page_title: Free port of Vladivostok
section_title: From 1861 to 1909
hierarchical_section_title: Free port of Vladivostok / From 1861 to 1909
caption_attribution_description: Русский: jписание в источнике: «Таким предстал Владивосток перед В.К. Арсеньевым в начале XX века».
context_page_description: The Free port of Vladivostok is a free port, which means a port zone under a special custom and taxation system, with a particular jurisdiction regarding investments. This status has been granted to Vladivostok from 1861 to 1909, and since October 12, 2015.
context_section_description: Initially, the regime of free port in Vladivostok has been applied under the Russian Empire from 1861 to 1909. This special status efficiently contributed to the economical development of Vladivostok, which became one of the biggest ports in the world, commensurable to Hamburg or London.
  In 1860, in order to develop the Far East, the Russian Government decided to assign the free port status to all the ports of Primoye. In 1900, Sergei Witte, at this time Minister of Finances, canceled the free port regime in Vladivostok, because he thought that it affected the development of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which was designed to unify the Empire. Moreover, even if it had allowed supplying first need products to the settlers in such a remote area as the Russian Far East, the free port regime had a considerable drawback: the supremacy of foreign products over national products in the whole country.
  However, facing hard commercial competition with Dalian, which had also been a free port since 1899, Vladivostok got back its status of free port in 1904; it corresponds to the loss of Port Arthur - also a free port - during the Russo-Japanese War. The peace conditions offered by Russia to Japan in 1905 included maintaining the status of free port in Vladivostok.
  The need to reduce Japanese influence in the Far East has been the reason invoked by newspapers to push up for the abolition of the free port status in Vladivostok in 1909. Actually, the abolition of the status was already discussed in 1906.
  Vladivostok's authorities called many times for the restoration of the free port status, without success.
caption: Port of Vladivostok in the beginning of the 20th century.
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