(Source: http://baikal.shamora.info)

Tokarevsky lighthouse is one of the oldest lighthouses in the Far East, it still remains an important navigational structure and the most popular landmark of Vladivostok.

It is located on a man-made rocky spit extending from the Tokarevsky cape - the so-called Tokarevskaya “cat”. The ships go to the port of Vladivostok from the Amur Bay between the Tokarevsky bay and Bezymyanny Bay on the Helen’s Island, and the lighthouse was placed over a dangerous shallow bank. This kind of strand stretched parallel to the shore and drying at low tide is called a “cat”. It was raised above the water, covered with sand, and connected with the cape by a narrow island-dam 796 meters long.

As we already mentioned, Tokarevsky lighthouse is one of the oldest lighthouses in the Russia’s Far East. In 1876 a luminous sign was installed there, and a round stone white lighthouse tower 11.9 meters high on the octagonal foundation was erected there in 1910. It has been preserved intact until now. The lighthouse stands on a wide ground in the middle of the spit divided into two sections.

The first section, from the Tokarevsky cape to the lighthouse, hosts a power transmission line - its wires are stretched across the Eastern Bosporus Strait to the same kind of mast standing on the Bezymyanny Bay. You can reach the lighthouse riding by car along this stretch. The other part of the spit, going into the sea, is called “cat’s tail”. At low tide you can reach the end of the spit by dry land, whereas at high tide the water rises by 20 centimeters and floods the sand up to the ankles.

Looking at those “walking on the water” along this section of the spit, you get the impression that people are walking right on the waves. The walkers themselves also have strong impressions, as if they are walking over the sea abyss. The spit is considered a symbolic “beginning of the Pacific Ocean”, therefore, meeting the dawn at the lighthouse and nearby has particular importance: this is, probably, the earliest beginning of the day on the planet.