Siberian History (Part 7): Mangazeya
The Russian frontiersmen in Siberia still had to depend on Moscow for support (such as administrative & logistical support). During the Time of Troubles, the Siberian garrison was mostly left to themselves, which lead to disease, starvation and death.
The natives peoples of Siberia took the opportunity to make several attempts at an uprising. The most powerful was in 1608, when Princess Anna of Koda, a “Tartar Joan of Arc”, nearly succeeded in uniting the entire native population of Western Siberia to revolt.
In 1612, an attempt was made to re-establish the old Khanate of Sibir “as it had been in the time of Kuchum”. But it was betrayed at the last minute, and ten of its ringleaders were rounded up and hanged.
By now, the Russian occupation of the Ob-Irtysh Basin had increased the nation's size by a third. But in Moscow, Siberia still wasn't properly understood as a geographical entity, and so it was used as a political bargaining chip.
Boris Godunov, for example, tried get an influential boyar to support him against False Dmitry I, by promisng him “the Kingdoms of Kazan, Astrakhan, and all Siberia”. The False Dmitry II promised to reward his brother-in-law, a powerful Polish noble, with “the whole land of Siberia” for his help.
But the Ob-Irtysh Basin had scarcely been secured before the Russian advance into the next great river valley, the Yenisei, began.
The Russians ascended the eastern tributaries of the Ob River, and crossed a low plateau to streams flowing into the Yenisei. By 1619, they had taken all the important river routes and portages that connected those two rivers. They organized expeditions from Mangazeya (in the north) and Tomsk & Ketsk (in the south), coming at the river valley from both directions.
The Taz Estuary marks the area where Mangazeya was located.
They met the Tungu people on the lower Yenisei, and the Buryats (whom they'd never heard of before) on the upper Yenisei. The Buryats lived in a region that was rich in furs, and they practised animal husbandry; they were rumoured to grow crops and have access to silver. This was guaranteed to interest Russia.
The Tungu people (east of the Yenisei) and the Buryats (around Lake Baikal) fought to prevent Russia from establishing bases in their territory, but failed. Yeniseysk was founded in 1619 (where the Angara and Yenisei Rivers meet); Krasnoyarsk was founded in 1627 (astride cliffs of red-coloured marl); and Bratsk was founded in 1631 (on the Angara River).
On the upper Yenisei River (the southern part of it), the Russians met the staunch resistance of the Kyrgyz people and the Kalmuks, both steppe nomads. Their homelands bordered Siberia to the south, and they were continually hostile. Eventually, a solidly-fortified line was established over the southern frontier, but this would take two centuries.
Meanwhile, Russian mariners had developed the sea route north of Russia from Arkhangel to Mangazeya (which was just a few miles above the Arctic Circle). At Mangazeya, they bartered goods with the local Khanty and Samoyedic peoples for furs. Mangazeya prospered and grew, attracting more and more traders, who were willing to navigate the treacherous waters of the Kara Sea.
One contemporary account says that: “Hundreds of thousands of sable, ermine, silver and blue fox skins, and countless tons of precious mammoth and walrus ivory” were shipped every year from Mangazeya and Europe. This was an illicit trade that had begun during the Time of Troubles, and the government couldn't manage to gain control of it.
Porcelain, silk, and other expensive fabrics were traded (through middlemen) from Central Asia & China to Mangazeya. The city was “a virtual Baghdad of Siberia, where big commercial deals were celebrated at fabulous feasts that lasted for days, and that featured the best European wines and local delicacies like sturgeon, caviar, mushrooms, berries, and venison and other game.”
By the time stability was restored in Moscow, reports of Siberia's vast wealth in furs had spread far and wide. This, of course, attracted the attention and greed of European powers who wanted new colonies. The Russian government worried that foreign agents might try to trade directly with the natives, or even attempt an armed invasion (through the Taz Estuary) to seize the whole of north-western Siberia.
Meanwhile, inland merchants working out of the Urals, Tyumen and Tobolsk were envious of Mangazeya, as it siphoned off commerce that would otherwise have come to them.
So in 1619, the Russian government closed the sea route to Mangazeya. They forbade even Russians to use it, in case foreigners found it out from them. Anyone who broke this law was to be “put to the hardest possible death, and all their homes and families destroyed branch and root”.
Navigational markings were torn up. Surveillance posts were established along the coast, to intercept and kill anyone who tried to get through. A coastal fort was built on the Yamal Peninsula, commanding the portage between the Ob Gulf and the Kara Sea. Maps were falsified to depict Novaya Zemlya as a peninsula, rather than an island. This would cause problems for later mariners who were using them as nautical guides.
Gradually, Mangazeya declined, and the rich merchants left. In 1643, its administrative apparatus was moved to Turukhansk – this city was founded at the mouth of the Turukhan River, a tributary of the Yenisei. For a while, it was known as “New Mangazeya”.
In 1678, Mangazeya was burned to the ground, without any official explanation. The local Samoyedic peoples called its ruins Tagarevyhard, which means “destroyed town”. The site wouldn't be rediscovered for almost three centuries.
Mangazeya, perhaps more than any other early settlement, was the proof of the enormous wealth that Siberia possessed. In 1632, a former military governor of the district strongly encouraged the tsar to press on from the Yenisei to conquer the Lena River Basin. His encouragement was inspired by the riches of Mangazeya.
