Where is it? The Primorye Krai, or region, is located on the Pacific Ocean at Russia's far eastern edge.

What's the biggest city? Vladivostok, which is the home to Russia's Pacific Fleet and Russian's biggest Pacific Ocean port. Because of the naval operations, Stalin closed Vladivostok off from the world, and it remained so until 1991. Nakhodka (also written as Nahodka) is the second-largest city.

Who lives here? Mostly ethnic Russians. But there are Korean and Chinese populations, and plenty of migrants from areas that were once part of the Soviet Union like Kazakhstan and Georgia. About 2.2 million people live in all of Primorye now, but the population has fallen substantially since the early 1990s.

What do they do here? Shipping and ship repair, commercial fishing, mining and forestry. Vladivostok's importance as a trading hub with Japan, China and South Korea means there are now plenty of Western-style hotels.

Does it have any English-language news sources? Try Vladivostok News or Vladivostok Times

How do I see what it looks like? You can see pictures of Vladivostok on Fotki and Flickr.

How do I get here? By air--Moscow is more than 5,500 miles away by railroad, the famed Trans-Siberian Express. You can fly to Vlad's recently renovated airport from Moscow, but there are also flights from Seoul and Pusan in South Korea, as well as Beijing and Tokyo. There are flights and trains within the region, but most of the agencies that work here rely on cars and drivers.

Which adoption agencies work here? Children’s Hope International and The World Association of Children and Parents are in Vladivostok; WACAP is also in Nakhodka. Vladivostok is known for being adoption friendly; families are traveling to meet children and complete adoptions even now.

Which Russian adoption bloggers have been here? You can read about this region in "Our Journey of Love", and "Dimitry Alexander"; "Journey With The Williams Family" is hoping to go soon. There is also a Yahoo! group Vladadopt and a well-informed, non-adoptive blogger at Vladiblogstok. Forum member CathVash just returned from Nakhodka with her 18-month-old son and has lots of fresh details about the proccess there.

Truly trivia: Perhaps the most famous person to come out of Primorye was the movie actor Yul Brynner (the king in The King And I), who was born in Vladivostok in 1920. His mother was Russian, his father was Swiss and Mongolian. You can see the outside of his house when you tour the city, but it is not open for tourists.

Need more information? Try Way To Russia's Vladivostok guide or Kommersant's guide to Primorye, or the region's own Web site. Here's the current weather in Vladivostok.

Image Credit: A Good Friend