Iturup (Russian: Итуру́п and Oстров Итуру́п, Ostrov Iturup; Ainu: エツ゚ヲロプシㇼ, Etuworop-sir; Japanese: 択捉島, Etorofu-tō) is one of the Kuril Islands. It is the largest and northernmost island in the southern Kurils, which are controlled by Russia but also claimed by Japan (see Kuril Islands dispute). Japan considers a site on Iturup to be its northernmost point.
The island was Japanese territory until the end of the Second World War in 1945, when Soviet forces took possession of all the Kurils and forced out Japanese residents.
Iturup is located near the southern end of the Kuril chain, between Kunashiri (19 km to the SW) and Urup (37 km to the NE). The town of Kurilsk, administrative center of Kurilsky District, is located roughly midway along its western shore.
The strait between Iturup and Urup is known as the Vries Strait, after Dutch explorer Maarten Gerritsz Vries, the first recorded European to explore the area.
Iturup consists of volcanic massifs and mountain ridges. A series of a dozen volcanoes running NE to SW form the backbone of the island, the highest being Stokap (1,634 m) in the central part of Iturup. The shores of the island are high and abrupt. The vegetation mostly consists of spruce, larch, pine, fir, and mixed deciduous forests with alder, lianas and Kuril bamboo underbrush. The mountains are covered with birch and Siberian Dwarf Pine scrub, herbaceous flowers (including Fragaria iturupensis, the Iturup strawberry) or bare rocks.
What do you say to the child
Whose god is in the T.V.?
And what do you say to the man
Who blames the world on T.V.?
They don't even know how to sing my song
But they won't even try it
With me, with me, with me
Who is standing over playing like
The teacher
Harnessing the learned
Who try but can't leave her
I want to beg the liars to lay down
Their sirens
That play like the angels
To my deep desire
Free my son
Let him walk right through the rain
Free my son
Make him waterboy
Free my son
There he stands down on the shore
Free my son
What do you say to the man
Who treats her like a mother?
And what do you say to the man
Who treats him like a father?
"Come and see my heart. Come inside
And learn"?
Come and see my soul, it's like yours,
I say it's just like yours"?
Who is making over
Idolizing princes banishing the dreamers with
Barbed-wire fences
And telling all the children who run to
Her feet
That they have no vision
And love's all diseased