Siberia in the 17th century briefly. Exploration of Siberia in the 16th century

In the motley environment of tribes and peoples, languages and faiths, customs and cultures of Siberia, Russian people came at the end of the 16th and in the 17th centuries.

Inter-clan and inter-tribal strife and wars, robberies, the transformation of captives into slaves, attacks by the rulers of neighboring states and tribes, the transformation of a number of tribes into Kyshtyms (tributaries) constantly disrupted the course of life of the indigenous inhabitants of Siberia. Therefore, they often gave themselves under the protection of Russia.

AT Siberia there were not only service people, gangs of hunters, fur buyers, but also peasants who were looking for free land. Industrial, trading people, by hook or by crook, mined “soft junk” - furs. The peasants were interested in the land, the opportunity to work for themselves, without landlords.

The advance of the Russian people, the military and the "eager", was very fast. Their path is marked by the towns built by them - prisons, winter huts, for example, Krasnoyarsk (1628). Fraternal on the Angara (1630), Verkholensky (1642), Kirensky (1631), Olekminsky (1635). Lensky, or Yakutsk (1632). In the 30-40s. Russians discovered and explored the mouths of all the major rivers of Northeast Asia. Such a rapid movement to the east was simply explained by the search for new wealth, primarily a fur-bearing animal.

Detachments of Russian people, who reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean in half a century, numbered, as a rule, several dozen, only occasionally 200 people.

In 1648, six koches (vessels) of Kholmogorsk F. A. Popov and Cossack S. Dezhnev left the mouth of the Kolyma by sea. Dezhnevsky koch passed the strait past the Big Stone Nose and soon the ship was thrown ashore, "passed the Nadyr mouth." So the strait between Asia and America was opened. And F. A. Popov ended up in Kamchatka, where he sailed across the Pacific Ocean in 1648. The expedition of V. Atlasov (1697- gg.) laid the foundation for the advance to Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands.

In the middle of the century, Russians appear on the Amur. The main way there went from the north from Yakutsk, from where came the expeditions of V. D. Poyarkov, then E. P. Khabarov.

Russian towns, winter quarters, settlements appear in the Amur region: Albazinsky (1651), Kumarsky (1654), Kosogorsky (1655), Nerchinsky (1654), etc. The Amur region is part of the possessions of Russia. This met with discontent and resistance from the rulers of Manchuria, who then seized China. The Nerchinsk Treaty of 1689 delimits the possessions of Russia and China on the Amur and its tributaries.

By the end of the century, Russian possessions in the north and east came to natural boundaries - the edge of the Arctic and Pacific oceans.

K. Vasiliev. Russian explorer

Management of Siberia in Moscow, first the Posolsky order, then the Order of the Kazan Palace, in 1637 created a special Siberian order. The city of Tobolsk has become a kind of Siberian capital. From it, the voivode led the internal, and partly the foreign policy of the Siberian Territory. Governors with industrialists collected from the local population, more precisely - from adult men, yasak - an annual tax, mainly in furs.

By the end of the century, the Russian population of Siberia numbered 25,000 families; of these, 11 thousand, about half, were peasants. Accession of Siberia to Russia became a turning point in the history of the local population. It marked the beginning of an upsurge in the development of productive forces: agriculture, industry (the discovery and extraction of ores, salt), the rapprochement of the Russian and non-Russian peoples.

§Territorial limits of Russia XVII century
§Ivan IV the Terrible
§The wedding of Ivan IV the Terrible to the kingdom
§Reform of the Elected Rada
§Russia in the reign of Ivan IV

History of Russia 16 - 17 century.

Development of Siberia

History of Russia 16 - 17 century. Development of Siberia

source and documents on the history of the development of Siberia in the 16-17 centuries

From the very beginning of the annexation of Siberia and the incorporation of its peoples into Russia, the archives of central government agencies and voivodship offices began to accumulate huge documentary material that reflected and captured the course of this process: administrative correspondence, “speech speeches”, “skates” and “replies” of service people , descriptions of campaigns, journeys, diplomatic and administrative trips. These materials later served historians to recreate the history of annexation, exploration and development of Siberia, the history of Russian geographical discoveries in northeast Asia.

Annalistic historical writings about the "Siberian capture" (Esipovskaya, Kungurskaya, Stroganov Chronicles), which put forward fundamentally different concepts of Yermak's campaign, were given various interpretations and evaluation of the events described. The completion of this "annalistic" period was the "Siberian History" by S. U. Remezov, created at the very end of the 17th century.

Significant progress was made in the study of Siberia, including its history, in the next, 18th century, which was the result of the work of many expeditions, which included specialist scientists in various fields of knowledge. Particularly noteworthy are the merits of G. Miller, a member of the second expedition of V. Bering. His task was to collect materials on the history of the annexation of Siberia and the peoples inhabiting it. For ten years, from 1733 to 1743, G. Miller traveled all over Siberia, examined and described more than 20 archives, copied a lot of valuable documents, many of which have not reached us. He was one of the first to collect the folklore of the Siberian peoples, as well as linguistic, archaeological and ethnographic material. Based on this extensive material, he created the fundamental multi-volume "History of Siberia", the first volume of which, brought to 1617, was published in 1750. This essay has not lost its significance to this day.

A. N. Radishchev, who was exiled to Siberia and lived here from 1790 to 1797, showed great interest in the study of Siberia, its history, economy, and the life of the population. Among the "Siberian" works of A. N. Radishchev, written by him in exile, are "Description of the Tobolsk governorship", "Letter on Chinese bargaining", "Notes of a trip to Siberia", "Diary of a trip from Siberia", "Angel of Darkness" ( excerpt from the poem "Ermak"). One of them is "An Abbreviated Narrative of the Acquisition of Siberia". When writing this essay, A. N. Radishchev used the rich factual material contained in the first volume of G. Miller's "History of Siberia". But this does not mean that the "Abridged Narrative ..." is simply summary content of the book by G. Miller. An irreconcilable opponent of "autocracy", this "state that is the most contrary to human nature", Radishchev could not accept his concept, in which the main role in the process of annexing Siberia was assigned to state power, the fruitfulness of the autocratic principle and the actions of the government administration were affirmed, and the successes of the expansion of the feudal state were glorified. In contrast to this semi-official concept, Radishchev put forward a new, democratic explanation for the process of annexing Siberia, linking it to free people's colonization and emphasizing the role of the masses in this event. He did not consider the autocratic power to be the main driving force of this process, but the Russian people, "I am born to greatness," capable of "searching for everything that public bliss can do." He spoke out against national oppression, which aroused "the hatred of the people, which does not disappear even after the complete subjugation of the weakest." At the same time, he especially emphasized the importance of the established voluntary agreement between Yermak's detachments and Russian settlers, on the one hand, and the Siberian peoples, on the other, paid great attention to internal development the Siberian peoples themselves. These views of A. N. Radishchev on the history of Siberia were further developed in the advanced Russian historical thought of the subsequent time and in Soviet historical science.

There are still many "blank spots" in the history of the advance of the Russians to Siberia and the geographical discoveries they made. The fact is that the real pioneers were most often not service people who were obliged to submit reports on their campaigns, which were preserved in the archives, but free industrialists, who for the most part remained unknown. The reader is introduced to the little-known pages of the history of the development of Siberia by a chapter from the popular science book of Academician A.P. Okladnikov “The Discovery of Siberia”. A.P. Okladnikov (1908-1981) - an outstanding Soviet historian, archaeologist, ethnographer, world-famous specialist in ancient history peoples of North, Central and East Asia. The published passage deals with Penda's campaign from the Yenisei to the Lena, the memory of which was preserved only in oral traditions recorded much later, as well as the voyage of Russian polar sailors around Taimyr already at the beginning of the 17th century, which became known only thanks to the work done in 1941 the year of the accidental discovery of the remains of their wintering on the island of Thaddeus and in the wintering of Sims.

Of great interest are brief but capacious stories of the explorers themselves, preserved in the form of records of oral reports (“skaska”), written reports (“replies”) and petitions. These documents give a fairly clear idea of the situation of ordinary servicemen, of the difficult conditions of their service, associated with everyday risk, of relations with the local population, and of the methods of collecting yasak. In them, explorers act not only as brave travelers and yasak collectors, but also as the first inquisitive explorers of Siberia. In the “new lands” they discovered, they were interested in everything: paths, rivers, ore deposits, flora and fauna, opportunities for hunting, fishing, agriculture, the composition and size of the population, its language, customs and customs. The source of this information was not only their personal observations, but also the testimony of local residents, which was also reflected in the documents. The information collected by explorers served as the foundation for all subsequent knowledge about Siberia. Their reports were processed, summarized, on their basis consolidated "drawings" (maps) and geographical surveys of individual regions and Siberia as a whole were compiled: "Painting of Siberian cities and fortresses", compiled around 1640, Godunov's drawing and description of Siberia in 1667, drawing of the Siberian land of 1672 and, finally, the famous Drawing Book (atlas) of Siberia by S. U. Remezov (1701).

An interesting "tale" of the Cossack I. Kolobov, one of the participants in the campaign of the detachment of the Tomsk Cossack Ivan Moskvitin to the Sea of Okhotsk. This campaign, which took place in 1639, was an important milestone in the history of Russian geographical discoveries. Its participants were the first Russian people who came to the shores of the Pacific Ocean and sailed along the Sea of Okhotsk: to the north - to the mouth of the Okhota and to the south - to the mouth of the Amur. The story about this campaign by N. Kolobov served as one of the sources for the "Paintings for Rivers and Tribes", which is the first geographical and ethnographic description of the Okhotsk coast.

In the mid-30s of the 17th century, a turbulent period of development of the northeastern Siberian rivers began. The petition of the Cossack Ivan Erastov and his comrades contains a rather detailed story about the campaigns of Posnik Ivanov Gubar against Yana and Indigirka (1638-1640) and Dmitry Zyryan (Erilo) against Indigirka and Alazeya (1641-1642), which resulted in the basins of these rivers were surveyed and for the first time an overland road was laid from the Lena to the upper reaches of the Yana and from the Yana to the middle course of the Indigirka, which served until the end of the century as the main northeastern land highway. D. Zyryan's campaign against Alazeya was a prelude to the discovery of Kolyma in 1643.

In the 1930s, navigation began between the Lena and other northeastern rivers. By the 1950s, it had become quite lively. By sea, food and equipment were brought to Yana, Indigirka, Kolyma, furs were exported. By sea, servicemen went to serve in distant prisons and returned to Yakutsk. But navigation in harsh polar conditions has not become less dangerous and risky. About what difficulties had to be overcome during these voyages, about the fate of the sailors, covered with ice and carried away to the open sea, is narrated in Timofey Buldakov's "replies" about his voyages to Kolyma (in 1650) and back (in 1653) .

Also about sea navigation, but already in the waters of the Pacific Ocean (from Anadyr to the Chukchi moment) is described in Kurbatov's "reply". He came to Lena as a Cossack at the very beginning of its development and took a direct part in the discovery of new lands and in bringing the Siberian peoples into Russian citizenship. In 1643 he was the first Russian to reach Lake Baikal. He is also known as a cartographer: he compiled the first drawings of the upper reaches of the Lena, Lake Baikal, the coast of Okhotsk and some other regions of Siberia. In 1657 he was sent to the Anadyr jail to replace Semyon Dezhnev. Arriving there in the spring of 1660, he next year made a voyage in search of a new walrus rookery, about which he spoke in his “reply”.

Two other documents - Vasily Poyarkov's "skazka" and the Yakut governor's "reply" - tell about the first trips to the Amur, the fourth of the great Siberian rivers. The first Russian military expedition to the "Daurian Land" was the campaign of V. Poyarkov in 1643-1646. His "tale" contains not only a detailed story about this campaign, but also the richest information collected during his campaign about the geography and natural conditions of this region, about the peoples who lived here, about their relations with the Manchus. And although this time it was not possible to gain a foothold on the Amur, this information played a big role in the further development of the Amur region by the Russians.

The Amur region was annexed to Russia only as a result of the campaign of a large detachment of "eager people", organized and led by the famous explorer and big businessman Yerofey Khabarov. The story of Khabarov himself about the first stage of this campaign is given in the unsubscribe of the Yakut governors.

Russian history

To main

The conquest of Siberia by the Cossacks led by Yermak

Moscow Rus finally got rid of the Mongol-Tatar yoke.

Exploration of Siberia in the 16th-17th centuries (p. 1 of 13)

After that, the Russians themselves went to conquer the east. At the end of the 15th century Kazan was taken by the troops of Ivan III. But it was not possible to keep it and the Tatar Khan got it back.
Tsar Ivan the Terrible achieved great success in conquering the eastern lands. They are in the 16th century. two very powerful fortresses Kazan and Astrakhan were captured and annexed to Russia. These cities were very rich, and also had an important strategic and commercial importance.

Yermak's campaign in Siberia

In ancient times, there were quite a lot of energetic people in Rus', thirsty for adventure. They formed Cossack detachments on the lower reaches of the Don. From where they could raid neighboring states or trade with them. Naturally, such people simply could not help but be hurt by the idea of conquering the vast eastern lands. In addition, the owner of those lands, the Mongol-Tatar state, by the middle of the 16th century, had long lost its former power, it was fragmented, lagged behind in development, and could only respond to Russian firearms with arrows from a bow. At that time, only the Blue Horde (the territory from Tyumen to Mangyshlak) could pose a serious danger to the Russians. Khan of the Blue Horde Kuchum disturbed the towns on the territory developed by the Russians with his raids. Of these settlements, the town of the Strogonovs stood out, who, in order to protect themselves from the enemy, hired a detachment of ataman Yermak in 1581 for an expedition to the east. His army was small, about 800 people.

Yermak's campaign in Siberia, despite the small composition of his detachment, was successful. The Russians captured the capital of Kuchum - Isker. A letter came from Yermak to Moscow, speaking of the vast Siberian territory. After that, the princes Bolkhovsky and Glukhov went to reinforce the Cossacks. In 1583 they joined with Yermak. All this time there was a battle between the Cossacks and Kuchum. In 1584, the Horde Khan nevertheless won and occupied his capital, at the same time Yermak himself died. However, later the Russian advance to the east was irreversible, Kuchum was finally defeated and promised obedience to the Russian Tsar. The history of the Blue Horde ended and Siberia was annexed to Russia.
The Russians covered the vast territory of the Urals, Siberia and the Far East. Subsequently, the Russians will take possession of Alaska and the fortress, which is now in California, and will call it Fort Ross. However, they sold Alaska and Fort Ross to the United States in the 19th century.
Ermak's campaign in Siberia played a huge role in the development of this territory by the Russians.

Reasons for the success of the Russian expedition

Development by Russians Far East and throughout Siberia was successful. What were the reasons for the success of Yermak's campaign in Siberia and subsequent expeditions to the east?
Many peoples of these lands were part of Russia without any problems, and those who resisted were not so united and determined to drive out foreigners. Yes, and such clashes were rather local in nature for each nation. The peoples of Siberia did not unite among themselves against the Russians, as, for example, the Arabs did against the Crusaders. One of the main reasons for this may be the special mentality of the Russian people. Russians were tolerant of the faith, culture, way of life, customs and language of a foreign people. Our ancestors did not try to break someone else's mentality, they even willingly adopted the customs of foreigners. Of course, the peoples of the lands conquered by the Russians had to agree to become part of Russia and pay tribute to it, but this tribute was so small that it could easily be regarded as a gift. In exchange, these peoples received protection and could write a letter to the tsar in case of any big problems, after which this issue was subject to analysis in Moscow.
Largely due to these features of the Russian mentality, Siberia was annexed to Russia and other lands.

To main

Founding of Siberia

Previous12345678910111213141516Next

The Stroganovs developed agriculture, hunting, salt making, fishing and mining in the Urals, and also established trade relations with the Siberian peoples,
About 1577 Semyon Stroganov (English) Russian. and other sons of Anikey Stroganov invited the Cossack ataman Ermak to serve to protect their lands from the attacks of the Siberian Khan Kuchum. In 1580, the Stroganovs and Yermak prepared a military expedition to Siberia in order to wage war on Kuchum on his own territory. In 1581, Yermak began his campaign deep into Siberia. After several victories over the Khan's army, Yermak finally defeated Kuchum's forces on the Irtysh River in a three-day battle on Cape Chuvashev in 1582.

The history of the development of Siberia in the 17th century

The remnants of the Khan's army retreated to the steppe, and Yermak conquered the entire Siberian Khanate, including the capital Kashlyk near modern Tobolsk. However, the Cossacks suffered heavy losses, and in 1585 Kuchum suddenly attacked Yermak, destroying almost his entire detachment. Ermak died in this battle. The Cossacks were forced to leave Siberia, but thanks to Yermak, the main river routes of Western Siberia were studied, and the Russian troops successfully continued the conquest of Siberia just a few years later.
At the beginning of the 17th century, Russia's advance to the east was slowed down by the country's internal problems during the Time of Troubles. However, soon the exploration and colonization of the expanses of Siberia resumed, mainly thanks to the Cossacks, who were interested in the extraction of furs and ivory. While the Cossacks were advancing from the southern Urals, another wave of Russian settlers was moving across the Arctic Ocean. These were Pomors from the Far North, who had long been trading furs through Mangazeya in the north of Western Siberia. In 1607, the settlement of Turukhansk was founded in the lower reaches of the Yenisei, not far from the confluence of the Lower Tunguska, and in 1619 the Yenisei prison was founded in the middle reaches of the Yenisei, not far from the confluence of the Upper Tunguska.
In 1620-1624, a group of fur buyers led by Pyanda left Turukhansk and explored about 2,300 km of the Lower Tunguska, wintering near the Vilyui and Lena rivers. According to later records (made according to collected local legends a century after the events), Pyanda discovered the Lena River. He allegedly walked about 2,400 km along it, reaching central Yakutia. He went back along the Lena until it became too shallow and rocky, after which he dragged the goods to the Angara. Thus, Pyanda became the first Russian traveler who met the Yakuts and Buryats. He built new boats and traveled about 1400 km along the Angara, returning to Yeniseisk and discovering that the Angara (the Buryat name) and the Upper Tunguska are the same river.
In 1627, Pyotr Beketov was appointed governor of the Yenisei. He successfully made a campaign to collect taxes from the Trans-Baikal Buryats, taking the first step towards joining Buryatia to Russia. He founded here the first Russian settlement, Rybinsk Ostrog. In 1631, Beketov was sent to the Lena, where in 1632 he founded Yakutsk and sent Cossacks to explore the Aldan and the lower reaches of the Lena, create new prisons and collect taxes.
Yakutsk soon became an important starting point for future Russian research in east, north and south directions. Maxim Perfilyev, one of the founders of Yeniseisk, founded the Bratsk prison on the Angara in 1631, and in 1638, having left Yakutsk, he became the first Russian explorer of Transbaikalia.

The accession to Russia of the peoples inhabiting Eastern Siberia took place 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, Kamchatka and the adjacent islands - in at the very end of the 17th-first half of the 18th century.

The accession of Eastern Siberia began from the Yenisei basin, primarily from its northern and northwestern parts. In the second half of the XVI century. Russian industrialists from Pomorye began to penetrate into the Gulf of Ob and further east to the lower reaches of the Yenisei. The industrialists passed to the indicated area either by sea (through the Yugorsky Shar, the Kara Sea and the Yamal Peninsula), or through the Urals. In 1616-1619. the Russian government, fearing the penetration of the ships of the British and Dutch companies into the mouth of the Ob, forbade the use of the sea route.

Entire generations of Pomor industrialists were successively associated with fur trades in the Yenisei region. They founded numerous winter huts and even “towns” that served as strongholds and transshipment points, established various ties with local residents - economic, domestic, and sometimes related. 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 northeastern shores of Taimyr.

Government activity to establish political domination began only at the turn of the 17th century. Industrialists, seeking to retain their monopoly on the exploitation of local fur trades, apparently managed to organize the action of the Samoyed tribes against the establishment of domination over them by the tsarist government. Despite the initial defeat, the Russian troops still managed to gain a foothold in this area and in 1601, on the banks of the Taza River, they founded the city of Mangazeya, which became the local administrative center and the most important trading and transshipment point.

The main part of the indigenous population of the Mangazeya district at that time were the ancestors of the three modern ethnic groups of the northern Samoyeds-Nganasans, the Tundra and Forest Enets, the ancestors of the modern Kets-Ostyaks and the ancestors of the modern Evenks-Tungus. The explanation of this population, which was fragmented and did not have any stable tribal organizations, nevertheless dragged on until the 1630s.

By 1607, the Turukhankoe and Enbat (Inbatskoe) winter huts were founded on the lower Yenisei, and the yasak regime was extended to most of the Enets and Ostyak clans. Tungus clan associations that lived east of the Yenisei until the mid-20s of the 17th century. the yasak regime was practically unknown. After the formation of a permanent garrison in Mangazeya in 1625, the local authorities generally completed the process of enlisting the indigenous population in the lower reaches of the Yenisei, only the northern group of the Samoyed population - the Yuraks (Nenets) became part of the yasak population in the middle of the 17th century. Thus, the territory under consideration politically became part of the Russian state by the time when the fur trades of Russian industrialists and their economic ties with the local population were already in full bloom. As the main fur trade areas moved east, Mangazeya began to lose its significance as a trading and transshipment point from the 1930s, its role was transferred to the Turukhansk winter hut in the lower reaches of the Yenisei.

The penetration of Russians into the basin of the middle reaches of the Yenisei began in the 17th century. After the founding of Surgut (1594) and Narym (1596) in the Ob basin, and somewhat later Tomsk (1604) and Ketsk (1602), Russian troops reached the Yenisei. Simultaneously with the foundation of Mangazeya in the first decade of the 17th century. a few tribal associations of the Ostyaks, as well as the Arins, who lived up the Yenisei in the area where the Krasnoyarsk prison was later founded, became part of Russia. The annexation of these regions was hampered by the opposition of some Tungus, Buryat, Oirat and Kirghiz princes, who considered the Yenisei population as subject to them and mercilessly ruined it. The Tungus prince Tasey fought especially stubbornly. However, his irreconcilable position did not meet with support from other representatives of the tribal Tungus elite. In 1628, on the Angara, the "non-peaceful" Tungus were defeated and, probably, concluded an agreement with the Russians, according to which the Tungus princes finally joined Russia, having received the right to independently collect yasak from their tribal groups and hand it over to yasak collectors. The joining of the Pit, Vargagan and Angara Tunguses, as well as the Asans, who lived along the tributaries of the Angara, occurred during the 20s of the 17th century.

By this time, the Yenisei prison became an important transshipment center for Russian industrialists, and Russian agriculture began to develop around it. The permanent Russian population on the middle reaches of the Yenisei was initially concentrated around the Yenisei prison. Until the middle of the XVII century. Russian villages and settlements arose along the main fishing and trade routes stretching from Western Siberia through the Makovsky prison to the Yenisei and from it further east along the Angara or north down the Yenisei. In the second half of the XVII century. after the construction in 1669 of the Kemsky and Velsky prisons, the Kem and Belaya basins began to be most intensively populated, attracting settlers with "great and grain-growing" fields, an abundance of mowing and a drill "red forest". The second most populated area was the area between the Yeniseisk and the mouth of the Angara, and the third - along the lower Angara and its tributary Taseeva, from which the Kansk steppes stretched to the south. By 1719, there were already 120 villages in the Yenisei district. The total number of the Russian population of the county by this time reached 18 thousand people.

The accession to the Russian state of small Turkic tribal formations - Tubins, Arints, Kamasins, Motorians and others, who lived in the Yenisei basin south of Krasnoyarsk, dragged on for many decades. Until the end of the XVII century. in this area there was a fierce struggle caused by the aggression of the Kirghiz princes, who relied on the strong political formations that had developed in Western Mongolia, first on Altyn Khan, and in the second half of the 17th century. - on the Dzungarian khans. Until 1640, it was complicated by invasions of the strong Buryat prince Oilan into the basin of the Kana River. The aggression of the Kirghiz and Buryat princes spread along the Yenisei even into the territory of the Ostyak clans. The strengthening of Russian statehood in this area brought security to the local population from extortionate extortions and prevented their physical destruction. In 1628, after four years of preparation, the Russian authorities founded the Krasnoyarsk prison on the Yenisei, which later became the main stronghold of the Russian defense of the Yenisei Territory in the south. After the founding of this prison, the struggle against the Kirghiz princes escalated and continued until 1642. It was accompanied by almost annual raids by Kyrgyz troops on the outskirts of Krasnoyarsk, sieges of the prison itself, extermination and deportation of the indigenous and Russian population, capture of cattle and horses, destruction of crops. The local population, driven away by the Kirghiz or leaving with them under the pressure of their threats, as a rule, every time after the military successes of the Krasnoyarsk service people, sought to return back to their "pedigree" lands. In 1642, the Tomsk detachments in a decisive battle for the Bely Iyus River (a tributary of the Chulym River) defeated the Kirghiz princes. However, as a result of this victory, only the Arins and in 1647 the Kachins managed to finally become part of Russia.

The accession of the population along the Kan river to the Russian state began immediately after the construction of the Krasnoyarsk prison, but in the fight against the Tuba and Buryat princes and the detachments of Altyn Khan, Russian servicemen managed to gain a foothold there only in 1636-1637, when the Kansk prison was built. After the victory over the Kirghiz princes, the Krasnoyarsk detachments, together with the Arins, Kachins and the Kan population in August 1645, after a difficult three-week campaign to the east, somewhere "between the Oka rivers", inflicted a crushing defeat on the Buryat prince Oilan and forced him to give "wool forever". Seven years later, in 1652, the Krasnoyarsk militia, which consisted mainly of yasak people (Arints, Kachintsy, etc.), defeated Oilan's younger relatives and finally secured the Kan basin from the east.

In the 1660s, the Kyrgyz princes, relying on the growing strength of the Dzungar khans, who defeated Altyn Khan in 1667, resumed the war. Among them, Erenyak, the son of Ishey, one of the initiators of the struggle against the Russians in the 1620s and 1640s, stood out for his energy in organizing predatory raids. This war was the longest and most difficult of all military clashes that took place in the south of Siberia with nomadic feudal formations. The Kirghiz and Tuba princes sought not only to return under their rule the local indigenous population, who sought salvation in Russian citizenship, but also to ruin the areas of intensive Russian settlement. The Yenisei and Krasnoyarsk authorities were forced to carry out serious fortification work, reinforce the artillery of the fortresses and the garrison of Krasnoyarsk. For 3 decades, the armed struggle continued with varying success. However, the decisiveness and consistency of the Russian offensive forced the Kirghiz princes to seek peace (1701). It became obvious that the Kyrgyz and Dzungarian aggression was failing, which its initiators could not but understand. In addition, the Dzungar ruler Galdan (Boshoktu Khan), who entered the war with the Manchus over Northern Mongolia, after a series of brilliant military successes, was driven back by the Manchus from the Great Wall of China, suffered a heavy defeat and died in 1697. Under these circumstances, the further struggle of the Kirghiz princes with Russia could be regarded by Galdan's successor, his nephew Tsevan-Raptan, as too dangerous. Therefore, in 1702, Tsevan-Raptan took part of the Yenisei Kirghiz from the Abakan steppe. The remaining indigenous population, which then formed the basis of the Khakass, became a subject of Russia. The construction of the Abakan (1707) and Sayan (1709) prisons finally ensured the safety of the Russian and yasak population of the Yenisei Territory.

The development of the lower and middle parts of the Yenisei basin by the Russians was an important stage in the process of annexation to Russia of the peoples of Siberia, who inhabited the Lena and Baikal basins. The accession of Yakutia and Buryatia to Russia began almost simultaneously, but it took place in peculiar conditions and had its own characteristics.

For the first time, Russian industrialists penetrated into Yakutia in the early 20s of the 17th century. from Mangazeya, along the Lower Tunguska. Initially, the Toyon nobility tried to defend the exclusive right to exploit their relatives and actively opposed the Russians, who began to explain the local population.

This struggle by no means reflected the whole essence of the process of joining Yakutia to Russia. The Russian detachments were so few in number that, despite the superiority in weapons, they practically could not establish control over the local population. Even the largest detachments consisted of 30-50 people. Not all Yakut clans took part in the struggle. Its aggravation was often explained by tribal strife, the desire of individual princes to use Russian detachments in internecine strife, either going over to the side of the Russians, or fighting against them.

The failures of the Yakut princes showed the difficulty of fighting the Russians, but it was not the main reason for the termination of their resistance. Most of the Yakut population quickly became convinced of the benefits of peaceful ties with the Russian population who came to Yakutia - industrialists and merchants. With all the "untruths" perpetrated by Russian industrialists, non-equivalent exchange, armed clashes in the fields, the benefits from contact with them were obvious and accelerated the accession of Yakutia to Russia. Formation of the Yakut province in 1641. completed the initial stage of the process of joining Yakutia to Russia.

The bulk of the Yakuts, who became part of Russia in 1632-1636, lived in a compact array in the central part of Yakutia on both banks of the Lena. The accession of other groups of the Yakut population and the Yukagirs in the north and northeast, as well as the Tungus population living in the east, in the areas adjacent to the Sea of Okhotsk, was mainly associated with the same process of fishing entrepreneurship. It dragged on until the middle of the 17th century. and was marked by remarkable geographical discoveries.

Due to climatic and natural conditions in most of the territory of Yakutia, Russian development was predominantly commercial in nature. With the decline of sable crafts, Russian industrialists during the second half of the 17th century. began to leave Yakutia. However, separate groups of industrialists began to settle on distant rivers in the most favorable areas for animal and fishing trades, which by the end of the 17th century. formed a permanent Russian population on Anadyr, Kolyma, in the lower reaches of the Lena and Olenek. In the early 1640s, the Russians identified areas in Yakutia where agriculture was possible.

With the population of the extreme northeast and Kamchatka (Chukchi, Koryaks, Eskimos, Itelmens, Kuril Ainu), Yakut Cossacks and industrialists first came into contact. Some groups of Koryaks and Itelmens (Kamchadals) began to pay yasak already at the end of the 17th century. In the second decade of the XVIII century. The Kuril and Shantar Islands were annexed to Russia. The Chukchi and Asian Eskimos finally accepted Russian citizenship at the end of the 18th century.

The accession of Buryatia to Russia, which also began in the late 20s of the 17th century, was complicated by external circumstances. The Buryat princes subjugated part of the Angara Evenks and even sought to take possession of the Yenisei Turkic population. In turn, the Buryats were subjected to constant raids by the Mongol and Oirat feudal lords. Broad sections of the Buryat population were certainly interested in an alliance with the Russians in order to use them to protect themselves from the constant predatory invasions of stronger southern neighbors, as well as to expand trade ties. A significant part of the Buryat princes adhered to the same position. However, they did not want to lose their tributaries and opposed their inclusion in the general system of yasak relations established by the Russian authorities. Intertribal strife among the Buryats complicated the situation, which was used by the Oirat and Mongol feudal lords. Therefore, the annexation of Western Buryatia dragged on until the middle of the 17th century.

The first attempts to penetrate the Angara to Buryatia were made in 1625-1627. from Yeniseisk, then the Russians did not manage to overcome the Shaman thresholds, but they collected interesting data about the Buryat land, its wealth, internal political situation and trade relations.

For the first time in 1628, Russian detachments passed to Western Buryatia to the Okina and then Ust-Ud Buryats, were met there peacefully and received yasak. However, the frequent violence of the Krasnoyarsk Cossacks, who followed to Buryatia in 1629, caused opposition from the local population. During the founding of the Lensky (Ilimsky, 1630) and Bratsk (1631) prisons and the expansion of the yasak taxation, the position of the Buryat princes began to change, despite the desire of the Russian administration to rely on the Buryat tribal elite. At this moment, the Buryat princes, from whom the Russian authorities began to demand payment of yasak in full, managed to keep the Tungus dependent on them under their influence and opposed the Russian detachments. In 1634 they managed to win and burned the Fraternal prison. A detachment sent from Yeniseisk in 1635 restored the prison, but in 1638 the "fraternal" princes again "became disobedient." However, at this time, the princes began to gradually lose contact with their Tungus tributaries, and the ulus Buryats began to establish permanent peaceful relations with the Russians.

The Buryat population of the regions immediately adjacent to Baikal came into contact with the Russians from the beginning of the 1640s, when the Verkholensky prison was founded in the upper reaches of the Lena (1641). Some Verkholensk and Olkhon Buryat princes tried to retain their exclusive right to exploit the ulus population, but in general the Buryat population itself offered to "put up" and paid yasak. Immediately after the construction of the Verkholensky prison, the surrounding Buryats paid a significant yasak, and in 1643 the Baikal Buryats-Khorints and Batulins offered yasak at the first appearance of Russian detachments.

In 1654, at the mouth of the river. Ungi on the Angara, a Balagansky prison was built, and in 1661, the Irkutsk prison was built on the right bank of the Angara, which was the administrative center of the Irkutsk district and an important trading post in Eastern Siberia. The construction of these strongholds accelerated the annexation of the Angarsk Buryats to Russia and contributed to the strengthening of the security of the entire Buryat population. From the middle of the XVII century. Western Mongol feudal lords began to intensify raids on Buryat lands, which accelerated the final entry of the entire Western Buryat population into Russia. This fact was of great importance for the further history of the Buryats and the development of their culture.

In 1645-1647. in Transbaikalia, peaceful contacts were established with the Buryat and Tungus population and the Mongol princes, who sought to extend their power to the local population. Even peaceful relations began with the strong Mongol Tsetsen Khan. In the future, the Mongol khans, who were very interested in diplomatic and trade relations with Russia, as a rule, avoided serious clashes with the Russians and did not prevent the Transbaikal Buryats and Tunguses from joining Russia. The speed with which the Trans-Baikal population was annexed to Russia was explained primarily by the desire of the Eastern Buryats and a significant part of the Tungus to receive protection from the raids of the Mongol feudal lords and expand trade relations with the Russians.

The accession of the Amur region to Russia was also not without force of arms. Independent Daurian princes resisted. Collisions with them caused damage to the economy of the local population, which was greatly aggravated by the invasion of the Manchu troops on the Amur in 1652. The Manchu Qing dynasty managed to detain in the 50s of the 17th century by military action. the spread of Russian colonization along the Amur and provoke the performance of the indigenous population. However, in the 60s, the Manchu troops left the Amur, and the Russian population resumed the development of the deserted Amur lands.

The annexation of Transbaikalia and the Amur region was completed in the 60s of the 17th century. From the end of the 70s and throughout the 80s, the situation in Transbaikalia and the Amur region again became complicated as a result of the intensification of the aggressive policy of the Manchu Qing dynasty. In the 80s, the Russian population had to endure a difficult struggle with the Manchu troops on the Amur, and with the Mongolian troops in Transbaikalia. The decisive position of the Buryat and Tungus population, who came out together with the Russians in defense of their "pedigree" lands, to a large extent helped the Russian authorities organize the defense of Transbaikalia and achieve the conclusion of the Nerchinsk peace treaty (1689). Under the terms of the agreement, Russian settlers on the Amur had to leave part of the territory they had mastered. At the same time, fleeing the Manchu yoke and the bloody internecine struggle of the Khalkha and Oirat feudal lords, the Mongolian population began to leave for Russia. Threats to Russian settlements in Transbaikalia and on the Amur from the Manchus required serious defensive measures and the concentration of military forces. Therefore, service people in Transbaikalia and the Amur region in the 17th-early 18th centuries. constituted a significant part of the population.

The annexation of Siberia to the Russian state was not only a political act. Russian explorers in the 17th century. not only came to the shores of the Pacific Ocean and "brought ... under the high sovereign's hand" most of the modern territory of Siberia, but they settled and initially mastered it. Already in the course of the accession, Siberia became, both in terms of population composition and an economically organic part of the Russian state. The Russian settlement of Eastern Siberia, as well as Western, took place from north to south. In the 17th century the Russian permanent population mastered mainly the taiga regions.

The entry of Siberia into Russia, and in a relatively short time, was explained not only by the policy of the feudal Russian government aimed at seizing new territories and expanding the scope of robbery, not only by the aspirations of Russian merchant capital, but also by the diverse economic ties that were established between the Siberian peoples and those moving to the east. significant masses of the Russian population. As a rule, the accession of various regions of Siberia was in direct proportion to the intensity of Russian people's colonization, settlement and economic development of Siberian land by Russian settlers.

The need to fight the raids of stronger neighbors, the desire to avoid tribal strife, the need for economic ties, in turn, prompted the Siberian peoples to unite with the Russian people. Thus, the process of joining Siberia to the Russian state was a multilateral phenomenon, due to a number of circumstances. historical development Russian and Siberian peoples.

Russian colonization of Western Siberia

The article used materials from the site protown.ru

History of Russia 16 - 17 century. Development of Siberia

source and documents on the history of the development of Siberia in the 16-17 centuries

Already in the 17th century, the most lively interest of the Russian people in the initial period of the history of the annexation of Siberia, the desire to comprehend the significance of this event, manifested itself. Annalistic historical writings about the “Siberian capture” appear (Esipovskaya, Kungurskaya, Stroganovskaya annals), in which fundamentally different concepts of Yermak’s campaign were put forward, various interpretations and assessments of the events described were given. The completion of this "annalistic" period was the "Siberian History" by S. U. Remezov, created at the very end of the 17th century.

A. N. Radishchev, who was exiled to Siberia and lived here from 1790 to 1797, showed great interest in the study of Siberia, its history, economy, and the life of the population. Among the "Siberian" works of A. N. Radishchev, written by him in exile, are "Description of the Tobolsk governorship", "Letter on Chinese bargaining", "Notes of a trip to Siberia", "Diary of a trip from Siberia", "Angel of Darkness" ( excerpt from the poem "Ermak"). One of them is "An Abbreviated Narrative of the Acquisition of Siberia". When writing this essay, A. N. Radishchev used the rich factual material contained in the first volume of G. Miller's "History of Siberia". But this does not mean that the "Abridged Narrative ..." is simply a summary of the content of the book by G. Miller. An irreconcilable opponent of "autocracy", this "state that is the most contrary to human nature", Radishchev could not accept his concept, in which the main role in the process of annexing Siberia was assigned to state power, the fruitfulness of the autocratic principle and the actions of the government administration were affirmed, and the successes of the expansion of the feudal state were glorified. In contrast to this semi-official concept, Radishchev put forward a new, democratic explanation for the process of annexing Siberia, linking it to free people's colonization and emphasizing the role of the masses in this event. He did not consider the autocratic power to be the main driving force of this process, but the Russian people, "I am born to greatness," capable of "searching for everything that public bliss can do." He spoke out against national oppression, which aroused "the hatred of the people, which does not disappear even after the complete subjugation of the weakest." At the same time, he especially emphasized the importance of the established voluntary agreement between the detachments of Yermak and the Russian settlers, on the one hand, and the Siberian peoples, on the other, paid great attention to the internal development of the Siberian peoples themselves. These views of A. N. Radishchev on the history of Siberia were further developed in the advanced Russian historical thought of the subsequent time and in Soviet historical science.

There are still many "blank spots" in the history of the advance of the Russians to Siberia and the geographical discoveries they made. The fact is that the real pioneers were most often not service people who were obliged to submit reports on their campaigns, which were preserved in the archives, but free industrialists, who for the most part remained unknown. The reader is introduced to the little-known pages of the history of the development of Siberia by a chapter from the popular science book of Academician A.P. Okladnikov “The Discovery of Siberia”. A. P. Okladnikov (1908-1981) - an outstanding Soviet historian, archaeologist, ethnographer, world-famous specialist in the ancient history of the peoples of North, Central and East Asia. The published passage deals with Penda's campaign from the Yenisei to the Lena, the memory of which was preserved only in oral traditions recorded much later, as well as the voyage of Russian polar sailors around Taimyr already at the beginning of the 17th century, which became known only thanks to the work done in 1941 the year of the accidental discovery of the remains of their wintering on the island of Thaddeus and in the wintering of Sims.

Also about sea navigation, but already in the waters of the Pacific Ocean (from Anadyr to the Chukchi moment) is described in Kurbatov's "reply". He came to Lena as a Cossack at the very beginning of its development and took a direct part in the discovery of new lands and in bringing the Siberian peoples into Russian citizenship. In 1643 he was the first Russian to reach Lake Baikal. He is also known as a cartographer: he compiled the first drawings of the upper reaches of the Lena, Lake Baikal, the coast of Okhotsk and some other regions of Siberia. In 1657 he was sent to the Anadyr jail to replace Semyon Dezhnev. Arriving there in the spring of 1660, the following year he sailed in search of a new walrus rookery, about which he spoke in his “reply”.

Behind the great Stone Belt, the Urals, lie the vast expanses of Siberia. This territory occupies almost three-quarters of the entire area of our country. Siberia is larger than the second largest (after Russia) country in the world - Canada. More than twelve million square kilometers store in their bowels inexhaustible reserves of natural resources, with reasonable use, sufficient for the life and prosperity of many generations of people.

Stone Belt Hike

The beginning of the development of Siberia falls on the last years of the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The most convenient outpost for moving deep into this wild and uninhabited region at that time was the middle Urals, the undivided owner of which was the Stroganov family of merchants. Taking advantage of the patronage of the Moscow tsars, they owned vast land areas, on which there were thirty-nine villages and the city of Solvychegodsk with a monastery. They also owned a chain of prisons, stretching along the border with the possessions of Khan Kuchum.

The history of Siberia, or rather, its conquest by Russian Cossacks, began with the fact that the tribes inhabiting it refused to pay the Russian Tsar yasyk - a tribute that they had been subject to for many years. Moreover, the nephew of their ruler - Khan Kuchum - with a large detachment of cavalry made a number of raids on the villages belonging to the Stroganovs. To protect against such unwanted guests, wealthy merchants hired Cossacks, led by ataman Vasily Timofeevich Alenin, nicknamed Yermak. Under this name, he entered Russian history.

First steps in an unknown land

In September 1582, a detachment of seven hundred and fifty people began their legendary campaign for the Urals. It was a kind of discovery of Siberia. On the whole route, the Cossacks were lucky. The Tatars who inhabited those regions, although they outnumbered them, were inferior militarily. They practically did not know the firearms, so widespread by that time in Russia, and fled in a panic every time they heard a volley.

To meet the Russians, the khan sent his nephew Mametkul with ten thousand troops. The battle took place near the Tobol River. Despite their numerical superiority, the Tatars suffered a crushing defeat. The Cossacks, building on their success, came close to the Khan's capital, Kashlyk, and here they finally crushed the enemies. The former ruler of the region fled, and his warlike nephew was captured. From that day on, the khanate practically ceased to exist. The history of Siberia is making a new turn.

Struggles with aliens

In those days, the Tatars obeyed a large number of tribes conquered by them and who were their tributaries. They did not know money and paid their yasyk with the skins of fur-bearing animals. From the moment of the defeat of Kuchum, these peoples came under the rule of the Russian Tsar, and carts with sables and martens were pulled to distant Moscow. This valuable product has always and everywhere been in great demand, and especially in the European market.

However, not all tribes resigned themselves to the inevitable. Some of them continued to resist, although it weakened every year. The Cossack detachments continued their march. In 1584, their legendary ataman Ermak Timofeevich died. This happened, as often happens in Russia, due to negligence and oversight - at one of the halts, sentries were not posted. It so happened that a prisoner who had escaped a few days before brought an enemy detachment at night. Taking advantage of the oversight of the Cossacks, they suddenly attacked and began to cut the sleeping people. Yermak, trying to escape, jumped into the river, but a massive shell - a personal gift from Ivan the Terrible - carried him to the bottom.

Life in the conquered land

Since that time, active development began. Following the Cossack detachments, hunters, peasants, clergy and, of course, officials were drawn into the taiga wilderness. All those who found themselves behind the Ural Range became free people. There was neither serfdom nor landlordism here. They paid only the tax established by the state. The local tribes, as mentioned above, were taxed with a fur yasyk. During this period, the income from the receipt of Siberian furs to the treasury was a significant contribution to the Russian budget.

The history of Siberia is inextricably linked with the creation of a system of forts - defensive fortifications (around which, by the way, many cities subsequently grew up), which served as outposts for the further conquest of the region. So, in 1604, the city of Tomsk was founded, which later became the largest economic and cultural center. After a short time, the Kuznetsk and Yenisei prisons appeared. They housed military garrisons and the administration that controlled the collection of yasyk.

Documents of those years testify to many facts of corruption of the authorities. Despite the fact that, according to the law, all furs had to go to the treasury, some officials, as well as Cossacks directly involved in collecting tribute, overestimated the established norms, appropriating the difference in their favor. Even then, such lawlessness was severely punished, and there are many cases when covetous men paid for their deeds with freedom and even with their lives.

Further penetration into new lands

The process of colonization became especially intensive after the end of the Time of Troubles. The goal of all those who dared to seek happiness in new, unexplored lands, this time was Eastern Siberia. This process proceeded at a very fast pace, and by the end of the 17th century, the Russians had reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean. By this time, a new government structure appeared - the Siberian Order. His duties included the establishment of new procedures for the administration of controlled territories and the nomination of governors, who were locally authorized representatives of the tsarist government.

In addition to the yassy collection of furs, furs were also purchased, the payment for which was carried out not in money, but in all kinds of goods: axes, saws, various tools, as well as fabrics. History, unfortunately, has preserved many cases of abuse. Often, the arbitrariness of officials and Cossack foremen ended in riots by local residents, who had to be pacified by force.

The main directions of colonization

Eastern Siberia was developed in two main directions: to the north along the coast of the seas, and to the south along the border line with the states adjacent to it. At the beginning of the 17th century, the banks of the Irtysh and the Ob were settled by Russians, and after them, significant areas adjacent to the Yenisei. Cities such as Tyumen, Tobolsk and Krasnoyarsk were founded and began to be built. All of them were to eventually become major industrial and cultural centers.

The further advance of the Russian colonists was carried out mainly along the Lena River. Here in 1632 a prison was founded, which gave rise to the city of Yakutsk, the most important stronghold at that time in the further development of the northern and eastern territories. Largely due to this, two years later, the Cossacks, led by, managed to reach the Pacific coast, and soon saw the Kuriles and Sakhalin for the first time.

Conquerors of the Wild

The history of Siberia and the Far East keeps the memory of another outstanding traveler - the Cossack Semyon Dezhnev. In 1648, he and the detachment he led on several ships for the first time rounded the coast of North Asia and proved the existence of a strait separating Siberia from America. At the same time, another traveler, Poyarov, having passed along the southern border of Siberia and climbed up the Amur, reached the Sea of Okhotsk.

Some time later, Nerchinsk was founded. Its significance is largely determined by the fact that as a result of moving to the east, the Cossacks approached China, which also claimed these territories. By that time, the Russian Empire had reached its natural borders. Over the next century, there was a steady process of consolidating the results achieved during colonization.

Legislative acts related to the new territories

The history of Siberia in the 19th century is characterized mainly by the abundance of administrative innovations introduced into the life of the region. One of the earliest was the division of this vast territory into two general governments approved in 1822 by personal decree of Alexander I. Tobolsk became the center of the West, and Irkutsk became the center of the East. They, in turn, were subdivided into provinces, and those into volost and foreign councils. This transformation was the result of a well-known reform

In the same year, ten legislative acts signed by the tsar and regulating all aspects of administrative, economic and legal life saw the light of day. Much attention in this document was paid to issues related to the arrangement of places of deprivation of liberty and the procedure for serving sentences. To XIX century penal servitude and prisons have become an integral part of this region.

Siberia on the map of those years is replete with the names of mines, work in which was carried out exclusively by the convicts. This is Nerchinsky, and Zabaikalsky, and Blagodatny and many others. As a result of a large influx of exiles from among the Decembrists and participants in the Polish rebellion of 1831, the government even united all Siberian provinces under the supervision of a specially formed gendarme district.

The beginning of the industrialization of the region

Of the main ones that received wide development during this period, it should be noted first of all the extraction of gold. By the middle of the century, it accounted for most of the total volume of oil produced in the country. precious metal. Also, large revenues to the state treasury came from the mining industry, which had significantly increased by this time the volume of mining. Many others have grown as well.

In the new century

At the beginning of the 20th century, the impetus for the further development of the region was the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The history of Siberia in the post-revolutionary period is full of drama. A fratricidal war, monstrous in its scale, swept through its expanses, ending with the liquidation of the White movement and the establishment of Soviet power. During the Great Patriotic War many industrial and military enterprises are evacuated to this region. As a result, the population of many cities is increasing sharply.

It is known that only for the period 1941-1942. more than a million people have come here. In the post-war period, when numerous giant factories, power plants and railway lines were being built, there was also a significant influx of visitors - all those for whom Siberia became a new homeland. On the map of this vast region, names appeared that became symbols of the era - the Baikal-Amur Mainline, the Novosibirsk Academgorodok and much more.

After the collapse of the Golden Horde, the vast territories that stretched to the east of the Ural Range, in fact, remained a no man's land. The nomadic tribes of the Mongols left here, and the local peoples were at a rather low stage of development, and their density was low. The exception, perhaps, was the Siberian Tatars, who formed their own state in Siberia, better known as the Siberian Khanate. However, internecine wars for power were constantly in full swing in the young country. As a result of this, already in 1555 the Siberian Khanate became part of the Russian Kingdom and began to pay tribute to it. That is why scientists came to the unanimous opinion that the development of Siberia should be described from the moment the Russians began to settle it.

The development of Siberia by the Russians. Start.

In fact, the Russians knew about the vast territories beyond the Urals much earlier than the 15th century. However, internal political problems did not allow the rulers to turn their eyes to the east. The first military campaign in the Siberian lands was undertaken by Ivan III only in 1483, as a result of which the Mansi were conquered, and the Vogul principalities became tributaries of Moscow. Ivan the Terrible took seriously the eastern lands, and even then only towards the end of his reign.

Despite the fact that, as a result of clan wars for power, the Siberian Khanate became part of the Russian Tsardom in 1555, the Russians were practically not active here. Perhaps it was precisely because of this that Khan Kuchum, who came to power in the Siberian Khanate in 1563, declared himself free from tribute to the Moscow Tsar and practically began military operations against the Russians.

Ivan the Terrible responded by sending a Cossack detachment, numbering 800 people, led by Yermak, only in 1581. Regular Cossack hundreds were well trained and quickly captured the capital of the Siberian Tatars - the city of Isker. The Cossacks establish several fortified settlements on the territory of Siberia, and Moscow supports them with new troops. That's just from that moment we can say that the development of Siberia by the Russians began. Over the course of 10-15 years, the Russians found several fortress cities in the Siberian lands. Tyumen was founded in 1586, Tobolsk in 1587, Surgut in 1593, and Tara in 1594.

Development of Western and Eastern Siberia. XVI-XIX centuries.

During this period, the management of the Siberian lands was given to the Ambassadorial Order. There is practically no Russian settlement of these vast territories. The development consisted practically in the construction of prisons with Cossack garrisons. At the same time, local tribes were subject to tribute in the form of furs, and only in this case they fell under the protection of the Russians from warlike neighbors. Only by the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th centuries did the Russian sovereigns initiate the resettlement of peasants in Siberia, since the numerous garrisons located mainly along the banks of the Ob, Irtysh, Tobol and Yenisei rivers were in dire need of food, and had practically no means of communication with the center.

The situation began to change only in 1615, when a separate Siberian Order was created to manage the vast eastern territories. Since that time, Siberia has been populated by Russians more actively. Gradually, prisons and hard labor settlements are formed here. Peasants flee here from the oppression of serfdom. Since 1763, Siberia has been ruled by governor-generals appointed by the emperor. Until the beginning of the 19th century, exiles and convicts were the basis of settlers in Siberia, which could not leave its mark on the entire process of development of the region. Only after the abolition of serfdom, landless peasants, who were looking for a better life on free lands, became the predominant mass in the immigrant wave.

Development of Siberia and the Far East. XX century.

The scientific and technological breakthrough of the 20th century can be considered a serious impetus in the history of the development of Siberia. Mineral resources, which this region is rich in, predetermined its development for decades to come. In addition, the railway communication that appeared at the end of the 19th century made it possible to significantly bring together the remote Siberian lands and central Russia.

After the Bolsheviks came to power, the development of Siberia takes on a new meaning and pace. Due to the rather cold climatic conditions during the Stalinist repressions, many people were forcibly relocated to the territory of the Siberian Territory. Thanks to them, the construction and expansion of cities, mining began. During the Great Patriotic War, factories, enterprises, equipment were evacuated to Siberia, which later had a positive impact on the development of the region's industry. The development of Siberia and the Far East as the country's material and raw material base is becoming increasingly important. Vast territories located in the deep rear acquire strategic importance.

Today, 85 percent of all Russia's reserves are located in Siberia, which strengthens the leading positions in the development of the country's economy. Siberia is one of the main places visited by residents of not only Russia, but also foreign countries. Siberia keeps a huge potential, which is only getting bigger every year.