Vladivostok might be better known as the far eastern military outpost and port of Russia, but when I visited I was particularly taken by the public artworks scattered around the city. From war-inspired murals at the harbour, to metal Soviet-inspired sculptures on downtown buildings and mosaic art on the ceilling of the Vladivostok train station, there is art hidden across this otherwise grey city for you to discover.

Before I landed there on a Vladivostok Air flight from Osaka, I didn’t really know what to expect from Vladivostok. It was completely closed to foreigners – and even most Russians – until 1991, so the normal understanding of what a city looked and felt like was definitely missing. I stayed with a widow in a crumbling apartment block up the hill from downtown Vladivostok and was amazed that she’d even had trouble getting permission to visit her sister, living just a couple of hundred kilometers away, during the 1980s.

I spent a full day wandering through grey Vladivostok – grey because of the weather, and grey because most of the buildings were, twelve years after being opened to international visitors, still in a state of disrepair. But amidst all this, the public art you can see in these photographs added a real flair to my Vladivostok experience.

It was no surprise to me to find that the harbour was an important part of Vladivostok, and touring the submarine they have set up as a museum was an interesting experience. Nearby, the proud soldiers commemorating World War Two were immortalised in the bold mural. I was lucky enough to come across modern-day soldiers rehearsing for a march there at the same time. And the maritime motive was repeated in many sculptures I found across the city.

The mosaic ceiling in the Vladivostok train station was even listed in my guide book as worth seeing, so I made sure I got there during daylight hours to check it out. It showed all kinds of aspects of Russian life and had been refurbished recently. The Vladivostok train station, being the beginning of the famous Trans Siberian train line, also featured displays about the first trains to traverse Russia. Even the very first locomotive that started out the week-long trip to Moscow is on display between the tracks, black and red and bold just like it appeared on the front of my guide book. Without these quirks, Vladivostok might have faded further into my memory, but it’s really a fascinating city that’s worth a visit.