The Russian Empire constructed the prison in 1902, three years after leasing the Liaodong Peninsula from a weakened Qing government. The original facility was designed for a modest number of inmates, consistent with the garrison town that Port Arthur was at the time. When Japan took control of Lushunkou after the Russo-Japanese War, the prison took on new purpose and new scale. In 1907, Japan expanded the facility significantly, adding cell blocks, workshops, and an execution chamber. By 1939, the growing complex was simply called the Lushun Prison. The architecture tells the story of succession: Russian-era brick walls abut Japanese additions in a different construction style, two imperial aesthetics joined at the mortar line.

Between 1906 and 1936, more than 20,000 people were detained in the Lushun Prison. The inmates were overwhelmingly activists -- independence fighters from Manchuria and Korea who resisted Japanese colonial rule, along with anti-war dissidents from the Soviet Union, Egypt, and even Japan itself. The most famous prisoner was An Jung-geun, who assassinated Ito Hirobumi at Harbin railway station in October 1909 and was executed at Lushun the following March. Other notable detainees included Lee Hoe-yeong and Sin Chaeho, both prominent figures in the Korean independence movement. Between 1942 and August 1945, approximately 700 prisoners were executed. The prison housed torture chambers, solitary confinement blocks, and an execution room -- all of which are preserved in the current museum. Each cell originally held up to ten prisoners, watched from guard towers positioned to surveil multiple cell blocks simultaneously.

When Soviet troops entered Lushunkou in August 1945, the prison was shut down. For over two decades it sat empty, until July 1971 when the facility was reopened as the Former Japanese Lushun Prison memorial. In 1988, the site was designated as one of China's Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level, a recognition that placed it among the country's most important heritage properties. It now operates as the Former Lushun Russo-Japanese Prison Museum, drawing visitors from China, Korea, and Japan alike. The museum preserves the original cell blocks, workshops, torture rooms, and burial grounds. Exhibition buildings -- converted from prison warehouses -- house artifacts including Nogi Maresuke's poem stele from the Battle of Nanshan. For Korean visitors especially, the prison holds deep national significance: it was here that some of their country's most revered independence fighters were imprisoned and killed. The prison stands as testimony that colonial rule was sustained not only by armies and navies but by the quieter machinery of detention, punishment, and execution.