kuye

name

1. Synonym of Sakhalin: the Mandarin Chinese-derived name.

   “In December 1999, then--Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) and then-Russian president Boris Yeltsin signed a protocol in Beijing by which China ceded to Russia territories north of the Amur (Heilongjiang) River and south of the Stanovoy (or Outer Khingan) Range, lands east of the Ussuri River, the Tannu Urianhai region and Sakhalin (Kuye) Island.”

   “As for Heihe, it got rich a quarter-century ago, after capitalizing on Russia’s post-Soviet disarray to sell cheap goods to then-starving Russians. Its own history museum presents the Cossacks as “hairy barbarians” (Lao Maozi) and lists the towns of Russia’s Far East by their historical Chinese names: Blagoveshchensk is Hailanpao, Vladivostok is Haishenwai and Sakhalin is Kuye.”