These days, Korean culture suffuses Sakhalin, a region of about 500,000. The Presbyterian Church is run by a South Korean pastor and feels like the only place in Russia — a nation of Covid skeptics — where everyone wears masks indoors. The public arts school has a Korean department where some of the performances are based on North Korean songbooks, but with altered lyrics. “We can choose what we take from North Korea and what we take from South Korea, and create something new.”But now the drama of families separated by emigration and repatriation has returned, magnified by coronavirus border closures. The new law allows younger Sakhalin Koreans to move to South Korea if they are caring for a first-generation returnee.

Source: New York Times November 07, 2021 22:25 UTC