1,800 Volunteers Pull Hirosaki Castle Keep More Than Two Metres by Hand

A 360-tonne castle keep in Japan has been moved more than two metres by hand, with about 1,800 people taking turns pulling on ropes attached to the structure’s platform. The effort took place over the weekend at Hirosaki Castle in Aomori prefecture. Rotating groups of 80 participants hauled on 30-metre ropes while the keep, positioned on rails, gradually shifted toward its original location. It moved 1.13 metres on Saturday and a further 1.09 metres on Sunday, according to The Guardian. The move is part of repairs to a castle wall damaged in a major earthquake. Rather than dismantling the keep, officials used hikiya, a traditional Japanese building-relocation method in which a structure is moved on rollers. The keep is a nationally designated important cultural property. The wall repairs were completed in December 2024, after all 2,185 stones had been placed back in their original positions. Officials then invited members of the public to help return the keep. About 4,100 people are scheduled to move it manually by a total of five metres through the end of August. Machinery will handle the remaining approximately 73 metres by the end of the year. Kensuke Hayasaka, head of Hirosaki City’s parks and green spaces division, told The Guardian that the event attracted about 8,000 applications for 1,800 places. Applications came not only from the local area but also from other parts of Japan and from overseas. One participant, 61-year-old Motoharu Nakata, travelled from Hiroshima and had also helped pull the keep 11 years earlier. He described the opportunity as unique and said taking part again was deeply moving, according to the Sankei Shimbun. Hirosaki’s keep is one of only 12 such structures remaining in Japan and the only one in the northeastern Tohoku region. The castle was completed in 1611, while its current keep was rebuilt in 1810 after the original burned following a lightning strike that ignited a gunpowder store. The keep will remain inaccessible to tourists during the preservation work and is expected to reopen in 2033.