Oroks (Ороки in Russian; self-designation: Ulta, Ulcha), sometimes called Uilta, are a people in the Sakhalin Oblast (mainly the eastern part of the island) in Russia.

[9] The Russian Empire gained complete control over Orok lands after the 1858 Treaty of Aigun and 1860 Convention of Peking.

[10] A penal colony was established on Sakhalin between 1857 and 1906, bringing large numbers of Russian criminals and political exiles, including Lev Sternberg, an important early ethnographer on Oroks and the island's other indigenous people, the Nivkhs and Ainu.

[9] However, following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1922, the new government of the Soviet Union altered prior imperial policies towards the Oroks to bring them into line with communist ideology.

[12] In 1932, the northern Oroks joined the collective farm of Val, which was specialised in reindeer breeding, together with smaller numbers of Nivkhs, Evenks and Russians.

[13][14] Like the Karafuto Koreans and the Nivkh, but unlike the Ainu, the Uilta were thus not included in the evacuation of Japanese nationals after the Soviet invasion in 1945.

Some northern Oroks still practice semi-nomadic herding alongside vegetable farming and cattle ranching; in the south, the leading occupations are fishing and industrial labor.

Due to the fish's size, strength and fierceness, failure to successfully kill the Sturgeon usually resulted in the hunter's death.