Development of Siberia (briefly). History of the development of the Siberian region Colonization of Siberia by the Russian people composition of the first settlers
Colonization of Siberia by the Russian people
... From century to century
A strong Russian man was walking
To the far north and east
Unstoppable like a stream
………………………….
He went to unknown lands
Through the tundra, rivers and ridges,
Through the rapids and heights,
While in the unknown distance
He did not come to the ends of the earth
Where there was nowhere to go
Where across his path,
Dressed in storms and fog,
The vast ocean arose
(From an old poem)
Siberia is a part of Asia with an area of approximately 10 million km, stretching from the Urals to the mountain ranges of the Okhotsk coast, from the Arctic Ocean to the Kazakh and Mongolian steppes. However, in the 17th century. Even more extensive territories were considered “Siberian”; they included the Far Eastern and Ural lands.
This entire gigantic country, 1.5 times the size of Europe, was distinguished by its severity and at the same time an amazing variety of natural conditions. Its northern part was occupied by desert tundra. To the south, across the main territory of Siberia, endless impenetrable forests stretch for thousands of kilometers, making up the famous “taiga”, which over time became a majestic and formidable symbol of this region. In the south of Western and partly Eastern Siberia, forests gradually turn into arid steppes, closed by a chain of mountains and hilly uplands.
Western Siberia is mainly a heavily swampy lowland. Eastern Siberia, on the contrary, is a predominantly mountainous country with many high ridges, with frequent rock outcrops; in the 17th century. it made the strongest impression on the Russian man, accustomed to the life of the plains. This entire space, stretching from the Urals to the Pacific Ocean, varied in landscapes and living conditions, frightened with its wild beauty, overwhelmed with grandeur and... beckoned with wealth. Before the Russian man who found himself in Siberia, he saw forests filled with fur-bearing animals, rivers incredibly rich in fish, meadows intended for grazing many livestock, beautiful but unused arable land.
What does the name “Siberia” mean? There are two most common points of view: Some scientists derive the word “Siberia” from the Mongolian “shibir” (forest thicket), others associate this word with the name of the “Sabirs,” a people who possibly inhabited the forest-steppe Irtysh region. But nevertheless, the spread of the name “Siberia” to the entire territory of Northern Asia was associated with the Russian advance beyond the Urals from the end of the 16th century.
Having crossed the Urals, the Russian people found themselves in a sparsely populated, but long-inhabited country. In Siberia at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. 200-220 thousand people lived. The population was denser in the south and extremely sparse in the north. Nevertheless, the small Siberian peoples, scattered across the forest-steppe, taiga and tundra, had their own ancient and complex history, differing greatly in language, economic activities and level of social development.
Hunting and fishing were the main occupations of most Siberian tribes, and as an auxiliary trade they were found everywhere. At the same time, fur mining became especially important in the economy of the Siberian peoples. They traded it, paid tribute, and only in the most remote corners furs were used only for clothing.
The Siberian peoples differed from each other in their level of social development, but in general they lagged far behind both in economics and culture from the population of both European and most of the Asian countries located to the south. The ancestors of some peoples of Siberia in the distant past had higher forms of social organization and culture than in the 16th-17th centuries. Their decline occurred as a result of devastating foreign invasions, disastrous internal strife, and the lack of stable ties with the centers of world civilization.
There were constant movements between the tribes in Siberia; gradually, more and more tribes and clans, weakened in the struggle, adopted the language and customs of their stronger neighbors, merging with them, losing their originality. Assimilation was common in pre-Russian and Russian Siberia. The stronger Siberian tribes and peoples not only assimilated and pushed aside the weaker ones, but also conquered them in order to receive tribute. Almost all Siberian peoples, even those living under a tribal system, had a certain number of slaves captured during armed clashes with their neighbors. Such clashes occurred very often.
Bloody internal (intertribal) strife, destructive inter-tribal wars, robbery, displacement to worse lands and assimilation of some peoples by others - all this has been commonplace in Siberian life since ancient times. Having arrived in Siberia, the Russians could not immediately stop the events, phenomena and processes taking place there, or dramatically change them. But the Russian state quickly became a new, active force in Siberia. Already in the 17th century. it had a decisive influence on the entire course of historical development of the Siberian peoples.
Driving forces of colonization
Russian people could first become acquainted with Siberia at the turn of the 11th-12th centuries. In 1563, a detachment of Volga Cossacks led by Ermak went to Siberia, they marked the beginning of the epic exploration of Siberia. Working people saw “Behind the Stone” as an opportunity to get rid of oppression and need.
What are the reasons for the stubborn advance of the Russians to the east? And why did it become widespread precisely from the end of the 16th century?
The beginning of the development of Siberia by Russian people occurred at the end of the 16th century. not by chance. Until the 16th century The Russian state was mainly supplied with especially valuable furs by the Pechora and Perm lands, but by the middle of the century they were noticeably “industrialized.” At the same time, the demand for expensive furs increased, especially abroad. Russian sable has long been highly valued in many European and Asian countries. From the middle of the 16th century. the possibilities for profitable sales of furs increased sharply, as direct trade links were established with Western Europe through the White Sea, and the inclusion of the entire Volga route into Russia (after the fall of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates) made it possible to export Russian goods directly to the countries of the East.
It is clear that under such conditions, Siberia, with its seemingly unimaginable fur riches, began to attract special attention. “Sable Places” began to attract industrialists and traders. But the strengthening state was also vitally interested in Siberian furs. With increasing power, expenses increased, and certain difficulties were associated with replenishing the treasury. And Siberia, with its natural and geographical conditions, opened up significant prospects for the Russian state.
Another important prerequisite for the development of Siberia was the proximity to the eastern borders of Russia of India and China, trade with which promised huge income to the treasury.
“Behind the Stone” hoped to find deposits of precious metals (gold, silver) that had not yet been found in Russia, but more and more of them were needed. Therefore, the program for the development of Siberia included a strong foothold in its vastness. For this purpose, arable peasants and state-owned artisans were transferred to Siberian cities.
In parallel with the task of developing Siberia, the state tried to solve another one - to get rid of all kinds of restless, politically unreliable people, or at least to remove them from the center of the state. Criminals and participants in popular uprisings began to be willingly exiled to Siberian cities. Exiles made up a noticeable part of the migrants who found themselves beyond the Urals, especially in the least favorable areas for life.
The non-Russian peoples of European Russia were drawn “For the Stone” by the desire for better economic conditions. During the period of the 16th-17th centuries. The situation for the masses was quite difficult: taxes increased, feudal oppression intensified, and serfdom became more and more firmly established. People hoped to get rid of oppression of all kinds in new lands.
The main stream of free migrants consisted of those seeking a better life. Over time, it grew more and more and gradually exceeded the number of those who went to Siberia against their own will. It was he who ultimately led to its firm entry into the Russian state.
Annexation of Siberia to the Russian state
Annexation of Western Siberia to the Russian state.
In the second half of the 16th century. The Russian state was overcoming the consequences of feudal fragmentation and was finally formed as a centralized state, covering the lands of the European part of the country with Russian and non-Russian populations. Long-standing ties and communication between the Russian people and the inhabitants of the Trans-Urals, the routes laid to the East by industrial and trading people, prepared the process of annexing the Siberian region to Russia. The beginning of the annexation of the huge Siberian region to the Russian state dates back to the end of the 16th century. , when the resettlement of Russians to the Trans-Urals and its development began, primarily by peasants and artisans. At the beginning of the annexation of Western Siberia to the Russian state, its indigenous inhabitants were still at the stage of a primitive communal system, more or less affected by the process of decomposition. Only the so-called Tobolsk Tatars eliminated tribal relations and formed their own primitive statehood - the Siberian Khanate. In the early 60s of the 16th century. (1563) the territory of the Siberian Khanate was captured by Genghisid Kuchum, the capture of the Siberian Khanate in Moscow became known in the summer of the same year, the government led by Ivan IV tried to resolve relations with Kuchum peacefully, at the same time it attracted the richest to the defense of the eastern borders entrepreneurs the Stroganovs, who had estates in the Perm region. In the summer of 1573, open hostile actions by Kuchum began, the Tatars invaded the estates of the Stroganovs. In this situation, the Stroganovs, using the right given to them by the government to recruit military men, formed a hired Cossack detachment. The detachment was commanded by Ataman Ermak Timofeevich. Ermak, having climbed the river. Chusovoy and having crossed the Ural ridge, moved down the rivers of the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains. In the area of the Epanchinsky yurts, the Cossacks, after a three-day battle, defeated the Tatars. From that moment on, moving further and further, Ermak’s Cossacks conquered the Siberian lands. The campaign of this squad played a big role in preparing the process of annexing the territory of the Trans-Urals to the Russian state. He opened up the possibility of widespread economic development of Siberia by the Russians. As a result of the actions of the Cossack squad, an irreparable blow was dealt to Kuchum's dominance in the Siberian Khanate. Kuchum, who fled to the steppe, continued to fight against the Russian state for several more years, but the Siberian Khanate had actually ceased to exist. Some Tatar uluses migrated with Kuchum, but most of the West Siberian Tatars came under the protection of Russia. Russia included the Bashkirs, Mansi, Khanty, who had previously been subject to Kuchum, who lived in the basins of the Tura, Tavda, Tobol and Irtysh rivers, and the Khanty and Mansi population of the left bank of the lower Ob region was finally assigned to Russia.
Thus, the beginning of the annexation and development of Siberia was laid not by government troops, but by people from the people who liberated the Khanty, Mansi, Bashkirs, West Siberian Tatars and others from the yoke of the descendants of the Genghisids. The tsarist government used the victory to extend its power to Siberia.
Since one of the main incentives for Russian colonization of Siberia at the initial stage was fur, the advance went mainly to the taiga and tundra regions of Siberia, the richest in fur-bearing animals. Advancement in this direction was also due to the extremely weak population of the taiga and tundra and the threat of devastating raids on the forest-steppe and steppe regions of Southern Siberia from the nomads of the Kazakh and Mongolian steppes. In the 16th century The most famous road to the Siberian land was the path along the tributary of the Kama river. Vishera. Further through mountain passes the path followed the rivers of the eastern slopes of the Urals - Lozva and Tavda. To develop and strengthen this route, the Lozvinsky town was built. In the tsar’s decrees, the governors newly appointed to Siberia were required to go through Lozva, food supplies and ammunition were transferred through Lozva, the conquerors of Siberia waited there for the start of navigation, and in the spring, when the “ice of the Skroets” descended down the Lozva on boats, plows, planks and ships to Tobolsk, then to Berezov and Surgut, from Surgut upstream the Ob to Narym and the Ketsky fort, from Tobolsk up the Irtysh to Tara, up the Tobol to Tyumen.
At the beginning of 1593, an offensive was launched against the Pelym princeling Ablagirim, who was hostile to Russia. For this purpose, the formation of a detachment began in Cherdyn, the governors of which were appointed N.V. Trakhaniotov and P.I. Gorchakov, Ablagirim’s resistance was broken, the territory under his control became part of Russia. In the summer of 1593, members of the detachment began construction of the Pelymsky town on the banks of the river. Tavdy. Thus, the route between the Lozvinsky town and Tobolsk was secured. The royal order obliged Gorchakov to organize grain production in Siberia in order to reduce the amount of food delivered from the European part of the state to supply service people. Subsequently, until the end of the 17th century. the government steadily demanded from the governors of Siberian cities the creation and expansion of government plowing, increasing the plowing of service people.
In February 1594, a small group of servicemen with governors F.P. was sent from Moscow. Baryatinsky and V. Anichkov to consolidate the lands of the Ob region above the mouth of the Irtysh into Russia. The united detachment headed upstream the Ob to the borders of the Principality of Bardaka. The Khanty prince Bardak voluntarily accepted Russian citizenship and assisted the Russians in building a fortress in the center of the territory under his control on the right bank of the Ob River at the confluence of the Surgutka River. The new city on the Ob became known as Surgut. All Khanty villages in the Ob region above the mouth of the Irtysh became part of the new Surgut district. Surgut became a stronghold of tsarist power in the Ob region in the fight against the alliance of tribes, known in sources as the Piebald Horde.
In 1596, in order to prevent Kuchum's raid in the center of the Piebald Horde, the Narymsky fort was built.
Following the Narymsky fort on the bank of the right tributary of the Ob river. In Keti, the Ket fort was established; with its foundation, representatives of the governors from Surgut and Narym began to collect yasak - (tribute from the local population) from the population of the river basin. Keti, moving east to the Yenisei.
In 1594, to prevent raids by the remnants of Kuchum’s horde on the Irtysh, a Russian fortress was built near the Argarka River, which was called the Tara town. 320 people were left as part of the permanent Tara garrison. The Tara uluses along the Irtysh from Tobolsk to Tara were included in the new Tara district.
At the beginning of the 17th century. The Eushta prince Troyan came to Moscow and asked the government of B. Godunov to take the villages of the Tomsk Tatars in the lower Tomsk region under the protection of the Russian state and build a Russian fortress in their land. For his part, Troyan promised to help the royal administration of the new city in levying yasak on the Turkic-speaking groups neighboring the Tomsk Tatars. In March 1604, a decision was finally made in Moscow to build a city on the banks of the river. Tom, a high mountain cape on the right bank of the Tom was chosen as the site for the construction of a fortified point; by the end of September 1604, construction work was completed and peasants and artisans appeared in Tomsk along with military men. At the beginning of the 17th century. Tomsk was the easternmost city of the Russian state. The adjacent region of the lower reaches of the Tom, the middle Ob and the Chulym region became part of the Tomsk district.
In 1598 in the upper reaches of the river. The tour was set up for the Verkhoturye town, in the construction of which residents of the Lozvinsky town who were transferred to Verkhoturye for permanent residence took part. Due to the cessation of traffic along the old road, the Lozvinsky town was destroyed. With the construction of a new road (from Solikamsk through mountain passes to the upper reaches of the Tura River), Verkhoturye became an area throughout the 17th century. “the main gate to Siberia” through which all official relations between Moscow and the Trans-Urals took place. To ensure the transportation of goods from Verkhoturye to Tyumen in 1600 on the river. Ture founded the Turin fort.
By the beginning of the 17th century. Almost the entire territory of western Siberia from the Gulf of Ob in the north to Tara and Kuznetsk in the south became an integral part of Russia. Russian administrative centers - cities and forts - grew. Many of them became centers of formed counties.
The annexation of Western Siberia to the Russian state was not only a political act. A more significant role in the process of incorporating Siberia into Russia was played by the economic development of the territory by the Russian people, the development of productive forces, and the disclosure of the production capabilities of the region, which is rich in natural resources. By the end of the 17th century. in Western Siberia, the predominant group of Russian residents were no longer service people, but peasants and artisans engaged in production activities. The Gazette of Siberian Cities of 1701 noted in Western Siberia 6442 families of service people, 1944 families of the townspeople and 9342 families of arable, obroch and monastic peasants.
Annexation of Eastern Siberia to the Russian state.
The annexation of the peoples inhabiting Eastern Siberia to Russia occurred mainly during the first half of the 17th century; the outlying territories in the south, east and northeast of Siberia became part of Russia in the second half of the 17th century.
The annexation of Eastern Siberia began from the Yenisei basin, primarily from its northern and northwestern parts. In the second half of the 16th century. Russian industrialists from Pomerania began to penetrate into the Gulf of Ob and further along the river. Taza to the east to the lower reaches of the Yenisei. Commercial entrepreneurship was carried out in various ways, which by the beginning of the 17th century. were already traditional. Industrialists reached the specified area either by sea (through the Yugorsky Shar, the Kara Sea and the Yamal Peninsula), or by the “through-the-stone” route (through the Urals) in its various variants. In 1616-1619. The Russian government, fearing the penetration of ships of English and Dutch companies into the mouth of the Ob, banned the use of the sea route, which, however, did not disrupt fishing ties with the lower reaches of the Ob and Yenisei.
Entire generations of Pomeranian industrialists were successively associated with fur trade in the Yenisei region. In the first decades of the 17th century. Russian industrialists began to vigorously develop areas along the largest eastern tributaries of the Yenisei - the Lower and Podkamennaya Tunguska, and also move along the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the mouth of the river. Pyasina, to the north-eastern shores of Taimyr. In the first half of the 17th century. Mangazeya industrialists founded on the Yenisei Dubicheskaya Sloboda (1637), Khantayskaya Sloboda, which grew out of a winter hut (1626), settlements in the upper reaches of the Lower Tunguska and other settlements with a permanent population.
Government activities to establish political dominance began only at the turn of the 17th century. In the summer of 1600, from Tobolsk along the Ob and Ob Bay they moved to the mouth of the river. Taza's first governors M.M. Shakhovsky and D. Khripunov, they were defeated in a battle with the local population, but still they managed to gain a foothold in a small fishing town. In 1601, the city of Mangazeya was founded on the banks of the Taz, which became the local administrative center and the most important trade and transshipment point.
By 1607, the Turukhansk and Enbat winter huts were founded on the lower Yenisei, and the yasak regime was extended to most of the Enets and Ostyak clans. After the formation of a permanent garrison (100 servicemen) in Mangazeya in 1625, local authorities created a network of winter tribute huts that covered the entire Mangazeya district and the tribute process in this area was completed. Thus, the territory in question practically became part of the Russian state at the time when the fur trade of Russian industrialists and their economic ties with the local population were already in their prime. As the main fur-trading areas moved eastwards, Mangazeya began to lose its importance as a trade and transshipment point from the 30s and its role passed to the Turukhansk winter quarters in the lower reaches of the Yenisei. The fishing population that settled there concentrated in places convenient for fishing, primarily along the banks of the Yenisei below Turukhansk, populated the lower reaches of Pyasina, Kheta and Khatanga, gradually developing the coastal areas of the Arctic Ocean for permanent residence.
The penetration of Russians into the basin of the middle reaches of the Yenisei began in the 17th century. After the founding of Surgut, Narym, Tomsk and Ketsk, detachments of people went to the Yenisei, the Krasnoyarsk fort was founded there, then the Makovsky and Yenisei forts (1618 and 1619). Thus, the annexation of the aborigines - the Pitsky, Vargagan and Angara Tunguses and Asans, who lived along tributary of the river Angara - r. Taseeva, happened during the 20s of the 17th century. By this time, the Yenisei fort became an important transshipment center for Russian industrialists, and agriculture began to develop around it. In the second half of the 17th century. After the construction of the Kem and Belgian forts in 1669, the basin of the Kemi and Belaya began to be most intensively populated, attracting settlers with “great and grain-bearing” fields, an abundance of mowing and construction “red” forest.
The annexation of the population along the Kan River to the Russian state began immediately after the construction of the Krasnoyarsk fort, but in the fight against the Tuba and Buryat princes, Russian servicemen managed to gain a foothold there only in 1636-1637, when the Kansky fort was built. The construction of the Abakan and Sayan forts (1707 and 1709) finally ensured the safety of the Russian and yasak population of the Yenisei region from Kyrgyz and Dzungar aggression.
The development by Russians of the lower and middle parts of the Yenisei basin was an important stage in the process of annexing the peoples of Siberia who inhabited the river basin to Russia. Lena and Baikal region. The annexation of Yakutia and Buryatia to Russia began almost simultaneously. Russian industrialists first entered Yakutia in the early 20s of the 17th century. from Mangazeya, along the lower Tunguska. Detachments led by A. Dobrynin and M. Vasilyev were sent to develop the Yakut lands; later, detachments of servicemen V. Bugr and I. Galkin passed from Yeniseisk through the Angara to the Lena; in 1631, Galkin reached the Yakut land. For a long time, the Yakut princes resisted the Russian explorers; to replace Galkin, the Streltsy centurion Beketov was sent from Yeniseisk, who built the first fort in Yakutia, the newly arrived Galkin moved the fort from the low-lying bank to a more convenient place, and in 1643, by order of the governor P. Golovin The fort was again moved to Eyukov Meadow. The new fort was named Yakutsk. In 1633, the Yakut and Buryat princes tried to unite against the Russian colonialists and, due to their small numbers, it was difficult for the Russians to establish control over the local population. However, due to the tribal strife of the Yakut peoples and the desire of individual princes to use Russian troops in internecine feuds, some of them switched to side of the Russians. The struggle of service people to annex the Yakut lands to Russia was not as successful as the advancement of Russian industrialists into their economy. Before the official establishment of voivodeship power in Yakutia, the “houses” of the first-class Russian merchants widely expanded their activities on the Lena; the benefits for the local population from contacts with them were the main incentive that accelerated the process of annexing Yakutia to Russia. And in 1641, the first governor, stolnik P.P., arrived in Yakutia. Golovin. The formation of the Yakut Voivodeship completed the initial stage of the process of joining Yakutia to Russia.
In 1633, Russian servicemen and industrialists, led by I. Rebrasov and M. Perfilyev, first went along the Lena to the Arctic Ocean. Following further east by sea, they reached the mouth of the Yana, and then the Indigirka and discovered the Yukagir land. At the same time, a land road was opened through the Verkhoyansk Range to the upper reaches of the Yana and Indigirka (S. Kharitonov, P. Ivanov). Following this, the Verkhoyanskoe (1638) and Nizhneyanskoe (1642) winter quarters arose on the Yana, Podshiverskoe (1639), Uyandinskoe (1642) and Olubenskoe (1641) on Indigirka, Alazeiskoe (1642) on Alazeya. In the 40s, Russian explorers M. Starodukhin and others penetrated into Kolyma and founded the Middle (1643), Nizhne (1644) and Upper Kolyma (1647) winter quarters.
Russian explorers. Ivan Moskvitin.
The advance from the Lena to the east into territories inhabited mainly by Tungus and partly Yakut tribes, and to the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk, began during the annexation of Yakutia in the 1630s. For the first time, serviceman Ivan Moskvitin came to the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk with a group of Cossacks who were part of D. Kopylov’s Tomsk detachment.
Cossack service. A native of the Moscow region, Moskvitin began serving no later than 1626 as an ordinary Cossack in the Tomsk prison. He probably took part in the campaigns of Ataman Dmitry Kopylov to the south of Siberia. In the winter of 1636, Kopylov, at the head of a detachment of Cossacks, including Moskvitin, went for booty to the Lena region. They reached Yakutsk in 1637, and in the spring of 1638 they descended the Lena to Aldan and climbed it for five weeks on poles and towlines. On July 28, the Cossacks set up the Butalsky fort, 265 km above the mouth of the Mai River.
To the Sea of Okhotsk. From the Evenks, Kopylov learned about the silver mountain on the lower Amur. The lack of silver in the state forced him in May 1639 to send Moskvitin (now a foreman) with 30 Cossacks to search for the deposit. Six weeks later, having subjugated the entire local population along the way, the explorers reached the Yudoma River (a tributary of the Mai), where, abandoning the plank, they built two kayaks and went up to its source. They overcame an easy pass through the Dzhugdzhur ridge they discovered in a day and ended up on the Ulya River, flowing to the “ocean sea.” Eight days later, their path was blocked by waterfalls and the kayaks had to leave. Having built a boat that could accommodate up to 30 people, they were the first Russians to reach the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk. The explorers spent the entire journey through unknown terrain a little more than two months, eating “trees, grass and roots.”
On the Ulye River, Moskvitin built the first Russian settlement on the Pacific coast to build a winter hut. From local residents he learned about a densely populated river in the north and, without delaying until spring, went there on October 1 on a river “boat” at the head of a group of 20 Cossacks. Three days later they reached this river, called the Hunt. Moskvitin returned to Ulya two weeks later, taking the amanats. The voyage to the Hunt on a fragile boat proved the need to build a more reliable sea vessel. In the winter of 1639-40, the Cossacks built two 17-meter kochas, and the history of the Russian Pacific Fleet began with them.
To the shores of Sakhalin. In November 1639 and April 1640, explorers repelled the attack of two large groups of Evens (600 and 900 people). From a prisoner, Moskvitin learned about the southern river "Mamur" (Amur), at the mouth of which and on the islands live "sedentary Gilyaks" (sedentary Nivkhs). In the summer, the Cossacks sailed south, taking a prisoner as a “vozha” (guide). They followed along the entire western coast of the Sea of Okhotsk to the Uda Bay and entered the mouth of the Uda. Here, from local residents, Moskvitin received new information about the Amur, as well as the first information about the Nivkhs, Nanais and “bearded people” (Ainu). The Moskvitians headed east, went around the Shantar Islands from the south and, passing into the Sakhalin Gulf, visited the northwestern coast of Sakhalin Island.
Moskvitin apparently managed to visit the Amur Estuary and the mouth of the Amur. But the food was already running out, and the Cossacks turned back. Stormy autumn weather did not allow them to reach Ulya, and they spent the winter at the mouth of the Aldoma River, 300 km south of Ulya. And in the spring of 1641, having again crossed Dzhugdzhur, Moskvitin went to Maya and in the summer arrived in Yakutsk with “sable” booty. The results of the campaign were significant: the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk for 1300 km, Udskaya Bay, Sakhalin Bay, Amur Estuary, the mouth of the Amur and Sakhalin Island were discovered.
To develop the Far Eastern region he discovered, Moskvitin recommended sending at least a thousand well-armed archers with ten cannons. The materials collected by Moskvitin were used by Kurbat Ivanov to compile the first map of the Far East in March 1642. In 1642 Moskvitin appeared again in Tomsk. Having visited the capital, he returned to Tomsk in the summer of 1647 with the rank of Cossack ataman. His further fate is unknown.
Semyon Dezhnev.
Dezhnev Semyon Ivanovich (c. 1605-73), Russian explorer. In 1648, together with F.A. Popov (Fedot Alekseev), he sailed from the mouth of the Kolyma to the Pacific Ocean, rounded the Chukotka Peninsula, opening the strait between Asia and America.
Cossack service. Dezhnev, a native of Pomor peasants, began his Siberian service as an ordinary Cossack in Tobolsk. In the early 1640s. with a detachment of Cossacks he moved to Yeniseisk, then to Yakutsk. He served in the detachment of Dmitry Zyryan (Yarily) in the Yana basin. In 1641, having received an appointment to Mikhail Stadukhin’s detachment, Dezhnev and the Cossacks reached the fort on the Oymyakon River. Here they were attacked by almost 500 Evens, from whom they fought back together with yasaks, Tungus and Yakuts. In search of “new lands,” Dezhnev and Stadukhin’s detachment in the summer of 1643 descended on a koch to the mouth of the Indigirka River, crossed by sea to the lower reaches of Alazeya, where they met Zyryan’s koch. Dezhnev managed to unite both groups of explorers, and they sailed east on two ships.
In search of "new lands". In the Kolyma delta, the Cossacks were attacked by the Yukaghirs, but they broke through up the river and set up a fort in the area of modern Srednekolymsk. Dezhnev served in Kolyma until the summer of 1647, and then was included as a yasak collector in the fishing expedition of Fedot Popov. In the summer of 1648, Popov and Dezhnev went to sea on seven boats.
According to the widespread version, only three ships reached the Bering Strait; the rest were caught in a storm. In the fall, another storm in the Bering Sea separated the two remaining Kochas. Dezhnev and 25 companions were thrown back to the Olyutorsky Peninsula, and only 10 weeks later, having lost half of the explorers, they reached the lower reaches of Anadyr. According to Dezhnev himself, six out of seven ships passed through the Bering Strait, and five kochs, including Popov’s ship, died in the Bering Sea or in the Gulf of Anadyr during “bad weather at sea.”
Dezhnev and his squad, having overcome the Koryak Highlands, “cold and hungry, naked and barefoot,” reached the shore of Anadyr. Of those who went in search of the camps, only three returned; The Cossacks barely survived the harsh winter of 1648-49, having built river vessels before the ice broke up. In the summer, having climbed 600 km, Dezhnev founded a tribute winter hut, where in the spring the detachments of Semyon Motors and Stadukhin came. Led by Dezhnev, they tried to reach the Penzhina River, but, without a guide, they wandered in the mountains for three weeks.
Difficult everyday life of explorers. In late autumn, Dezhnev sent people to the mouth of the Anadyr for food. But Stadukhin robbed and beat the harvesters, and he himself went to Penzhina. The Dezhnevites held out until spring, and in the summer and autumn they took up the food problem and exploration of “sable places”. In the summer of 1652, they discovered a huge walrus rookery on the shallows of the Gulf of Anadyr, dotted with walrus tusks ("frozen tooth").
Last years of life. In 1660, Dezhnev with a cargo of “bone treasury” moved by land to the Kolyma, and from there by sea to the lower Lena. After wintering in Zhigansk, he reached Moscow through Yakutsk in the fall of 1664. Here a full settlement was made with him: for his service and fishing of 289 poods (just over 4.6 tons) of walrus tusks worth 17,340 rubles, Dezhnev received 126 rubles and the rank of Cossack chieftain. Appointed as a clerk, he continued to collect yasak on the Olenek, Yana and Vilyui rivers. During his second visit to Moscow in 1671, he delivered the sable treasury, but fell ill and died in the beginning. 1673.
During his 40 years in Siberia, Dezhnev took part in numerous battles and skirmishes and received at least 13 wounds. He was distinguished by reliability and honesty, self-control and peacefulness. Dezhnev was married twice, and both times to Yakut women, from whom he had three sons (one adopted). His name is given to: the cape, which is the extreme northeastern tip of Asia (called Big Stone Nose by Dezhnev), as well as an island, a bay, a peninsula, and a village. A monument to him was erected in the center of Veliky Ustyug in 1972.
Poyarkov Vasily Danilovich
The exact years of his life are unknown. Explorer and navigator, explorer of the Sea of Okhotsk, discoverer of the Lower Amur, Amur Estuary and the southwestern part of the Sea of Okhotsk, “written head”.
In June 1643, at the head of a military detachment of 133 people, he set out from Yakutsk on a campaign to the Amur to collect tribute and annex the lands lying to the east up to the Sea of Okhotsk. The detachment went down the Lena to Aldan, then climbed up it to the rapids (discovering the Uchur and Golan rivers along the way). He left ships with some of the people here for the winter, crossed the watershed lightly on skis with a detachment of 90 people, discovered the Zeya River and wintered in its upper reaches at the mouth of the Umlekan River.
In the spring of 1644, ships were dragged there, on which the detachment went down the Zeya and Amur to its mouth, where they again spent the winter. From the Amur Nivkhs they received valuable information about Sakhalin and the ice regime in the strait separating the island from the mainland.
In the spring of 1645, having attached additional sides to the river planks, the detachment entered the Amur Lebanon and, moving along the shore of the Sea of Okhotsk to the north, reached the Ulya River. He spent his third winter there. In the early spring of 1646, he rode up the river on a sled, crossed the watershed and returned to Yakutsk along the rivers of the Lena basin.
Subsequently he served in Yakutsk, Tobolsk and Kurgan Sloboda in the Urals. A mountain on the island of Sakhalin and a village in the Amur region are named after Poyarkov.
Erofey Pavlovich Khabarov
Everyone who comes to Khabarovsk is greeted on the station square by a monument to a hero in armor and a Cossack hat. Raised on a high granite pedestal, it seems to personify the courage and greatness of our ancestors. This is Erofey Pavlovich Khabarov.
The work started by Poyarkov was continued by Erofey Pavlovich Khabarov-Svyatitsky, a peasant from Veliky Ustyug. It is known that in his youth Khabarov went to the Taimyr Peninsula to hunt fur animals; then he was engaged in salt production in Soli-Vychegodskaya (now the city of Solvychegodsk, Arkhangelsk region). In 1632, leaving his family, he arrived on the Lena River, where he was engaged in the fur trade for about seven years. In 1639, Khabarov settled at the mouth of Kuta, sowed a plot of land, began trading in bread, salt and other goods, and in the spring of 1641 he moved to the mouth of Kirenga, plowed sixty acres of land and built a mill. But his main wealth was his salt pan.
But Khabarov did not flourish for long. Voivode Peter Golovin considered the tenth of the harvest that Khabarov had given him by agreement to be too small - he demanded twice as much, and then took all the land, all the bread and the salt pan, and put the owner himself in prison in the Yakutsk fort, from which Khabarov was released at the end of 1645 year "goal like a falcon".
But, fortunately for him, Golovin was replaced by another governor in 1648 - Dmitry Andreevich Frantsbekov. Having learned about Poyarkov's successful campaign, Khabarov began to ask the new governor to equip a strong detachment in the Daurian lands.
Frantsbekov agreed to send a detachment of Cossacks and gave Khabarova credit for government-issued military equipment and weapons, agricultural implements, and from his personal funds he gave money at interest to all participants in the campaign. Sending Khabarov, the governor gave him an order - to summon the Daurian princes Lavkay and Batoga “under the high sovereign’s hand.”
In the fall of 1649, Khabarov and his detachment left Yakutsk.
He moved along the Olekma and Lena to the south - as close as possible to the upper reaches of the tributaries of the Amur, intending to reach the Amur, either by water or by drag.
It was very difficult to go against the current of the fast Olekma with its seething rapids. When the first pre-winter cold caught them, Khabarov stopped the detachment somewhere near the Tungir, the right tributary of the Olekma.
Here they cut down a fort, sat for a while, and in January 1650 they moved further south, up the Tungir. On sledges they crossed the spurs of Olekminsky Stanovik and in the spring of 1650 they reached the Urka River, the first tributary of the Amur on their way. The Daurs, who already knew that nothing good could be expected from the newcomers, left the city, surrounded by a moat and a palisade with fortress towers, where the Daurian prince Lavkai ruled. There were hundreds of houses there - each for 50 or more people, bright, with wide windows covered with oiled paper. The Russians found large grain reserves in the pits. From here Khabarov went down the Amur.
Lavkay himself suddenly appeared with his retinue. Khabarov immediately offered to pay him yasak, for which he promised royal protection and patronage. The prince, asking for time to think, left.
In one of the abandoned towns, the Russians met an old woman, Daurka. She reported that Lavkay fled from the banks of the Amur on 2,500 horses. She also told about the “Khin Land,” as China was then called: on the other side of the Amur, large ships with goods sailed along the rivers; the local ruler has an army equipped with cannons and firearms. Then Khabarov left about 50 people in the “Lavkaev town” and on May 26, 1650 returned to Yakutsk. He hoped that with reinforcements he would be able to move on.
Khabarov returned from his first campaign without any spoils, but he brought a drawing of the Daurian land - the first map of the region. This drawing became one of the main sources when creating maps of Siberia in 1667 and 1672. His notes, compiled during the campaign, spoke about the riches of Dauria - about its generous lands, about fur-bearing animals and about the abundance of fish in the Amur. Frantsbekov was able to evaluate the information obtained and immediately sent the Khabarovsk drawing, along with a lengthy report, to Moscow.
In Yakutsk, Khabarov began recruiting volunteers, spreading exaggerated information about the wealth of Dauria. There were 110 “willing” people. Franzbekov provided 27 “servants” with three cannons, with a supply of lead and gunpowder. Together with those who had gone to the Amur before, there were about 160 people. With this detachment, Khabarov again set out from Yakutsk in the middle of the summer of 1650.
In the autumn, following a familiar road, he reached the Amur.
Khabarov found the Cossacks he had left behind below the Amur near the fortified town of Albazin. Relying on Albazin, Khabarov attacked nearby villages that had not yet been abandoned by the Daurs.
Having sent part of the detachment with tribute to Yakutsk, in the winter Khabarov built planks, and in the spring he moved down the Amur. A few days later the Russians sailed to the town of Prince Gaigudar. The fortification consisted of three earthen towns connected by a wall and was surrounded by two ditches. Under the towers there were crawl spaces through which a horseman could ride. All the villages around this fortification were burned, and the inhabitants took refuge in the fortress.
Khabarov, through an interpreter, persuaded Gaigudar to pay yasak to the Russian sovereign, but the prince refused. After the shelling, the Cossacks took the town by storm, killing up to 600 people. A detachment of explorers stood there for several weeks, and then sailed further down the Amur.
From the mouth of the Bureya began the lands inhabited by the Goguls, a people related to the Manchus. They lived scatteredly, in small villages, and could not resist the Cossacks. The plowed duchers, who had earlier destroyed part of Poyarkov’s detachment, offered little resistance - the Khabarovsk people were more numerous and better armed.
At the end of September, the expedition reached the land of the Nanai, and Khabarov stopped in their large village. He sent half of the Cossacks up the river for fish. Then the Nanais, uniting with the Duchers, attacked the Russians on October 8, but were defeated and retreated, losing more than 100 people killed. The losses of the Cossacks were negligible. Khabarov fortified the village and stayed there for the winter. From here, from the Achansky prison, the Russians raided the Nanais and collected yasak.
In March 1652, they defeated a large Manchu detachment (about 1000 people), who were trying to take the fort by storm.
However, Khabarov understood that with his small army it was impossible to take control of the country; in the spring, as soon as the Amur opened, he left the Achansky fort and sailed on ships against the current.
In the Gilyatsky land, Khabarov met a new winter, and in the spring of 1653 he returned to Zeya, settled down and began sending detachments up and down the Amur to collect yasak. The entire left bank of the Amur was deserted: by order of the Manchu authorities, the inhabitants moved to the right bank.
At that time, he could not even imagine how the fame of his conquests and the untold riches of the Daurian land spread. Dispatches went from Yakutsk to Moscow, from which it followed that without military force it would be impossible to keep such a vast land in obedience. It was decided to establish a new one - the Daurian Voivodeship, but in the meantime, the Moscow nobleman Dmitry Zinoviev was sent from the Siberian Prikaz to prepare all the affairs. In August 1653, with a detachment of 150 Cossacks, he came to Zeya and presented the royal decree to Khabarov, ordering him, Zinoviev, “to inspect the entire Daurian land and to take charge of him, Khabarov.” And then, without delaying such an important matter, he tore Khabarov’s beard and, based on the slander of the offended and dissatisfied, organized an inquiry.
Erofey Khabarov was distinguished by a tough disposition, so the petitions that Zinoviev received spoke of various oppressions and that Khabarov “did not care about the matter, but did it with his money.” Zinoviev arrested him, took his property and sent him to Moscow.
In Moscow, in the Siberian order, they ordered Khabarov’s things to be returned. He wrote a petition to the tsar, where he remembered everything - the bread taken away by Golovin, and the chervonets awarded, which never reached him, that he “brought four lands under the sovereign’s hand,” that it was not so simple all this, but “his blood he shed and suffered wounds" - and for those hardships the tsar granted him a status as a boyar child and appointed him the manager of the Lena villages from Ust-Kuti to the Chechuysky portage. However, Khabarov was not allowed into the Daurian lands, even though he asked - “for city and prison supplies and for settlements and grain plowing.” Apparently, he still had a lot of strength left in him, since he expected to take on such work. And then he disappeared. Since then nothing has been known about him.
It is unknown when and where Erofei Pavlovich Khabarov, one of the first explorers of the Amur, died, but his descendants preserved his name: the largest city on the Amur - the center of the Khabarovsk Territory - is called Khabarovsk. Where the Great Siberian Railway crosses the Urka River, along which the great explorer sailed to the Amur, there is a station called Erofey Pavlovich
The significance of the entry of the peoples of Siberia into the Russian state.
Undoubtedly, the role of Russia in terms of the socio-economic development of the peoples of Siberia was great, but the development of Siberian lands and colonization were of great importance for the Russian state.
The collection of yasak from a huge number of the Siberian population in the form of furs made it possible to significantly enrich the Russian treasury; in addition to furs, minerals and timber, so necessary for the Russian economy, were supplied to the center of Russia.
With the increasing growth of Siberian settlements, demands for industrial goods, in particular clothing and fabrics, grew, which gave a new impetus to the development of trade relations; Russian goods were imported into Siberia, and Siberian goods (mainly furs) were exported from Siberia.
But no matter how large the operations for supplying goods to Siberia were, they could not, for many reasons, satisfy the needs of the population. Therefore, in Siberia, the process of intensifying various types of production, agriculture, construction begins, and taking into account the specific natural, geographical and national characteristics, new methods of management were developed, the use of which had a positive effect on the economic development of Russia as a whole.
Since the main routes of communication in Siberia throughout the 17th century. Since there were waterways and the transfer of heavy cargo was carried out exclusively along them, the need to provide waterways with river and, in some areas, naval fleets caused the rapid development of shipbuilding. Each river system had its own fleet and personnel specializing in shipbuilding. Which undoubtedly gave many advantages to the Russian state.
The development of Siberia and the need for rational use of its resources contributed to the rapid growth of specialization in various areas of production - leatherworking, woodworking and metalworking production, which indicates the production of goods not only for their own needs, but also to order or for the market.
Along with the development of crafts and industries, a mining industry is also beginning to be created in Siberia. The extraction of self-planted salt begins in Western Siberia, and enterprises and manufactories producing salt are formed.
In the XVI-XVII centuries. In Siberia, the mining of metal ores and smelting of metals begins, and on the basis of these discoveries, the local iron ore industry develops. The extraction of salt and metals developed in the places of their birth, and these deposits, as a rule. They did not coincide with urban settlements. These industries were serviced by the surrounding peasantry. Some peasants act as entrepreneurs. This suggests that previously poor people in central Russia now have the opportunity to get not only a job, but also to realize their abilities.
At the same time, there is a layer of specialists, that is, those who gave up farming, for example, at the Ust-Kut salt plant there were salt workers with an annual salary of 30 rubles, blacksmiths who repaired and forged tsrens, and hired woodcutters. Industrial personnel were formed.
With the increase in the production of goods for the market, enlarged production is created using hired force. The material basis for the transformation of small crafts into larger production was the combination of crafts and trade.
Trade operations in Siberia developed in various directions: one direction was associated with the formation of local Siberian connections, the other with the establishment of trade relations with European Russia.
Economic ties between Siberia and the European part of Russia gradually included Siberia in the emerging all-Russian market, making Siberia an integral part of Russia.
The noted phenomena, along with the creation of Siberian arable farming, mean a decisive step in the development of the productive forces of Siberia. At the same time, they were the basis for the economic rapprochement of previously largely isolated regions and made Siberia a participant in the economic life of Russia as a whole.
It should also be noted that the annexation of Siberia not only significantly expanded the borders of Russia, but also changed its political status - from the 16th-17th centuries. Russia has become a multinational state.
Conclusion:
The feat of the Russian people in the development of the unruly Siberian expanses is very difficult to overestimate, just as it is impossible to deny the positive impact of the annexation of the peoples of Siberia to Russia both for European Russia and for the Siberian peoples. The interpenetration and complementation of the economy, culture, religions of the peoples of central Russia and the Siberian population allowed the formation of a unique flavor in Russia, and the heroism, fortitude and physical endurance of the Russian people gave rise to myths about the mysterious Russian character.
But, studying this topic, you think not only about the significance of the colonization of Siberia in the all-Russian framework today, but also about how this happened then, in the 16th-17th centuries. in each specific locality, with each specific nationality.
To do this, it is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of colonization and development.
The development of territories means its conquest with the right of the population living there to their autonomous development, while colonization implies the conquest of a territory in order to use its resources and population to replenish the national wealth of the conquering people.
What happened in Siberia? Of course, colonization.
And if colonization, could the imposition of someone else’s will, the will of Russia, be unconditionally accepted by the conquered peoples? Probably not.
Was the annexation of the Siberian peoples to Russia voluntary or forced? This question is still being asked by historians.
It’s no secret that Russian expeditions often simply barbarously plundered the local population and burned rebellious villages and towns. The possibility of large and fairly easy profit turned the heads of many; groups of people often fought off the Cossack detachments sent by royal decree with the sole purpose of enriching themselves at any cost.
The governors appointed by the sovereign to rule in the districts and forts exceeded their authority, abused their power, took concubines from the local population and cruelly punished them for disobedience.
For example, documents testify to the massacre committed by Khabarov in a captured native camp. Residents from other cities assured the ataman that they were ready and would pay yasak to the Russian Tsar, but he “ordered the men to be drowned and their wives and children to be purged,” that is, to be divided among the serving people. Among those captured was the wife of the local prince Shilginei, whom Khabarov wanted to make his concubine. She resisted, and the chieftain ordered to strangle her. He killed almost all the hostages with a whip. The report to Moscow included news that many residents had taken their own lives. (from an article by N.P. Chulkov about Khabarov in the magazine “Russian Archive” 1898, book 1, p. 177-190)
In my opinion, this is where the origins of central Russia’s somewhat dismissive and consumerist attitude towards Siberia lie. Siberia and the Far East can even now be called a colony of Russia; resources continue to be pumped out of them without proper restoration and economic exchange beneficial for Siberia, hence the very low standard of living.
“Siberians are in poverty. In many Siberian regions people are starving. And for some it’s all a blessing. How could it happen that the average per capita income of a Siberian is ten times lower than, for example, in Moscow and the Moscow region? Although here, as I understand it, people are far from fattening. But why, even in the Oryol, Ryazan, and other regions, do people live, although they are also poor, but still better?” from the speech of Vitaly VishnYakov, a member of the Federation Council from the Chita Regional Duma in “RF Today” (No. 20 for 2000),
In addition to the function of raw materials, Siberia carries within itself a powerful intellectual potential; it is here that such major scientific, cultural and production centers operate as Novosibirsk, Vladivostok, Blagoveshchensk, Yakutsk, the developments of which are used throughout Russia.
Due to its sparse population, Siberia, so to speak, is the future genetic fund of Russia, because nature itself instills in the Siberian resilience, health, and unpretentiousness. However, harsh climatic conditions reduce average life expectancy, and healthcare in Siberia has practically collapsed due to meager budget funding.
Currently, the Baikal Forum is developing a strategy for the development of Siberia within the framework of the economic development of Russia; its purpose is to demonstrate the intellectual, resource and production capabilities of Siberia and the Far East and to develop practical methods for rational environmental management, development of energy, transport, information infrastructure and human potential of Russia in interaction with states Asia-Pacific region.
It is important to realize that Russia without Siberia is not Russia. And only a careful and comprehensive approach to all the socio-economic problems of Siberia and the Far East will make it possible to make the region in which we were lucky to be born a life-giving source for many generations.
Bibliography
1. Explorers. Historical stories about outstanding explorers and navigators of the Far East of the 17th-18th centuries. Khabarovsk book publishing house. 1976
2. Daniil Romanenko. Erofey Khabarov. Novel. Khabarovsk book publishing house.
3. History of Siberia from ancient times to the present day in five volumes. Volume two. Siberia as part of feudal Russia. Publishing house "Science". Leningrad branch. Leningrad. 1968
4. Amur is a river of exploits. Fictional and documentary stories about the Amur land, its pioneers, defenders and transformers. Khabarovsk book publishing house. 1970
5. Round table. "RF Today". Magazine. №20 2000
Far Eastern Institute of International Business
Test on the discipline “National History”
on the topic “Colonization of Siberia by the Russian people”
No. 02-ME-07
Group No. 132
Checked by: Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor Anna Nikolaevna Gridunova
Completed by: Patrina Elizaveta Vladimirovna
Khabarovsk.
2002
Plan:
1. Siberia. Alluring spaces
2. Prerequisites for the development of Siberia.
3. Annexation of Siberia to the Russian state. Annexation of Western Siberia. Annexation of Eastern Siberia.
4. Russian explorers (I. Moskvitin, S. Dezhnev, V. Poyarkov, E. Khabarov)
5. The significance for Russia of the entry of the peoples of Siberia into the Russian state.
6. Conclusion
... From century to century
A strong Russian man was walking
To the far north and east
Unstoppable like a stream
………………………….
He went to unknown lands
Through the tundra, rivers and ridges,
Through the rapids and heights,
While in the unknown distance
He did not come to the ends of the earth
Where there was nowhere to go
Where across his path,
Dressed in storms and fog,
The vast ocean arose
(From an old poem)
Siberia is a part of Asia with an area of approximately 10 million km, stretching from the Urals to the mountain ranges of the Okhotsk coast, from the Arctic Ocean to the Kazakh and Mongolian steppes. However, in the 17th century. Even more extensive territories were considered “Siberian”; they included the Far Eastern and Ural lands.
This entire gigantic country, 1.5 times the size of Europe, was distinguished by its severity and at the same time an amazing variety of natural conditions. Its northern part was occupied by desert tundra. To the south, across the main territory of Siberia, endless impenetrable forests stretch for thousands of kilometers, making up the famous “taiga”, which over time became a majestic and formidable symbol of this region. In the south of Western and partly Eastern Siberia, forests gradually turn into arid steppes, closed by a chain of mountains and hilly uplands.
Western Siberia is mainly a heavily swampy lowland. Eastern Siberia, on the contrary, is a predominantly mountainous country with many high ridges, with frequent rock outcrops; in the 17th century. it made the strongest impression on the Russian man, accustomed to the life of the plains. This entire space, stretching from the Urals to the Pacific Ocean, varied in landscapes and living conditions, frightened with its wild beauty, overwhelmed with grandeur and... beckoned with wealth. Before the Russian man who found himself in Siberia, he saw forests filled with fur-bearing animals, rivers incredibly rich in fish, meadows intended for grazing many livestock, beautiful but unused arable land.
What does the name “Siberia” mean? There are two most common points of view: Some scientists derive the word “Siberia” from the Mongolian “shibir” (forest thicket), others associate this word with the name of the “Sabirs,” a people who possibly inhabited the forest-steppe Irtysh region. But nevertheless, the spread of the name “Siberia” to the entire territory of Northern Asia was associated with the Russian advance beyond the Urals from the end of the 16th century.
Having crossed the Urals, the Russian people found themselves in a sparsely populated, but long-inhabited country. In Siberia at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. 200-220 thousand people lived. The population was denser in the south and extremely sparse in the north. Nevertheless, the small Siberian peoples, scattered across the forest-steppe, taiga and tundra, had their own ancient and complex history, differing greatly in language, economic activities and level of social development.
Hunting and fishing were the main occupations of most Siberian tribes, and as an auxiliary trade they were found everywhere. At the same time, fur mining became especially important in the economy of the Siberian peoples. They traded it, paid tribute, and only in the most remote corners furs were used only for clothing.
The Siberian peoples differed from each other in their level of social development, but in general they lagged far behind both in economics and culture from the population of both European and most of the Asian countries located to the south. The ancestors of some peoples of Siberia in the distant past had higher forms of social organization and culture than in the 16th-17th centuries. Their decline occurred as a result of devastating foreign invasions, disastrous internal strife, and the lack of stable ties with the centers of world civilization.
There were constant movements between the tribes in Siberia; gradually, more and more tribes and clans, weakened in the struggle, adopted the language and customs of their stronger neighbors, merging with them, losing their originality. Assimilation was common in pre-Russian and Russian Siberia. The stronger Siberian tribes and peoples not only assimilated and pushed aside the weaker ones, but also conquered them in order to receive tribute. Almost all Siberian peoples, even those living under a tribal system, had a certain number of slaves captured during armed clashes with their neighbors. Such clashes occurred very often.
Bloody internal (intertribal) strife, destructive inter-tribal wars, robbery, displacement to worse lands and assimilation of some peoples by others - all this has been commonplace in Siberian life since ancient times. Having arrived in Siberia, the Russians could not immediately stop the events, phenomena and processes taking place there, or dramatically change them. But the Russian state quickly became a new, active force in Siberia. Already in the 17th century. it had a decisive influence on the entire course of historical development of the Siberian peoples.
Driving forces of colonization
Russian people could first become acquainted with Siberia at the turn of the 11th-12th centuries. In 1563, a detachment of Volga Cossacks led by Ermak went to Siberia, they marked the beginning of the epic exploration of Siberia. Working people saw “Behind the Stone” as an opportunity to get rid of oppression and need.
What are the reasons for the stubborn advance of the Russians to the east? And why did it become widespread precisely from the end of the 16th century?
The beginning of the development of Siberia by Russian people occurred at the end of the 16th century. not by chance. Until the 16th century The Russian state was mainly supplied with especially valuable furs by the Pechora and Perm lands, but by the middle of the century they were noticeably “industrialized.” In the same time demand for expensive furs increased, especially abroad. Russian sable has long been highly valued in many European and Asian countries. From the middle of the 16th century. the possibilities for profitable sales of furs increased sharply, as direct trade links were established with Western Europe through the White Sea, and the inclusion of the entire Volga route into Russia (after the fall of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates) made it possible to export Russian goods directly to the countries of the East.
It is clear that under such conditions, Siberia, with its seemingly unimaginable fur riches, began to attract special attention. “Sable Places” began to attract industrialists and traders. But the strengthening state was also vitally interested in Siberian furs. With increasing power, expenses increased, and certain difficulties were associated with replenishing the treasury. And Siberia, with its natural and geographical conditions, opened up significant prospects for the Russian state.
Another important prerequisite for the development of Siberia was closeness to the eastern borders of Russia India and China, trade with which promised huge income to the treasury.
"Behind the stone" they hoped to find deposits of precious metals(gold, silver), which had not yet been found in Russia, but more and more of them were required. Therefore, the program for the development of Siberia included a strong foothold in its vastness. For this purpose, arable peasants and state-owned artisans were transferred to Siberian cities.
In parallel with the task of developing Siberia, the state tried to solve another - get rid of from all kinds of restlessness, unreliable politically the people at least remove it from the center of the state. Criminals and participants in popular uprisings began to be willingly exiled to Siberian cities. Exiles made up a noticeable part of the migrants who found themselves beyond the Urals, especially in the least favorable areas for life.
Non-Russian peoples of European Russia were attracted “For the stone” desire for better business conditions. During the period of the XVI-XVII centuries. The situation for the masses was quite difficult: taxes increased, feudal oppression intensified, and serfdom became more and more firmly established. People hoped to get rid of oppression of all kinds in new lands.
The main stream of free migrants consisted of those seeking a better life. Over time, it grew more and more and gradually exceeded the number of those who went to Siberia against their own will. It was he who ultimately led to its firm entry into the Russian state.
Annexation of Siberia to the Russian state
The colonization of Siberia by the Russian people was carried out in two directions:
Annexation of Western Siberia to the Russian state.
In the second half of the 16th century. The Russian state was overcoming the consequences of feudal fragmentation and was finally formed as a centralized state, covering the lands of the European part of the country with Russian and non-Russian populations. Long-standing ties and communication between the Russian people and the inhabitants of the Trans-Urals, the routes laid to the East by industrial and trading people, prepared the process of annexing the Siberian region to Russia. The beginning of the annexation of the huge Siberian region to the Russian state dates back to the end of the 16th century. , when the resettlement of Russians to the Trans-Urals and its development began, primarily by peasants and artisans. At the beginning of the annexation of Western Siberia to the Russian state, its indigenous inhabitants were still at the stage of a primitive communal system, more or less affected by the process of decomposition. Only the so-called Tobolsk Tatars eliminated tribal relations and formed their own primitive statehood - the Siberian Khanate. In the early 60s of the 16th century. (1563) the territory of the Siberian Khanate was captured by Genghisid Kuchum, the capture of the Siberian Khanate in Moscow became known in the summer of the same year, the government led by Ivan IV tried to resolve relations with Kuchum peacefully, at the same time it involved in the defense of the eastern borders the richest entrepreneurs, the Stroganovs, who had estates in the Perm region. In the summer of 1573, open hostile actions by Kuchum began, the Tatars invaded the estates of the Stroganovs. In this situation, the Stroganovs, using the right given to them by the government to recruit military men, formed a hired Cossack detachment. The detachment was commanded by Ataman Ermak Timofeevich. Ermak, having climbed the river. Chusovoy and having crossed the Ural ridge, moved down the rivers of the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains. In the area of the Epanchinsky yurts, the Cossacks, after a three-day battle, defeated the Tatars. From that moment on, moving further and further, Ermak’s Cossacks conquered the Siberian lands. The campaign of this squad played a big role in preparing the process of annexing the territory of the Trans-Urals to the Russian state. He opened up the possibility of widespread economic development of Siberia by the Russians. As a result of the actions of the Cossack squad, an irreparable blow was dealt to Kuchum's dominance in the Siberian Khanate. Kuchum, who fled to the steppe, continued to fight against the Russian state for several more years, but the Siberian Khanate had actually ceased to exist. Some Tatar uluses migrated with Kuchum, but most of the West Siberian Tatars came under the protection of Russia. Russia included the Bashkirs, Mansi, Khanty, who had previously been subject to Kuchum, who lived in the basins of the Tura, Tavda, Tobol and Irtysh rivers, and the Khanty and Mansi population of the left bank of the lower Ob region was finally assigned to Russia.
Thus, the beginning of the annexation and development of Siberia was laid not by government troops, but by people from the people who liberated the Khanty, Mansi, Bashkirs, West Siberian Tatars and others from the yoke of the descendants of the Genghisids. The tsarist government used the victory to extend its power to Siberia.
Since one of the main incentives for Russian colonization of Siberia at the initial stage was fur, the advance went mainly to the taiga and tundra regions of Siberia, the richest in fur-bearing animals. Advancement in this direction was also due to the extremely weak population of the taiga and tundra and the threat of devastating raids on the forest-steppe and steppe regions of Southern Siberia from the nomads of the Kazakh and Mongolian steppes. In the 16th century The most famous road to the Siberian land was the path along the tributary of the Kama river. Vishera. Further through mountain passes the path followed the rivers of the eastern slopes of the Urals - Lozva and Tavda. To develop and strengthen this route, the Lozvinsky town was built. In the tsar’s decrees, the governors newly appointed to Siberia were required to go through Lozva, food supplies and ammunition were transferred through Lozva, the conquerors of Siberia waited there for the start of navigation, and in the spring, when the “ice of the Skroets” descended down the Lozva on boats, plows, planks and ships to Tobolsk, then to Berezov and Surgut, from Surgut upstream the Ob to Narym and the Ketsky fort, from Tobolsk up the Irtysh to Tara, up the Tobol to Tyumen.
At the beginning of 1593, an offensive was launched against the Pelym princeling Ablagirim, who was hostile to Russia. For this purpose, the formation of a detachment began in Cherdyn, the governors of which were appointed N.V. Trakhaniotov and P.I. Gorchakov, Ablagirim’s resistance was broken, the territory under his control became part of Russia. In the summer of 1593, members of the detachment began construction of the Pelymsky town on the banks of the river. Tavdy. Thus, the route between the Lozvinsky town and Tobolsk was secured. The royal order obliged Gorchakov to organize grain production in Siberia in order to reduce the amount of food delivered from the European part of the state to supply service people. Later, until the end of the 17th century. the government steadily demanded from the governors of Siberian cities the creation and expansion of government plowing, increasing the plowing of service people.
In February 1594, a small group of servicemen with governors F.P. was sent from Moscow. Baryatinsky and V. Anichkov to consolidate the lands of the Ob region above the mouth of the Irtysh into Russia. The united detachment headed upstream the Ob to the borders of the Principality of Bardaka. The Khanty prince Bardak voluntarily accepted Russian citizenship and assisted the Russians in building a fortress in the center of the territory under his control on the right bank of the Ob River at the confluence of the Surgutka River. The new city on the Ob became known as Surgut. All Khanty villages in the Ob region above the mouth of the Irtysh became part of the new Surgut district. Surgut became a stronghold of tsarist power in the Ob region in the fight against the alliance of tribes, known in sources as the Piebald Horde.
In 1596, in order to prevent Kuchum's raid in the center of the Piebald Horde, the Narymsky fort was built.
Following the Narymsky fort on the bank of the right tributary of the Ob river. In Keti, the Ket fort was established; with its foundation, representatives of the governors from Surgut and Narym began to collect yasak - (tribute from the local population) from the population of the river basin. Keti, moving east to the Yenisei.
In 1594, to prevent raids by the remnants of Kuchum’s horde on the Irtysh, a Russian fortress was built near the Argarka River, which was called the Tara town. 320 people were left as part of the permanent Tara garrison. The Tara uluses along the Irtysh from Tobolsk to Tara were included in the new Tara district.
At the beginning of the 17th century. The Eushta prince Troyan came to Moscow and asked the government of B. Godunov to take the villages of the Tomsk Tatars in the lower Tomsk region under the protection of the Russian state and build a Russian fortress in their land. For his part, Troyan promised to help the royal administration of the new city in levying yasak on the Turkic-speaking groups neighboring the Tomsk Tatars. In March 1604, a decision was finally made in Moscow to build a city on the banks of the river. Tom, a high mountain cape on the right bank of the Tom was chosen as the site for the construction of a fortified point; by the end of September 1604, construction work was completed and peasants and artisans appeared in Tomsk along with military men. At the beginning of the 17th century. Tomsk was the easternmost city of the Russian state. The adjacent region of the lower reaches of the Tom, the middle Ob and the Chulym region became part of the Tomsk district.
In 1598 in the upper reaches of the river. The tour was set up for the Verkhoturye town, in the construction of which residents of the Lozvinsky town who were transferred to Verkhoturye for permanent residence took part. Due to the cessation of traffic along the old road, the Lozvinsky town was destroyed. With the construction of a new road (from Solikamsk through mountain passes to the upper reaches of the Tura River), Verkhoturye became a city throughout the 17th century. “the main gate to Siberia” through which all official relations between Moscow and the Trans-Urals took place. To ensure the transportation of goods from Verkhoturye to Tyumen in 1600 on the river. Ture founded the Turin fort.
By the beginning of the 17th century. Almost the entire territory of western Siberia from the Gulf of Ob in the north to Tara and Kuznetsk in the south became an integral part of Russia. Russian administrative centers - cities and forts - grew. Many of them became centers of formed counties.
The annexation of Western Siberia to the Russian state was not only a political act. A more significant role in the process of incorporating Siberia into Russia was played by the economic development of the territory by the Russian people, the development of productive forces, and the disclosure of the production capabilities of the region, which is rich in natural resources. By the end of the 17th century. in Western Siberia, the predominant group of Russian residents were no longer service people, but peasants and artisans engaged in production activities. The Gazette of Siberian Cities of 1701 noted in Western Siberia 6442 families of service people, 1944 families of the townspeople and 9342 families of arable, obroch and monastic peasants.
Annexation of Eastern Siberia to the Russian state.
The annexation of the peoples inhabiting Eastern Siberia to Russia occurred mainly during the first half of the 17th century; the outlying territories in the south, east and northeast of Siberia became part of Russia in the second half of the 17th century.
The annexation of Eastern Siberia began from the Yenisei basin, primarily from its northern and northwestern parts. In the second half of the 16th century. Russian industrialists from Pomerania began to penetrate into the Gulf of Ob and further along the river. Taza to the east to the lower reaches of the Yenisei. Commercial entrepreneurship was carried out in various ways, which by the beginning of the 17th century. were already traditional. Industrialists reached the specified area either by sea (through the Yugorsky Shar, the Kara Sea and the Yamal Peninsula), or by the “through-the-stone” route (through the Urals) in its various variants. In 1616-1619. The Russian government, fearing the penetration of ships of English and Dutch companies into the mouth of the Ob, banned the use of the sea route, which, however, did not disrupt fishing ties with the lower reaches of the Ob and Yenisei.
Entire generations of Pomeranian industrialists were successively associated with fur trade in the Yenisei region. In the first decades of the 17th century. Russian industrialists began to vigorously develop areas along the largest eastern tributaries of the Yenisei - the Lower and Podkamennaya Tunguska, and also move along the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the mouth of the river. Pyasina, to the north-eastern shores of Taimyr. In the first half of the 17th century. Mangazeya industrialists founded on the Yenisei Dubicheskaya Sloboda (1637), Khantayskaya Sloboda, which grew out of a winter hut (1626), settlements in the upper reaches of the Lower Tunguska and other settlements with a permanent population.
By 1607, the Turukhansk and Enbat winter huts were founded on the lower Yenisei, and the yasak regime was extended to most of the Enets and Ostyak clans. After the formation of a permanent garrison (100 servicemen) in Mangazeya in 1625, local authorities created a network of winter tribute huts that covered the entire Mangazeya district and the tribute process in this area was completed. Thus, the territory in question practically became part of the Russian state at the time when the fur trade of Russian industrialists and their economic ties with the local population were already in their prime. As the main fur-trading areas moved eastwards, Mangazeya began to lose its importance as a trade and transshipment point from the 30s and its role passed to the Turukhansk winter quarters in the lower reaches of the Yenisei. The fishing population that settled there concentrated in places convenient for fishing, primarily along the banks of the Yenisei below Turukhansk, populated the lower reaches of Pyasina, Kheta and Khatanga, gradually developing the coastal areas of the Arctic Ocean for permanent residence.
The penetration of Russians into the basin of the middle reaches of the Yenisei began in the 17th century. After the founding of Surgut, Narym, Tomsk and Ketsk, detachments of people went to the Yenisei, the Krasnoyarsk fort was founded there, then the Makovsky and Yenisei forts (1618 and 1619). Thus, the annexation of the aborigines - the Pitsky, Vargagan and Angara Tunguses and Asans, who lived along tributary of the river Angara - r. Taseeva, occurred during the 20s of the 17th century. By this time, the Yenisei fort became an important transshipment center for Russian industrialists, and agriculture began to develop around it. In the second half of the 17th century. After the construction of the Kem and Belgian forts in 1669, the basin of the Kemi and Belaya began to be most intensively populated, attracting settlers with “great and grain-bearing” fields, an abundance of mowing and construction “red” forest.
The annexation of the population along the Kan River to the Russian state began immediately after the construction of the Krasnoyarsk fort, but in the fight against the Tuba and Buryat princes, Russian servicemen managed to gain a foothold there only in 1636-1637, when the Kansky fort was built. The construction of the Abakan and Sayan forts (1707 and 1709) finally ensured the safety of the Russian and yasak population of the Yenisei region from Kyrgyz and Dzungar aggression.
The development by Russians of the lower and middle parts of the Yenisei basin was an important stage in the process of annexing the peoples of Siberia who inhabited the river basin to Russia. Lena and Baikal region. The annexation of Yakutia and Buryatia to Russia began almost simultaneously. Russian industrialists first entered Yakutia in the early 20s of the 17th century. from Mangazeya, along the lower Tunguska. Detachments led by A. Dobrynin and M. Vasilyev were sent to develop the Yakut lands; later, detachments of servicemen V. Bugr and I. Galkin passed from Yeniseisk through the Angara to the Lena; in 1631, Galkin reached the Yakut land. For a long time, the Yakut princes resisted the Russian explorers; to replace Galkin, the Streltsy centurion Beketov was sent from Yeniseisk, who built the first fort in Yakutia, the newly arrived Galkin moved the fort from the low-lying bank to a more convenient place, and in 1643, by order of the governor P. Golovin The fort was again moved to Eyukov Meadow. The new fort was named Yakutsk. In 1633, the Yakut and Buryat princes tried to unite against the Russian colonialists and, due to their small numbers, it was difficult for the Russians to establish control over the local population. However, due to the tribal strife of the Yakut peoples and the desire of individual princes to use Russian troops in internecine feuds, some of them switched to side of the Russians. The struggle of service people to annex the Yakut lands to Russia was not as successful as the advancement of Russian industrialists into their economy. Before the official establishment of voivodeship power in Yakutia, the “houses” of the first-class Russian merchants widely expanded their activities on the Lena; the benefits for the local population from contacts with them were the main incentive that accelerated the process of annexing Yakutia to Russia. And in 1641, the first governor, stolnik P.P., arrived in Yakutia. Golovin. The formation of the Yakut Voivodeship completed the initial stage of the process of joining Yakutia to Russia.
In 1633, Russian servicemen and industrialists, led by I. Rebrasov and M. Perfilyev, first went along the Lena to the Arctic Ocean. Following further east by sea, they reached the mouth of the Yana, and then the Indigirka and discovered the Yukagir land. At the same time, a land road was opened through the Verkhoyansk Range to the upper reaches of the Yana and Indigirka (S. Kharitonov, P. Ivanov). Following this, the Verkhoyanskoe (1638) and Nizhneyanskoe (1642) winter quarters arose on the Yana, Podshiverskoe (1639), Uyandinskoe (1642) and Olubenskoe (1641) on Indigirka, Alazeiskoe (1642) on Alazeya. In the 40s, Russian explorers M. Starodukhin and others penetrated into Kolyma and founded the Middle (1643), Nizhne (1644) and Upper Kolyma (1647) winter quarters.
Russian explorers. Ivan Moskvitin.
The advance from the Lena to the east into territories inhabited mainly by Tungus and partly Yakut tribes, and to the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk, began during the annexation of Yakutia in the 1630s. For the first time, serviceman Ivan Moskvitin came to the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk with a group of Cossacks who were part of D. Kopylov’s Tomsk detachment.
Cossack service. A native of the Moscow region, Moskvitin began serving no later than 1626 as an ordinary Cossack in the Tomsk prison. He probably took part in the campaigns of Ataman Dmitry Kopylov to the south of Siberia. In the winter of 1636, Kopylov, at the head of a detachment of Cossacks, including Moskvitin, went for booty to the Lena region. They reached Yakutsk in 1637, and in the spring of 1638 they descended the Lena to Aldan and climbed it for five weeks on poles and towlines. On July 28, the Cossacks set up the Butalsky fort, 265 km above the mouth of the Mai River.
To the Sea of Okhotsk. From the Evenks, Kopylov learned about the silver mountain on the lower Amur. The lack of silver in the state forced him in May 1639 to send Moskvitin (now a foreman) with 30 Cossacks to search for the deposit. Six weeks later, having subjugated the entire local population along the way, the explorers reached the Yudoma River (a tributary of the Mai), where, abandoning the plank, they built two kayaks and went up to its source. They overcame an easy pass through the Dzhugdzhur ridge they discovered in a day and ended up on the Ulya River, flowing to the “ocean sea.” Eight days later, their path was blocked by waterfalls and the kayaks had to leave. Having built a boat that could accommodate up to 30 people, they were the first Russians to reach the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk. The explorers spent the entire journey through unknown terrain a little more than two months, eating “trees, grass and roots.”
N and on the Ulye River Moskvitin cut down the first Russian settlement on the Pacific coast. From local residents he learned about a densely populated river in the north and, without delaying until spring, went there on October 1 on a river “boat” at the head of a group of 20 Cossacks. Three days later they reached this river, called the Hunt. Moskvitin returned to Ulya two weeks later, taking the amanats. The voyage to the Hunt on a fragile boat proved the need to build a more reliable sea vessel. In the winter of 1639-40, the Cossacks built two 17-meter ones, and the history of the Russian Pacific Fleet began with them.
To the shores of Sakhalin. IN In November 1639 and April 1640, the explorers repelled the attack of two large groups of Evens (600 and 900 people). From a prisoner, Moskvitin learned about the southern river "Mamur" (Amur), at the mouth of which and on the islands live "sedentary Gilyaks" (sedentary Nivkhs). In the summer, the Cossacks sailed south, taking a prisoner as a “vozha” (guide). They followed along the entire western coast of the Sea of Okhotsk to the Uda Bay and entered the mouth of the Uda. Here, from local residents, Moskvitin received new information about the Amur, as well as the first information about the Nivkhs, Nanais and “bearded people” (Ainu). The Moskvitians headed east, went around the Shantar Islands from the south and, passing into the Sakhalin Gulf, visited the northwestern coast of Sakhalin Island.
M Osquitin apparently managed to visit the Amur Estuary and the mouth of the Amur. But the food was already running out, and the Cossacks turned back. Stormy autumn weather did not allow them to reach Ulya, and they spent the winter at the mouth of the Aldoma River, 300 km south of Ulya. And in the spring of 1641, having again crossed Dzhugdzhur, Moskvitin went to Maya and in the summer arrived in Yakutsk with “sable” booty. The results of the campaign were significant: the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk for 1300 km, Udskaya Bay, Sakhalin Bay, Amur Estuary, the mouth of the Amur and Sakhalin Island were discovered.
D To develop the Far Eastern region that he had discovered, Moskvitin recommended sending at least a thousand well-armed archers with ten cannons. The materials collected by Moskvitin were used by Kurbat Ivanov to compile the first map of the Far East in March 1642. In 1642 Moskvitin appeared again in Tomsk. Having visited the capital, he returned to Tomsk in the summer of 1647 with the rank of Cossack ataman. His further fate is unknown.
Semyon Dezhnev.
D Ezhnev Semyon Ivanovich (c. 1605-73), Russian explorer. In 1648, together with F.A. Popov (Fedot Alekseev), he sailed from the mouth of the Kolyma to the Pacific Ocean, rounded the Chukotka Peninsula, opening the strait between Asia and America.
Cossack service. D Ezhnev came from Pomor peasants and began his Siberian service as an ordinary Cossack in Tobolsk. In the early 1640s. with a detachment of Cossacks he moved to Yeniseisk, then to Yakutsk. He served in the detachment of Dmitry Zyryan (Yarily) in the Yana basin. In 1641, having received an appointment to Mikhail Stadukhin’s detachment, Dezhnev and the Cossacks reached the fort on the Oymyakon River. Here they were attacked by almost 500 Evens, from whom they fought back together with yasaks, Tungus and Yakuts. In search of “new lands,” Dezhnev and Stadukhin’s detachment in the summer of 1643 descended on a koch to the mouth of the Indigirka River, crossed by sea to the lower reaches of Alazeya, where they met Zyryan’s koch. Dezhnev managed to unite both groups of explorers, and they sailed east on two ships.
In search of "new lands". IN In the Kolyma delta, the Cossacks were attacked by the Yukaghirs, but broke through up the river and set up a fort in the area of modern Srednekolymsk. Dezhnev served in Kolyma until the summer of 1647, and then was included as a yasak collector in the fishing expedition of Fedot Popov. In the summer of 1648, Popov and Dezhnev went to sea on seven boats.
P According to the widespread version, only three ships reached the Bering Strait, the rest were caught in a storm. In the fall, another storm in the Bering Sea separated the two remaining Kochas. Dezhnev and 25 companions were thrown back to the Olyutorsky Peninsula, and only 10 weeks later, having lost half of the explorers, they reached the lower reaches of Anadyr. According to Dezhnev himself, six out of seven ships passed through the Bering Strait, and five kochs, including Popov’s ship, died in the Bering Sea or in the Gulf of Anadyr during “bad weather at sea.”
D Ezhnev and his detachment, having overcome the Koryak Highlands, “cold and hungry, naked and barefoot,” reached the shore of Anadyr. Of those who went in search of the camps, only three returned; The Cossacks barely survived the harsh winter of 1648-49, having built river vessels before the ice broke up. In the summer, having climbed 600 km, Dezhnev founded a tribute winter hut, where in the spring the detachments of Semyon Motors and Stadukhin came. Led by Dezhnev, they tried to reach the Penzhina River, but, without a guide, they wandered in the mountains for three weeks.
Difficult everyday life of explorers. P In late autumn, Dezhnev sent people to the mouth of the Anadyr for food. But Stadukhin robbed and beat the harvesters, and he himself went to Penzhina. The Dezhnevites held out until spring, and in the summer and autumn they took up the food problem and exploration of “sable places”. In the summer of 1652, they discovered a huge walrus rookery on the shallows of the Gulf of Anadyr, dotted with walrus tusks ("frozen tooth").
Last years of life. IN 1660 Dezhnev with a cargo of “bone treasury” moved by land to the Kolyma, and from there by sea to the lower Lena. After wintering in Zhigansk, he reached Moscow through Yakutsk in the fall of 1664. Here a full settlement was made with him: for his service and fishing of 289 poods (just over 4.6 tons) of walrus tusks worth 17,340 rubles, Dezhnev received 126 rubles and the rank of Cossack chieftain. Appointed as a clerk, he continued to collect yasak on the Olenek, Yana and Vilyui rivers. During his second visit to Moscow in 1671, he delivered the sable treasury, but fell ill and died in the beginning. 1673.
Z During his 40 years in Siberia, Dezhnev took part in numerous battles and skirmishes and received at least 13 wounds. He was distinguished by reliability and honesty, self-control and peacefulness. Dezhnev was married twice, and both times to Yakut women, from whom he had three sons (one adopted). His name is given to: the cape, which is the extreme northeastern tip of Asia (called Big Stone Nose by Dezhnev), as well as an island, a bay, a peninsula, and a village. A monument to him was erected in the center of Veliky Ustyug in 1972.
Poyarkov Vasily Danilovich
The exact years of his life are unknown. Explorer and navigator, explorer of the Sea of Okhotsk, discoverer of the Lower Amur, Amur Estuary and the southwestern part of the Sea of Okhotsk, “written head”.
In June 1643, at the head of a military detachment of 133 people, he set out from Yakutsk on a campaign to the Amur to collect tribute and annex the lands lying to the east up to the Sea of Okhotsk. The detachment went down the Lena to Aldan, then climbed up it to the rapids (discovering the Uchur and Golan rivers along the way). He left ships with some of the people here for the winter, crossed the watershed lightly on skis with a detachment of 90 people, discovered the Zeya River and wintered in its upper reaches at the mouth of the Umlekan River.
In the spring of 1644, ships were dragged there, on which the detachment went down the Zeya and Amur to its mouth, where they again spent the winter. From the Amur Nivkhs they received valuable information about Sakhalin and the ice regime in the strait separating the island from the mainland.
In the spring of 1645, having attached additional sides to the river planks, the detachment entered the Amur Lebanon and, moving along the shore of the Sea of Okhotsk to the north, reached the Ulya River. He spent his third winter there. In the early spring of 1646, he rode up the river on a sled, crossed the watershed and returned to Yakutsk along the rivers of the Lena basin.
Subsequently he served in Yakutsk, Tobolsk and Kurgan Sloboda in the Urals. A mountain on the island of Sakhalin and a village in the Amur region are named after Poyarkov.
Erofey Pavlovich Khabarov
Everyone who comes to Khabarovsk is greeted on the station square by a monument to a hero in armor and a Cossack hat. Raised on a high granite pedestal, it seems to personify the courage and greatness of our ancestors. This is Erofey Pavlovich Khabarov.
The work started by Poyarkov was continued by Erofey Pavlovich Khabarov-Svyatitsky, a peasant from Veliky Ustyug. It is known that in his youth Khabarov went to the Taimyr Peninsula to hunt fur animals; then he was engaged in salt production in Soli-Vychegodskaya (now the city of Solvychegodsk, Arkhangelsk region). In 1632, leaving his family, he arrived on the Lena River, where he was engaged in the fur trade for about seven years. In 1639, Khabarov settled at the mouth of Kuta, sowed a plot of land, began trading in bread, salt and other goods, and in the spring of 1641 he moved to the mouth of Kirenga, plowed sixty acres of land and built a mill. But his main wealth was his salt pan.
But Khabarov did not flourish for long. Voivode Peter Golovin considered the tenth of the harvest that Khabarov had given him by agreement to be too small - he demanded twice as much, and then took all the land, all the bread and the salt pan, and put the owner himself in prison in the Yakutsk fort, from which Khabarov was released at the end of 1645 year "goal like a falcon".
But, fortunately for him, Golovin was replaced by another governor in 1648 - Dmitry Andreevich Frantsbekov. Having learned about the successful campaign, Khabarov began to ask the new governor to equip a strong detachment in the Daurian lands.
Frantsbekov agreed to send a detachment of Cossacks and gave Khabarova credit for government-issued military equipment and weapons, agricultural implements, and from his personal funds he gave money at interest to all participants in the campaign. Sending Khabarov, the governor gave him an order - to summon the Daurian princes Lavkay and Batoga “under the high sovereign’s hand.”
In the fall of 1649, Khabarov and his detachment left Yakutsk.
He moved along the Olekma and Lena to the south - as close as possible to the upper reaches of the tributaries of the Amur, intending to reach the Amur, either by water or by drag.
It was very difficult to go against the current of the fast Olekma with its seething rapids. When the first pre-winter cold caught them, Khabarov stopped the detachment somewhere near the Tungir, the right tributary of the Olekma.
Here they cut down a fort, sat for a while, and in January 1650 they moved further south, up the Tungir. On sledges they crossed the spurs of Olekminsky Stanovik and in the spring of 1650 they reached the Urka River, the first tributary of the Amur on their way. The Daurs, who already knew that nothing good could be expected from the newcomers, left the city, surrounded by a moat and a palisade with fortress towers, where the Daurian prince Lavkai ruled. There were hundreds of houses there - each for 50 or more people, bright, with wide windows covered with oiled paper. The Russians found large grain reserves in the pits. From here Khabarov went down the Amur.
Lavkay himself suddenly appeared with his retinue. Khabarov immediately offered to pay him yasak, for which he promised royal protection and patronage. The prince, asking for time to think, left.
In one of the abandoned towns, the Russians met an old woman, Daurka. She reported that Lavkay fled from the banks of the Amur on 2,500 horses. She also told about the “Khin Land,” as China was then called: on the other side of the Amur, large ships with goods sailed along the rivers; the local ruler has an army equipped with cannons and firearms. Then Khabarov left about 50 people in the “Lavkaev town” and on May 26, 1650 returned to Yakutsk. He hoped that with reinforcements he would be able to move on.
Khabarov returned from his first campaign without any spoils, but he brought a drawing of the Daurian land - the first map of the region. This drawing became one of the main sources when creating maps of Siberia in 1667 and 1672. His notes, compiled during the campaign, spoke about the riches of Dauria - about its generous lands, about fur-bearing animals and about the abundance of fish in the Amur. Frantsbekov was able to evaluate the information obtained and immediately sent the Khabarovsk drawing, along with a lengthy report, to.
In Yakutsk, Khabarov began recruiting volunteers, spreading exaggerated information about the wealth of Dauria. There were 110 “willing” people. Franzbekov provided 27 “servants” with three cannons, with a supply of lead and gunpowder. Together with those who had gone to the Amur before, there were about 160 people. With this detachment, Khabarov again set out from Yakutsk in the middle of the summer of 1650.
In the autumn, following a familiar road, he reached the Amur.
Khabarov found the Cossacks he had left behind below the Amur near the fortified town of Albazin. Relying on Albazin, Khabarov attacked nearby villages that had not yet been abandoned by the Daurs.
Having sent part of the detachment with tribute to Yakutsk, in the winter Khabarov built planks, and in the spring he moved down the Amur. A few days later the Russians sailed to the town of Prince Gaigudar. The fortification consisted of three earthen towns connected by a wall and was surrounded by two ditches. Under the towers there were crawl spaces through which a horseman could ride. All the villages around this fortification were burned, and the inhabitants took refuge in the fortress.
Khabarov, through an interpreter, persuaded Gaigudar to pay yasak to the Russian sovereign, but the prince refused. After the shelling, the Cossacks took the town by storm, killing up to 600 people. A detachment of explorers stood there for several weeks, and then sailed further down the Amur.
From the mouth of the Bureya began the lands inhabited by the Goguls, a people related to the Manchus. They lived scatteredly, in small villages, and could not resist the Cossacks. The plowed duchers, who had earlier destroyed part of Poyarkov’s detachment, offered little resistance - the Khabarovsk people were more numerous and better armed.
At the end of September, the expedition reached the land of the Nanai, and Khabarov stopped in their large village. He sent half of the Cossacks up the river for fish. Then the Nanais, uniting with the Duchers, attacked the Russians on October 8, but were defeated and retreated, losing more than 100 people killed. The losses of the Cossacks were negligible. Khabarov fortified the village and stayed there for the winter. From here, from the Achansky prison, the Russians raided the Nanais and collected yasak.
In March 1652, they defeated a large Manchu detachment (about 1000 people), who were trying to take the fort by storm.
However, Khabarov understood that with his small army it was impossible to take control of the country; in the spring, as soon as the Amur opened, he left the Achansky fort and sailed on ships against the current.
In the Gilyatsky land, Khabarov met a new winter, and in the spring of 1653 he returned to Zeya, settled down and began sending detachments up and down the Amur to collect yasak. The entire left bank of the Amur was deserted: by order of the Manchu authorities, the inhabitants moved to the right bank.
At that time, he could not even imagine how the fame of his conquests and the untold riches of the Daurian land spread. Dispatches went from Yakutsk to Moscow, from which it followed that without military force it would be impossible to keep such a vast land in obedience. It was decided to establish a new one - the Daurian Voivodeship, but in the meantime, the Moscow nobleman Dmitry Zinoviev was sent from the Siberian Prikaz to prepare all the affairs. In August 1653, with a detachment of 150 Cossacks, he came to Zeya and presented the royal decree to Khabarov, ordering him, Zinoviev, “to inspect the entire Daurian land and to take charge of him, Khabarov.” And then, without delaying such an important matter, he tore Khabarov’s beard and, based on the slander of the offended and dissatisfied, organized an inquiry.
Erofey Khabarov was distinguished by a tough disposition, so the petitions that Zinoviev received spoke of various oppressions and that Khabarov “did not care about the matter, but did it with his money.” Zinoviev arrested him, took his property and sent him to Moscow.
In Moscow, in the Siberian order, they ordered Khabarov’s things to be returned. He wrote a petition to the tsar, where he remembered everything - the bread taken away by Golovin, and the chervonets awarded, which never reached him, that he “brought four lands under the sovereign’s hand,” that it was not so simple all this, but “his blood he shed and suffered wounds" - and for those hardships the tsar granted him a status as a boyar child and appointed him the manager of the Lena villages from Ust-Kuti to the Chechuysky portage. However, Khabarov was not allowed into the Daurian lands, even though he asked - “for city and prison supplies and for settlements and grain plowing.” Apparently, he still had a lot of strength left in him, since he expected to take on such work. And then he disappeared. Since then nothing has been known about him.
It is unknown when and where Erofei Pavlovich Khabarov, one of the first explorers of the Amur, died, but his descendants preserved his name: the largest city on the Amur - the center of the Khabarovsk Territory - is called Khabarovsk. Where the Great Siberian Railway crosses the Urka River, along which the great explorer sailed to the Amur, there is a station called Erofey Pavlovich
The significance of the entry of the peoples of Siberia into the Russian state.
Undoubtedly, the role of Russia in terms of the socio-economic development of the peoples of Siberia was great, but the development of Siberian lands and colonization were of great importance for the Russian state.
The collection of yasak from a huge number of the Siberian population in the form of furs made it possible to significantly enrich the Russian treasury; in addition to furs, minerals and timber, so necessary for the Russian economy, were supplied to the center of Russia.
With the increasing growth of Siberian settlements, demands for industrial goods, in particular clothing and fabrics, grew, which gave a new impetus to the development of trade relations; Russian goods were imported into Siberia, and Siberian goods (mainly furs) were exported from Siberia.
But no matter how large the operations for supplying goods to Siberia were, they could not, for many reasons, satisfy the needs of the population. Therefore, in Siberia, the process of intensifying various types of production, agriculture, construction begins, and taking into account the specific natural, geographical and national characteristics, new methods of management were developed, the use of which had a positive effect on the economic development of Russia as a whole.
Since the main routes of communication in Siberia throughout the 17th century. Since there were waterways and the transfer of heavy cargo was carried out exclusively along them, the need to provide waterways with river and, in some areas, naval fleets caused the rapid development of shipbuilding. Each river system had its own fleet and personnel specializing in shipbuilding. Which undoubtedly gave many advantages to the Russian state.
The development of Siberia and the need for rational use of its resources contributed to the rapid growth of specialization in various areas of production - leatherworking, woodworking and metalworking production, which indicates the production of goods not only for their own needs, but also to order or for the market.
Along with the development of crafts and industries, a mining industry is also beginning to be created in Siberia. The extraction of self-planted salt begins in Western Siberia, and enterprises and manufactories producing salt are formed.
In the XVI-XVII centuries. In Siberia, the mining of metal ores and smelting of metals begins, and on the basis of these discoveries, the local iron ore industry develops. The extraction of salt and metals developed in the places of their birth, and these deposits, as a rule. They did not coincide with urban settlements. These industries were serviced by the surrounding peasantry. Some peasants act as entrepreneurs. This suggests that previously poor people in central Russia now have the opportunity to get not only a job, but also to realize their abilities.
At the same time, there is a layer of specialists, that is, those who gave up farming, for example, at the Ust-Kut salt plant there were salt workers with an annual salary of 30 rubles, blacksmiths who repaired and forged tsrens, and hired woodcutters. Industrial personnel were formed.
With the increase in the production of goods for the market, enlarged production is created using hired force. The material basis for the transformation of small crafts into larger production was the combination of crafts and trade.
Trade operations in Siberia developed in various directions: one direction was associated with the formation of local Siberian connections, the other with the establishment of trade relations with European Russia.
Economic ties between Siberia and the European part of Russia gradually included Siberia in the emerging all-Russian market, making Siberia an integral part of Russia.
The noted phenomena, along with the creation of Siberian arable farming, mean a decisive step in the development of the productive forces of Siberia. At the same time, they were the basis for the economic rapprochement of previously largely isolated regions and made Siberia a participant in the economic life of Russia as a whole.
It should also be noted that the annexation of Siberia not only significantly expanded the borders of Russia, but also changed its political status - from the 16th-17th years. Russia has become a multinational state.
Conclusion:
The feat of the Russian people in the development of the unruly Siberian expanses is very difficult to overestimate, just as it is impossible to deny the positive impact of the annexation of the peoples of Siberia to Russia both for European Russia and for the Siberian peoples. The interpenetration and complementation of the economy, culture, religions of the peoples of central Russia and the Siberian population allowed the formation of a unique flavor in Russia, and the heroism, fortitude and physical endurance of the Russian people gave rise to myths about the mysterious Russian character.
But, studying this topic, you think not only about the significance of the colonization of Siberia in the all-Russian framework today, but also about how this happened then, in the 16th-17th centuries. in each specific locality, with each specific nationality.
To do this, it is necessary to distinguish between the concepts colonization and development.
The development of territories means its conquest with the right of the population living there to their autonomous development, while colonization implies the conquest of a territory in order to use its resources and population to replenish the national wealth of the conquering people.
What happened in Siberia? Of course, colonization.
And if colonization, could the imposition of someone else’s will, the will of Russia, be unconditionally accepted by the conquered peoples? Probably not.
Was the annexation of the Siberian peoples to Russia voluntary or forced? This question is still being asked by historians.
It’s no secret that Russian expeditions often simply barbarously plundered the local population and burned rebellious villages and towns. The possibility of large and fairly easy profit turned the heads of many; groups of people often fought off the Cossack detachments sent by royal decree with the sole purpose of enriching themselves at any cost.
The governors appointed by the sovereign to rule in the districts and forts exceeded their authority, abused their power, took concubines from the local population and cruelly punished them for disobedience.
For example, documents testify to the massacre committed by Khabarov in a captured native camp. Residents from other cities assured the ataman that they were ready and would pay yasak to the Russian Tsar, but he “ordered the men to be drowned and their wives and children to be purged,” that is, to be divided among the serving people. Among those captured was the wife of the local prince Shilginei, whom Khabarov wanted to make his concubine. She resisted, and the chieftain ordered to strangle her. He killed almost all the hostages with a whip. The report to Moscow included news that many residents had taken their own lives. (from an article by N.P. Chulkov about Khabarov in the magazine “Russian Archive” 1898, book 1, p. 177-190)
In my opinion, this is where the origins of central Russia’s somewhat dismissive and consumerist attitude towards Siberia lie. Siberia and the Far East can even now be called a colony of Russia; resources continue to be pumped out of them without proper restoration and economic exchange beneficial for Siberia, hence the very low standard of living.
« Siberians are poor. In many Siberian regions people are starving. And for some it’s all a blessing. How could it happen that the average per capita income of a Siberian is ten times lower than, for example, in Moscow and the Moscow region? Although here, as I understand it, people are far from fattening. But why, even in the Oryol, Ryazan, and other regions, do people live, although they are also poor, but still better?” from speech Vitaly VishnYakova- Member of the Federation Council from the Chita Regional Duma in “RF Today” (No. 20 for 2000),
In addition to the function of raw materials, Siberia carries within itself a powerful intellectual potential; it is here that such major scientific, cultural and production centers operate as Novosibirsk, Vladivostok, Blagoveshchensk, Yakutsk, the developments of which are used throughout Russia.
Due to its sparse population, Siberia, so to speak, is the future genetic fund of Russia, because nature itself instills in the Siberian resilience, health, and unpretentiousness. However, harsh climatic conditions reduce average life expectancy, and healthcare in Siberia has practically collapsed due to meager budget funding.
Currently, the Baikal Forum is developing a strategy for the development of Siberia within the framework of the economic development of Russia; its purpose is to demonstrate the intellectual, resource and production capabilities of Siberia and the Far East and to develop practical methods for rational environmental management, development of energy, transport, information infrastructure and human potential of Russia in interaction with states Asia-Pacific region.
It's important to realize that Russia without Siberia is not Russia. And only a careful and comprehensive approach to all the socio-economic problems of Siberia and the Far East will make it possible to make the region in which we were lucky to be born a life-giving source for many generations.
Literature:
1. Explorers. Historical stories about outstanding explorers and navigators of the Far East of the 17th-18th centuries. Khabarovsk book publishing house. 1976
2. Daniil Romanenko. Erofey Khabarov. Novel. Khabarovsk book publishing house.
3. History of Siberia from ancient times to the present day in five volumes. Volume two. Siberia as part of feudal Russia. Publishing house "Science". Leningrad branch. Leningrad. 1968
4. Amur is a river of exploits. Fictional and documentary stories about the Amur land, its pioneers, defenders and transformers. Khabarovsk book publishing house. 1970
5. Round table. "RF Today". Magazine. №20 2000
6. Nikitin N.I. Development of Siberia in the 17th century. – M.: Nauka, 1990
The most important and one of the most controversial is the question of the role of the government and the Stroganovs in organizing Ermak’s expedition, and who took the initiative for this expedition. Very early, following the living traces of events, the official concept of the “Siberian capture” arose in government spheres, proclaiming the role of the state as guiding and decisive. According to it, Ermak’s campaign is the implementation of government plans and a direct result of the actions of the central government: Siberia was taken by the “sovereign service Cossacks” on direct orders from Moscow. This view was reflected in later literature, including Soviet literature, although it was not widespread. Later, another concept was widely spread, giving the initiative and a decisive role in the annexation of Siberia to the Stroganovs: it was they, in need of protection and expansion of their possessions, who called a detachment of free Cossacks from the Volga, hired them into their service, equipped them at their own expense and sent them to Siberia. Supporters of this view rely on the so-called Stroganov Chronicle. But it must be borne in mind that it was compiled almost a century after Ermak’s campaign, in the estates of the Stroganovs, by their order and with the aim of glorifying this family. Finally, another interpretation of the beginning of the annexation of Siberia is rooted in folk legends associated with the stories of participants and eyewitnesses of Ermak’s campaign and reflected in many written sources, especially in the Kungur Chronicle and in the “History of Siberia” by S. U. Remezov. In them, the initiators of the campaign to Siberia are the Cossacks themselves, and the Stroganovs are only their unwitting creditors, forced, under the threat of force, to supply Ermak’s squad with everything necessary for the campaign.
Further advance into Siberia went mainly in the eastern direction, to the taiga and tundra regions that were sparsely populated and richest in fur-bearing animals, since fur was one of the main incentives for the development of Siberia at its early stage. In addition, the advance into the forest-steppe, steppe and mountainous regions of Southern Siberia was restrained by the constant threat of raids from numerous and warlike nomadic peoples, as well as the resistance of the Mongol Altyn Khans, Dzungar feudal lords and Kyrgyz “princes” who claimed power over the tribes living here. Further east (from the Ob to the Yenisei, and then to the Lena), the Russian people took two routes: the northern - through Mangazeya and the southern - up the Ob. At the end of the 16th century, industrialists from Mangazeya along Turukhan came to the Yenisei. Here in 1607, on the site of one of the winter huts they set up, Turukhansk was founded, which became the main base for further advancement to the east. Over time, the Mangazeya governor also moved his residence here. As sable was “industrialized” in Western Siberia, bands of industrialists, in search of new “sable places”, went further and further beyond the Yenisei along its eastern tributaries - the Lower Tunguska and the Podkamennaya Tunguska. Their winter quarters also appeared on Vilyui. Every year, many hundreds of industrialists gathered in Turukhansk for the winter. Here they met gangs going to fishing and returning from fishing, there was a lively trade, here they learned about the discoveries of “new lands” and about the routes leading to them, stories about the great Lena River flowing somewhere in the east were passed on from mouth to mouth. Around 1620, the “walking man” Penda set off from Turukhansk in search of this river, at the head of a gang of forty free industrialists like him. This legendary journey lasted several years, its participants covered about ten thousand kilometers. Penda's detachment climbed the Lower Tunguska and, having overcome its rocks and rapids, reached its very upper reaches. Having crossed the dry land through the portage, he went out to the Lena and descended along it to the place where Yakutsk was later founded. From here he turned back, reached the sources of the Lena and through the Buryat steppes reached the Angara. The first of the Russians to sail along the Angara, overcoming its formidable rapids, Penda and his comrades returned to Turukhansk along the already familiar road along the Yenisei. So for the first time Russian people visited the Lena and met the Yakuts. Spontaneous free people's colonization was ahead of government colonization. Free industrialists walked ahead. And only in their footsteps, along the paths blazed by them, did detachments of servicemen go to the “land lands” they had discovered, bringing the local population under the “high sovereign hand” and taxing them with yasak. Very characteristic in this regard is the expression of the “order” given by the authorities to the leader of one of these detachments, who in 1629 was sent from Tobolsk to Lower Tunguska and Lena: he was ordered to go there “to which places industrial people go to fish.” And yet we often unfairly consider the participants in these expeditions to be the pioneers and pioneers. We simply know more about them, since we have received their reports (“skasks” and “unsubscribes”), which they had to submit to the authorities. Free industrialists did not report to anyone and did not describe their exploits and campaigns. We know only about some of them from random mentions in the “unsubscribes” of service people. Hundreds of real pioneers remain nameless to us. We even know about Penda’s outstanding campaign only because oral traditions about it, passed down from generation to generation, were recorded in the early 15th century by the explorer of Siberia I. G. Gmolin. By a southern route, along the Ob and its tributary the Keti, the Russians reached the Yenisei in its middle reaches a little later - at the beginning of the 17th century. In 1619, Yeniseisk was founded here, which became the center of the vast Yenisei district. Advancement up the Yenisei encountered the oncoming movement of the Mongolian Altyn Khans and the resistance of the Kyrgyz “princes” subject to them. Krasnoyarsk remained the southernmost Russian outpost here throughout the century. Therefore, from Yeniseisk the Russians began to move east along the Angara and further to the Lena. At the end of the 20s, a path was opened from the Angara - its tributary Ilim and from Ilim "Lena portage" to the Lena tributary Kuta. This road, which soon became the main one, was used by the Cossack Vasily Bugor to reach the Lena in 1628. In 1632, the Yenisei Cossack centurion Pyotr Beketov founded the Lensky fort (Yakutsk), which became the main base for the further development of Eastern Siberia. reasons for the development of Siberia, people's colonization Russian explorers, who formed the vanguard of a powerful stream of people's colonization, covered the entire vast Siberia from the Urals to the Pacific Ocean in a relatively short period of time.
The peasant population was distributed unevenly across the territory of Siberia. It settled along the main southern route from west to east, in a strip suitable for agriculture. However, even in this zone, establishing agricultural production was fraught with enormous difficulties. The fact is that in the initial period of development of Siberia, the Russian population was deprived of the opportunity to cultivate arable land in the fertile southern forest-steppe and steppe zone; it was necessary to create an agricultural economy in the conditions of the Siberian taiga, winning plots of land from the forest for arable land. This labor feat of Russian peasants, performed in harsh and unusual natural conditions for the Russian farmer, required a gigantic effort of strength. The result was that already in the 17th century, cultivated arable land appeared almost throughout Siberia from west to east. The main regions of arable farming were formed: Verkhoturye-Tobolsk, Tomsk-Kuznetsk, Yenisei, in Transbaikalia and the Amur region and even in Yakutia, and at the beginning of the 18th century, agriculture appeared in Kamchatka. By the end of the 17th century, Siberia had already gotten rid of the need to import grain from beyond the Urals. Successes in the development of agriculture allowed S. Remezov to proudly declare that in the “glorious” Siberia “the land is rich in grain, vegetables and livestock. Apart from honey and grapes, nothing is scarce.” The creation of the foundations of Siberian arable farming, which later turned this region into one of the main breadbaskets of Russia, is one of the most remarkable pages in the history of the development of Siberia. The settlement and economic development of this vast territory by the Russian people, the predominant agrarian nature of colonization played a decisive role in the fact that already during the annexation, Siberia became both in terms of population and economically an organic part of the Russian state. As the Soviet historian V. G. Mirzoev correctly noted, “if we talk about the conquest of Siberia, then the main weapon was not a sword, but a plowshare. It was agricultural colonization that decided the matter.” relations between Russian pioneers and the state with the peoples of Siberia The development of previously untapped natural resources and a significant increase in the working population led to fundamental shifts in the economy of Siberia, to a sharp leap in the development of productive forces, to progressive changes in the life of its indigenous peoples, which took place under the influence of labor activity Russian settlers. The inclusion of Siberia into the multinational Russian state met the vital needs of not only the Russian people, but also the indigenous peoples of Siberia. This largely predetermined the violent nature of the process of its annexation and the amazingly rapid pace of Russian advance to the east. Moreover, this advancement, accompanied by the bringing into Russian citizenship and “explaining” the local population, was carried out by small detachments of service people, usually several dozen people. Yakutsk was founded by P. Beketov with a detachment of 20 people. The same was the detachment of Ivan Moskvitin, who first reached the Sea of Okhotsk and set up a prison there. Posnik Ivanov with a detachment of 30 people made a campaign against Yana and Indigirka, where he imposed tribute on the Yukaghirs. Semyon Dezhnev “explained” the tribes living in Anadyr with a detachment of 12 people. Such campaigns were possible only with very weak resistance from the local population. This can only be partly explained by the small number and scattering of the indigenous Siberian population over a vast area, the absence of large political entities (with the exception of the “Kuchumov Kingdom”), and inter-tribal feuds. The tribute imposed on the Siberian tribes upon their entry into Russian citizenship was not news to them. It existed here even before the arrival of the Russians. The Khanty and Mansi paid tribute to Kuchum. The Buryats, Yenisei Kirghiz and Kalmyk Taishas, who themselves were tributaries of the Mongol and Dzungar feudal lords, collected tribute from the conquered neighboring tribes. Therefore, for the majority of Siberian peoples, subordination to the Russian state meant only a change of dominance. This was often done voluntarily, since under Russian rule they received protection from attacks from stronger neighbors and were freed from more brutal forms of dependence. Already during Ermak’s campaign, the Khanty and Mansi did not want to fight for Kuchum, whom they hated, and voluntarily “bowed tribute” to Ermak. The tributaries of the Buryats and Yenisei Kyrgyz also voluntarily transferred to Russian citizenship. The South Siberian peoples came under Russian rule, fleeing the constant ruinous invasions of the Mongol, Dzungar and Manchu feudal lords, accompanied by the massive removal of prisoners. Sometimes the southern rulers forcibly took entire tribes to their territory. Such was the fate of the Duchers and Daurs, forcibly evicted from the Amur region by the Manchus, and the Yenisei Kirghiz, taken to the interior regions of Dzungaria. True, it also happened that some tribes themselves went south due to the abuses of the Russian voivodeship administration. For example, part of the Buryats and Evenks went to Mongolia. But, having found themselves in conditions of severe exploitation there, they soon began to return back to their “breeding” places. The foreign policy situation in the south became especially complicated in the second half of the 17th century, after the Manchu conquest of China. The Manchu rulers of China (the Qing Dynasty), in alliance with the Chinese feudal lords, using its inexhaustible human resources and economic potential, began to conquer neighboring peoples. This aggression, accompanied by the destruction of productive forces, the destruction of cultural values, and the extermination of the population, brought cruel terror and national oppression to the conquered peoples in the most brutal and barbaric forms. The scale and nature of this threat is evidenced by the fate of Dzungaria. As a result of the massacre committed here in 1756-1757 by the Manchu-Chinese invaders and which had few precedents in human history, almost its entire population (up to a million people) was exterminated; only a part of the Kalmyk-Oirats found salvation within Russia. economic and political consequences for the indigenous peoples of Siberia after joining Russia The entry of the peoples of Siberia into Russia, although associated with oppression and exploitation by the state, saved them from the more brutal oppression of backward feudal states, from forced removal from their native places and even from physical destruction. It helped overcome their isolation from the civilized world and created more favorable conditions for further economic and cultural development. The annexation and development of Siberia was a continuation of the natural process of expansion of the Russian state, agricultural development of the territory of European Russia. For Russia, Siberia was not a distant overseas colony, but immediately became an integral part of the state. This circumstance, as well as the generally peaceful, agrarian nature of Russian colonization of Siberia, sharply distinguishes this process from the colonial conquests of European powers on other continents. Comparing the methods of Russian and American colonization, A. I. Herzen wrote: “Russia is expanding according to a different law than America; because it is not a colony, not an influx, not an invasion, but an original world, moving in all directions, but firmly sitting on its own land. The United States, like an avalanche that has broken away from its mountain, carries everything before it; every step gained by them is a step lost by the Indians. Russia... like water, goes around the tribes on all sides, then covers them with the monotonous ice of autocracy..."
Russian colonization of Siberia- systematic penetration of Russians into Siberia, accompanied by the conquest and development of its territory and natural resources. The date of the beginning of Russian colonization of Siberia can be considered September 1, 1581, when the Cossack squad under the command of Ermak set out on a military campaign for the Urals.
Background to colonization
After the Russian conquest of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates on the Volga, the time came to advance into Siberia, which began with the campaign of Ermak Timofeevich in 1582.
The arrival of the Russians was ahead of the Europeans' exploration of the continental parts of the New World. In the 17th-18th centuries, Russian pioneers and settlers walked east through Siberia to the Pacific Ocean. First, Central Siberia, covered with forests (taiga), was populated, and then, with the construction of fortresses and the subjugation of nomadic tribes, steppe Southern Siberia.
Ugra (XI-XVI centuries)
The name of Siberia does not appear in Russian historical monuments until 1407, when the chronicler, speaking about the murder of Khan Tokhtamysh, indicates that it took place in the Siberian land near Tyumen. However, relations between Russians and the country, which later received the name of Siberia, go back to ancient times. In 1032, the Novgorodians reached the “iron gates” (the Ural Mountains - according to the interpretation of the historian S.M. Solovyov) and here they were defeated by the Yugras. Since that time, the chronicles quite often mention the Novgorod campaigns in Ugra.
From the middle of the 13th century, Ugra was already colonized as a Novgorod volost; however, this dependence was fragile, since disturbances from the Ugra were not uncommon.
Siberian Khanate (XIII-XVI centuries)
At the beginning of the 13th century, the peoples of southern Siberia were subjugated by the eldest son of Genghis Khan named Jochi. With the collapse of the Mongol Empire, southwestern Siberia became part of the Ulus of Jochi or the Golden Horde. Presumably in the 13th century, the Tyumen Khanate of Tatars and Kereits was founded in the south of Western Siberia. It was a vassal of the Golden Horde. Around 1500, the ruler of the Tyumen Khanate united most of Western Siberia, creating Khanate of Siberia with its capital in the city of Kashlyk, also known as Siberia and Isker.
The Siberian Khanate bordered on the Perm land, the Kazan Khanate, the Nogai Horde, the Kazakh Khanate and the Irtysh Teleuts. In the north it reached the lower reaches of the Ob, and in the east it was adjacent to the “Pieto Horde”.
Conquest of Siberia by Ermak (late 16th century)
In 1555, the Siberian Khan Ediger recognized vassal dependence on the Russian Kingdom and promised to pay tribute to Moscow - yasak (however, tribute was never paid in the promised amount). In 1563, power in the Siberian Khanate was seized by the Shibanid Kuchum, who was the grandson of Ibak. He executed Khan Ediger and his brother Bek-Bulat.
The new Siberian Khan made considerable efforts to strengthen the role of Islam in Siberia. Khan Kuchum stopped paying tribute to Moscow, but in 1571 he sent a full yasak of 1000 sables. In 1572, after the Crimean Khan Devlet I Giray ravaged Moscow, the Siberian Khan Kuchum completely broke off tributary relations with Moscow.
In 1573, Kuchum sent his nephew Mahmut Kuli with a squad for reconnaissance purposes outside the Khanate. Mahmut Kuli reached Perm, disturbing the possessions of the Ural merchants the Stroganovs. In 1579, the Stroganovs invited a squad of Cossacks (more than 500 people), under the command of the atamans Ermak Timofeevich, Ivan Koltso, Yakov Mikhailov, Nikita Pan and Matvey Meshcheryak to protect against regular attacks from Kuchum.
On September 1, 1581, a squad of Cossacks under the main command of Ermak set out on a campaign beyond the Stone Belt (Ural), marking the beginning of the colonization of Siberia by the Russian state. The initiative of this campaign, according to the Esipovskaya and Remizovskaya chronicles, belonged to Ermak himself; the Stroganovs’ participation was limited to the forced supply of supplies and weapons to the Cossacks.
In 1582, on October 26, Ermak captured Kashlyk and began annexing the Siberian Khanate to Russia. Having been defeated by the Cossacks, Kuchum migrated south and continued to resist the Russian conquerors until 1598. On April 20, 1598, it was defeated by the Tara governor Andrei Voeikov on the bank of the river. Ob and fled to the Nogai Horde, where he was killed.
Ermak was killed in 1584.
The last khan was Ali, son of Kuchum.
At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, on the territory of the Siberian Khanate, settlers from Russia founded the cities of Tyumen, Tobolsk, Berezov, Surgut, Tara, Obdorsk (Salekhard).
In 1601, the city of Mangazeya was founded on the Taz River, which flows into the Gulf of Ob. This opened the sea route to Western Siberia (Mangazeya sea route).
With the founding of the Narym fort, the Piebald Horde in the east of the Siberian Khanate was conquered.
17th century
During the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich, the first tsar of the Romanov dynasty, Cossacks and settlers colonized Eastern Siberia. During the first 18 years of the 17th century, the Russians crossed the Yenisei River. The cities of Tomsk (1604), Krasnoyarsk (1628), and others were founded.
In 1623, the explorer Pyanda penetrated the Lena River, where later (1630s) Yakutsk and other towns were founded. In 1637-1640, a route was opened from Yakutsk to the Sea of Okhotsk up the Aldan, May and Yudoma. While moving along the Yenisei and the Arctic Ocean, industrialists penetrated the mouths of the Yana, Indigirka, Kolyma and Anadyr rivers. The assignment of the Lena (Yakut) region to the Russians was secured by the construction of the Olekminsky fort (1635), Nizhne-Kolymsk (1644) and Okhotsk (1648).
The Irkutsk fort was founded in 1661, and in 1665 Selenginsky fort, in 1666 Udinsky fort.
In 1649-1650, the Cossack ataman Erofey Khabarov reached the Amur. By the middle of the 17th century, Russian settlements appeared in the Amur region, on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, and in Chukotka.
In 1645, Cossack Vasily Poyarkov discovered the northern coast of Sakhalin.
In 1648 Semyon Dezhnev passes from the mouth of the Kolyma River to the mouth of the Anadyr River and opens the strait between Asia and America.
In 1686, the first smelting of silver from Argun or Nerchinsk silver ores was carried out in Nerchinsk. Subsequently, the Nerchinsk mountain district appeared here.
In 1689 the Treaty of Nerchinsk was concluded, the border war began trade with China.
XVIII century
In 1703 Buryatia became part of the Moscow state.
On December 29, 1708, during the Regional Reform of Peter I, the Siberian Governorate was created with its center in Tobolsk. Prince M.P. became the first governor. Gagarin.
In the 18th century, Russian settlement of the steppe part of Southern Siberia took place, which had previously been restrained Yenisei Kyrgyz and other nomadic peoples.
In 1730, construction of the Siberian Highway began.
By 1747, a series of fortifications grew up, known as the Irtysh Line. In 1754, another new line of fortifications was built - Ishimskaya. In the 1730s of the 18th century, the Orenburg Line arose, one end resting on the Caspian Sea, and the other on the Ural Range. Thus, strongholds appear between Orenburg and Omsk.
The final consolidation of Russians in Southern Siberia took place already in the 19th century with the annexation of Central Asia.
December 15, 1763 finally abolished Siberian order, yasak begins to be available to the Cabinet of His Imperial Majesty.
In 1766, four regiments were formed from the Buryats to maintain guards along the Selenga border: 1st Ashebagatsky, 2nd Tsongolsky, 3rd Atagansky and 4th Sartolsky.
During the reign of Peter I, scientific research of Siberia began, Great Northern Expedition. At the beginning of the 18th century, the first large industrial enterprises appeared in Siberia - the Altai Mining Plants of Akinfiy Demidov, on the basis of which the Altai Mining District was created. Distilleries and salt works were founded in Siberia. In the 18th century in Siberia, 32 factories, together with the mines that served them, employed about 7 thousand workers. A feature of Siberian industry was the use of labor of exiles and convicts.
Style develops in architecture Siberian Baroque.
Notes
- Kargalov V.V. Moscow governors of the XVI-XVII centuries. - M., 2002.
- Ladvinsky M. F. Resettlement movement in Russia // Historical Bulletin- 1892. - T. 48. - No. 5. - P. 449-465.
The process of incorporating vast territories of Siberia and the Far East into the Russian state took several centuries. The most significant events that determined the future fate of the region occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In our article we will briefly describe how the development of Siberia took place in the 17th century, but we will present all the available facts. This era of geographical discoveries was marked by the founding of Tyumen and Yakutsk, as well as the discovery of the Bering Strait, Kamchatka, and Chukotka, which significantly expanded the borders of the Russian state and consolidated its economic and strategic positions.
Stages of Russian exploration of Siberia
In Soviet and Russian historiography, it is customary to divide the process of development of the northern lands and their inclusion in the state into five stages:
- 11th-15th centuries.
- Late 15th-16th centuries.
- Late 16th - early 17th centuries.
- Mid 17th-18th centuries.
- 19-20th centuries.
Goals of development of Siberia and the Far East
The peculiarity of the annexation of Siberian lands to the Russian state is that development was carried out spontaneously. The pioneers were peasants (they fled from the landowners in order to work quietly on free land in the southern part of Siberia), merchants and industrialists (they were looking for material gain, for example, from the local population they could exchange fur, which was very valuable at that time, for mere trinkets worth a penny). Some went to Siberia in search of fame and made geographical discoveries in order to remain in the memory of the people.
The development of Siberia and the Far East in the 17th century, as in all subsequent centuries, was carried out with the aim of expanding the territory of the state and increasing the population. The vacant lands beyond the Ural Mountains attracted people with their high economic potential: furs and valuable metals. Later, these territories really became the locomotive of the country’s industrial development, and even today Siberia has sufficient potential and is a strategic region of Russia.
Features of the development of Siberian lands
The process of colonization of free lands beyond the Ural ridge included the gradual advance of discoverers to the East up to the Pacific coast and consolidation on the Kamchatka Peninsula. In the folklore of the peoples inhabiting the northern and eastern lands, the word “Cossack” is most often used to designate Russians.
At the beginning of the development of Siberia by the Russians (16-17 centuries), the pioneers advanced mainly along rivers. They walked by land only in watershed areas. Upon arrival in a new area, the pioneers began peace negotiations with the local population, offering to join the king and pay yasak - a tax in kind, usually in furs. Negotiations did not always end successfully. Then the matter was resolved by military means. On the lands of the local population, forts or simply winter huts were set up. Some of the Cossacks remained there to maintain the obedience of the tribes and collect yasak. Following the Cossacks were peasants, clergy, merchants and industrialists. The greatest resistance was provided by the Khanty and other large tribal unions, as well as the Siberian Khanate. In addition, there have been several conflicts with China.
Novgorod campaigns to the “iron gates”
Back in the eleventh century, the Novgorodians reached the Ural Mountains (“iron gates”), but were defeated by the Ugras. Ugra was then called the lands of the Northern Urals and the coast of the Arctic Ocean, where local tribes lived. From the middle of the thirteenth century, Ugra had already been developed by the Novgorodians, but this dependence was not strong. After the fall of Novgorod, the tasks of developing Siberia passed to Moscow.
Free lands beyond the Ural ridge
Traditionally, the first stage (11-15 centuries) is not yet considered the conquest of Siberia. Officially, it began with Ermak’s campaign in 1580, but even then the Russians knew that beyond the Ural ridge there were vast territories that remained practically no man’s land after the collapse of the Horde. Local peoples were few in number and poorly developed, with the only exception being the Siberian Khanate, founded by the Siberian Tatars. But wars were constantly raging in it and civil strife did not stop. This led to its weakening and to the fact that it soon became part of the Russian Kingdom.
History of the development of Siberia in the 16th-17th centuries
The first campaign was undertaken under Ivan III. Before this, Russian rulers were prevented from turning their gaze to the east by internal political problems. Only Ivan IV took the free lands seriously, and only in the last years of his reign. The Siberian Khanate formally became part of the Russian state back in 1555, but later Khan Kuchum declared his people free from tribute to the tsar.
The answer was given by sending Ermak’s detachment there. Hundreds of Cossacks, led by five atamans, captured the capital of the Tatars and founded several settlements. In 1586, the first Russian city, Tyumen, was founded in Siberia, in 1587 the Cossacks founded Tobolsk, in 1593 - Surgut, and in 1594 - Tara.
In short, the development of Siberia in the 16th and 17th centuries is associated with the following names:
- Semyon Kurbsky and Peter Ushaty (campaign in the Nenets and Mansi lands in 1499-1500).
- Cossack Ermak (campaign of 1851-1585, exploration of Tyumen and Tobolsk).
- Vasily Sukin (was not a pioneer, but laid the foundation for the settlement of Russian people in Siberia).
- Cossack Pyanda (in 1623, the Cossack began a hike through wild places, discovered the Lena River, and reached the place where Yakutsk was later founded).
- Vasily Bugor (in 1630 founded the city of Kirensk on the Lena).
- Peter Beketov (founded Yakutsk, which became the base for the further development of Siberia in the 17th century).
- Ivan Moskvitin (in 1632 he became the first European who, together with his detachment, went to the Sea of Okhotsk).
- Ivan Stadukhin (discovered the Kolyma River, explored Chukotka and was the first to enter Kamchatka).
- Semyon Dezhnev (participated in the discovery of Kolyma, in 1648 he completely crossed the Bering Strait and discovered Alaska).
- Vasily Poyarkov (made the first trip to the Amur).
- Erofey Khabarov (assigned the Amur region to the Russian state).
- Vladimir Atlasov (annexed Kamchatka in 1697).
Thus, in short, the development of Siberia in the 17th century was marked by the founding of the main Russian cities and the opening of routes, thanks to which the region later began to play great economic and defense importance.
Siberian campaign of Ermak (1581-1585)
The development of Siberia by the Cossacks in the 16th and 17th centuries began with Ermak’s campaign against the Siberian Khanate. A detachment of 840 people was formed and equipped with everything necessary by the Stroganov merchants. The campaign took place without the knowledge of the king. The backbone of the detachment consisted of atamans of the Volga Cossacks: Ermak Timofeevich, Matvey Meshcheryak, Nikita Pan, Ivan Koltso and Yakov Mikhailov.
In September 1581, the detachment climbed the tributaries of the Kama to the Tagil Pass. The Cossacks cleared their way by hand, at times even dragging the ships on themselves, like barge haulers. At the pass they erected an earthen fortification, where they remained until the ice melted in the spring. The detachment rafted along Tagil to Tura.
The first clash between the Cossacks and the Siberian Tatars took place in the modern Sverdlovsk region. Ermak’s detachment defeated the cavalry of Prince Epanchi, and then occupied the town of Chingi-tura without a fight. In the spring and summer of 1852, the Cossacks, led by Ermak, entered into battle with the Tatar princes several times, and by the fall they occupied the then capital of the Siberian Khanate. A few days later, Tatars from all corners of the Khanate began to bring gifts to the conquerors: fish and other food supplies, furs. Ermak allowed them to return to their villages and promised to protect them from enemies. He imposed taxes on everyone who came to him.
At the end of 1582, Ermak sent his assistant Ivan Koltso to Moscow to inform the Tsar about the defeat of Kuchum, the Siberian Khan. Ivan IV generously rewarded the envoy and sent him back. By decree of the tsar, Prince Semyon Bolkhovskoy equipped another detachment, the Stroganovs allocated another forty volunteers from among their people. The detachment arrived at Ermak only in the winter of 1584.
Completion of the hike and foundation of Tyumen
Ermak at that time successfully conquered the Tatar towns along the Ob and Irtysh, without encountering fierce resistance. But there was a cold winter ahead, which not only Semyon Bolkhovskoy, appointed governor of Siberia, but also most of the detachment could not survive. The temperature dropped to -47 degrees Celsius, and there were not enough supplies.
In the spring of 1585, the Murza of Karacha rebelled, destroying the detachments of Yakov Mikhailov and Ivan Koltso. Ermak was surrounded in the capital of the former Siberian Khanate, but one of the atamans launched a sortie and was able to drive the attackers away from the city. The detachment suffered significant losses. Less than half of those who were equipped by the Stroganovs in 1581 survived. Three of the five Cossack atamans died.
In August 1985, Ermak died at the mouth of the Vagai. The Cossacks who remained in the Tatar capital decided to spend the winter in Siberia. In September, another hundred Cossacks under the command of Ivan Mansurov went to their aid, but the servicemen did not find anyone in Kishlyk. The next expedition (spring 1956) was much better prepared. Under the leadership of governor Vasily Sukin, the first Siberian city of Tyumen was founded.
Founding of Chita, Yakutsk, Nerchinsk
The first significant event in the development of Siberia in the 17th century was the campaign of Pyotr Beketov along the Angara and tributaries of the Lena. In 1627, he was sent as a governor to the Yenisei prison, and the next year - to pacify the Tungus who attacked the detachment of Maxim Perfilyev. In 1631, Pyotr Beketov became the head of a detachment of thirty Cossacks who were to march along the Lena River and gain a foothold on its banks. By the spring of 1631, he had cut down the fort, which was later named Yakutsk. The city became one of the centers of development of Eastern Siberia in the 17th century and later.
Campaign of Ivan Moskvitin (1639-1640)
Ivan Moskvitin took part in Kopylov’s campaign in 1635-1638 to the Aldan River. The leader of the detachment later sent part of the soldiers (39 people) under the command of Moskvitin to the Sea of Okhotsk. In 1638, Ivan Moskvitin went to the shores of the sea, made trips to the Uda and Tauy rivers, and received the first information about the Uda region. As a result of his campaigns, the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk was explored for 1,300 kilometers, and the Udskaya Bay, Amur Estuary, Sakhalin Island, Sakhalin Bay, and the mouth of the Amur were discovered. In addition, Ivan Moskvitin brought good booty to Yakutsk - a lot of fur tribute.
Discovery of Kolyma and Chukotka Expedition
The development of Siberia in the 17th century continued with the campaigns of Semyon Dezhnev. He ended up in the Yakut prison presumably in 1638, proved himself by pacifying several Yakut princes, and together with Mikhail Stadukhin made a trip to Oymyakon to collect yasak.
In 1643, Semyon Dezhnev, as part of Mikhail Stadukhin’s detachment, arrived in Kolyma. The Cossacks founded the Kolyma winter hut, which later became a large fort called Srednekolymsk. The town became a stronghold for the development of Siberia in the second half of the 17th century. Dezhnev served in Kolyma until 1647, but when he set out on his return voyage, strong ice blocked the route, so it was decided to stay in Srednekolymsk and wait for a more favorable time.
A significant event in the development of Siberia in the 17th century occurred in the summer of 1648, when S. Dezhnev entered the Arctic Ocean and passed the Bering Strait eighty years before Vitus Bering. It is noteworthy that even Bering did not manage to pass through the strait completely, limiting himself only to its southern part.
Consolidation of the Amur region by Erofey Khabarov
The development of Eastern Siberia in the 17th century continued by the Russian industrialist Erofei Khabarov. He made his first campaign in 1625. Khabarov was engaged in buying furs, opened salt springs on the Kut River and contributed to the development of agriculture on these lands. In 1649, Erofey Khabarov went up the Lena and Amur to the town of Albazino. Returning to Yakutsk with a report and for help, he assembled a new expedition and continued his work. Khabarov treated harshly not only the population of Manchuria and Dauria, but also his own Cossacks. For this he was transported to Moscow, where the trial began. The rebels who refused to continue the campaign with Erofey Khabarov were acquitted, and he himself was deprived of his salary and rank. After Khabarov submitted a petition to the Russian sovereign. The tsar did not restore the monetary allowance, but gave Khabarov the title of son of a boyar and sent him to govern one of the volosts.
Explorer of Kamchatka - Vladimir Atlasov
For Atlasov, Kamchatka has always been the main goal. Before the expedition to Kamchatka began in 1697, the Russians already knew about the existence of the peninsula, but its territory had not yet been explored. Atlasov was not a discoverer, but he was the first to traverse almost the entire peninsula from west to east. Vladimir Vasilyevich described his journey in detail and drew up a map. He managed to persuade most of the local tribes to go over to the side of the Russian Tsar. Later, Vladimir Atlasov was appointed clerk in Kamchatka.