Russia's oldest Chinatown

There are 80 of you in a 20-square-meter room. The air is thick with smoke, sweat, and that distinctive smell that comes from living alone in a place where many men live alone. Condensation drips from the ceiling. You wake up on the third tier of bunks and climb down a stepladder, careful not to step on anyone's head. There's no need to go outside—you can reach the gambling house via wooden walkways. There, mahjong tiles have been clanking since the morning, and your neighbor, who lost yesterday, sits with a bandaged hand—he lost his little finger. A typical morning in Millionka, Vladivostok's Chinatown, where from the 1870s to 1938, more than 50,000 Chinese lived on just a few streets. Most were undocumented immigrants. 1860, the founding of Vladivostok. Two Chinese fanzas in the port. The Russians needed a fortress on the Pacific Ocean, but there was no one to build it. Chinese from impoverished Shandong worked for peanuts. By 1910, there were already 50,000 of them—more than half the city. The authorities decided to relocate them to a separate quarter for control. The opposite happened—they created a state within a state, with its own laws. Fanzas made of wicker and clay clung to each other like cancerous tumors. Between them were brick houses where people slept in three tiers. Wooden galleries hung over the streets. You could traverse the entire quarter without ever setting foot on the ground. Beneath the quarter, there were labyrinths, too. And rumors still circulate of treasure hidden in the catacombs. There was no plan for this labyrinth. The police never went there—criminals would disappear in minutes, and the cops would simply get lost. Russian laws didn't apply here. Their own rules were in effect: a code of silence (nobody knew about the Honghuzi bases), debt bondage (they gambled on body parts for anything they could get their hands on, including body parts and even their lives), and the rule of Chinese elders. Almost all the inhabitants were men. The wealthy Chinese were confined to Harbin. Coolies, escaped convicts, and bandits settled in Millionka—anyone who needed to disappear. Trade turnover in 1915 was 920,000 gold rubles. Converted to our money, that's over 15 billion. Where did it come from? 38 smoking dens, underground casinos, brothels, and timber smuggling to Manchuria. Plus hundreds of legal shops and workshops. Paradox: on Chinese holidays, Vladivostok came to a standstill—there was no one to work. The city became hooked on the Chinese like opium. The authorities hated Millionka, but they couldn't destroy it. The end came in 1937-1938. The Soviet regime evicted everyone. Within a year, an entire city within a city disappeared. Today, it's a mix of trendy bars and ruins. In the 1970s and 1980s, walled-up rooms containing bones were found in the basements. Now it's safe during the day, and at night—well, in theory, too, but the atmosphere is unique. Turn off the touristy Fokina into any courtyard—there are the ghosts of the largest Chinatown in the Russian Empire.