Nerchinsk
Encyclopedia
Nerchinsk is a town and the administrative center of Nerchinsky District
Nerchinsky District
Nerchinsky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the 31 in Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia. The area of the district is . Its administrative center is the town of Nerchinsk. Population: 30,694 ; Population of Nerchinsk accounts for 52.6% of the district's population.The district...

 of Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, located 644 kilometres (400.2 mi) east of Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal
Lake Baikal is the world's oldest at 30 million years old and deepest lake with an average depth of 744.4 metres.Located in the south of the Russian region of Siberia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryat Republic to the southeast, it is the most voluminous freshwater lake in the...

, 305 kilometres (189.5 mi) east of Chita, and about 225 kilometres (139.8 mi) west of the Chinese border on the left bank of the Nercha River
Nercha River
The Nercha River is a river in Zabaykalsky Krai in Russia, left tributary of the Shilka River . The length of the river is . The area of its basin is . The Nercha River freezes up in October and stays icebound until late April - early May. The town of Nerchinsk is located on the Nercha River, from...

, 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) above its confluence
Confluence
Confluence, in geography, describes the meeting of two or more bodies of water.Confluence may also refer to:* Confluence , a property of term rewriting systems...

 with the Shilka River
Shilka River
Shilka is a river in Zabaykalsky Krai, south-eastern Russia. It has a length . It originates as a confluence of the Onon and Ingoda rivers. Its confluence with the Ergune on the Russia-China border gives rise to the Amur River. The river is navigable for its entire length....

, which flows into the Amur. Population: 6,713 (1897).

It is served by the Nerchinsk Airport
Nerchinsk Airport
Nerchinsk Airport is a former air base in Russia located 2 km northwest of Nerchinsk. It appears to be abandoned. The substandard runway length suggests a 1950s design....

.

Town name in other languages

Nerchinsk is mentioned in two important treaties between Imperial Russia
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 and Manchu China
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

, the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk
Treaty of Nerchinsk
The Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689 was the first treaty between Russia and China. The Russians gave up the area north of the Amur River as far as the Stanovoy Mountains and kept the area between the Argun River and Lake Baikal. This border along the Argun River and Stanovoy Mountains lasted until...

 and the 1727 Treaty of Kyakhta. Non-Russian comments on these treaties or on the history of the town may mention other names:
  • Latin
    Latin
    Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

    : Nipchou or Nipcha (however, the Treaty of Kyakhta called the town Nipkoa).
  • Manchu
    Manchu language
    Manchu is a Tungusic endangered language spoken in Northeast China; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Mandarin Chinese and there are fewer than 70 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus...

    : Nibcu hoton.
  • Chinese
    Chinese language
    The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

    : 泥樸處, later changed to 尼布楚; Pinyin
    Pinyin
    Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

    : Níbùchǔ

History

The fort of Nerchinsk dates from 1654 and the town was founded four years later by Afanasy Pashkov, who in that year opened direct communication between the Russian settlements in Transbaikalia and those on the Amur River which had been founded by Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...

s and fur-traders coming from the Yakutsk
Yakutsk
With a subarctic climate , Yakutsk is the coldest city, though not the coldest inhabited place, on Earth. Average monthly temperatures range from in July to in January. The coldest temperatures ever recorded on the planet outside Antarctica occurred in the basin of the Yana River to the northeast...

 region. In 1689, the Treaty of Nerchinsk
Treaty of Nerchinsk
The Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689 was the first treaty between Russia and China. The Russians gave up the area north of the Amur River as far as the Stanovoy Mountains and kept the area between the Argun River and Lake Baikal. This border along the Argun River and Stanovoy Mountains lasted until...

 was signed between Russia and China, which stopped the farther advance of the Russians into the basin of the Amur for two centuries. See Russian-Manchu border conflicts
Russian-Manchu border conflicts
The Russian–Manchu border conflicts were a series of intermittent skirmishes between the Manchus and the Cossacks in which the Cossacks tried and failed to gain the land north of the Amur River...

.

After that, Nerchinsk became the chief center for the trade with China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. The opening of the western route through Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...

, by Urga
Urga
Urga may refer to:* Ulan Bator, the capital of the republic of Mongolia* Ürgə, a municipality in Azerbaijan* Urga aka Close to Eden, a film by Nikita Mikhalkov, 1992...

, and the establishment of a custom-house at Kyakhta
Kyakhta
Kyakhta is a town in the Republic of Buryatia, Russia, located on the Kyakhta River near the Russian-Mongolian border. Population: The town stands directly opposite the Mongolian border town of Altanbulag.-History:...

 in 1728 diverted this trade into a new channel. But Nerchinsk acquired fresh importance from the influx of immigrants, mostly exiles, into eastern Dauria, the discovery of rich mines and the arrival of great numbers of convicts to the Nerchinsk katorga
Nerchinsk katorga
Nerchinsk katorga was a katorga system of the Russian Empire in the Nerchinsk okrug of Transbaikalia , between rivers Shilka and Argun, near the border to Mongolia, in 18th-20th centuries.Katorga labor was used for mining lead ore and silver on emperor's private lands Nerchinsk katorga (Russian:...

, and ultimately it became the chief town of Transbaikalia.

Nerchinsk was visited by the famous English adventurer and engineer Samuel Bentham
Samuel Bentham
Sir Samuel Bentham was a noted English mechanical engineer and naval architect credited with numerous innovations, particularly related to naval architecture, including weapons...

 in 1782. Bentham had seen a potential for Nerchinsk as a base for an access to the Sea of Okhotsk
Sea of Okhotsk
The Sea of Okhotsk is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, lying between the Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands on the southeast, the island of Hokkaidō to the far south, the island of Sakhalin along the west, and a long stretch of eastern Siberian coast along the west and...

, provided the navigation of the Amur River would be authorized by the Chinese. It would have opened up the possibility of fur trade with the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

, as far as the Chinese port of Canton
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...

.

In 1812 Nerchinsk was transferred from the banks of the Shilka to its present site, on account of the floods. The town relinquished its supremacy to Chita in the late 19th century, when it was bypassed by the Trans-Siberian Railway
Trans-Siberian Railway
The Trans-Siberian Railway is a network of railways connecting Moscow with the Russian Far East and the Sea of Japan. It is the longest railway in the world...

.

20th century

In the early 20th century, Nerchinsk was built of wood, and its lower parts frequently suffered from inundations. The inhabitants supported themselves mainly by agriculture, tobacco-growing and cattle-breeding; a few merchants traded in furs and cattle, in brick-tea from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, and manufactured wares from Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. Gold-mines in the vicinity were owned and developed by the Butin family of merchants, whose Neo-Moorish palace now stands in disrepair.

Today, Nerchinsk is home to some small electromechanical and food-processing industries. It has a small museum, established in 1884. Among its sights are the Resurrection Cathedral, built in the Neoclassical style in 1825 to commemorate the city's relocation, its belltower destroyed by the Communists. The site of old Nerchinsk is marked by the Assumption Monastery, the oldest in Dauria, founded in 1664. Its cathedral, consecrated in 1712, is the easternmost building in the Muscovite Baroque style.

External links

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