History History

The Denisovian lives in the vicinity of the Denisova Cave (Altai Krai). He comes from Sapiens and Neanderthal. His bones were discovered in 2010.

Siberia is populated by nomadic herders, farmers and hunters. Khanats (autonomous kingdoms) appear

Rurik is called to Novgorod to rule over a territory controlled by tribes in perpetual disagreement. It gives birth to the first Russian princely dynasty: the Riurikids.

His relations with the Byzantine Empire led him to establish the Eastern Christian religion (future Orthodoxy) among his people. Some consider him to be the founder of Holy Russia.

Genghis Kahn rules. He expands his empire, penetrating into present-day Buryatia, territory of Merkits. The steppe and the fortress of Borbo are the scene of bloodthirsty battles in which Genghis Khan emerges victorious. The steppe is renamed Tugnuï (Buryatia, Mukhorshibir district, 118 km south of Ulan-Ude, breathtaking panorama).

Mongolian colonizers are flooding into southern Siberia and moving westward. The Kiev Rus' falls. Its principalities are absorbed by the Golden Horde, a new Turkish-Mongolian empire. The one in Moscow is the most powerful

1328: transfer of the seat of the Eastern Church (known as "Metropolitan") to Moscow without the authorization of Constantinople. The Russian Church becomes independent until it becomes autocephalous in 1589

1480: Prince Ivan III of Moscow tears up, on the steps of the Assumption Cathedral, the treaty of submission to the Golden Horde. He refuses to pay the tribute (traditionally collected from all other principalities). He formalizes the expulsion of the Mongolian authorities, who disappear, leaving behind them powerful khanats. Ivan III acquires absolute power, inspired by the Roman and Byzantine empires. These are the beginnings of autocracy.

An oukase forbids serfs to leave their masters. 1607: the masters can no longer free their serfs. 1649: the growth of disappearances is such that the right to search for a serf on the run becomes unlimited.

The third, the longest and the last. Election of Tsar Michael.

Patriarch Nikon, with the idea of raising Russia to the rank of the Third Rome, undertook to reform rituals and liturgy so as to bring them into line with the Greco-Byzantine cult. The liturgical books are suppressed, translated, compared, revised and corrected. Rituals, such as the sign of the cross and the number of inclinations prescribed during the office are standardized. Many faithful, attacked in the foundation of their beliefs, refuse to conform to the new faith. These conflicts lead to the raskol (1666-1667): thousands of them separate from the Moscow Patriarchate. Enemies of the Church, these Old Believers, or Raskolniki, persecuted until 1905, fled to the four corners of Siberia and even abroad. Many settled in Buryatia, founding among others Tarbagataï and Bichura (two traditionalist villages to visit from Ulan-Ude). The persecutions started again in the Soviet period until they stopped definitively with the constitution of 1993.

The monarch has left a deep imprint on his country's history. He built Saint Petersburg in 1703 (first by requisitioning the Old Believers, who died en masse on the construction site), transferred power there in 1712 (imperial capital until 1917). 1721: proclamation of Peter I as the first emperor of all Russia (thus was born the empire, which replaced Moscovia). 1722: institutionalization of the katorga system (forced labour in Siberia). Criminals are systematically exiled to the silver mines of Nertchinsky-Zavod (present-day Transbaïkalie, Chita region). Siberia became a gigantic penitentiary colony: between 1850 and 1890, nearly 20,000 prisoners were sent there every year, including Fedor Dostoevsky (among other famous figures). The man of letters joins Tobolsk in 1850 (there he secretly meets three wives of Decembrists, who offer him a bible, the only book allowed in the prison), then Omsk. He was released in 1854 and only obtained permission to leave Siberia in 1859

At the same time, in addition to his military conquests and his travels in Europe, Peter I distinguished himself for his reforms. Among these: the application of a special tax on the wearing of beards, which was also double for the Old Believers (a very unpopular measure). Peter I ends up exempting clergymen, incarnations of Jesus Christ on Earth); prohibition of the wearing of kaftan, in favour of the so-called European costume

Between China and Russia. It puts an end to a conflict and redefines the border: Russia, which loses part of the Amur region, is deprived of access to the Sea of Japan. On the other hand, new trade relations bind the two powers. 1858-1860: Treaties of Aigun and then Beijing, which establish a border roughly equivalent to the one today

Publication of the Book of Maps of Siberia, which includes the first correct drawing of Lake Baikal

An original spends the winter on the shores of Lake Baikal in place of the future Listvianka, Irkutsk's closest seaside resort.

Moscow-Troitskosavsk link (now Kiakhta, in Buryatia, about 250 km from Ulan-Ude, on the Mongolian border). An extension of the famous tea route, this strategically located trade route between China and Europe is the most important in the empire. It passes through the great Siberian fairs: Irkutsk, Tomsk, Tobolsk, Tyumen, Yekaterinburg, Perm and makes the immense fortune of local merchants. Until the inauguration of the Trans-Siberian Railway..

Organized by the Academy of Sciences and the Kunstakamera (founded in 1724), it is the longest scholarly expedition in Siberian history. The Danish navigator, Vitus Bering, the (official) discoverer of the strait that separates Russia from Alaska (1728), took the lead. New plant and animal species are discovered, but not only... These first peaceful encounters with the indigenous peoples, and in particular the Evenks, who guide the explorers and draw the first maps of the taiga, formalize the beginnings of modern anthropology. Other expeditions followed, Chitchagov (1766-1767), Litke-Wrangel (1820-1824), until the First World War

1760-1768: the French astronomer Jean Chappe d'Auteroche, commissioned by the Academy of Sciences, has the mission to observe the transit of Venus. On his return to France, he published the virulent indictment Voyage en Sibérie, the subject of an equally explosive response from Empress Catherine II(Antidote, 1769).

The landowners get the right to exile their serfs to Siberia.

The senate orders the diffusion of the potato. 255 years later, the tuber, cooked in all its forms, reaches the top 3 most consumed foods in Siberia. You can enjoy the combo kotlet (fish balls, meat)/purée absolutely everywhere

Decembrist uprising, December 14, ended in failure (see specific file).

Foundation of the city of Vladivostok. It is the concretization of various agreements with China, which cedes to Russia the left bank of the Amur river to the Pacific and the east bank of the Oussouri river.

During the reign of Alexander II, known as the liberator (1818-1881), 23 million serfs were freed. The reform took a few years to take shape: each peasant, through the intermediary of the communes paysannes (MIR), were granted 4 ha of arable land and a right of redemption. It accelerated the colonisation of Siberia, this time by a free population. The empire was democratised: creation of the zemstvos, local assemblies elected by indirect suffrage (1864), which took charge of primary education; separation of the judiciary (deportation to Siberia remained authorised by simple administrative decision); compulsory military service extended to the upper classes.

In the same year, there were 459 companies specialising in gold in Siberia. The Russian Empire is the world leader in the extraction of the precious metal.

In a Siberian village (Tyumen Oblast). Rasputin was presented to the imperial family in 1905, of which he became an intimate. He distinguished himself by providing mysteriously effective care to Tsarevich Alexis, a haemophiliac. He dies murdered, after having predicted the dark end of the Romanovs and the fall of the empire. His other talent, 29 cm tall, contributes to his sulphurous reputation. Penis also exhibited in Saint Petersburg, in the first museum of Russian Eroticism, The Rasputin.

The adventures of Jules Verne's hero, a courier for Tsar Alexander II, fascinated France. Most of the plot takes place in the hostile lands of Siberia. In the same year, Alexander III decreed the creation of the University of Tomsk, the first in Siberia. This student tradition makes it a dynamic (and otherwise charming) holiday resort.

The city is disfigured and rebuilt in stone. Siberian-style wooden houses and buildings are still numerous. They are now officially protected from land speculators (and unexpected fires). These Siberian houses are the symbol of Irkutsk, making the city, in addition to its proximity to Lake Baikal, the most touristic city in Siberia

Moscow-Vladivostok line, starting from the Samara-Cheliabinsk section (inaugurated in 1891). From there, work begins on the longest railway line in history (8,300 km). From 1892, the Committee for the Construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway (CSRC), chaired by Tsarevich Nicholas II, supervised the project. Six work sections are determined, each headed by a renowned engineer, and started simultaneously: Chelyabinsk-Ob; Ob-Irkutsk; Baikal-Myssovaya; Myssovaya-Sretensk; Sretensk-Khabarovsk; Khabarovsk-Vladivostok. The building site officially ended in 1916 with the construction of the bridge over the Amur River: the Far East was finally connected to the rest of the empire. Other work campaigns were carried out in parallel: the Transmandchurian (1897-1903); the Circum-Baikal (1904-1905). More than 70,000 workers, peasants, convicts and engineers were involved. The route of the Trans-Siberian line modified the old Siberian trade route. While the train made the fortune of some, it ruined the former flourishing trading posts, such as Tomsk and Kolyvan (particularly ornate Siberian houses and the monastery of St Alexander Nevsky, 36 km from Novosibirsk). Some merchants moved their business to Novo-Nikolayevsk, which was cleared in 1893 and became the city of Novosibirsk in 1925. The Trans-Siberian Railway pushed some regions to change their trade: its enormous need for coal led to the development of coalfields. An example of this heritage is the town of Sliudyanka (km 5,311 of the Trans-Siberian Railway), where the only pink and white marble station on the line (opened in 1905) can be admired: here you can still see very impressive coal freight convoys

Last emperor of Russia. 1891: his father, Alexander III, entrusts him with the supervision of the works on the Trans-Siberian Railway. He lays the foundation stone in Vladivostok. In the same year, he made an official trip to Krasnoyarsk on the steamer St. Nicholas (where the building, still moored, was converted into a museum). 1899: Publication of an Ukase prohibiting prison deportation to Siberia. The reign of Nicholas II is marked by social conflicts, many of which break out in Siberia: from 1905 to 1907, no less than 404 strikes and revolts break out in the Tomsk region. 1912: strike by the miners of the Lena (who demand an 8-hour working day). The repression is strong: more than 500 strikers are killed or wounded. From there, a wind of revolt spreads throughout Russia, favourable to the socialist revolution. March 1917: abdication and house arrest at the Tsarkoïe-Selo Palace. July 1917: transfer of the former imperial family to Tobolsk, via the Tyumen train. The Romanovs are detained in the former house of the Siberian governor general (which became the Romanov Museum in 2018). May 1918: Move to Ekaterinburg, to the Ipatiev House, where the Romanovs and their staff are executed. 1977: destruction of this so-called "special-purpose" house by order of the Politburo (under the responsibility of Boris Yeltsin, then Secretary General of the Sverdlovsk City Party, now Yekaterinburg). The All Saints Church, consecrated in 2003 (visited by many nostalgic people from the imperial period, especially on July 17 for St. Tsar-Nicolai), is now located on its site

Canonized, inscribed on the list of martyrs of the Russian Orthodox Church, recognized as victims of Bolshevism in 2008, the Romanovs are today venerated (their tragic end regularly feeds conspiracy theories). Numerous memorials are dedicated to them: in Krasnoyarsk, the astonishing Church of the New Martyrs under construction (Novomachenikov i Ispovednikov Rossiyskih, with a view over the Yenisei valley); in Novosibirsk, a statue of Nicholas II and Tsarevich Alexei behind the Cathedral of St Alexander Nevsky (the city's first stone cathedral).

Three English steamers succeed (at last) in the exploit of sailing on the Kara Sea, which is frozen 10 months a year. They sail up the Yenisei River to Turukhansk. In the same year, an office of migration to Siberia is created.

Vladimir Ulich Ulyanov, aged 27 and closely monitored by the police, is sentenced to three years' exile in Shushenskoye (Krasnoyarsk Krai). Today, this summer resort (with its mild climate) is very popular among Russians. You will visit a very complete Lenin museum and take part, in mid-July, in the multi-ethnic festival (folk music, Russian and native craftsmanship... Accessible by train and bus).

Designed for the Imperial Russian Navy, the Iermak (after the famous Cossack). A similar ship is in Irkutsk, theAngara, inaugurated in 1900 and designed to cross Lake Baikal before the construction of the Circum-Baikal. The building can be visited, and the banks have been developed into a very pleasant leisure base.

Destined to populate the lands of Siberia. Millions of peasants settle there in exchange for free or cheap land. A major communication campaign is carried out, thousands of leaflets are distributed, free trains are made available to volunteers. In 1914, the population was estimated at 4 million (compared to 2.4 million in 1851).

First of all, it was enthusiastically welcomed by all the peoples of Siberia. October 1917: the Bolsheviks seize power. January 1918: the constitution of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic is established. In a context of conflict, chaotic, the Soviet regime is improvised, then step by step is formalized (it is the period of the Red Terror, a series of popular uprisings and repression): control of the press, nationalization of industrial and then private companies, creation of the Cheka political police, creation of the Communist Party of Russia (Bolshevik), centralization of the requisitioning of agricultural surpluses, systematic execution of opponents, ethnic cleansing, cancellation of the right to strike, neutralization of opposition parties, multiplication of concentration camps, etc.

At the same time, a "White Army" is being organised to fight against the revolutionary regime. This coalition, vacillating and with divergent ideas, is being deployed throughout Russia. Admiral Alexandre Koltchak took the lead of the Siberian forces; he controlled the East and the Urals region. The Red Army is then created, led by Trotsky: Reds and Whites engage in ultra violent confrontations - the white bastions are supported by the Allies (Japan, USA, France among others) while the red bastions enjoy the support of the people. 1919: the White Armies break up and lose ground; 1920: Koltchak is shot in Irkutsk; 1922: last armed movement in Vladivostok and crushing victory of the Red Army

Meanwhile, the Politburo is created (1919), the main power operator. 1920: seizure of part of the treasures of the Orthodox Church, then elimination of thousands of clergymen. 1921: establishment of the New Economic Policy (and a period of calm). 1922, a decision that will reformulate the course of Soviet history: appointment of Joseph Stalin to the new post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party

Still in parallel, the formation of a Soviet federal state takes shape: revolutionary republics or autonomous regions are "invited" to enter (the Red Army is sent to reluctant prospects); alliances with neighbouring states are sealed. 30 December 1922: birth of the USSR.

Birth of Mikhalai Kalashnikov in Siberia (Altai Krai; died in 2013), inventor, among 150 other weapons, of the famous AK-47 assault rifle (or Kalashnikov, or Kalash' ). First produced for the motorized infantry regiments (then for the para and armoured divisions, with folding stock) of the Soviet army, it is finally the most widespread weapon on earth (70 to 110 million units in circulation). Not to be confused with Isai Kalashnikov (1931-1980), a famous old-believer author, who wrote a lot about his culture, the village of Sharaldai, Buryatia and Mongolian influences (among his works, A Cruel Age, 1979).

You will notice during your Siberian explorations that the statues of the founding father, although cut down in Europe, are abundant, as are the Lenina streets. Yet the 1990s profoundly questioned the role and influence of the communist leader. He will be rehabilitated in the 2000s.

In 1924, Stalin, who had considerable authority, evicted his opponents by turns. The constitution of the USSR is ratified the same year.

Great turning point and first five-year plan. Industrialization of the country at high speed, land collectivization with very mixed results in terms of agricultural productivity. It was during this first phase of the sovietisation of Siberia that all the nomadic and sedentary indigenous communities were assigned to the Kholkoze (agricultural cooperative). In 1929, the anti-religious law ratified the ban on traditional shamanic practices and gave full legitimacy to the massive ethnocide that was taking place, of which the indigenous Siberian populations were victims. Compulsory Russian language training (1938) completed the disarticulation of traditional organizations.

-68 °C (historical) in Oïmiakon. The Sakha Republic/Iakutia becomes the coldest inhabited region in the world

Among the major stages in the construction of the regime: the establishment of the cult of the socialist family (as a result, abortion and homosexuality are severely prosecuted); the establishment of the death penalty from the age of 12; the great purge and generalisation of suspicion (in other words, the normalisation of the regime of terror). Everyone becomes a potential suspect, liable to the death penalty or deportation to the Gulag (without the possibility of appeal). These initial measures are taken by force of vodka, whose free consumption Stalin restores. Anti-religious propaganda grew, first towards the Orthodox Church and then at 360 degrees: the faithful, clergy of all confessions were sentenced to death or sent to the Gulag (where masses were given in secret); theological teaching centres closed their doors and religious publications were banned. Similarly, all places of spiritual vocation were closed or destroyed (29,000 churches until 1941). This is why you see only a few ancient Orthodox buildings and artefacts in Siberia: most of them have disappeared and those that could be saved are jealously guarded (unique pieces of Siberian religious art can be seen in the Krasnoyarsk Regional Museum). Many households have been able to hide their sacred objects; conversely, others have recycled the family icon into everyday objects, for example cutting boards. Sequestration slowed down during the Great Patriotic War and the German invasions, then actively resumed until the Khrushchev era.

Birth of the dancer Rudolf Nureyev (who died in 1993), on the Trans-Siberian Railway in Irkutsk. He grows up in Ufa, Western Siberia. In 1961, having become a Soviet ballet superstar, he managed to escape from the KGB and move to the West. He seeks political asylum in France. He was director of dance at the Opéra Garnier in Paris from 1983 to 1989.

1941: As a result of the Eastern Front, and the German advance, the Soviet authorities move large industrial sites in Siberia. Krasnoyarsk, among other sites, becomes the refuge of a very important military-industrial complex that hosts thousands of workers (and women workers) who are also displaced. 1941: creation of the Ulyanovsky Avtomobilny Zavod (Volga) automobile factories. Military and paramilitary vehicles are developed there, including the famous UAZ, an all-terrain van that is particularly widespread around Lake Baikal and on the island of Olkhon. In the same year, Stalin gained absolute power by appointing himself supreme commander-in-chief.

It was during this period that the Stalinist architectural style developed, on the fringes of Constructivism (which was otherwise forbidden): while the people crammed into collective apartments (seven to eight families per dwelling), the high bureaucracy took up residence in sumptuous and spacious private apartments. The Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre, inaugurated in 1945, is very representative of the style (the largest in Russia, known as the Siberian Colosseum).

The death toll is catastrophic: some 21 million people, or 12% of the population, all the countries of Eastern Europe have come under Soviet rule. 1949: the first Soviet atomic bomb explodes. Various Siberian industrial sites and other secret cities are dedicated to civil and military nuclear research. 1950: the Manchurian railways are handed over to the People's Republic of China. 1953: death of Stalin

The leader (1894-1971) undertook as soon as he came to power to desalinise the USSR. Stalin's crimes are denounced. In 1953, 1.2 million prisoners are released from the Gulag, and thousands of convicts are rehabilitated). A system of administrative repression replaces that of terror. If atheism is still a strong value, anti-religious repression is loosened. A program of clearing virgin lands in the USSR and Siberia is launched to relieve the large kolkhozes located west of the Urals. A gigantic urbanization operation is carried out: the construction of khrushchovka, these concrete building bars, provides individual and free housing (often with a room, a kitchen and sanitary facilities). The waiting list remains long. In 1980, 82% of households had access to them). You can see them in all Siberian city centres. The large hydroelectric power stations of Siberia are built at this time: the Novosibirsk Dam (1957-1959), with its gigantic artificial reservoir, nicknamed the Ob Sea (a place of relaxation and recreation much appreciated by city dwellers); the Divnogorsk Dam (1963), 33 km from Krasnoyarsk (breathtaking panorama of the Yenisei, the Taiga and the Saan Mountains); the Irkutsk Dam (1950-1956), deployed in a chain of Angara power stations in the 1970s. Excessive engineering structures were built to the detriment of the environment (the humidity level, which increases the harshness of the climate, has made these environments inhospitable for many endemic species). Khrushchev, who wished to improve the productivity of Soviet scientists, sought to duplicate the ideal living and working conditions he believed Western scientists enjoyed: it was in this spirit that he supported the development of the Akademgorodok Academic City, an innovative city in which an unprecedented wind of freedom was blowing (Charles de Gaulle paid a historic visit there in 1966, as part of scientific cooperation agreements). Finally, the Khrushchev era is curiously associated with maize, which the head of state tried, after a trip to the United States, to sow en masse in Siberia (and without pesticides or genetic modifications). An inconclusive experiment.

First depth measurements of Lake Baikal (1,620 m).

Brezhnev Era (period of thaw and international cooperation). 1972: resumption of the construction of the BAM railway line (started by the Gulag convicts), the large "pan-Soviet" company which endangers the financial equilibrium of the USSR. Work was completed in 1984.

Lifting of the anathema on the Old Believers

Construction (in stages) of the Amur-Iakutia Magistral railway line (to Iakutsk since 2019). An extension to Magadan is under way.

Alexandre Solzhenitsyn publishes theGulag Archipelago in Paris. He is expelled from the USSR to West Germany

Akira Kurosawa is finishing the shooting of Dersou Ouzala in Siberia. According to the autobiographical work of the topographer V. Arseniev, commissioned by the imperial army to carry out surveys in the virgin lands of Uzuri

Commercialization of the famous Lada Niva, the very popular Soviet 4x4. Countless examples are still driving on the roads of Siberia

Gorbachev era (marked by perestroika, glasnost, détente with the USA and then... the dismantling of the USSR). 1986: the Dalai Lama visits Datsan Ivolginsky (in Buryatia, 35 km from Ulan Ude). 1988: the Moscow Patriarchate celebrates its 400th anniversary, the first mass in the Kremlin in 70 years. 1989 : Election of the deputies of the People's Congress by direct universal suffrage by secret ballot, the first democratic election since 1917. 1990 : Election of Mikhail Gorbachev to the presidency of the USSR.

First Congress of the Peoples of the North and foundation of RAIPON, the association of the peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East (protection of the rights, interests of the indigenous peoples of Russia and nature). About 40 nations and ethnic groups are gathered there

June: Boris Yeltsin becomes President of the Republic of Russia. August: failed putsch by the conservatives. 21 December: dissolution of the USSR. 25 December: hoisting of the flag of the Russian Federation at the summit of the Moscow Kremlin.

Yeltsin presidency (economic collapse, wars in Chechnya, Yeltsin resigns, Putin is appointed interim).

Anatoly Karpov, born in Chelyabinsk in Siberia, becomes world chess champion. His matches against Yuri Kasparov made headlines during the years 1980-1990. The game of chess is very popular in Siberia: in the summer, amateurs compete against each other in parks and gardens. Chess players, you know what you have to do..

Vladimir Putin's first presidential term.

Dmitry Medvedev is elected President.

V. Putin's third term. The presidential term is extended to six years. 2013: trip to Buryatia, speeches in support of Russian Buddhists.

A meteorite disintegrates over Chelyabinsk, Siberia. Several pieces of debris crash into the region. The phenomenon is not so rare (spectacular crash in 1908, north of Krasnoyarsk; in 2002 in Vitimiski, 700 km from Irkutsk).

Shooting of Dans les forêts de Sibérie, a film adaptation of Sylvain Tesson's story, partly on the island of Olkhon. Extras and members of the technical team are inhabitants of the island and the region

Inauguration of the Vostotchny cosmodrome (Soyuz rockets and ships). The aim of the project: to relocate certain activities from the Baikonur site (Kazakhstan). The launch site is located in the Far East, near Tsiolkovsky. A second launch pad dedicated to Angara rockets will be operational by 2021.

Re-election of V. Putin. This fourth term is blessed by Patriarch Nikon. 3.2 million hectares of taiga burned in Siberia. A natural forest fire of historic proportions

March: Krasnoyarsk hosts the 29th Universiades (international university winter sports championships). August: the city of Yenisseysk (Krasnoyarsk Krai) celebrates its 400th anniversary (about 330 km from Krasnoyarsk). It is now much more accessible. October: Ulan-Ude hosts the Women's World Boxing Championships (AIBA).