On April 20, 1946, some 400 Japanese people escaped from Yuri Island off Nemuro, Hokkaido, in several vessels under cover of darkness.
     Their home village had been occupied by Soviet troops after Japan had surrendered in World War II some eight months earlier, and ''we were told by them we would be Soviet nationals and that our assets would be nationalized,'' Hirokazu Suzuki, 75, said. ''So, we secretly prepared to make our escape.''
     Yuri Island, one of the Habomai islets, is with three other islands -- Kunashiri, Etorofu and Shikotan -- the focus of an unresolved territorial row between Japan and Russia.
     The two countries are still disputing sovereignty of the four islands at a time when they mark the 50th anniversary of the resumption of diplomatic ties on Oct. 19, the day they signed the Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration in 1956.
     Under the declaration, they agreed that the Soviet Union would hand over the Habomais and Shikotan to Japan after they conclude a peace treaty to formally end hostilities, but bilateral talks stagnated during the Cold War, and the situation has not changed even after the detente.
     Japan is now calling for control of all four islands, referring to them as the Northern Territories while Russia calls them the southern Kurils.
     Of some 17,300 Japanese living on the four islands at the end of the war, about 8,000 are still alive and their average age reached 73.5 as of March 31 this year. With nearly half of them now living in Nemuro and the eastern side of Hokkaido, the city is called ''the starting point'' of the territorial row.
     ''I still dream about returning there to start a business, such as managing fishing boats or hotels,'' said Hiroshi Tokuno, 73, who was born on Shikotan and lived there for 13 years. ''I expect my descendents to be involved in my projects.''
     During the past half century, expectations of a settlement of the dispute have grown on several occasions in Japan, such as when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev became the first Soviet leader to visit Japan in 1991 and Japan and Russia agreed in 1997 to make efforts to sign a peace treaty by 2000.
     When he was Nemuro mayor from 1986 to 1998, Kaiji Oya stepped up his lobbying of the central government. Looking back now, Oya, 78, said, ''I felt I could see promising signs over the return of the islands at the time of Mr. Gorbachev's visit, and it was encouraging that the two governments set the deadline of 2000.''
     Since then, however, Tokyo and Moscow have failed to make a breakthrough, and in August this year a 35-year-old crewman on a Japanese crab-fishing boat died when a Russian patrol boat opened fire on it in waters off Nemuro.
     Haruki Wada, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo specializing in Soviet and Russian history, said the crewman was a victim of the government's 50-year failure to solve the territorial issue.
     Hirotoshi Kawada, 72, who left Taraku Island in the Habomai group shortly after the end of the war at the age of 11, said, ''The national movement to reclaim the four islands has died down due to the lack of sufficient policies by the two governments.''
     He has been actively involved in a ''Return the Islands'' campaign and his notebooks are filled with lecture dates for addressing the plea of former islanders.
     ''We were still in our 30s when we launched the campaign, and we used to talk about what we would do when we return to the islands,'' he said. ''We are old now, but I believe it is my duty to continue addressing the territorial issue.''
     Apart from government-level talks, civilian exchanges with the current Russian islanders have developed in Hokkaido since the start of a mutual visit program without visas in 1992, allowing some 13,000 people in total from both sides to participate in it.
     Many road signs in Nemuro are written in Japanese, English and Russian, there are several Russian language study groups in the city, and the municipal hospital has accepted 26 serious Russian patients, including children, from the islands during the past four years.
     Russian islanders too have also gradually begun to feel an affinity with Japan, with Fishuk Lyudmila, a 51-year-old obstetrician in Shikotan who took part in a one-month Japanese language study program in Sapporo in September, saying, ''Some 45 residents of Shikotan are now learning Japanese.''
     She started studying Japanese two years ago so she could talk with Japanese doctors, and said in Nemuro before returning home, ''I expect a school in Shikotan to soon make Japanese a regular subject.''
     Zykova Anastasiya, 13, from Kunashiri, stayed in Hokkaido on an exchange program recently. ''This is my second visit to Japan. I want to be an interpreter of Russian, Japanese and English.''
     Tokuno, who has visited Shikotan some 10 times and promoted exchanges, said, ''I could feel a common sentiment with Russian residents that the island is our home.''
     Some 16,800 Russians are estimated to live in Shikotan, Kunashiri and Etorofu. Only border guards are stationed in the Habomai islets.
     Given such circumstances, Suzuki from Yuri Island said, ''I hope my children and grandchildren will promote industries when the islands return to Japan, but I think we will be able to live with the Russian residents and work together after that.''
     ''We hope that Japanese and Russians will create the future of the islands together by overcoming difficulties,'' added Suzuki, who is also vice director general of the Union of Dwellers in Chishima and Habomai Islands.
     Meanwhile, the ethnic Ainu claim their rights as indigenous people in all of the Kuril islands, including the four disputed ones, and urge Tokyo and Moscow to allow them to join the territorial negotiations.
     ''It is unacceptable that the four islands are historically Japan's own territory,'' said Tokuhei Akibe, assistant executive director of the Ainu Association of Hokkaido.
     He said all place names in the Kurils are from the Ainu language, with Habomai meaning ''mother place,'' Shikotan ''land with big communities,'' Kunashiri ''island that looks black,'' and Etorofu ''island with many capes,'' clearly indicating their indigenousness.
     ''I myself was born in Urup Island, the fifth island from the Nemuro Peninsula, where not only Ainu but also Japanese lived,'' Akibe, 63, said. ''I do not understand why the Japanese government claims sovereignty only over the four islands.''
     The association, the largest Ainu group, has submitted written requests to the Russian Embassy in Tokyo when Russian leaders visit Japan, demanding Japan and Russia take the legal status of Ainu and their rights in the Kurils into consideration in the bilateral negotiations.
     On the future of the islands, professor emeritus Wada, who started his career as an expert in Russian history in the year when the joint declaration was signed, proposes introducing a ''loose border'' so Japanese and Russians can freely come and go and live together.
     ''It will be allowable to have dual nationality and designate both Japanese and Russian as official languages there. I believe we will be able to try various things there without adhering to a border,'' he said. ''Or we can entrust the Ainu to manage one of the islands, where they may be able to build their own museum to promote Ainu culture.''
==Kyodo