On the 16th February, 2013, an Open Seminar on “Nature and People in Kamchatka and the Northern Kurils” was held at the Hokkaido University Museum. The talk was given by Viktor Okrugin, a mineralogist from the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Far Eastern Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who has studied Kamchatka and the Northern Kurils over many years. He began his talk by outlining the geology of Kamchatka before explaining volcanic activity and the development of mines on the peninsula, which when viewed from Sapporo is equidistant with Kyushu. Illustrating his talk with many photos, we were also given a taste of the nature and fauna of the region, which moved on to discuss the Kuril Islands in the same light. Finally, through recounting how the pressure gauge at the geothermal plant in Kamchatka plummeted on March 11, 2011, the day of the Tohoku Earthquake, he closed the session by emphasizing how Japan and Kamchatka are connected by tectonics. The interest in ‘near yet distant’ Kamchatka was shown by the packed room, with every seat taken by about a hundred attendees.