Famous people of Transbaikalia. Trans-Baikal Territory. History of the Trans-Baikal Territory

/>AcademySpecial Communications of Russia

Department of Social, Economic and Humanitarian Disciplines

ABSTRACT

in History of the Fatherland

"Chita city."

Completed:

cadet 133 academic groups

Shestopalov I.V.

Checked:

Senior Lecturer,

Ph.D. Goncharova I.V.

Eagle 2004

Introduction

1. City of Chita.

1.1. History of occurrenceChits

1.2. History of the name 1.3. Appearance of the city

2.Symbol of the region

3. What made the city famous 4. Historical sources about Chita

Conclusion

Bibliography

IntroductionChita has a very rich and interesting history. It has come a long way from the “Plotbishche” to the capital of a sovereign state, from a place of exile for state criminals to the main regional administrative, industrial, scientific and cultural center of Eastern Transbaikalia. I chose this particular topic because I think it is truly relevant. Its relevance lies in the absence of micro-research at the regional level. The purpose of our work is to recreate the socio-cultural image of Chita, to slightly lift the veil of the “wild taiga region” through which many look at Transbaikalia. To reflect the history of the emergence of the city, the history of the historical monument and the herbaceous culture of the city of Chita.

1. Chita is a city in time.

“It was a long time ago when there were no traces of Russians. Along the Ingoda River, the Tungus and the Orochons roamed. The people were wandering, they didn’t like to sit still, and they wandered from end to end, wherever their heart desired. In the summer, they lived more and more around the river, ate fish, and made their way into the taiga to mow: at that time, around the Chengokan char, the richest hunting was. The Ingoda river was deep and in order to cross it on reindeer, they had to cross it not far from Kenon. And this is where the Tungus and Orochons always got into trouble. In the spring, so much silt and dirt was deposited in the Temesta that it was impossible to walk or drive. People got stuck, the deer were up to their ears in the mud, and people cursed those places as best they could. Crossing to another place, where Ingoda was deeper, was even more dangerous. But you had to cross the river wherever you went.

So every year those people suffered. That’s why the Totungus and Orochons called that place Chita. When the Russians arrived, by this time Ingoda began to spill less, the mud had dried up, the silt was blown away by the wind, everything was compacted. The Russians settled in this place, and they themselves didn’t know its name, they just called it a settlement, and that’s all. And from the Tungus, the Russians learned that the settlement stands in a place that the Tungus call Chita, and the river that runs through it is also called Chita. The Russians didn’t come up with a new name and started calling their settlement Chita. That’s how it happens in life, who would have thought that the city name would come from mud and silt. You wouldn’t think of it, but Chita was called that way. This is the true truth.”

Recorded from Georgy Yakovlevich Pavlov, 94 years old, former guard of the camp. Chita, Peschanka village, Chita region, 1949 1

1.1 Let's remember what we know about Chita

Per mention of Chita dates back to October 1687. Then the Russian ambassador to China Fyodor Alekseevich Golovin, having concluded an agreement with several Udinsk and Eravninsky Cossacks for the supply of 2900 poods of bread for “feeding... military people at Plotbishche, at the mouth of the Chita River...”, ordered the Nerchinsk governor Ivan Astafievich Vlasov to send a person there to receive and store them. okhleba. From Nerchinskan, at the mouth of the Chita River, private Cossack Karp Yudin arrived “with his comrades.” This fact is known from a historical document: a letter from F.A. Golovin to I.A. Vlasov, stored in manuscript in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts. In 1972, the document was first reproduced by the “Chrestomathy on the history of the Chita region,” published by the regional state archive.
It must be recalled that the Dock 1 played a historical role in the conclusion of the Russian-Chinese Treaty of 1689. Golovin reports this in his “Unsubscribes,” that is, reports of Russian pioneers to the Tsar. It was from the mouth of the Chita that Fyodor Golovin’s embassy sailed to the Nerchinsk-Russian embassy on August 3, 1689, on more than one raft. And the Moscow archers swam in front of the ambassadors. And the Siberian “service people” swam behind the rafts. The toponym in the “Article List” is written with a lowercase letter and a “d”. In other words, the place where rafts began to be cut on the Chita River in 1687 did not yet have its own name.
Item Plot is indicated on the drawing of the Amur basin, compiled in Nerchinsk in 1690 according to the head of the defense of the Albazinsky fort against the Manchus in 1686 - 1688, Russian colonel Afanasy Ivanovich Beyton. Here the guiding thread is somewhat interrupted, since the Plot is marked on the left bank of the Ingoda River, much lower than the mouth of the Chita. The fact is that Beighton’s strategic drawing, before subsequently entering the “Chorographic Drawing Book” of 1697-1711 by the first Siberian topographer Semyon Remezov, was copied more than once, and some villages were applied to it from eyewitnesses. Inaccuracies of the first Siberian topographers drawings (maps) and in later times were commonplace.
There are other, more specific historical evidence of the 2nd half of the 17th century. Here are quotes from the book “A Three-Year Journey to China Made by the Moscow Envoy Chosen by Ides in 1693.” Its authors are the Dutch. Eades and A. Brant, who were in the service of Peter I. Plotbishchena on the pages of the book is already named as a specific settlement, an administrative unit is formed and located one verst from the mouth of the Chita River. “On May 15 (1693 - I.K.) I arrived safely in Plotbishche..,” the ambassador writes in his diary. “The Ingoda and Shilka rivers, it turns out, are very shallow. We had to stay for several days in the village of Plotbishche, which lies on the Chita River, partly to give the animals a rest and partly to make rafts on which we could go down the Ingodei and Shilka rivers to Nerchinsk... “In turn, the secretary of the Moscow embassy to China, Adam Brant, writes: “... we arrived at a village called Plotbishche, in which there were six houses, the small Chita river washes this only recently inhabited place... One mile from here the Chita river flows into Ingoda ». 2 This was already the third Russian ambassadorial expedition traveling to China through Dauria. And if in six years from 1687 only six houses were built in the vicinity of the mouth of Chita, then one must think that the functional tasks of the inhabitants of the village of Plotbishche were not very extensive and consisted of preparing rafts for rafting to the Amur.
The works of travelers, in particular, the book of ambassadors, published in Amsterdam in 1704, were used a few years later by the Englishman Defoe, who had already become a world-famous writer, when he wrote the continuation of his novel about Robinson, “The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.” Robinson, fleeing in Dauria with his companions from the warlike Tungus, stopped in the village of Ploty. This is how, translated from Dutch, the English translator understood the Siberian toponym. “For two days and two nights we drove almost non-stop and finally made a halt in the village of Ploty, and from there we hurried to Yaravena: but already on the second day, crossing the desert, Looking at the clouds of dust far behind us, we began to guess that we were being chased... „
The very word “Chita” was first mentioned by the Russian diplomat and scientist Nikolai Milescu Spafari, when in the winter of 1676 the first expedition of the Russian embassy to China, led by him, passed through Dauria. But in this case we are not talking about a settlement, but about a river, the name of which, however, like most other geographical names, the first scouts of Dauria learned from the Evenks. Through the Telembui and Yablonovy ridges, the expedition reached the Chita River in the area of ​​​​the village of Burgen. Spafariy writes: “On the 25th day of November we drove through great and forest ridges, and then we came to the steppes and came to the small river Chita, and spent the night by that river... and the river Chita flows out of the stone mountains and flows into the Ingoda river.”

Please pay attention to the last phrase of the scientist. We see that a settlement with an identical name at the confluence of the Chita River and Ingoda, Spafariy only did not describe in his work, but did not even mention it, since he did not meet it on his way at the confluence of the Chita River with Ingoda or a little closer. At the same time, throughout his entire expedition, Spafari described in detail all the Siberian forts and villages he encountered. It’s just that in 1676 this village did not yet exist, neither as Chita itself, nor even as Plotbishche.
The toponym Plot from the time of its inception lasted no more than ten years. Our old acquaintance Karp Yudin soon writes back to the governor Golovin: “... from the Chita River the settlement of the raft, the clerk Karpushka Yudinchelo beats.” The first residents - Vasily Molokov, Ivan Gramotka, Grigory Kaidalov and others began to call the settlement - Novaya Sloboda or Chitinskaya Sloboda after the name of the river washing it, or even in the common people - Chitinsk. By 1711, the settlement was converted into a prison. And half a century later, the Chita fort was a settlement located, according to eyewitnesses, on a headland near the left bank of the Chita River. Twenty houses were located around a small “fortress” surrounded by pointed logs at the top. This was the very place from which the Plot, the future city of Chita, began.
Thus, based on the first historical document of 1687 about the village at the mouth of the Chita River, we can talk about the founding date of the city. But in Trans-Baikal history, an earlier date was established for many years - October 1653. This is due to the fact that it was at this time that a detachment of pioneers led by centurion Peter Ivanovich Beketov arrived in Eastern Transbaikalia to build the sovereign’s forts on the great Shilka River and collect sak from the Yeniseisk.
The route to the Ingodus River of the Yablonovy Ridge, where Beketov built Irgenek and the fort, was already known to the leader of the Cossacks. He passed along the ridge, where the places are “smooth and dry, and there is no place for anything better all year round.” 1 along the bed of a certain river, the name of which was already established in our time by local historians V. Balabanov, M. Timofeeva, Yu. Rudenko, A. Konstantinov, G. Zherebtsov, writer G. Graubin and others. This is Rushmaley, which flows into the Ingoda 50 kilometers west of Chita. It was from this place that the pioneers began their rafting. But Beketov’s plans to reach the mouth of the Nerchin in October could be carried out due to the freeze-up of the Ingoda.
Pre-revolutionary researcher Chita, engineer A. I. Popov writes in 1907 in his reference book “Chita”: “It is unknown where the advanced rafts of Peter Beketov were cut down: one must think that they crossed the Yablonovy ridge somewhere near the top of the Kuki or Domna rivers and descended through their valleys to Ingoda. Beketov soon came here himself and on October 19 (the 29th according to the new style - I.K.) set off down the Ingoda, hoping to go down to Shilka before the onset of winter. But his calculations didn’t work out. Ingoda stopped, the rafts froze, maybe not far from Chita, because they didn’t have time to swim much. Unwilling to bring all the supplies back to Irgensky Ostrog, Beketov built Ingodyzimovye on the shore.”
Pulling the thread, let's assume that Popov's guess - “maybe not far from Chita” began to dawn as a light at the end of the labyrinth for researchers in the early 1950s, in connection with the approaching 300th anniversary of the beginning of the development of Transbaikalia (1953), and played a completely negative role in the fate of the city. In addition, the information about Beketov’s campaign was arbitrarily and confusedly interpreted in the works of Russian (mainly I. E. Fisher) and Trans-Baikal historians (V.K. Andrievich). And therefore, the 47th volume of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia of 1957 reports: “Chita has been known since 1653, when the centurion of the Cossack detachment Beketov built the village “Ingodinskoe winter hut.” went on and on in all subsequent editions of universal and branch encyclopedias of our time and some books. At the same time, pre-revolutionary encyclopedias and works of historians date the founding of Chity to the end of the 17th century. Alexey Ivanovich Popov was not a historian by training and throughout the pages of his book he often asks himself some questions, including in this case: “But was that Ingoda winter hut the first settlement Cheats?
Popov’s question is answered by the “Reports” of the explorers themselves, in particular Pyotr Beketov, dating back to the spring of 1654, which nowhere mention either the Chita or Ingoda winter quarters, but call the place of the forced stop on Ingoda the “new sovereign winter quarters.” The location of the ice jam, and therefore the construction of this winter hut, has now been approximately calculated thanks to the careful study of archival sources by Chita researchers of several generations. And also the seven scientific geographical and historical expeditions carried out in 2000 - 2002: on foot, by water and by transport, about which the Transbaikal press has already written.
The winter hut was built in the distance between Domnaya and Chernovskiy, within a one-kilometer radius on the left bank of the Ingoda, opposite the village of Sivyakovo. Along with the Irgen Nerchinsky fortresses built by the Cossacks of Beketov in 1653, it played an important historical role as one of the first Russian settlements of Eastern Transbaikalia. Being the first fortification structures of the new mines Asian lands, prisons and winter quarters were at the same time strongholds of Russian statehood.
But, apparently, the “new sovereign’s Winter” lasted only one winter, and subsequently there was no settlement here, contrary to encyclopedias. In the spring of 1654, the Cossacks dismantled it for the construction of rafts. This was much easier to do than to fell and deliver the timber again to the detachment’s rafting site along Ingoda. However, the winter hut itself, made up of “three Cossack huts, the sovereign’s daanbar,” was built from the same rafts on which Beketov’s detachment tried to reach Shilki in the fall. When in the spring the detachment with the “stuff” stored in the winter hut rafted along the Ingoda, then the place where the Chita river flows into the Ingoda, the Cossacks sailed, and perhaps did not paying attention to one of the still numerous nameless rivers flowing into the Ongida River, along which they followed the path to “Meet the Sun.”
They were the first, they perceived the movement to the east as their natural existence at this stage of their lives, simply as an extremely difficult routine in the name of their better future. But perhaps one of the pioneers of Dauria thought in their hearts that the movement to the east of practically a handful of Russian people, many years later, would be regarded by posterity as a feat. It took us three and a half centuries before their feat was universally recognized. Until, finally, our compatriots realized the need: a monument to the explorers, a memorial sign to the place from which Chitai began and Peter Beketov’s winter quarters on Ingoda. And, also the need to return the historical names to the historical streets of Chita, where the city began. They were named after the rivers along which the development of Siberia and the Far East took place, the names of the first Siberian cities, heroic forts and factories of the Nerchinsk Mountain District, which replenished the state treasury of Russia with silver. These are Sretenskaya, Argunskaya, Ussuriyskaya, Albazinskaya, Shilkinskaya, Yeniseiskaya, Yakutskaya, Irkutskaya and other streets.
2003 is the year of the 350th anniversary of Russian statehood in Eastern Transbaikalia. The date is huge and very important. And the capital of Transbaikalia, whose three hundredth anniversary was unfortunately not celebrated, marked the date of the beginning of the development of our region together with it. 1.2 History of the name

For two centuries, local historians and historians, putting forward different points of view, tried to decipher the word Chita. In 1907, land surveyor A.I. Popov, the author of a guide to Chita, wrote in it that “the origin of the word Chita itself is difficult to establish, the Buryats say that this word is not in their language, and that, apparently, this is an Orochen word.” The famous Trans-Baikal local historian of the 19th century, M.A. Zenzinov, indeed explained the name Chita from Orochen "chita" - "birch bark rug".
This opinion was supported by other researchers by the fact that in ancient times the Transbaikal Evenks called birch groves, thickets of birch or simply birch bark. This is how the translation sounds in the Evenk-Russian dictionary - “chita” - “birch bark”. N.G. Kiryukhin suggested the origin of the name from his own Evenki name - Prince Chita Matuganov. But it is hardly tenable, since in the valley of the Chita River this leader of the Orochenov roamed with his relatives only in the second half of the 18th century, while the word Chita had already been known for a long time. After the death of a person, the Evenks tried not to pronounce his name out loud for fear of disturbing the soul of the deceased. V.A. Nikonov in his “Brief toponymic dictionary” interprets the origin of the word from the Nivkh “chita” - “well”. The Chita naturalist and teacher Yu. T. Rudenko gives a reasoned explanation for the name Chita as a “lake river”, and the historian V. G. Izgachev argued that the toponym translates as “blue clay.” As evidence, he cited the fact that the famous sculptor Innokenty Zhukov, to create his amazing sculptures, carried this clay on a sled from the upper reaches of the Chita River. Archaeologist L.R. Kyzlas has another opinion on this matter, that Transbaikalia “along the Selenga, Chikoy and up to the Onon rivers” was the ancient homeland of the Uighurs. The fortresses that the Uyghurs built are called “Chyt”. The modern “chaata-chyt” in Uyghur simply means “dwelling.” By the way, the word Chita when translated into Italian is generally translated as “city”.

Local historian V.V. Solonkov also puts forward an unconvincing, but original version. He finds that since part of the territory of Eastern Transbaikalia was part of the Turkic Kaganate, it is possible to assume that the name of the area where the city of Chita is located is associated with the Asian cheetah - chita. In this case, the author of the version refers to the dictionary of F. Brockhaus and I. Efron, which provides a detailed description of the appearance and habitat of both the Asian species of cheetah (chita) and the African one (fahgada). In ancient times, cheetahs were kept in huge numbers for hunting in the palaces of the eastern sovereigns of Persia, India, and Mongolia. It is no coincidence, he writes, that remains of the skins of the bones of royal cats were found in the burial grounds of the palace culture. And it is no coincidence that the coats of arms of most Siberian cities of the 18th century depicted a babr (tiger) similar in appearance to a chita cheetah. Local historians even suggest that the ancestors of the Zabaikal Buryats - chickens - also could not hunt here with domesticated chita cheetahs, which, along with other species of the cat breed, lived in the vast Siberian expanses, and were then destroyed or expelled as a person. At the same time, modern scientific zoologists claim that the huge cats in the Transbaikal region have not disappeared from the face of the earth. Individual leopards, although very rare, are found throughout the vast expanses of the region in our time, and entire families of snow leopards live in the Chikoya loaches. According to the “Red Book” of Transbaikalia, the snow leopard was killed in the Akshinsky district in February 1999. By the way, one of the very first, now no longer existing, Russian villages of the Chikoy region was called Chitnak.

It is possible that the toponym came from the Evenki words “chate”, “chatu”, “chatul”, translated meaning “black earth”, “coal”, “coal”. This, among other researchers, agrees with local historian V.F. Balabanov, who devoted many pages to research on Trans-Baikal toponymy. In his book “Wilds of Names” he says that even in ancient times people saw coal outcrops on the banks of Chita, and near Chita they found a whole deposit of brown coal – Chernovskoye. In the territorial Evenki dialects, in addition, there are the words “chata”, which means “silt”, “clay”, “ clayey soil", "road mud"; “chitala” - “clay”, as well as “chitaravun”, “chatu” - “mud on the shore” and “chitan” - “to get dirty, dirty with clay”. The author of the book “Geographical Names of Eastern Siberia” M.N. Melkheev precisely points out that the valleys of the Chita River, especially its low-lying part near the mouth, are composed of clayey-silty viscous river sediments, and it is quite possible that the root “chat”, “chit” underlies the etymology of the toponym. This interpretation is echoed by the Transbaikal legend “On the name of the city of Chita,” recorded in 1940, from the words of local residents, by the famous Siberian folklorist L.E. Eliasov. It tells that the reindeer Tungus, who wandered along the Ingoda, often got into trouble when they had to cross the river near Lake Kenon in order to get to the rich hunting areas near the Chengokansky loach. In the spring, so much mud and silt was deposited in those places that people got stuck, and the deer went into the swamp “up to their ears.” And every year those people suffered so much, because moving to another place, where Ingoda was deeper, was even more dangerous. That’s why the Tungus called that place Chita. When the Russians arrived, by that time Ingoda began to spill less, the mud dried up, the silt was blown away by the wind, everything was compacted. The Russians did not come up with a new name and named their settlement anyway. “This is how it happens in life - the legend ends - who would have thought that the city name would come from mud and silt.”

But no matter how much the researchers of the region have argued for many years, one thing is certain - the name of the future city of the Chita River. V.F. Balabanov, along with his substantiation of opinions and analysis of versions, indicates that there was one feature in the toponymy of the region. First of all, the Evenki assigned the name to a mountain (oronym) or to any group of adjacent mountains. The rivers flowing from these mountains were usually given the same name as the mountain itself. At the same time, he advises paying attention to the map of the upper reaches of the Chita River, the source of which originates in the spur of the Yablonovy Ridge. On the northwestern side of the group of mountains there is one of the sources of the Yumurchen River (the right tributary of the Vitim), which, like the disappeared village of Chikoyan, is called Chitnak. “Apparently, the author writes, the origin of the name of the Chita River should be sought in its upper reaches.” The local historian himself admits that “there are opinions about the origin of the name Chitymny, but which of them is the most correct to decide for now, which is impossible... and all of them, as we see, are based on assumptions.”
A new version of the toponym is proposed by the Chita architect A. Sharavin, which... along with the hydronyms related to Chita, are present on the map of Transbaikalia, and this is Chitanga - a tributary of the Chikoya, Chitkan - a tributary of the Barguzin, Chitkanda - a tributary of the Kalarai Chitkando - a lake in the Kalar region, there is a char Chingikan in the area of ​​​​the source of the Chita river. It is the highest within a radius of up to three hundred meters, its height is slightly greater than the height of the famous Alkhanay Mountain. At its foot, the Chita tributary, the Chingikan River, originates. These syllables “chi” and “chit” in all names suggest the idea of ​​​​their common origin. Geologically, the Chingikan char is formed by volcanics. The color of these rocks is black, and the mountain ranges located around the char are composed of rocks that belong to the gabroids, the color of which is also predominantly located in the range from black to dark gray. These black volcanics are found along the entire length of the ridges framing the river Chita . Over many thousands of years, leaching and flowing into the chalk depressions of the river valley, these rocks, which contain a very high content of iron and manganese, left durable, indelible films of dark gray color on other rocks. And if we take into account the presence of a dark color in the burnt deposits and deposits, albeit not very thick layers of coal (“chata”, “chatul”) on the banks of the river, then we can assume that the word “black” is the defining visual characteristic of the river valley. Interspersed with black volcanics are also found in the composition of the rocks of the Titovskaya Sopka, the main high-altitude dominant of the city at the foot of which the Chita River ends its flow, flowing into the Ingoda. This is at the same time the main spatial landmark of the area in the endless nomads of the “reindeer people”. So, it is possible to hypothesize that Chita is the river of the black mountain.
But toponyms live in time and space. The bright Transbaikal sun and the high blue sky create a completely different light and bright image of the cities and cities, and therefore the word itself. That is why the Orochen word “birch bark” is consonant with the image of the river, as is the purity of the “well” and “lake,” and “blue clay” carries the reflection of the Trans-Baikal sky. The meaning of the hydronym Chita remained and remains a mystery. Over time, this word itself moves further and further away from its already forgotten meaning. And the multitude of interpretations will continue to give rise to different opinions, versions and disputes. Or maybe it will be like this? After all, the word lives its own life. And the river, which gave its name to the city, somehow imperceptibly changed its name and was lovingly called in everyday life by its residents - Chitinka. Thus, giving the city the right to be a more important landmark in the space of human relations.

--PAGE_BREAK--1.3.External appearance of the city

The main square of the city was previously called Cathedral. The square was named this way for a reason. Adjacent to it was a quarter called the Bishop's Compound, in which the Bishop's Church was built, consecrated in the name of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called. By that time, it replaced the Chitinets Cathedral, and all solemn services were performed in it. In 1888, the site for the new Cathedral was consecrated on the square, and eleven years later the first stone was laid in the foundation of the temple, consecrated in the name of the Holy Blessed Prince Alexander Nevsky. The first services were already held here in 1909. The new Cathedral stood almost in the center of the modern square.

In the 1920s, the square was renamed “Sovet” Square, after the name of the cinema located in the former Cathedral. After some time, the square was renamed “October Square”

On April 23, 1936, the Executive Committee of the City Council decided to demolish the Cathedral. It was immediately blown up. The bombers solemnly reported: it was blown up according to all the rules, the surrounding buildings were not damaged!
After this, for another year, the ruins of the Cathedral lay on the square. It was not so easy to take them apart. By September 1937, the first one in Chitebuldozer worked on the ruins, and on the 20th anniversary of October, the square acquired its new appearance, in which it remained until the seventies of the last century.1

Chita has been assigned the status of a historical city. It is enough to recall that the Decembrists exiled here, Dmitry Zavalishin and Peter Falenberg, were involved in the first layout of its streets, who used the image of the capital of the Russian Empire, St. Petersburg, as an example.

The culture of Chita is adequately represented by museums - guardians of antiquity and folk memory. Chita Regional Museum of Local Lore named after A.K. Kuznetsova has a history of more than a century. It has the richest botanical, ethnographic and archaeological collections, numerous exhibits of Baikal nature. In Chita there are the Regional Art Museum, the Museum of the Decembrists, the Museum of the History of the Siberian Military District, the Museum of the Trans-Baikal Police and others.

The largest book depository in Transbaikalia, the Regional State Scientific Library named after A. S. Pushkin, has a million-dollar fund, a significant part of which has enormous historical and national economic value. Some book collections are the only ones in Russia. These are books from the library of the Decembrists, the Nerchinsk penal servitude, and the family of the Romanov house.

/>One of the cultural centers of modern Chita is the Regional Drama Theater, which unites people who love theatrical art.

Traditionally, the annual festival “Blooming Rosemary” has been held here since 1974.

Chita is surrounded by magnificent surrounding nature... From the south-west to the north-east, the Yablonovy Range stretches across the entire territory. From the south, east and north, the capital of Transbaikalia is protected from cold winds by the spurs of the Chersky ridge, which has a length of 800 km. They are adjacent to, continue and run parallel to the Borschovochny, Malkhansky, Daursky, Argunsky and Gazimuro-Ononsky ridges. The crests of the ridges are wavy, the peaks are rounded. The highest point is Mount Little Sarancans at 1579 meters, located in the northeast of the territory.

In the valley of the Molokovka River, 30 kilometers from Chita, there is Mount Devil’s Peak (the absolute height of the mountain is 1120 m). The definition of “devils” is due to the inaccessibility of the mountain for climbers. Excellent tourist sites - the so-called Kadalinsky Gate, are located in the spurs of the Yablonovy ridge. From the heights of the rocks “Eagle”, “Bear”, “Chick”, “Dvadruga” an amazing panorama of the mountain taiga and alpine meadows opens up. An extensive panorama opens from Mount Chita. The entire city is clearly visible, Lake Kenoni and the Yablonovy Range are visible.

4.Symbol of the region

After Chita was assigned the status of a regional center, which happened in 1851, the region needed its own heraldic symbol.

In those days, coats of arms were in charge of a special department called the Department of Heraldry, which, according to the Highest Decree of 1857, compiled the first Chita regional coat of arms.
The coat of arms was approved by Emperor Alexander II, as we read in the “Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire,” where this act is No. 34358.

The writing of the coat of arms is as follows:
“There is a half-eight-pointed gold palisade, scarlet with greenery, accompanied at the top by a scarlet buffalo head with silver eyes and tongue. The shield is crowned with the Ancient Royal Crown and surrounded by golden oak leaves, connected by the Alexander Ribbon.

But unlike the coat of arms of the region, the city coat of arms was missing for a very long time. But on April 26, 1913, it was “awarded His Highest Imperial Majesty’s approval” along with the coats of arms of the cities of Mysovsky Petropavlovsk, in Kamchatka.

On August 14, 1913, a Decree of the Governing Senate was sent to Chitu, which stated that “the coat of arms must be used in public places in cases specified by law.” In the “Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire”, where this act lies under No. 39264

The writing of the coat of arms is as follows:
"A gold-plated, half-eight-pointed palisade, scarlet with greenery, accompanied at the top by a scarlet oxen head with silver eyes and tongue. The shield is crowned with a golden tower of three teeth with a crown and surrounded by two golden ears of corn, connected by an Alexander ribbon.

The coat of arms of the Transbaikal region existed until 1920, when Transbaikalia was occupied by the military forces of the Far Eastern Republic.
Like any independent state, the Far Eastern Republic adopted its own heraldic symbols. So, on November 11, 1920, by decree of the government of the Far Eastern Republic, the emblem and flag of the republic were approved, and Chita became the capital of a sovereign state .

On April 27, 1921, the Constitution of the Far Eastern Republic was established, article 180VIII of which precisely describes the coat of arms:

"/>The State Emblem is approved, the description of which is as follows:on the red shield there is a coniferous pine wreath, inside of which, against the background of the morning dawn with the emerging sun and a five-pointed silver star (at the top of the background), are anchors crossed through sheaves of wheat and a pointed pick, point downwards; on the right side of the wreath on the red bandage is the letter “D”, on the left is “B”, at the bottom between the cuttings of coniferous branches is the letter “P”.

This new coat of arms did not last long. In Moscow, the further existence of the Far Eastern Republic was recognized as inappropriate, and on November 14, 1922, the People's Assembly declared the Constitution of the Republic and its laws abolished. In Transbaikalia, Soviet power was declared.

On August 30, 1994, by the decision of the head of the Administration of the city of Chita R. F. Geniatulina the coat of arms of the city was revived. The image of the coat of arms was restored according to the archival standard sent to Chita back in 1913 by the Governing Senate. The new image of the city's coat of arms was modified. I. Kulesh.

The modern description of the herbaceous city is as follows:
“A gilded half-eight-pointed palisade, scarlet with greenery, accompanied at the top by a scarlet buffalo head with silver eyes and tongue. The shield is topped with a golden tower with three prongs, a crown and surrounded by two golden ears, connected by an Alexander ribbon.

In 2003, the Administration of the city. Chita received a letter from the Heraldic Council under the President of the Russian Federation from the Chief Hero of the Russian Federation Vilenbakhov. The Heraldic Council recommended for registration of the coat of arms of the city of Chita to make some changes to the city coat of arms. All elements inside the shield remain unchanged, the crown and frame with a ribbon should be removed or replaced with elements befitting the status of the city. The work of the Council on Symbols in the City Administration continues...

On March 28, 1996, the law of the Chita region “On the coat of arms and flag of the Chita region”, adopted by the regional Duma, came into force.

The current description of the coat of arms of the region is as follows:
»Flying in gold, a single-headed scarlet eagle with silver paws and a beak, holding in its claws a bow with the string down and an arrow with silver plumage and a tip. The direction of the eagle's flight is from right to left.
In the lower third of the shield, in a place of honor, is the heraldic shield of the city of Chita, the administrative center of the Chita region, framed by a scarlet Alexander ribbon.

5.What made the city famous

Chita is similar in a certain aspect to Jerusalem. There are only two cities in the whole world in which temples of three religions simultaneously stood on the same hill: Judaism, Islam and Christianity. In ancient times And city, at the confluence of the Inogoda and Chita rivers, where the Chita fortress was once founded, on the same hill there are three: the Synagogue (on Ingodinskaya Street), the Mosque (Anokhin Street), and the Orthodox Church of St. Michael the Archangel (on Selenginskaya Street )

Genghis Khan was born on the territory of modern Transbaikalia, or rather in the Onon steppes near the present-day Lower Tsasuchey. Genghis Khan came from the Yesugei-Bakhodur clan and bore the name Temujin (Temujin).

1653 is not the founding date of Chita, as is widely believed. The date of foundation of the city, from which the countdown begins, is the date of the first written mention of the settlement.
The oldest mention of a settlement on the site of modern Chita remains a letter from Ambassador Plenipotentiary Fyodor Golovin, written in December 1687. It was addressed to the governor of Nerchinsk, Vlasov: “At the rafting site, at the mouth of the Chita River, accept bread from contract people for feeding the Great Sovereigns [co-rulers Ivan V and Peter I].”
And in 1690, the clerk Karp Yudin in the “Daurian Testimony” first marked the Chitinskaya Sloboda in the drawing. So in 2001, Chita turned not 347, but 311 or 314 years old.

The highest points of the Chita region are the Skalisty char of the Udokan ridge, located in the upper reaches of the northern Kalar River (2800 meters above sea level) and the Burun-Shebartuy char in the south (2523 meters) and the Sokhondo char in the southwest of the region (2508 meters)

In Transbaikalia, a steam engine with a double-acting cylinder was used for the first time by Litvinov, which he designed here, almost a hundred years ahead of the American “novelty” - the Evans machine.

There are several in Transbaikalia settlements are called "Plant". They received this name from the fact that silver and lead furnaces were established there. There were nine such settlements:
Nerchinsky Factory was founded in 1704 (and is now called Nerchinsky Factory)
Ducharsky plant was founded in 1760
Kutomar plant was founded in 1764
The Shilka plant was founded in 1767 (now - Shilka)
Ekaterininsky plant was founded in 1776
Gazimursky Plant was founded in 1778 (and is now called Gazimursky Plant)
Petrovsky Ironworks Plant was founded in 1789 (now Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky)
Talmansky Plant (Alexandrovsky - since 1825) was founded in 1792 (and is now called Alexandrovsky Plant)
Kurunzulaevsky plant was founded in 1796

The most recognizable words among Transbaikal residents were “parya” (guy), “deka” (girl), “however,” “cho,” “kavo” (what?), and “may.” And a phrase like “What are you saying, my friend?” is translated as: “What are you saying, my friend?” And here is the poem:
I went floating on the water,
Soaring around the corner I hit,
Soaring he knocked over the barrel,
He flew off the barrel soaring.
Another feature is the word “bra” (emphasis on the first syllable), which came from light hand N. N. Muravyov-Amursky, Governor-General of Eastern Siberia. He issued an order to form Buryat regiments in the Trans-Baikal Cossack army, calling them “brotherly”. Since then, the Buryat Cossacks have been called “brothers” or “bratsky”. And about the presence of Buryat blood in a person they say that he is “a little rough around the edges.”

In 1674, Ioann Evstafievich Vlasov, who was the first person in those parts to attend ambassadorial congresses with the Chinese great ambassadors, the great and plenipotentiary ambassador and viceroy, and the governor of massacres, silver ore was found in the Nerchinsk forts along the Arguni River, on the Minguch River (r. Mungacha)... sent to Moscow of that ore... two hundred and seventy poods, from which six poods and twenty-four pounds came out of pure scraper. This was the first silver in Rus', and the first mining in Transbaikalia.

More than 400 have been explored on the territory of the Chita region mineral springs- hot and cold, acidic and alkaline, sulfuric and ferrous. Some samples are superior in quality to world-famous analogues.

In St. Petersburg, on the Vyborg side and in Chita, on the Chernovsky mines there is a street named after. Nazar Gubina. The Chernovsky miner repeated the feat of Captain Gastello in the battles for St. Petersburg (Leningrad) during the Great Patriotic War.

It is impossible not to include the visits of the leaders of our country as remarkable facts. By the way, the country's leadership was extremely reluctant to come to Chita. It is obvious that the city and its population were (and are) of very little interest to our authorities.
If we do not take into account the visit of Nicholas II (then still the heir to the Throne) (1894), then in 1978 comrade L.I. Brezhnev was in Chita, about which the local history museum once had a whole photo exhibition. And finally, the then President of the RSFSR, Comrade (?) B.N. Yeltsin, was on a flight in 1990 and at the city airport had a conversation with the then leader of the region, Comrade N.I. Malkov.
It must be admitted, however, that, unlike presidents and general secretaries, various military leaders visit Chita immeasurably more often, but it is apparently impossible for them to wriggle out of this duty.

First in Russian Empire tin was mined at the Initial Mine, later called Ononsky, along the nearby river. Now in this place stands the Olovyannaya station, Olovyanninsky district of the Chita region, where I come from.

The Klichka mine in the Priargunsky district is named after the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, Frantisek Mikolausz Klichka, the former head of the Nerchinsk factories.

The territory of the Chita region is 431.5 thousand square meters. km. This is more than all of Italy, Japan or England, or 3/4 of France.

The following religious organizations operate in the Chita region:
Orthodox Christians
Old Believers
Buddhists
Muslims
New Apostolic Church
Seventh-day Adventists
Evangelical Christian Baptists
Jehovah witnesses
Christians of the Evangelical Faith
Vaishnava Hare Krishnas
Followers of the Baha'i faith

6. Historical sources about Chita.

1687 FedorGolovin
“In the raft, by the way, the Chita River will receive bread from contract people to feed the Great Sovereigns and military people.”

1693 A Brand (from the Spafaria embassy)
“having arrived at a village called Plotbishche, in which there were six houses, the small river Chita washes this only recently inhabited place.”

1715 Leonty Shestakov
“Sowing rye, since it’s not my relative’s winter here.”

1735 S. P. Krasheninnikov
“The fort is located on the eastern bank of the Chita River, which”... “not far from the fort fell into Ingoda; there is a wooden church in it in the name of the Archangel Michael and Nicholas the Wonderworker, there are eight philistine houses; in addition, three houses of the same prison that stand above the Ingoda River"

1830 M. A. Bestuzhev
“Our stay in Chita enriched the rich, who sold at high prices both their meager products and their meager services... The residents began to feel content, the houses took on a more handsome appearance, their costumes were more neat...”

1857 M. A. Bestuzhev
“Our stay in Chita enriched the rich, who sold at high prices both their meager products and their meager services... The residents began to feel content, the houses took on a more handsome appearance, their costumes were more neat...”
“Now we have activities in Chita and Ingoda that remind us of Kronstadt in springtime. The rafts lower the shore by two miles: there is bustle and screams everywhere. State-owned rafts load artillery, bombs, grapeshots... There is life and activity everywhere.”

1862 P. A. Kropotkin
“When I got up in the morning and began to look at Chita through the window, if I had not been warned, I would certainly have asked: “Where is the city?” - a question usually asked by all visitors - Chita is so small: several wooden houses, of which two-story ones can be counted; I think no more than five or six."

1869 D. I. Stakheev
“Chita is a city without inhabitants, it has no more than a thousand people... From the memory of Chita, what remains most in my memory is sand, the city itself seems to me like some kind of unusual mass of sand, sand is everywhere: at the entrance, inside the city, in the apartments and at the exit - it’s all sand and that’s why Chita is rightly called the sandy city.”

18?? year. Guide
“The streets in Chita, with the complete absence of pavements, are very dusty, heavily littered with garbage that is never removed, including fallen animals. The sandy soil of Chita is washed away by rain and is broken up by traffic. In the northern part of the city, on many streets there is a forest, between which meander full of traffic tracks, and their appearance and properties resemble ordinary country roads.”

Conclusion

The city of Chita is not only the regional center of the Chita region, it is the largest administrative, economic and socio-cultural center of Transbaikalia. The birthday of the Chita region is considered to be September 26, 1937, when the resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR “On the division of the East Siberian Territory into the Irkutsk and Chita regions” was issued. Thanks to this document, for the first time in its history, the region became, in modern terms, an independent subject of the Russian Federation, which was finally enshrined in the Constitution of the country in 1993. On the same day, Chita received its rebirth as a regional center.

Chita is the center of the Siberian Military District. The presence of a military department center has always been here. The development of the region began with it, and Chita as the center of the Trans-Baikal Cossack army began with it.

The city is famous for its famous natives. The future mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, was born here in 1937. Chita is the birthplace of the remarkable Olympic athlete, speed skater Lyudmila Titova. Soviet cosmonaut V.G. Titov is a native of the ancient city of Sretensk. A. lived and worked in Chita from 1967 to 1975. I. Kazanik is the future Prosecutor General of Russia.

Chita has the status of a historical city. The Decembrists exiled here - Dmitry Zavalishin and Peter Falenberg - were involved in the first layout of its streets. There are many cities in Russia, the central part of which is built on the basis of a rectangular grid of blocks, but the urban planning basis of the central part of Chita is distinguished by a special elegant correctness and mathematical precision, which still gives Chita a unique appearance, successfully combining the past and the present.

By the mid-80s, Chita had become a major scientific center in the East Siberian region. Here, a number of research institutes successfully solved the most difficult tasks - coordination of industry and applied developments.

In Chita there are the Regional Art Museum, the Museum of the Decembrists, the Museum of the History of the Siberian Military District, the Museum of the Trans-Baikal Militia and others. Their exhibitions are extremely popular among Chita residents and city guests. The State Archive of the Chita Region represents the historical science of Transbaikalia and has documents on the history of Transbaikalia starting from the 17th century.

Chita is surrounded by magnificent surrounding nature. In ancient times, instead of a break in the earth’s crust that separated the Titovskaya Sopka mountain from the Chersky ridge, a magnificent cliff formed.

In the vicinity of the city, Rhododendrondaurian (Ledum) grows in abundance - a unique creation of nature in Southern Siberia and the Far East. In winter, people are amazed by the blue of the Chita sky and the whiteness of the snow.

In my work, I wanted to recreate the sociocultural image of Chita, to slightly lift the veil of the “wild taiga region” through which many look at Transbaikalia. To reflect the history of the emergence of the city, the history of the monument, history and culture of the city of Chita.

Bibliography.

1. I. G. Kurennaya. Ariadny’s thread in the labyrinth of Chita // Transbaikal Worker, No. 28, 2003

2. Modern Chita. Siberia, 2000.

3. G. Graubin. Four-story taiga. Irkutsk, 1989.

4.http/www.chita.ru

5... A. Istomin. Article “From the history of the region.” Newspaper “Extra”. 2003. No. 7 (124)

6. I. Ivanenko. “History of the development of trade relations between Russia and China.” St. Petersburg, 1992.

7. Rudenko “Development of Siberia by Ermak”. Tomsk. 1982

At this time, along with hunting and fishing, agriculture came from China.

Until the annexation of Transbaikalia to Russia, the history of its southern part was closely connected with nomadic cattle breeding. The tribes that lived here created the so-called slab grave culture of the Bronze and Iron Age. The “tilers” lived throughout the entire territory of modern Mongolia: from Altai to Khingan from west to east and from Lake Baikal to the foothills of the Nan Shan from north to south. Mongolian scholars believe that this culture belonged to the proto-Mongols.

The first people who lived in Transbaikalia, about whom much is known both from archaeological finds and from written sources(mainly Chinese) were the nomadic Xiongnu people (209 BC - 93 AD), who created a vast state in the Central Asian steppes, with the collapse of which the former Xiongnu lands came under the control of the Mongol-speaking Xianbi (93-234) and the Rouran Khaganate (330-555).

In the 6th-9th centuries, the Uyghur Turks lived in Transbaikalia. IN X-XII centuries South part The region became part of the state of the Mongolian Khitan tribes. This state is known as the Liao Empire. The most famous monuments of these times are the necropolis in Ilmovaya Pad, the Kokuy settlement and the Wall of Genghis Khan.

Development of the region by Russian settlers

Since the middle of the 17th century, Transbaikalia became part of the Russian state. The first explorers crossed Dauria (as the lands beyond Baikal were called) along rivers. The Buryats and Tungus, after long resistance, recognized new government and paid the Russian treasury yasak. A number of forts appeared in Transbaikalia: Ust-Strelochny, Irgensky, Nerchinsky, Telembinsky, Eravninsky, Argunsky, Sretensky. Beginning in 1704, Nerchinsky, Shilkinsky, Gazimursky and other silver smelting plants appeared. In the 18th century, the population of the region grew rapidly due to the influx of settlers and the sending of criminals to the mines. Exiled participants in the December uprising also played a major role in the development of the region. In 1851, the Transbaikal region was formed. In the same year, in order to strengthen the border, the Transbaikal Cossack Army was created, numbering more than 3.5 thousand people. IN late XIX century, railway construction began in the region. Industry rose, new cities and towns grew and appeared.

Events of the 20th century

At the beginning of the 20th century, revolutionary sentiments came to Transbaikalia, caused by the Russian-Japanese and First World Wars. After the October Revolution, Soviet power was established in Chita on February 16, 1918. At the initial stage of the Civil War at the end of August 1918, the power of the Soviets was eliminated by the combined forces of the Whites, Cossacks and Czechoslovaks. The Transbaikal Cossack Republic was formed on the territory of the region. At the same time, a widespread partisan movement developed. In April 1920, the Far Eastern Republic was created on the territory of Transbaikalia and the Far East, with its center in Verkhneudinsk, and then in Chita, which existed until November 1922.

The 1990s saw a sharp decline in industrial and agricultural production and a decline in the standard of living of the population. Kindergartens, camps were closed, sports facilities, the Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky Metallurgical Plant and the Chita Comfort and Cloth Factory ceased to exist. With the collapse of the forestry industry, massive illegal logging began and huge supplies of unprocessed wood to China began. The Aginsky Buryat Autonomous Okrug became an independent subject of the Russian Federation on March 31, 1992. The economy was stabilized only towards the end of the 1990s. In the 2000s, construction of the second track of the Southern Passage was underway, and today it is being electrified. Construction of the Naryn-Lugokan railway line is underway. On March 1, 2008, a new federal subject arose on the territory of the Chita region and ABAO - the Trans-Baikal Territory. Also in the southeast of the Trans-Baikal Territory, it is planned to build and open two new large mining and processing plants: Bystrinsky and Bugdainsky.

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Notes

Literature

• Konstantinov A.V., Konstantinova N.N. History of Transbaikalia (from ancient times to 1917). - Chita: ZabGPU Publishing House, 2002. - 248 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 5851582170.
• Geography of the Trans-Baikal Territory / Chief editor Kulakov V.S. - Chita: Express publishing house, 2009. - 308 p. - 3,000 copies. - ISBN 9785956601266.

Administrative center: Chita Cities: Balei | Borzya | Krasnokamensk | Mogocha | Nerchinsk | Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky | Sretensk | Khilok | Shilka Municipal-territorial division:

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An excerpt characterizing the History of the Trans-Baikal Territory

In St. Petersburg at this time, in the highest circles, with greater fervor than ever, there was a complex struggle between the parties of Rumyantsev, the French, Maria Feodorovna, the Tsarevich and others, drowned out, as always, by the trumpeting of the court drones. But calm, luxurious, concerned only with ghosts, reflections of life, St. Petersburg life went on as before; and because of the course of this life, it was necessary to make great efforts to recognize the danger and the difficult situation in which the Russian people found themselves. There were the same exits, balls, the same French theater, the same interests of the courts, the same interests of service and intrigue. Only in the highest circles were efforts made to recall the difficulty of the present situation. It was told in whispers how the two empresses acted opposite to each other in such difficult circumstances. Empress Maria Feodorovna, concerned about the welfare of the charitable and educational institutions under her jurisdiction, made an order to send all institutions to Kazan, and the things of these institutions were already packed. Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna, when asked what orders she wanted to make, with her characteristic Russian patriotism, deigned to answer that government institutions she cannot make orders, since this concerns the sovereign; about the same thing that personally depends on her, she deigned to say that she will be the last to leave St. Petersburg.
Anna Pavlovna had an evening on August 26, the very day of the Battle of Borodino, the flower of which was to be the reading of the letter from the Eminence, written when sending the image of the venerable saint Sergius to the sovereign. This letter was revered as an example of patriotic spiritual eloquence. It was to be read by Prince Vasily himself, famous for his art of reading. (He also read for the Empress.) The art of reading was considered to consist in pouring out words loudly, melodiously, between a desperate howl and a gentle murmur, completely regardless of their meaning, so that, quite by chance, a howl would fall on one word, and a murmur on others. This reading, like all Anna Pavlovna’s evenings, had political significance. At this evening there were to be several important persons who had to be shamed for their trips to the French theater and encouraged into a patriotic mood. Quite a lot of people had already gathered, but Anna Pavlovna had not yet seen all the people she needed in the living room, and therefore, without starting to read yet, she started general conversations.
The news of the day that day in St. Petersburg was the illness of Countess Bezukhova. A few days ago the Countess unexpectedly fell ill, missed several meetings of which she was an adornment, and it was heard that she did not see anyone and that instead of the famous St. Petersburg doctors who usually treated her, she entrusted herself to some Italian doctor who treated her with some new and in an extraordinary way.
Everyone knew very well that the illness of the lovely countess was due to the inconvenience of marrying two husbands at once and that the Italian’s treatment consisted in eliminating this inconvenience; but in the presence of Anna Pavlovna, not only did no one dare to think about it, but it was as if no one knew it.
- On dit que la pauvre comtesse est tres mal. Le medecin dit que c"est l"angine pectorale. [They say that the poor countess is very bad. The doctor said it was a chest disease.]
- L"angine? Oh, c"est une maladie terrible! [Chest disease? Oh, this is a terrible disease!]
- On dit que les rivaux se sont reconcilies grace a l "angine... [They say that the rivals were reconciled thanks to this illness.]
The word angine was repeated with great pleasure.
– Le vieux comte est touchant a ce qu"on dit. Il a pleure comme un enfant quand le medecin lui a dit que le cas etait dangereux. [The old count is very touching, they say. He cried like a child when the doctor said that dangerous case.]
- Oh, ce serait une perte terrible. C"est une femme ravissante. [Oh, that would be a great loss. Such a lovely woman.]
“Vous parlez de la pauvre comtesse,” Anna Pavlovna said, approaching. “J"ai envoye savoir de ses nouvelles. On m"a dit qu"elle allait un peu mieux. Oh, sans doute, c"est la plus charmante femme du monde," Anna Pavlovna said with a smile at her enthusiasm. – Nous appartenons a des camps differents, mais cela ne m"empeche pas de l"estimer, comme elle le merite. Elle est bien malheureuse, [You are talking about the poor countess... I sent to find out about her health. They told me she was feeling a little better. Oh, without a doubt, this is the loveliest woman in the world. We belong to different camps, but that doesn't stop me from respecting her on her merits. She is so unhappy.] – added Anna Pavlovna.
Believing that with these words Anna Pavlovna was slightly lifting the veil of secrecy over the countess’s illness, one careless young man allowed himself to express surprise that famous doctors were not called in, but that the countess was being treated by a charlatan who could give dangerous remedies.
“Vos informations peuvent etre meilleures que les miennes,” Anna Pavlovna suddenly attacked the inexperienced man with venom. young man. – Mais je sais de bonne source que ce medecin est un homme tres savant et tres habile. C"est le medecin intime de la Reine d"Espagne. [Your news may be more accurate than mine... but I am from good sources I know that this doctor is a very learned and skillful person. This is the life physician of the Queen of Spain.] - And thus destroying the young man, Anna Pavlovna turned to Bilibin, who, in another circle, picked up the skin and, apparently, about to loosen it to say un mot, spoke about the Austrians.
“Je trouve que c"est charmant! [I find it charming!],” he said about the diplomatic paper with which the Austrian banners taken by Wittgenstein were sent to Vienna, le heros de Petropol [the hero of Petropol] (as he was called in Petersburg).
- How, how is this? - Anna Pavlovna turned to him, awakening silence to hear the mot, which she already knew.
And Bilibin repeated the following original words of the diplomatic dispatch he composed:
“L"Empereur renvoie les drapeaux Autrichiens,” said Bilibin, “drapeaux amis et egares qu"il a trouve hors de la route, [The Emperor sends the Austrian banners, friendly and lost banners that he found outside the real road.],” Bilibin finished , loosening the skin.
“Charmant, charmant, [Lovely, charming,” said Prince Vasily.
“C"est la route de Varsovie peut être, [This is the Warsaw road, maybe.] - Prince Hippolyte said loudly and unexpectedly. Everyone looked back at him, not understanding what he wanted to say by this. Prince Hippolyte also looked back with cheerful surprise around him. He, like others, did not understand what the words he said meant. During his diplomatic career, he more than once noticed that the words spoken in this way suddenly turned out to be very witty, and he said these words just in case, the first ones that came to his mind. “Maybe it will work out very well,” he thought, “and if it doesn’t work out, they will be able to arrange it there.” Indeed, while an awkward silence reigned, that insufficiently patriotic face entered Anna Pavlovna, and she, smiling and shaking her finger at Ippolit, invited Prince Vasily to the table, and, presenting him with two candles and a manuscript, asked him to begin. Everything fell silent.
- Most merciful Emperor! - Prince Vasily declared sternly and looked around the audience, as if asking if anyone had anything to say against this. But no one said anything. “The Mother See of Moscow, New Jerusalem, receives its Christ,” he suddenly emphasized his words, “like a mother into the arms of her zealous sons, and through the emerging darkness, seeing the brilliant glory of your power, sings in delight: “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes.” ! – Prince Vasily in a crying voice spoke these last words.
Bilibin examined his nails carefully, and many, apparently, were timid, as if asking what was their fault? Anna Pavlovna repeated in a whisper forward, like an old woman praying for communion: “Let the impudent and insolent Goliath…” she whispered.
Prince Vasily continued:
– “Let the daring and insolent Goliath from the borders of France carry deadly horrors to the edges of Russia; meek faith, this sling of the Russian David, will suddenly strike down the head of his bloodthirsty pride. This image of St. Sergius, the ancient zealot for the good of our fatherland, is brought to your imperial majesty. I am sick because my weakening strength prevents me from enjoying your most kind contemplation. I send warm prayers to heaven, that the Almighty may magnify the race of the righteous and fulfill your Majesty’s good wishes.”
– Quelle force! Quel style! [What power! What a syllable!] - praise was heard to the reader and writer. Inspired by this speech, Anna Pavlovna’s guests talked for a long time about the situation of the fatherland and made various assumptions about the outcome of the battle, which was to be fought the other day.
“Vous verrez, [You will see.],” said Anna Pavlovna, “that tomorrow, on the sovereign’s birthday, we will receive news.” I have a good feeling.

Anna Pavlovna's premonition really came true. The next day, during a prayer service in the palace on the occasion of the sovereign's birthday, Prince Volkonsky was called from the church and received an envelope from Prince Kutuzov. This was a report from Kutuzov, written on the day of the battle from Tatarinova. Kutuzov wrote that the Russians did not retreat a single step, that the French lost much more than we did, that he was reporting in a hurry from the battlefield, without having yet managed to collect the latest information. Therefore, it was a victory. And immediately, without leaving the temple, gratitude was given to the creator for his help and for the victory.
Anna Pavlovna's premonition was justified, and a joyfully festive mood reigned in the city all morning. Everyone recognized the victory as complete, and some were already talking about the capture of Napoleon himself, his deposition and the election of a new head for France.

It dates back to 1653, when a detachment of Cossacks Peter Beketov, near the confluence of the Ingoda and Chita rivers, founded the first fortifications on the site of present-day Chita and Nerchinsk.
Soon arose the whole system prisons. The Russians are gaining a foothold not only in the valleys of the Selenga, Ingoda, Shilka, but also on the right bank of the Amur and Argun

The extreme southeastern outpost was the Argun fort, built on the right bank of the Argun. Thus, Transbaikalia found itself within the framework of the development of Russian statehood. The appearance of Russians in Dauria (as Transbaikalia and the Amur region were then collectively called) caused opposition from China.

In the 1680s. A military invasion of Dauria by Chinese troops, as well as troops of the Northern Mongol khans, began. As a result, in 1689, the warring parties began negotiations near Nerchinsk to conclude peace and establish a border. Negotiations conducted by the royal envoy F.A. Golovin, they marched in an extremely difficult situation (a 12,000-strong Chinese army stood under the walls of Nerchinsk). Initially, offering peace, the Chinese ambassadors laid claim to the entire territory of the Amur region and Transbaikalia.
After long disputes over territorial issues, the Treaty of Nerchinsk, the first treaty between Russia and China, was signed on August 29. In accordance with the agreement, the territory of the Amur went to China.

In Transbaikalia, the border was established along the river. Argun.

The lands along its left bank were to “be in the possession of the Russian state.” All Russian buildings from the right bank of the Argun were to be moved to the left bank. Further, the border passed along the river. Gorbitsa, and from its upper reaches along the “Stone Mountains” (i.e. Stanovoy Ridge).
It was the Treaty of Nerchinsk that marked the beginning of the formation of the Trans-Baikal border.

Further formation and strengthening of the Transbaikal border took place in the 18th century. The situation was complicated by the fact that after the capture of Mongolia, China began to lay claim to the lands of all of Southern Siberia. To establish the border between Russia and China in 1725, the embassy of Count S.L. Vladislavich-Raguzinsky. The result of the negotiations was the Treaty of Burin in 1727.

According to the terms of the agreement, the border between Russia and China extended from the Abagaytu hill to the Shamin-Dabaga pass in Altai. It was carried out according to the principle: “Let there be the northern side of the Russian Empire. And let there be the midday side of the Middle Empire.”

The Burin Treaty was part of the general agreement, which was finally concluded in Kyakhta in 1728. Thus, the Burin-Kyakhta Treaty ended the period of formation of the Russian border in Transbaikalia.

In 1782-83. Catherine II introduced a new administrative division of Russia, and two governorships were established in Siberia - Tobolsk and Irkutsk; Irkutsk included the territories of the modern Baikal region, Transbaikalia, the Far North and the Far East.
The territory of the Nerchinsk region, according to the description of the boundaries of the counties, was equal to most of the modern Chita region and Buryatia, and this administrative division remained in the first quarter of the 19th century. The Transbaikal region was formed on the territory of the Irkutsk province in 1851. The decree to the government senate on the formation of the Transbaikal region was signed by Emperor Nicholas I on July 11, 1851.
By this decree, the town of Chita became a regional city.

A new stage in strengthening the border is associated with the formation of the Transbaikal Cossack Army in 1851. The system of border protection by the ZKV forces remained largely unchanged until 1920.

In 1870 Three new districts are being formed in the region: Barguzinsky, Selenginsky, Chita; in 1872 - Troitskoslavsky, Akshinsky and Nerchinsko-Zavodsky districts.
At the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. in Transbaikalia intensified economic ties With central regions countries, especially in areas located along the Moscow-Siberian tract. At that time, the main industry in Transbaikalia remained mining. In the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in 1867. they raised the question of resuming the exile of criminals to work in the Nerchinsk mines and factories, and prisons began to be built at the mines.

After the annexation of the Far East to Russia, the situation on the Trans-Baikal border was quite stable. Tensions arose due to the outbreak of hostilities in China during the Yihetuan uprising in 1900.

The first gold placers of industrial importance were discovered in Transbaikalia by mining engineer A.I. Pavlutsky, and industrial gold mining began. The family of merchants Butins, M. Kaparaki, V. Sabashnikov and others were considered large owners of private mines.
The construction of the Great Siberian Railway played a role in the development of the economy and the formation of the industrial proletariat of Transbaikalia. With the start of operation of the Transbaikal railway created 11 locomotive depots in Verkhneudinsk, Chita, Khilka, Shilka.

The region met the 20th century under the leadership of the military governor, ataman of the Transbaikal Cossack army E.O. Matsievsky. The revolutionary situation within the country, including in Transbaikalia, began to heat up. The Council of Soldiers and Cossack Deputies, headed by A.A. Kostyushko-Grigorovich, and I.V. Babaushkin, who arrived from Irkutsk, in Chita called on workers and employees to take power on the road.

On December 22, 1905, postal and telegraph workers seized the post office and telegraph office. The situation in Chita was later called the “Chita Republic”.
The authorities took measures to restore order, Babushkin was shot, and Kosciusko-Grigorovich, Weinstein, Stolyarov, and Tsupsman were shot at Titovskaya Hill. March 2, 1917 In Chita, the first information was received about the fall of the tsarist regime and the transfer of power to the Provisional Government; the victory of the February Revolution stirred up political and social life in the region.

The development of the political crisis that arose was accelerated by the actions of the detachment of Ataman G.M. Semenov. February 16, 1918 The 2nd Cossack Regiment spoke out in favor of transferring power to the Soviets. Soviet power was established in the region. The entire period of the existence of Soviet power took place in conditions of a fierce struggle with the Special Manchurian Detachment.

On April 6, 1920, the congress of workers of the Baikal region, held in Verkhneudinsk, created, according to the instructions Soviet government formally independent Far Eastern Republic (FER).
In 1922 The Transbaikal region was transformed into a province.
In April 1926 The Transbaikal province was divided into the Chita and Sretensky districts, which continued to be part of the Far Eastern Territory.

The subsequent history of the Trans-Baikal border is connected with the formation of border troops, the creation in 1930 of the Border Guard Directorate of the East Siberian Territory (later the Trans-Baikal Border District).

In 1929-1930 a policy of collectivization, sometimes violent, and the transfer of Buryat pastoralists to a sedentary lifestyle were pursued.

In March 1934 a decision was made to create the Chita region, which became part of the East Siberian Territory.

In May 1935 The Transbaikal Military District (ZabVO) was formed, the headquarters of which became Chita.

September 26, 1937 The resolution of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR "On the division of the East Siberian Territory into the Irkutsk and Chita regions" was adopted. The Aginsky Buryat-Mongolian National District was formed as part of the Chita region.

From May 11 to August 31, troops of the Transbaikal Military District were involved in the Soviet-Japanese armed conflict in the area of ​​the Khalkhin Gol River in Mongolia, where Soviet and Mongolian troops under the leadership of G.K. Zhukov defeated Japanese troops.

June 22, 1941 The Great Patriotic War began. During the war years, 10 thousand communists from the region were sent to the front, and in total 175 thousand Transbaikal residents went to the front. In connection with the mobilization, in the first months of the war alone, about 13 thousand women entered industry and transport. Transbaikal residents fought on almost all fronts of the Great Patriotic War, took part in all major battles from the defense of Moscow in 1941. before the storming of Berlin in 1945.
There were over 50 units and formations formed directly in Transbaikalia at the fronts alone. More than 100 people who went to the front from the Chita region were awarded the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union. More than 54 thousand Transbaikal residents died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War.

In 1948 In connection with the formation of the Amur region, 6 districts were separated from the Chita region. The region existed within the new territorial boundaries until the end of the 20th century.
December 14, 1957 For success in the development of agriculture, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Chita region was awarded the Order of Lenin.

March 2, 1969 An armed conflict occurred on the Soviet-Chinese border near the Nizhne-Mikhailovka border point on Damansky Island; during the fighting, about 1 thousand people died on both sides.

In the first millennium AD. e. On the territory of the Chita region lived the Evenki tribes, and later the Buryats. From the 18th century Russian colonists began to develop the territory of Transbaikalia. Among the first colonists were many exiled Old Believers. From 1782-1783 The Chita region was part of the Nerchinsk (Trans-Baikal) region of the Irkutsk governorship, since 1851 the Trans-Baikal region was part of the Irkutsk province, with its capital in Chita. In 1870, three new districts were formed in the region: Barguzinsky, Selenginsky, Chita, and in 1872 - Troitskoslavsky, Akshinsky and Nerchinsko-Zavodsky. Since the 19th century The main industry is mining. Many convicts worked in the mines and factories of the region. After the uprising on December 14, 1825, dozens of Decembrists (the Bestuzhev brothers, M. S. Lunin, N. M. Muravyov, S. G. Volkonsky, A. I. Yakubovich etc.), later some of their wives came (E.I. Trubetskaya, M.N. Volkonskaya, A.G. Muravyova). The Decembrists influenced the development of the culture of the region. In 1851, the Transbaikal Cossack Army was created with its center in Chita.

At the end of the 19th century. The construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway gave impetus to the economic development of the region. During the Civil War, fierce battles between the Red Army and the armies of Admiral Kolchak and Ataman G.M. Semenov took place in the region. On April 6, 1920, the Far Eastern Republic (FER) was created. In 1922, the Far Eastern Republic became part of the RSFSR. In April 1926, the Transbaikal province was divided into the Chita and Sretensky districts, which were part of the Far Eastern Territory. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, during collectivization, Cossack farms were destroyed; Buryat pastoralists were forcibly transferred to a sedentary lifestyle. In March 1934, a decision was made to create the Chita region, which became part of the East Siberian Territory. On September 26, 1937, the East Siberian Territory was divided into the Irkutsk and Chita regions. The Aginsky Buryat-Mongolian National District was formed as part of the Chita region. In 1948, in connection with the formation of the Amur Region, 6 districts were separated from the Chita Region. On March 2, 1969, an armed conflict occurred on the Soviet-Chinese border near the Nizhne-Mikhailovka border point on Damansky Island.

M. S. Lunin

N. M. Muravyov

S. G. Volkonsky

A. I. Yakubovich

Culture

Chita. A monument of Russian wooden architecture is the wooden Church of the Archangel Michael (“Church of the Decembrists”). 1776.

Historical monuments : complex of monuments of the Nerchinsk fort (17-18 centuries), wooden St. Michael the Archangel Church (18 century, Chita), wooden church of Saints Peter and Paul (19 century, Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky), Akatui prison, Decembrist museum, cemetery ( 19th century, Shilka), Resurrection Cathedral (1825, Nerchinsk), Aginsky Buddhist datsan (19th century, Aginsky-Buryat Autonomous Okrug). Natural and religious complexes of the Chita region: Alkhanay (Duldurginsky district), “Lamsky town” (Krasnochikoysky district), “Stone town” in the middle reaches of the Delovun river (Tungokochinsky district), etc. On the territory of the Nerchinsky district there is a unique Savvateevsky gem quarry.

There are 5 state museums in the Chita region, and there is a Regional Drama Theater and a circus. In 1921, the first higher educational institution opened in Chita - the State Institute of Public Education.
Natives of the region are Ataman G. M. Semenov, actors Solomin brothers, politician A. A. Sobchak, musician and conductor O. L. Lundstrem and others.

Preface

Having started the publication of materials extracted from the data delivered by the census of the Transbaikal Cossack army, I wanted to preface the publication with a short historical essay Transbaikal Cossacks. However, it was not possible to fulfill this desire due to the complete absence of any sources in Transbaikalia relating to the past of the army.

The stated circumstance prompted me, instead of the proposed essay, to start collecting materials for the history of the Transbaikal Cossack army. And since the activities of the Transbaikal Cossacks are closely connected with the civil structure and colonization of the Transbaikal region, this manual for compiling the history of the Transbaikal Cossacks, of necessity, should include data generally suitable for writing the history of the Transbaikal region.

Fire in Irkutsk – former center management of the entire Eastern Siberia - destroyed the archive of the Main Directorate, and therefore it is now impossible to obtain practical and completely reliable information about the past of Transbaikalia, which thoroughly characterizes the life of this region, in Irkutsk. It is impossible to obtain this information in Transbaikalia, since the Selenginsky and Kyakhtinsky archives were sent to Moscow, and the Nerchinsky archive disappeared due to lack of care for it. The archive of the regional headquarters contains cases of relatively recent times, and

The archive of military economic administration, also recently established, is far from complete.

As a result of the above, when compiling this manual, I was forced to be guided almost exclusively only by the data that can be extracted from the complete collection of laws ed. 1838.

Thus, the manual I am publishing for compiling the history of Transbaikalia and the Transbaikal Cossacks is only a framework in which archival data will need to be included; a summary that will facilitate the work of the future compiler of the history of this region, the most important and valuable of all the lands of Eastern Siberia in the economic and strategic sense. Without any assistance from the government, neglected by the former administrators of Eastern Siberia, the region, flooded with exiled convicts of all categories, managed to become a granary for the Amur region and the Irkutsk province and is the largest consumer, allowing the merchants of the Amur and Primorsky regions, and partly the Irkutsk merchants, to exist.

Transbaikalia, which is called Siberian Italy, does not need such generous monetary expenditures as are spent on the Amur lands in hopes of future benefits; it needs to establish an administration that would correspond to the current economic situation of the region; only needs some attention to the needs of the region; feels the need to terminate the regional regulation in this regard and, having a population of more than half a million, it has more right than the Irkutsk province to use provincial institutions.

If real work attracts the attention of those in power in Transbaikalia, then this will be the best reward for me.

Sources

1. Complete collection of laws of the Russian Empire, ed. 1830

2. Siberian history of Johann Fischer, ed. 1775

3. A chronological list of the most important data from the history of Siberia from 1032 to 1882 was compiled by I.V. Shcheglov, published in Irkutsk in 1883.

4. Journey to the Tatars of Plano-Carpini, translated by Yazykov, published in 1825, in St. Petersburg.

5. Le livre de Marco Polo, citoyen de Venise, conseiller privé et commissaire Imperial de Khoubilai-khaan, par M. G. Pauthier, published in Paris in 1865, vol. I.

6. Brief testimony about those who were both in Tobolsk and in all Siberian cities and forts from the beginning of the capture of the Siberian state, governors and governors, and other ranks, and who they were, and in which cities they were and who built which city, and when . Written in the Tobolsk bishop's house in 1791. Printed with the permission of the deanery in Tobolsk, in the printing house of Vasily Korniliev in 1792.

7. Voyages et decouvertes foites par les Russes le long des cotes de la mer Glaciale, et sur l’ocean oriental. On a joint L’histoire du fleuve Amur. Ouvrages traduits de l'Allemand de M-r,

G. P. Muller par. Cg. E. Dunois. Amsterdam. MDCCLXVI.

8. Siberia and hard labor, S. Maksimova, ed. 1871

9. Historical review of Siberia by Slovtsov, volumes I and II, ed. 1838 and 1844

10. Siberia as a colony, H.M. Yadrintseva, ed. 1882

11. Diplomatic collection of affairs between the Russian and Chinese states from 1619 to 1792. Compiled from documents from the archives of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs

H. Bantysh-Kamensky in 1882

Chapter I

Establishment of the Transbaikal region. Indigenous inhabitants of the region. Christianity among the Mongols. The first information about the Transbaikal lands that reached the Russians. A brief outline of the spread of Russian possessions in Siberia: Ermak’s campaigns; establishment in Siberian lands government authority; abuses of yasak collection; enmity between service people over yasak areas. A short list of riots and uprisings of Siberian foreigners in the first years of the establishment of government power in the Trans-Ural lands

The Trans-Baikal region, within its present region, became a region with independent governance relatively recently, namely on August 16, 1851, when the Highest approval of the regulations on the management of the Trans-Baikal region followed.

When the region was formed, it included the Verkhneudinsky and Nerchinsky districts of the former Irkutsk province and the Troitskosavskoe city administration, occupying a total of 547,966 square meters. versts (11,325.2 sq. miles) 1.

The indigenous inhabitants of this part of Asia, which initially became known to the Russians under the name Dauria, were the Daurs or Tungus and the Mongols.

The Tungus inhabited the eastern part of what is now Transbaikalia, without occupying permanent places, but wandering through the mountains and forests. Fisher describes this people as follows: “The Tungus are a cheerful, cheerful people, naturally gifted with a good mind, they live mostly in wild places and stretch on one side from the Yenisei River to the Tatar Ocean; and on the other, from the Yakuts to the Mongols, or, which is almost the same, from the Penzhina Bay to the Chinese Wall" 2 . Then he recognizes the Tungus as a people related to the Manchus; classifies both of them as Daurs who inhabited areas along the Arguni River and in present-day Manchuria, and claims that they have nothing in common with either the Mongols or the Tatars 3.

In the western part of Transbaikalia, the indigenous inhabitants were Mongols 4. Fischer, referring to the traveler monk Rübrükis (Vilem Rübrükis. – Note ed.), claims that the real fatherland of the Mongols and the place where Genghis Khan roamed is the southern part of Transbaikalia. This is confirmed, however, by local legends: not far from the Konduevsky village, Tsagan-Oluevsky stanitsa district, Genghis Khan’s mound and the places of Mongol camps are indicated. The point of Genghis Khan's nomads, according to Ryubryukis, is called in one place - Mankherul, and in another - Onamkherul. Fisher gives the following explanation for these words: “These names are nothing more than a corrupted addition of the names of both rivers Onon and Kerulun. And that in these places there was a real home of the ancient Mongols, Chinese history testifies everywhere.”

The direct and immediate descendants of the Mongols in Transbaikalia were the Buryats 5. Their kinship with the Mongols is confirmed by the similarity of language and facial type. Although the Buryats deny this relationship, descending from the Kalmyks, this fact does not at all contradict their origin from the Mongols, because the Kalmyks are also related to the Mongols. According to Fisher, the Buryats inhabited the areas around Lake Baikal and along the Angara and Lena rivers, and in Transbaikalia along the river. Selenga and its tributaries, and to the east up to the city of Nerchinsk 6.

I admit that the following circumstance is not without interest. There is reason to think that in the 12th and 13th centuries there were Christians among the Mongols living in Transbaikalia. This conclusion is based on the fact that the first European travelers to Asia: Carpini (in 1246), Ryubrukis (in 1253) and Marco Polo (in 1275–1292) mention Prester John and his kingdom. Carpini called him the Indian king; Ryubrükis was the king of the Naiman horde of the Mongols, and Polo was Unk Khan, the prince of the Mongol 7, and everyone claims that both he himself and many of his subjects were Christians of the Nestorian persuasion. Finding out the legends about Prester John, Fischer dwells on the assumption that the person called Prester John by the travelers mentioned was supposed to be the Nestorian patriarch or a bishop sent from him, who arrogated to himself greater importance and power than he should have. “And since the Nestorian faith from time to time leaned towards the worse, it gradually changed into Lamai idolatry.” This conclusion can be confirmed by the fact that news of the lamas and the Dalai Lama first appeared under Kayuk Khan, the grandson of Genghis, that is, when historical mentions of the Nestorians and Prester John ceased, both in Mongolia and in Tibet.

Fischer explains his conclusion as follows: the rumor about Prester John (prêtre Jean), according to the interpretation of Scaliger 8, came from India and is a reworking of the expression preste-egan(preste gyani), which in Indian means “universal messenger”. And since the Nestorian patriarchs appropriated the name of universal patriarchs to themselves, it is not surprising that with the appearance of the Dalai Lama in Mongolia and Tibet they stopped talking about the Nestorians and Prester John, and this happened “from nothing other than that the universal patriarch, under another name, or especially under the same one, in another language was revered: for the universal patriarch, Presteghegan and Dalai Lama all mean one thing.”

The first information about the lands that are part of the Trans-Baikal region, and about the peoples inhabiting it, began to reach the Russian people in the first quarter of the 17th century, after tribute was imposed on various foreigners who inhabited the upper reaches of the river. The Yenisei with its tributaries, such as the Kotovs, Kaibals, Asans, etc., who paid yasak to the Buryats living along the Oka and Angara rivers.

In order to better understand the history of the settlement of Transbaikalia by Russian people, as well as the emergence and course of development of military forces in this area, I believe it would not be superfluous to do short essay the conquest of the Siberian lands in general, before the inclusion of the lands beyond Baikal into the Russian possessions. Such an essay will allow us to more easily understand both the motives for the seizure of the Transbaikal lands and the methods used to achieve this goal. It should also be borne in mind that of all the current Siberian possessions of Russia, with the exception of the Ussuri region, Transbaikalia was annexed to Russia later than the others, and, therefore, when settling this region, the Russian government was already rich in colonization experience and could develop a certain program for itself. Whether there was any program for populating the region and, if so, how it was implemented, we will see below.

The motive that caused the first acquaintance of Russian people with the areas lying between the Ural Mountains and the river. Obyu – profit, - runs through the entire history of the conquest of Siberia and served as the motivating reason for the gradual advance of the Russian colonizers of Siberia right up to the shores of the Great Ocean and to its real southern borders with China.

The desire of the Moscow princes to annex the Siberian lands to their possessions was caused by the following circumstance 9: a resident of the city of Solvychegodsk, in the Zyryansk land, Anika Stroganov, built salt pans near the city. These varnishes contributed to the development of bargaining in the city, to which foreigners began to show up with soft junk because of Ural mountains. The profitability of exchanging salt for furs prompted Anika to start bargaining with them in their places of residence. Having received huge profits for several years of trading in the Ob lands, he thereby aroused the envy of other merchants and, fearing harmful consequences for him if they declared to the Government that he was carrying out duty-free trade, he notified the royal court of his discoveries. This report from Anika Stroganov caused the parcel to be sent to the river. Ob people chosen from the government to impose tribute on the pagan peoples and to convert them into citizenship. The result of this government order was the appearance in Moscow in January 1555 of ambassadors from the Tatar prince Ediger, who beat Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich with his forehead from the entire Siberian land and pledged to pay tribute of 1000 sables a year, and 1000 squirrels to the royal envoy who would come for them.

Consequently, the first motivating reason that caused the appearance of Russian people in the Ob, Siberian lands was: for a private individual - profit, for the government - the collection of tribute.

Then Ermak’s campaign, if it was not caused by the need for profit, was still a consequence of this inclination in the Russian freemen. Having entered the possessions of the Stroganovs, after the defeat of the Volga bandits by the tsarist troops in 1577, Ermak and his squads considered it expedient to attack the adjacent Tatars, who not only stopped paying tribute to the tsar, but even dared to raid the Ostyaks, who were already under Russian citizenship. After a failed campaign in 1578 (he got lost and spent the winter on the Sylva River), he set out finally in 1579. After spending the winter on the Serebryanka River (Ermakovo settlement) in 1580, he descended into the river. Tagil fought and reached the Tatar city of Chimgi, not far from the present city of Tyumen, where he stopped for the winter. Finally, after the battle on October 23, 1581, not far from the capital of Kuchumov’s kingdom, Ermak entered the capital of Siberia, Isker, on October 26, 1581.

Having seized the Siberian kingdom for the purpose of profit (not one of the chronicles mentions that he fought for the king), Ermak soon saw the impossibility of keeping it for himself without the help of the government, and realized that it was more profitable for him to use at least something, being in dependence on the Russian Tsar than to lose all 10. This circumstance prompted him to send one of his atamans, Ivan Koltsov, to Moscow, to beat the Tsar of Siberia with his brow and present a tribute of 2,400 sables, 20 black foxes and 50 beavers.

Consequently, in this case the motives were: profit and receiving tribute.

Then, from the time the Siberian lands were accepted into Russian citizenship, an orgy of profit, robbery and violence began in the newly annexed areas, which left its mark on the entire historical course of the conquest of Siberia and influenced the development of those features in the character of the Siberian that quite sharply distinguish him from the general Russian person.

The rumor about Ermak's successes and the abundance of expensive furs in the Siberian lands, which quickly spread among the people, caused all people looking for a quick profit to gravitate towards Siberia, and masses of tramps and trappers flocked to unexplored countries. Thanks to the instructions of such people, the Cossacks (service men), sent by the government to the newly built cities, built forts in the lands of the newly discovered foreigners and taxed them on behalf of the king with yasak. The collection of yasak, carried out by servicemen (Cossacks), ruined the payers and was accompanied by such cruelty and violence that the unfortunate foreigners, not content with complaints, out of desperation carried out uprisings and riots.

How difficult it was for the population to collect yasak by servicemen can be judged by the fact that already in 1586, that is, when Russian power was not yet established in Siberia, the Ostyatsky prince Lukuy went to Moscow and asked Tsar Feodor Ivanovich for a letter prohibiting local authorities demand tribute and gifts from Lukuya and his subjects 11.

How great the disorder was during the collection of yasak can be judged from the following. In the 1590s, several industrialists, having found places rich in sables near the Pura and Taz rivers, built forts for trading with the Samoyeds and began to collect yasak in the royal name for their benefit. This circumstance caused the construction of the city of Mangazeya in 1601 12. (The first attempt, made in 1600, failed.)

The fear of being subject to tribute tax prompted Prince Toyan, the founder of the Tatar family of Eushta, who lived along the river. Tom, to ask Tsar Boris Feodorovich Godunov in 1604 to accept him as a citizen so that he and his subjects would be freed from tribute, for which he pledged to promote the conquest of neighboring peoples (Teleuts, Kyrgyz and Umaks) and, moreover, to build a Russian city in his ulus 13.

Then, after the city of Tomsk was rebuilt, in 1605, its founder, governor Gavrila Pisemsky, invited the Telengut prince Abak with his Murzas, already prepared for peaceful relations by Prince Toyan, and could not achieve this, because Abak was afraid of being detained in as an amanat (hostage. – Note edit.). On this occasion, Fischer’s translator expresses himself as follows: “This fear of his was not entirely without foundation, because this happened many times, and the violence of the Cossacks, and many governors, turned the hearts of the conquered peoples away from the Russians and brought a bad name to the entire Siberian people.”

The cruelty of yasak collectors caused the assignment of foreigners by orders from Moscow from the department of one city to the jurisdiction of another. Thus, the Vogulichs, who paid yasak to the Verkhoturye collectors, complaining about the excessive violence and injustice of the collectors, in 1607 asked to be included in Cherdyn, to which consent followed 14.

Tatars who lived along the river. Sylve, complaining about the same Verkhoturye collectors, also asked to be included in Cherdyn 15.

The construction of cities and forts by government order caused a number of inconveniences and disasters for yasak payers - enmity between the Cossacks of these cities for the right to collect yasak. So, for example, the Surgut Cossacks, looking for foreigners to impose tribute on them, founded the Narym and Ket forts 16 in 1596 in order to facilitate themselves in collecting tribute from the surrounding foreigners. The Ket Cossacks introduced the Ostyaks into their region, who lived along the Zyma and Kassu rivers, which flow into the river. Yenisei. In turn, the Mangazeya Cossacks in 1607 expanded their yasak collection area so much that they began collecting it from the Ostyaks who lived on the Zym and Kass rivers. This led to clashes with the Ket Cossacks. The population, paying double tribute, began to complain; The Cossacks also complained. These complaints, which reached Moscow just during the Time of Troubles, could not be sorted out quickly, and this dispute, and consequently the misfortunes of the Kassky and Zyma Ostyaks, ceased only with the construction of the city of Yeniseisk, to which they were assigned 17. Interesting, by the way, is the extract below from Fisher’s “Siberian History” regarding the mentioned dispute. “Despite this, the Mangazeans did not leave their position, but at the mouth of the Zyma River they set up a winter hut for themselves, as clear proof that collecting yasak is revered by these people as a reliable means of quickly getting rich.”

Revolts of the conquered peoples - Ostyaks, Vogulichs, Tatars, caused by the greed of tax collectors, began from the very first times when forts for collecting yasak were founded in their areas. With the construction of Pelym in 1592 and Surgut, Berezov and Obdorsk in 1593, the Ostyaks rebelled several times and already in 1595 besieged the city of Berezov. In 1598, the Narym Ostyaks started an uprising against Narym, and then the Ket Ostyaks - against the Cossacks of the Ket fort. In 1600, 30 Cossacks from the party of the governor Prince Shakhovsky were killed by the Samoyeds of the Pur River. In 1606, the governors 18 appointed to Tomsk to replace Pisemsky committed all sorts of violence on the way and thereby prompted the Ob Ostyaks to revolt, and with their theft they turned the Kyrgyz away from joining and caused the robberies of the Chulym 19 Tatars. In 1607, up to 2,000 Vogulichs, Ostyaks, and Samoyeds gathered with the goal of ruining the city of Berezov. In 1609, the Tatars, Ostyaks and Vogulichs gathered to destroy the city of Pelym. In 1616, the Ostyaks of the Surgut district, in revenge for the violence of the Cossacks and governors, passing by on their way to Tomsk, were killed in different time 30 Cossacks. This list could be continued for a long time, but what is given is enough to clarify my conclusion.

Chapter II

Extension of the power of the Russian government to the lands of foreigners of the Yenisei basin. Government concerns about annexed lands. Enmity between Krasnoyarsk and Yenisei Cossacks for the right to collect yasak from nearby foreigners. The first acquaintance of Russians with the Buryats. A few words about the Cossacks in Siberia. Collection of information about the Buryats. Expedition of Maxim Perfilyev. Expedition of Peter Beketov. Expedition of Yakov Khripunov. Perfilyev's second expedition. Construction of the Bratsk fort. Reconnaissance along the river Lena. Expedition of Vasily Bugr. The expedition of Ivan Galkin and the construction of the Ilimsk and Ust-Kutsk forts. Expedition of Peter Beketov. Foundation of the Yakut fort.

Thirst for profit in the governors different cities and prisons suppressed all the highest movements of the soul in them and brought them to the point of betrayal of the Russian cause, understanding it in the sense of achieving the goals set by the government. After a slowdown in the forward movement of Russian people into the depths of Siberia, caused at the beginning of the 17th century by the interregnum with the accession of Sovereign Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov, the government paid attention to Siberian affairs, and an order was issued to occupy lands along the river. Yenisei. In these ways, the garrison of the Ket fort was strengthened, and then, in 1618, some of the people were allocated from it under the command of the boyar’s son Peter Albichev to build the Yenisei fort. Having climbed up the Ket River, Albichev founded the Makovsky fort in the place where he was supposed to go onto land to cross the Yenisei. In the spring of 1619, the Tungus in a large crowd besieged this fort in order to destroy it and prevent the Russians from moving towards the Yenisei. The Ket governor not only did not provide assistance to the besieged, but even detained their messenger, sent to Tobolsk, in order to deprive them of outside help, and did this only because he did not want to reduce his yasak district, as he was ordered, for the construction of the Yenisei fort, the volosts closest to the river. Yenisei, transfer to the jurisdiction of the new prison 20.

With the founding of the Yenisei fort in 1619, the nature of government orders regarding the spread of Russian rule in Siberia was somewhat regulated; concern for Siberian foreigners who have accepted Russian citizenship is already noticeable; there is a tendency towards a more peaceful system of actions. Clashes with the Kyrgyz, which began in 1605 and intensified after the founding of the Kuznetsk fort in the upper reaches of the river. Tom in 1608, they taught caution, and therefore, after the construction of the Yenisei fort, the foundation of the Melessky fort on the river followed. Chulym, no longer to collect yasak, but to protect the Chulym Tatars from Kyrgyz raids. Then, any movement forward is now preceded by the sending of reconnaissance parties by order of the authorities. Taking care of better provision for foreigners who were already citizens, the Moscow government, sending governor Yakov Khripunov again to the city of Yeniseisk in 1623, gave him Andrei Dubensky to send to distant lands for the purpose of reconnaissance. “Even so, from the Kyrgyz and Buryats, especially for the Tulkinskaya (district of the Kuznetsk fort) volost, one can fear a great disaster.” Khripunov sent Dubensky up the river. Yenisei to choose a place where a city could be founded to protect new subjects. The result of this business trip was the construction of the Krasny Yar fort in 1627, which was renamed the city the following year.

Despite the fact that since the time of Mikhail Feodorovich the government’s concern for foreigners who have accepted Russian citizenship has been noticed, the view of the Siberian governors and Cossacks on their relations towards them has remained the same. Thus, with the establishment of the Krasnoyarsk city, the area of ​​the former district of the city of Yeniseisk shrank, and this caused dislike and enmity of the Yenisei governors and Cossacks towards the Krasnoyarsk ones. In 1630, one of the Tuba princes who paid tribute to Yeniseisk, named Soit, taking advantage of the fact that the Kirghiz and Kalmyks were disturbing Krasnoyarsk, stopped paying yasak and joined the Kirghiz. To punish Soyt, ataman Ivan Galkin was sent from Yeniseisk with 35 Cossacks. Having failed to fulfill this order and having difficulty saving his detachment, Galkin retreated to Yeniseisk through the lands of the Kotovs, who paid tribute, to Krasnoyarsk. Taking advantage of this opportunity, he launched a night attack on the Kotov prince Tesenik, killed 20 people, took his wives and children, captured 5 forty sables and gave the Kotov’s homes to the Cossacks for plunder. When, according to Tesenik’s complaint, the Krasnoyarsk residents stood up for the Kotovs, recognizing this attack as a violation of their rights and for robbery committed against loyal subjects, the Yeniseis did not give satisfaction and kept the stolen goods. “And is it possible that the Yenisei governor would agree to the return of five forty sables?” This is how Fischer ends his story about this fact.

In 1622, the Russians first met the Buryats, who, among 3,000 people (according to Fischer), attacked the Kotovs living along the river. Kanu, for collecting yasak. Yenisei governor Yakov Khripunov sent to the river. Kan of the Cossack Kozlov for intelligence about the method of action and weapons of the Buryats and to convey to them an invitation to accept Russian citizenship. Although this proposal was not accepted, the idea of ​​​​subjugating the Buryats firmly settled in the minds of the Yenisei governors and entailed sending parties to carry out the most thorough reconnaissance about the Buryats. The first attempt at this, made in 1623 by sending a party under the command of Ataman Vasily Alekseev, was unsuccessful. Then, until 1627, it was not possible to repeat attempts at reconnaissance about the Buryats, because it was necessary to pacify the Tungus who lived on the river. Chonu and in the lower reaches of Tunguska. Then it was necessary to pacify the revolt of the Cossacks, who were indignant against the governor Andrei Oshanin 21 because he wanted to recover from the ataman Vasily Alekseev, who killed while collecting yasak from the Tungus on the river. Pete, several people. (The governor was rescued by a team that came from Tobolsk.)

Here, by the way, it would be useful to say a few words about the Cossacks. The word "Cossack" Tatar origin and means a person who has no family and no permanent residence. And since people of this sort are naturally very mobile and prone to all sorts of risky undertakings, because they have nothing to lose, the word “Cossack” began to be used to describe daredevils and reckless people of various kinds. Probably due to this circumstance, those Kyrgyz who lived in the areas along the upper reaches of the rivers - Yaik, Tobol, Ishim and Irtysh, were distinguished by the greatest tendency among the Kyrgyz to attack and were nicknamed by the Tatars “Kirghiz-Kaysaki” (Cossacks). From the Tatars this word passed to Russia, where it served as a name for free people who lived within the borders of the state and were always ready for war and raids. Then, in the southern provinces of Russia, Cossacks are the name given to single free people who hire themselves out as servants for money. In Siberia, service people expelled from

Russia for serving in cities and towns, in general use received the nickname Cossacks, partly because the original conquerors of Siberia were Cossacks, and partly because by the nature and licentiousness of their lives they were in the full sense of freemen, and cases like the above rebellion against their commander, there are many in the history of the conquest of Siberia.

I now turn to further collection of information about the Buryats.

In 1627, two parties of Cossacks were sent from Yeniseisk: one of 10 people for reconnaissance of the Lena, under the command of Vasily Bugr, and the other, to bring the Buryats into citizenship, of 40 people, under the command of Ataman Maxim Perfilyev 22 (according to Fisher - Maxim Perfiryev) . This last batch, although it arrived along the river. Angara to the Buryat camps (Perfilyev climbed to the Shamansky threshold, 80 versts from the mouth of the Ilim), but had no success and rewarded herself by collecting yasak from the Tungus, who, in retaliation, attacked the Cossacks as they crossed the river. Tunguska, opposite the mouth of the Tasya River, and inflicted significant damage on them (10 Cossacks were wounded and 1 was killed).

In order to facilitate the actions of subsequent parties, centurion Peter Beketov was ordered in 1628 to build the Rybensky fort on the right bank of the river. Tunguska, opposite the confluence of the river. Taseya (in the middle reaches of the Chon, and in the upper reaches of the Uda), and then go to the upper reaches of the river. Tunguskas (Angaras) for reconnaissance about the Buryats and for taxing them with yasak. Beketov with 30 Cossacks managed to make his way up the Angara to its confluence with the river. Oka, collected yasak from the Buryats and in the spring of 1629 returned to Yeniseisk 23.

Meanwhile, in Tobolsk in 1628, a large expedition was equipped under the command of the former Yenisei governor Yakov Khripunov to move beyond Baikal. After spending the winter in the city of Yeniseisk, Khripunov set off in the spring of 1629 on 20 ships 24 and, reaching the mouth of the river. Ilima, left 20 people there to guard the ships, and sent 30 people to the river. Lena for reconnaissance, and with the rest of the people headed by land to the upper reaches of the river. Hangars to carry out the task assigned to him: to go beyond Lake Baikal, to the Mongols, and explore where they mine silver. Obviously, the silver jewelry worn by the wives of the Buryats, and the silver frame of their weapons and saddles, greatly amazed the Cossacks, who had not seen precious metals from other peoples they had conquered, and made them think that the Buryats were very rich. This circumstance alone can explain the equipment of the expedition of Khripunov, who made the first report about the Buryats.

This expedition was not a success. Khripunov withstood the attack of the Buryats near the mouth of the Oka River, returned to his ships left opposite the mouth of the Ilima River, and wanted to stay here for the winter, but soon fell ill and died. After his death, the detachment went home without permission, taking with them the booty and captured Buryats.

It should be noted that upon the return of the Krasnoyarsk and Yenisei Cossacks to their cities, the prisoners they had taken were released by the governors under the pretext that the Buryats, who paid tribute to Beketov, were recognized as Russian subjects. Fisher explains this, almost the first manifestation of justice of the Russian authorities towards Siberian foreigners, by the desire for profit; he claims 25 that this condescension is caused by the conviction of the wealth of the Buryats and the desire to influence them with affection. When sending the first two captives to the Buryats, they killed one of the Cossacks accompanying them, and robbed the other completely; As a result, subsequent prisoners were sent with 30 Cossacks under the command of Ataman Maxim Perfilyev, who was ordered by the way to build a fort at the mouth of the river. Okie.

Perfilyev, having reached the Shamansky threshold, left ships with provisions and 15 Cossacks for supervision, and with the rest he reached the Buryat camps and handed over the prisoners, for which he received 15 sables, which he counted as yasak.

Due to a lack of people, he could not build a fort, and therefore in 1631 50 Cossacks were sent from Yeniseisk under the command of Ivan Moskvitin to complete this task. The fort that was built was named Bratsky, after the name of the Buryat family that lived there.

This fort became the threshold to the Russian capture of Transbaikalia. The first among those built on the Buryat lands, it was of enormous importance for the Russians: in the sense of a guard post covering the path from the Yenisei to the Lena; as a stronghold for collecting tribute from the Buryats; as an advanced reconnaissance point about the lands beyond Baikal and about the peoples inhabiting them, and finally as the most convenient point for equipping an expedition beyond Baikal.