Hi there. I flew to Sakhalin in October - if you have any questions not addressed below, I'd be happy to answer them.

I flew from Kamchatka and departed to Khabarovsk, so from the U.S. I'm just on general knowledge. From the East Coast you're looking at a long flight either way. You could fly from ATL or JFK to SVO and then on to Sakhalin on Aeroflot, but you're looking at an 11 hour flight followed by a nine hour flight. It's actually probably easier to go East - a 13 hour flight to NRT or ICN and then a 2/3 hour flight to Sakhalin.

I've flown both Vladivostok Avia and SAT. As long as you don't mind flying Russian planes, they're fine. The SAT plane I flew was actually an old Russian prop plane with curtains on the windows. We flew pretty low and it was pretty cool for sight seeing.

Upon landing in Sakhalin you end up outside. Once your bags are ready for pick up, they unlock the door to the baggage area and let you in.

The process for departure is like no where else I've ever done it (and I've traveled a lot in Russia). Your flight gets called, you got through a door marked specifically for your flight, then through security. Once you're through security, you check in. Yes, you got through security with everything, then check in. You're then lead to a waiting area, when boarding is called, you go to a second waiting area to wait for the bus, then you're shipped out to the plane.

On the other hand, I know few other airports that have their own anthem:

http://www.airportus.ru/hymn.php

Sadly, it's only in Russian.

You should definitely visit the local history museum in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, which is located in the building the Japanese used for the local administration until they were kicked off the island in WWII:

http://wikitravel.org/en/Image:Yuzhno-sakhalinsk.jpg