Beyond the great Stone Belt, the Urals, are the vast expanses of Siberia. This territory occupies almost three quarters of the entire area of our country. Siberia is more than the second largest (after Russia) state of the world - Canada. More than twelve million square kilometers store in their bowels inexhaustible reserves of natural wealth, with the rational use of many generations of people sufficient for life and prosperity.
Trekking the Stone Belt
The development of Siberia began in the last years of the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The most convenient outpost for moving deeper into this wild and uninhabited land at that time was the middle Urals, the undivided owner of which was the family of the Stroganov merchants. Using the patronage of the Moscow tsars, they owned vast land territories, in which there were thirty-nine villages and the city of Solvychegodsk with a monastery. They also owned a chain of jails stretching along the border with the possessions of Khan Kuchum.
The history of Siberia, or rather, its conquest by the Russian Cossacks, began with the fact that the tribes that inhabited it refused to pay the Russian tsar a tribute to which they were taxed for many years. Moreover, the nephew of their ruler - Khan Kuchum - with a large detachment of cavalry made a series of raids on the villages belonging to the Stroganovs. To protect against such unwanted guests, wealthy merchants hired Cossacks, led by ataman Vasily Timofeevich Alenin, nicknamed Yermak. Under this name, he entered Russian history.
First steps in an unknown land
In September 1582, a detachment of seven hundred and fifty people began their legendary campaign for the Urals. It was a kind of discovery of Siberia. All along the route, the Cossacks were lucky. The Tatars who inhabited those territories, although they outnumbered them, but were inferior militarily. They practically did not know the firearms so widespread by then in Russia, and fled in panic every time they heard a volley.
Khan sent his nephew Mametkul with ten thousand troops to meet the Russians. The battle took place near the Tobol River. Despite their numerical superiority, the Tatars suffered a crushing defeat. Cossacks, developing 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 this day on, the khanate practically ceased to exist. The history of Siberia makes a new round.
Fights with foreigners
In those days, the Tatars obeyed a large number of tribes, subjugated by them and being their tributaries. They didn’t know the money and paid their yasik 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 the carts with sables and martens stretched 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 every year it weakened. Cossack units continued their campaign. In 1584, their legendary chieftain Ermak Timofeevich died. This happened, as is often the case in Russia, because of negligence and oversight - at one of the halts sentries were not put up. It so happened that the prisoner who escaped a few days before brought in an enemy detachment at night. Using the oversight of the Cossacks, they suddenly attacked and began to slaughter sleeping people. Ermak, trying to escape, jumped into the river, but the massive shell - a personal gift from Ivan the Terrible - carried him to the bottom.
Life in the conquered land
Since that time, the active development of Western Siberia began. Following the Cossack detachments, hunters, peasants, clergy and, of course, officials stretched into the taiga wilderness. Everyone who turned out to be behind the Ural Range became free people. There was neither serfdom nor landlord property. Only the state-established tax was paid. Local tribes, as was said above, were taxed with a fur coat. During this period, revenues from revenues from the Siberian furs were a significant contribution to the Russian budget.
The history of Siberia is inextricably linked with the creation of a prison system - defensive fortifications (around which, by the way, many cities subsequently grew), which served as outposts for 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 appeared Kuznetsk and Yenisei prison. They housed military garrisons and the administration that controlled the collection of the yasik.
The documents of those years testify to many facts of corruption among government officials. Despite the fact that, according to the law, all the furs were supposed to go to the treasury, some officials, as well as Cossacks directly involved in collecting tribute, overestimated the established norms, assigning the difference in their favor. Even then, such lawlessness was strictly punished, and there are many cases when the extortioners paid for their deeds with freedom and even with their lives.
Further penetration into new lands
The colonization process became especially intense after the end of the Time of Troubles. The goal of all those who ventured to seek happiness in new, unexplored lands was this time Eastern Siberia. This process was proceeding 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 had appeared - the Siberian Order. His responsibilities included the establishment of new procedures for the management of controlled territories and the nomination of governor, who were local plenipotentiaries of the tsarist government.
In addition to the fur gathering, the purchases of furs were also made, the calculation of which was carried out not with money, but with all kinds of goods: axes, saws, various tools, as well as fabrics. Unfortunately, history has preserved many cases of abuse here. Often the arbitrariness of officials and Cossack elders ended in riots by local residents, which had to be pacified by force.
The main directions of colonization
Eastern Siberia was developed in two main directions: north along the coast of the seas, and south along the border with neighboring states. At the beginning of the XVII century, the Russians settled the shores of the Irtysh and Ob, and after them significant areas adjacent to the Yenisei. Such cities as Tyumen, Tobolsk and Krasnoyarsk were laid and began to be built. Over time, they all had to become large industrial and cultural centers.
Further advancement of the Russian colonists was carried out mainly along the Lena River. Here in 1632 a prison was laid, which gave rise to the city of Yakutsk - the most important stronghold for those times 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 first saw the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin.
Wildland Conquerors
The history of Siberia and the Far East keeps the memory of another outstanding traveler - Cossack Semyon Dezhnyov. In 1648, he and the detachment headed by him on several ships for the first time circled the coast of North Asia and proved the existence of a strait separating Siberia from America. At the same time, another traveler, Poyarov, passing along the southern border of Siberia and climbing up the Amur River, reached the Sea of Okhotsk.
After some time, Nerchinsk was founded. Its significance is largely determined by the fact that as a result of the eastward movement, 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 governor generals, approved in 1822 by a registered decree of Alexander I. The center of the West became Tobolsk, and the East - Irkutsk. They, in turn, were divided into provinces, and those into volost and foreign councils. Such a transformation was the result of the famous reform of M. M. Speransky.
In the same year ten laws were signed, signed by the king and regulating all aspects of administrative, economic and legal life. Much attention was paid in this document 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 prison were an integral part of this land.
Siberia on the map of those years is replete with the names of mines, the work in which was carried out exclusively by the forces of the convicts. This is Nerchinsky, and Transbaikal, and the Grace and many others. As a result of a large influx of decembrists and participants in the Polish rebellion of 1831, the government even united all Siberian provinces under the supervision of a specially formed gendarme district.
The beginning of the industrialization of the region
Of the main industries that were widely developed during this period, gold mining should be noted first of all. By the middle of the century, it accounted for most of the total volume of precious metal mined in the country. Also, large revenues to the state treasury came from mining enterprises, which significantly increased the volume of mining by this time. Many others have grown.
In the new century
At the beginning of the XX 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 monstrous fratricidal war 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 sharply.
It is known that only for the period 1941-1942. over a million people arrived here. In the post-war period, when numerous giant factories, power plants and railway lines were being built, there was also a significant influx of visitors - all those for whom Siberia became the new homeland. On the map of this vast region appeared names that became symbols of the era - the Baikal – Amur Railway, the Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station, the Novosibirsk Academgorodok, and much more.