Glass Beach Vladivostok

The beach on Ussuri bay is a straightforward story about waste. A glass factory and municipal dumping put bottles, porcelain and glass onto this shore for decades in the Soviet period, and the sea has since done what the sea does - tumbling the fragments against sand and each other until the edges are gone and what is left is a shore of rounded pebbles in brown, green, white and blue, in places a metre deep, with fragments of patterned porcelain among them. It is genuinely striking and it is genuinely litter. Since the site became popular the glass has been visibly depleting, because visitors take it by the bagful and no new material is being added; local authorities have declared it protected and taking glass is now discouraged and at times prohibited, though enforcement is limited. Facilities and a fee arrived with the crowds. It is a good beach to look at and a poor one to swim from.

What you actually see

• The glass shore - rounded coloured pebbles in places a metre deep.
• The origin - decades of Soviet-era factory and municipal dumping on this bay.
• The porcelain - patterned fragments mixed through the glass.
• The depletion - a finite deposit visibly shrinking as visitors take it away.

When to go

June to September. Two to three hours. Low sun brings the colour out; wet glass looks better than dry.

Honest expectations

The glass is finite and disappearing - taking it is discouraged and at times banned, and it is the reason the beach is fading. Sharp fragments remain among the rounded ones; shoes matter. Water quality in the bay is not good. Busy at summer weekends.

Nearby

Vladivostok is west; the Russky island bridge and the coast run south.