Beyond the great Stone Belt, the Urals, there are vast expanses of Siberia. This territory occupies almost three-quarters of the entire area of our country. Siberia is larger than the second largest (after Russia) country in the world - Canada. More than twelve million square kilometers store inexhaustible reserves of natural resources in their bowels, with reasonable use sufficient for the life and prosperity of many generations of people.
Stone Belt Trek
The beginning of the development of Siberia falls on the last years of the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The most convenient outpost for moving deep into this wild and uninhabited region at that time was the middle Urals, the undivided owner of which was the Stroganov family of merchants. Taking advantage of the patronage of the Moscow tsars, they owned vast land areas, on which there were thirty-nine villages and the city of Solvychegodsk with a monastery. They also owned a chain of prisons, stretching along the border with the possessions of Khan Kuchum.
The history of Siberia, or rather, its conquest by Russian Cossacks, began with the fact that the tribes inhabiting it refused to pay the Russian Tsar yasyk - the tribute they werelined up for many years. Moreover, the nephew of their ruler - Khan Kuchum - with a large detachment of cavalry made a number of raids on the villages belonging to the Stroganovs. To protect against such unwanted guests, we althy merchants hired Cossacks, led by ataman Vasily Timofeevich Alenin, nicknamed Yermak. Under this name, he entered Russian history.
First steps in an unknown land
In September 1582, a detachment of seven hundred and fifty people began their legendary campaign for the Urals. It was a kind of discovery of Siberia. On the whole route, the Cossacks were lucky. The Tatars who inhabited those regions, although they outnumbered them, were inferior militarily. They practically did not know the firearms, so widespread by that time in Russia, and fled in a panic every time they heard a volley.
To meet the Russians, the khan sent his nephew Mametkul with ten thousand troops. The battle took place near the Tobol River. Despite their numerical superiority, the Tatars suffered a crushing defeat. The Cossacks, building on their success, came close to the Khan's capital, Kashlyk, and here they finally crushed the enemies. The former ruler of the region fled, and his warlike nephew was captured. From that day on, the khanate practically ceased to exist. The history of Siberia takes a new turn.
Fights with aliens
In those days, the Tatars were subject to a large number of tribes that were conquered by them and were their tributaries. They did not know money and their yasykpaid with the skins of fur-bearing animals. From the moment of the defeat of Kuchum, these peoples came under the rule of the Russian Tsar, and carts with sables and martens were pulled to distant Moscow. This valuable product has always and everywhere been in great demand, and especially in the European market.
However, not all tribes accepted the inevitable. Some of them continued to resist, although it weakened every year. The Cossack detachments continued their march. In 1584, their legendary ataman Ermak Timofeevich died. This happened, as often happens in Russia, due to negligence and oversight - at one of the h alts, sentries were not posted. It so happened that a prisoner who had escaped a few days before brought an enemy detachment at night. Taking advantage of the oversight of the Cossacks, they suddenly attacked and began to cut the sleeping people. Yermak, trying to escape, jumped into the river, but a massive shell - a personal gift from Ivan the Terrible - carried him to the bottom.
Life in a conquered land
From that time on, the active development of Western Siberia began. Following the Cossack detachments, hunters, peasants, clergy and, of course, officials stretched into the taiga wilderness. All those who found themselves behind the Ural Range became free people. There was neither serfdom nor landlordism here. They paid only the tax established by the state. The local tribes, as mentioned above, were taxed with a fur yasyk. During this period, the income from the receipt of Siberian furs to the treasury was a significant contribution to the Russian budget.
The history of Siberia is inextricably linked with the creationsystems of forts - defensive fortifications (around which, by the way, many cities subsequently grew up), which served as outposts for the further conquest of the region. So, in 1604, the city of Tomsk was founded, which later became the largest economic and cultural center. After a short time, the Kuznetsk and Yenisei prisons appeared. They housed military garrisons and the administration that controlled the collection of yasyk.
Documents of those years testify to many facts of corruption of government officials. Despite the fact that, according to the law, all furs had to go to the treasury, some officials, as well as Cossacks directly involved in collecting tribute, overstated the established norms, appropriating the difference in their favor. Even then, such lawlessness was severely punished, and there are many cases when covetous people paid for their deeds with freedom and even lives.
Further penetration into new lands
The process of colonization became especially intense after the end of the Time of Troubles. The goal of all those who dared to seek happiness in new, unexplored lands, this time was Eastern Siberia. This process proceeded at a very fast pace, and by the end of the 17th century, the Russians had reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean. By this time, a new government structure appeared - the Siberian Order. His duties included the establishment of new procedures for the administration of controlled territories and the nomination of governors, who were local authorized representatives of the tsarist government.
In addition to the collection of furs, there were alsopurchases of furs, the payment for which was carried out not in money, but in all kinds of goods: axes, saws, various tools, as well as fabrics. History, unfortunately, has preserved many cases of abuse. Often, the arbitrariness of officials and Cossack foremen ended in riots by local residents, who had to be pacified by force.
Main directions of colonization
Eastern Siberia was developed in two main directions: to the north along the coast of the seas, and to the south along the border line with the states adjacent to it. At the beginning of the 17th century, the banks of the Irtysh and the Ob were settled by Russians, and after them, significant areas adjacent to the Yenisei. Cities such as Tyumen, Tobolsk and Krasnoyarsk were founded and began to be built. All of them were to eventually become major industrial and cultural centers.
The further advance of the Russian colonists was carried out mainly along the Lena River. Here in 1632 a prison was founded, which gave rise to the city of Yakutsk, the most important stronghold at that time in the further development of the northern and eastern territories. Largely due to this, two years later, the Cossacks led by Ivan Moskvin managed to reach the Pacific coast, and soon the Russian explorers saw the Kuriles and Sakhalin for the first time.
Conquerors of the Wild
The history of Siberia and the Far East keeps the memory of another outstanding traveler - Cossack Semyon Dezhnev. In 1648, he and the detachment he led on several ships for the first time rounded the coast of North Asia.and proved the existence of a strait separating Siberia from America. At the same time, another traveler, Poyarov, having passed along the southern border of Siberia and climbed up the Amur, reached the Sea of Okhotsk.
Nerchinsk was founded some time later. Its significance is largely determined by the fact that as a result of moving to the east, the Cossacks approached China, which also claimed these territories. By that time, the Russian Empire had reached its natural borders. Over the next century, there was a steady process of consolidating the results achieved during the colonization.
Legislation related to new territories
The history of Siberia in the 19th century is characterized mainly by the abundance of administrative innovations introduced into the life of the region. One of the earliest was the division of this vast territory into two general governments approved in 1822 by personal decree of Alexander I. Tobolsk became the center of the West, and Irkutsk became the center of the East. They, in turn, were subdivided into provinces, and those - into volost and foreign councils. Such a transformation was a consequence of the well-known reform of M. M. Speransky.
In the same year, ten legislative acts signed by the tsar and regulating all aspects of administrative, economic and legal life saw the light. Much attention in this document was paid to issues related to the arrangement of places of deprivation of liberty and the procedure for serving sentences. By the 19th century, hard labor and prisons had become an integral part of this region.
Siberia on the map of those yearsabounds with the names of mines, the work in which was carried out exclusively by the forces of the convicts. This is Nerchinsky, and Zabaikalsky, and Blagodatny and many others. As a result of a large influx of exiles from among the Decembrists and participants in the Polish rebellion of 1831, the government even united all Siberian provinces under the supervision of a specially formed gendarme district.
The beginning of the industrialization of the region
Among the main industries that have been widely developed during this period, gold mining should be mentioned first of all. By the middle of the century, it accounted for most of the total volume of the precious metal mined in the country. Also, large revenues to the state treasury came from the mining industry, which had significantly increased by this time the volume of mining. Many other branches are also developing.
Into the new century
At the beginning of the 20th century, the impetus for the further development of the region was the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The history of Siberia in the post-revolutionary period is full of drama. A fratricidal war, monstrous in its scale, swept through its expanses, ending with the liquidation of the White movement and the establishment of Soviet power. During the Great Patriotic War, many industrial and military enterprises were evacuated to this region. In this regard, the population of many cities is increasing dramatically.
It is known that only for the period 1941-1942. more than a million people have come here. ATthe post-war period, when numerous giant factories, power plants and railway lines were built, also saw a significant influx of visitors - all those for whom Siberia became a new homeland. Names that have become symbols of the era appeared on the map of this vast region - the Baikal-Amur Mainline, the Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station, the Novosibirsk Academgorodok and much more.
