo too
Good way to get the best deals in town, just not the freshest deals. Japanese supermarkets usually have a section filled with bentos and other freshly cooked foods like pizzas, croquettes, and spring rolls. But foods like these are only sellable for a limited time and when that clock starts to run down, the supermarkets often start slashing prices to cut their losses. Some regular shoppers get wise to this schedule and deliberately hang around until the stickers come out before buying something. But in our increasingly online society, there really ought to be a better way to handle this situation and a service called Tabesuke might just be it. This app lists shops in your area where certain items might be nearing the time they become unsellable but still edible. You can find stuff either by searching or just perusing a map of your surrounding area. The pins are color-coded and red pins mean those stores have something to unload cheaply before it's too late. ▼ 80 yen for some anpan? Hell yeah! You can then click on whatever item you want to put a hold on and set a time when you'll come to buy it. It's a win-win for both parties as the customer gets some great deals and shops can reduce wasted inventory. It's also a great way for small businesses to promote themselves and the whole world benefits too with an overall reduction in food waste. However, Tabesuke is managed by local governments and only a handful across Japan have signed up for it to date, so it'll require a little luck for your area to have Tabesuke coverage. For example, in Osaka where I am, there's unfortunately no data at all, but one big exception for the time being is the 2025 Osaka-Kansai World Expo. A separate program called Banpaku Tabesuke is being held exclusively in the venue of the Expo where guests can get some really sweet deals on the perishable food merch there. ▼ 30 percent off snake-shaped cakes at the time of this writing It's been very successful too, with over 11,000 registered users in the first month and a half, and over 80 percent of the 875 listed products finding homes without having to be discarded. Banpaku Tabesuke will be available for the entire run of the Expo. Although recent efforts have been effective at reducing food waste in Japan, current estimates are still well over four million tons per year. If Tabesuke could bring that 80-percent magic to the rest of the country, it could lead to a remarkable improvement in Japan's food self-sufficiency. By the way, the makers of Tabesuke, G-Place, came up with some other handy apps for daily life in Japan. Gomisuke is a neat browser-based app where you can learn all about your area's garbage collection rules. It's supported by 150 local governments and also multilingual. They even designed an evacuation system that lets governments give real-time disaster shelter information such as location and occupancy so people know the best place to go. It's some of the best stuff to hit the Internet since that map that shows you where all the Dr. Pepper in Japan is sold. Source: Tabesuke, Banpaku Tabesuke, Gomisuke, PR Times Featured image: PR Times Insert images: ©SoraNews24 ● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
