What is Mangazeya. Legend of the Arctic. The disappeared city of Mangazeya. Material and documentary evidence of the existence of Mangazeya
In the XVI-XVII centuries, dozens of urban settlements appeared in Siberia. Created as strongholds for moving to the east, they soon became centers of trade, trade and crafts. One of these cities was Mangazeya, located beyond the Arctic Circle, in the lower reaches of the Taz River.
The first sea routes to Mangazeya were laid by Pomors at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries. In the last quarter of the 16th century, these voyages became especially frequent. Thanks to them, a regular connection was established between Pomorie and the Taz River basin, where Mangazeya arose.
Around 1572, the first Pomeranian trading post appeared near the mouth of the Taz River. In 1600, a detachment of Cossacks headed by Prince M Shakhovsky and D. Khripunov was sent there with an order to set up a city there. Due to the resistance of the Nenets tribes, the detachment was forced to stop 200 miles from the Taz Bay. In March 1601, here, on a cape at the confluence of the Osetrovka (Mangazeyka) river into the Taz, the construction of the "sovereign's prison" began, which was completed in the summer of that year. And six years later, in 1607, in his place, the governor D.V. Zherebtsov "cut down the city of Mangazeya."
The purpose of its founding was to establish government control over the Mangazeya sea route leading to a country rich in furs, and to create a base for further development of the north of Siberia. The Mangazeya sea passage, which connected the White Sea with the Ob, was a very busy trade route in those years.
Through it, hundreds of thousands of skins of fur-bearing animals were exported to Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory, and bread, flour, salt and other goods were delivered from the White Sea to Siberia. Large turnovers of trade attracted hundreds of merchants and industrialists here. “Mangazeya in the old days was a gold mine, a kind of California, where the inhabitants of the northern provinces sought to get a precious fur animal,” wrote M. Obolensky, a pre-revolutionary researcher of the history of Siberia.
There were legends about the wealth of the city, the nickname “gold-boiling” was firmly entrenched in Mangazeya. Only for the period 1630-1637. - the time, for Mangazeya, is far from the best, - about half a million sable skins were taken out of here. The trade relations of the city went far beyond the borders of Russia: through the Pomeranian cities, it was connected with large companies Western Europe. Masses of peasants of various categories, representatives of the largest trading houses - eminent "guests" Usovs, Revyakins, Fedotovs, Guselnikovs, Bosovs and others - appeared within the Mangazeya land.
During the heyday of the city (the first third of the 17th century), up to 2 thousand industrialists accumulated here. A large influx of people forced the Mangazeya authorities to take care of their accommodation and the placement of the goods they delivered. It was during this period that dozens of buildings appeared in Mangazeya: churches, barns, residential buildings for those who stayed here to live, working in fisheries, harvesting game and meat, at numerous farms, engaged in dressing fishing equipment, bone carving, tailoring or blacksmithing .
Mangazeya made a significant contribution to the history of Russians geographical discoveries. Its very existence is connected with the origin and development of northern maritime shipping. Detachments of pioneer industrialists left from here to explore new lands in Taimyr, in the lower reaches of the Yenisei. Natives of Mangazeya discovered Yakutia and compiled the first map of the Lena River. The "gold-boiling" city lasted only one century. In 1672, Mangazeya was abandoned by the inhabitants.
There were many reasons for this. First of all, the fate of the city was affected by a general change in the ways of colonization of Siberia. In addition, the local fur trades were impoverished, and the "sea route" from Pomorie fell into disrepair. All this made it economically unprofitable to maintain a large polar city. At the same time, uprisings of the Samoyed tribes began to break out one after another on the Taz River and on the Lower Tunguska. The rebels approached the walls of the city more than once. 65 archers, who made up the permanent garrison of Mangazeya, were unable to cope with the rebels.
The new military detachments sent from Tobolsk also failed to do this. Then it was decided to transfer the Streltsy garrison to the Turukhansk winter hut and to build New Mangazeya there. The old Mangazeya ceased to exist, forever entering the history of the development of the vast expanses of Siberia. However, over the years, the appearance of the real Mangazeya has become more and more obliterated, giving way to all sorts of hypotheses, conjectures and legends.
The short and bright fate of this mysterious polar city has worried researchers for many years. But the surviving written sources on the history of Mangazeya, incomplete and scattered, could not answer the questions that confronted scientists. What, for example, was the nature of this settlement? It was assumed that Mangazeya was a large fortified trading post that served as the focus of the fishing people who went to the crafts, and one of the main tasks of the local authorities was to collect duties from merchants and fishers.
The famous explorer of Siberia S.V. Bakhrushin wrote that “there was no permanent population in the city, but from year to year at the beginning of autumn Kochi caravans arrived here by sea, and the city, deserted at normal times, revived. Under the log walls of a small prison, an industrial settlement arose ... Posad lived a peculiar life: it existed for the arrival of trade and industrial people from Russia, came to life in the fall ... "
In his other work, S.V. Bakhrushin argued that “the Mangazeya city is a deserted prison, thrown deep into the“ icy tundra ”, almost under the very Arctic Circle, among the warlike tribes of the“ bloody Samoyed ”and other“ non-peaceful foreigners ”, cut off from Russia and even from other Siberia by the storms of the Mangazeya Sea ".
Thus, Mangazeya was considered a large trading post, a small prison - in a word, anything but a city. The secrets of the abandoned city remained closed to travelers who visited the Mangazeya settlement in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. This ancient settlement with an area of about 3.1 hectares is located on the high right bank of the Taz River, on a cape formed by the mouth of the Mangazeyka River (in ancient times - Osetrovka) that flows into the Taz.
The first to reach Mangazeya in 1862 was Yu.I. Kushelevsky. “I saw very noticeable traces of the once existing buildings of the city of Mangazeya, and near the collapsed bank of the Taz River, a huge coffin made of hardwood boards hanging over the water,” he wrote. After him, V.O. visited here. Margrave. He also noted the remains ancient city: “In the place where the “chapel” is listed, from the high bank, washed away by the river, the logs of the basement buildings of the once former city of Mangazeya are exposed. At the foot of the shore, residents occasionally find metal objects.
The first attempt to penetrate the secrets of Mangazeya was made in August 1914 by I.N. Shukhov, a biologist from Omsk. Traveling along the Taz River, he visited the Mangazeya settlement and made the first excavations here. “At present,” he wrote, “only ruins remain of the city of Mangazeya. Logs of buildings stick out on the shore, the lower salaries of buildings stretching along the high collapsed bank to the stream. Only one building survived - judging by the architecture, the tower ... The place where Mangazeya was, hummocky, overgrown with weeds and shrubs. The shore collapses and small objects remain, like arrows and knives. I found an arrowhead."
The first archaeologists who visited the ruins of Mangazeya were V.N. Chernetsov and V.I. Moshinskaya. In the autumn of 1946, with great difficulty, they reached the settlement. By that time, the excavation season was already coming to an end, and the scientists limited themselves to compiling a field map and collecting recovered material - mainly ceramics and fragments of various objects. This did not prevent V.N. Chernetsov for the first time to publicly declare that “Mangazeya was not ... only a military-trade outpost. It was a well-established place."
But only systematic excavations could finally solve all the riddles of Mangazeya. They began in 1968 and continued for four field seasons. The excavations of Mangazeya were carried out by an archaeological expedition of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute led by M.I. Belova, which included employees of the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences O.V. Osvyannikov and V.F. Starkov. The arrival of archaeologists was very timely: it turned out that the river was eroding the settlement of Mangazeya and it was rapidly collapsing.
This was evidenced by the remains of wooden structures sticking out of the cliff of the coast, numerous objects from the cultural layer dotting the sandy edge. According to experts, by 1968, about 25-30% of the territory of the monument had already died. The excavations of Mangazeya represent a unique case in many respects. This kind of large-scale archaeological research of a late medieval city has not yet been carried out anywhere else in the world. As in Old Ryazan, archaeologists were not hindered by any late construction, and the polar permafrost, although it made excavations difficult, nevertheless contributed to the good preservation of wooden structures and products, leather and fabric items.
Wherein feature The monument is of short duration and strictly defined framework of its existence - 1570-1670s. All this created exceptional, from the point of view of archeology, conditions for a detailed study of ancient Mangazeya. Archaeologists opened and explored about 15 thousand square meters. m Mangazeya settlement. The remains of ancient defensive structures and about forty buildings of the most diverse - residential, economic, administrative, commercial and religious - purpose were discovered and investigated.
Excavations have shown that Mangazeya had a division typical for ancient Russian cities into the city itself (the Kremlin) and the suburb. The city grew and was built up especially intensively in 1607-1629. At this time, Mangazeya acquired those special features of the Siberian "unplowed" city, which make it possible to put it on a par with such large Siberian cities of those years as Tobolsk, Tyumen and others.
Mangazeya absorbed everything new and best that Russian architecture knew at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries. This primarily affected the introduction of the principles of regular city planning. Mangazeya was well planned: the fortress was clearly separated from the settlement, and the settlement itself was divided into two parts: the actual craft and trade. Narrow streets and lanes paved with pine planks of ship plating appeared between private buildings. Particular attention was paid to the development and improvement of the central part of the trading side, where a large guest yard was located, surrounded by more than forty barns and a customs house with barns.
To the west of the Gostiny Dvor, a new religious building was erected - the Church of Mikhail Malein and Macarius Zheltovodsky. Drinking establishments and the city's commercial bath housed to the east. The construction of new houses in the Kremlin expanded. This primarily affected the voivodship courtyard, behind the massive circular fence of which, in addition to those already built at the beginning of the century, two more buildings arose. The architects connected the new buildings of the voivodship court with the old huts with hanging closed galleries. The voivodship's mansions were also connected to the neighboring hut. In essence, the entire residential territory of the settlement was built up, with the exception of the most remote north-eastern parts. It was the time of the climax of development.
In 1625, the total length of the walls of the Mangazeya Kremlin along the perimeter was about 280 m. Four blind towers stood in the corners: Davydovskaya, Zubtsovskaya, Ratilovskaya and Uspenskaya. On the south side, between the Zubtsovskaya and Uspenskaya towers, there was the Spasskaya passing tower, reaching a height of 12 m. The smallest was the Ratilovskaya tower - 8 m, and the most massive - Davydovskaya, each side of which had a length of about 9 m. All the towers were quadrangular .
The fortress wall reached its highest height in the area between the Davydovskaya and Ratilovskaya towers - about 10 m; the rest of the walls had a height of 5-6 m. One third of the territory of the Kremlin (800 sq. m.) was occupied by the complex of the voivodship court. Its excavations gave archaeologists a huge number of household items of the 17th century - birch bark tuesas, iron bows from buckets, candlesticks, axes, knives with ornamented handles, drills, chisels, chisels, locks of various sizes, drills, breakdowns, door bolts, hinges, hecks, wooden spoons, plates, bowls, ladles, tubs, rockers, scoops, rolls, biscuit molds, boxes, chests.
Some of these items are artistically designed. For example, a mold for gingerbread is carved in the form of a fish with large fins. On one of the spoons, the inscription "Styopa" is carved with a knife. An interesting find is a window frame measuring 29x29 cm - such small "windows" are typical of the 17th century. Significant fragments of mica have been preserved in the frame. Several tongs were found, with the help of which carbon deposits were removed from candles and torches. Even pieces of furniture were found - small benches for upper rooms and a massive wide armchair.
The discovery of horse harness - bells, bells and a saddle, as well as the presence of a rather thick layer of manure in the lower layers of the canopy, indicates that the voivodship court had a certain number of horses and, probably, small livestock. Excellent pastures and hay fields were located directly outside the city, so that the maintenance of a small number of livestock was not a big problem. The main means of transport for communication with winter huts and moving to longer distances were sleds with reindeer teams.
Documents from the 17th century state that winter time the journey between Mangazeya and Turukhansk took three days. During the excavations of the voivodeship courtyard, the archaeologist found large fragments of the sledges themselves, pull rods from the harness, bone overlays for the harness, often with an ornament. In general, bone carving, apparently, was widely developed in Mangazeya. Even the courtyard people who lived on the voivodship estate were engaged in the manufacture of bone crafts from mammoth ivory.
Archaeologists have found unfinished details - pieces of mammoth tusks sawn off for work, handicrafts from bull and cow horns, bear fangs, plates of deer antlers sawn in two to beat off snow adhering to boots. In the course was the manufacture of women's beads. Bone scrapers and other tools for leather dressing from animal skins, bone needles were found.
The foundry craft also had a domestic character. Judging by the finds of a melting spoon and stone molds for casting, local craftsmen cast small items, mainly pectoral crosses and women's jewelry. The finds of fragments of musical instruments confirm the evidence of documents of the 17th century that young people in the families of voivodes were taught to play the musical instruments and singing. The discovery of book clasps and leather bindings with a beautiful embossed pattern indicates that the governor had home libraries. On one of the bindings there is an imprinted image of a woman with a lute covered with gold, and next to her is a deer.
In addition to books and music, the inhabitants of the voivodship court probably liked to pass the time playing various board games. Archaeologists have discovered several wooden chess pieces, two perfectly executed chess boards. On the reverse side of one of them, signs of the zodiac and stars are carved. Details of some incomprehensible game were found - small bone plates, each of which has a certain number of circles - from 6 to 3. Perhaps this is dominoes.
To the east of the voivodship court, in the very center of the fortress, stood the cathedral Trinity Church, cut down from cedar. Exact time its foundation is unknown, but it follows from written sources that in 1603 it either already existed, or at least was founded. This church burned down in 1642, after which, in the early 50s of the 17th century (and according to the dendrochronological analysis of the found remains of the church, in 1654-1655), a new one was cut down. The new temple was erected strictly according to the plan of the old one. The base of the building occupied 550 sq. m.
The excavation data and the image of Mangazeya on the map of Isaac Massa (1609) allowed specialists to reconstruct the architecture of the Trinity Church. During the cleansing of the building, several graves were found in the area of the altar. Two burials contained the remains of infants, the third - a 12-year-old girl. In the southeast corner of the church, archaeologists found three more graves: a woman, aged 27, and two men, aged 35 and 36. The fact of burial in the cathedral church testified that people were of noble origin. Who are these people?
Researchers associate the burials in the Trinity Church with tragic fate family of the Mangazeya governor Grigory Teryaev. Making his way in the autumn and winter of 1643/44. with a caravan of bread cut off from big land Mangazeya, he lost 70 people from his detachment and, already being in one passage from the city, he died himself.
Together with Teryaev, his wife, two daughters and a niece went to Mangazeya. They also could not bear the hardships of this incredibly difficult campaign. Most likely, it was their remains that were discovered under the floor of the Trinity Church, and in another male burial, apparently, one of the close employees of the deceased governor was buried.
To the south of the Kremlin walls stretched the buildings of the settlement with the churches of Macarius Zheltovodsky and the Assumption of the Mother of God, the chapel of Vasily Mangazeya, a large complex of Gostiny Dvor with a customs hut. Dozens of barns included in it occupied about a third of the entire commercial part of the city. Two and three-story buildings of Gostiny Dvor with a clock and lookout towers rose high above the roofs of residential huts. Among the most important buildings of the township were a two-story house of the customs head, a moving out hut, a drinking and grain yard, a commercial farming bathhouse.
The main streets were paved with wooden planks. A staircase led from the pier to the Gostiny Dvor. Behind him was the main part of the settlement with craft workshops. Mangazeya was a large craft center, which represented almost all the craft specialties characteristic of a large city - shoemakers, bone cutters, foundry workers. In total, up to 700-800 people could permanently live in the Mangazeya Posad, according to experts.
In addition, at the peak of the season many hundreds of trade and industrial people came here. It was for them that the Gostiny Dvor building was built at the beginning of the 17th century (the exact date is unknown). In 1631, during the voivodship turmoil, it was destroyed, and in 1644 the inhabitants of Mangazeya sent a petition to Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich about the construction of a new Gostiny Dvor building at their own expense. Gostiny Dvor was the economic heart of the city. His search began already in the first season of the Mangazeya excavations and was crowned with complete success. The materials collected here opened up many important pages in the life and way of life of the polar commercial and industrial city.
During the excavations, a huge number of wooden cases for seals on numerous charters were found. Seals were issued in the order's hut, and only the governor had the right to issue them on behalf of the king. Every industrialist and merchant who paid the customs duty acquired a seal, without which his travel document was considered invalid. The seals themselves were made of sealing wax and wax. They were stored in special wooden cases that look like cylinders split in half. Inside both halves there are recesses where the seal was inserted, and along the edges of the cylinder there was a circular groove designed to secure the case with string. This string ran down the center of the seal and out of the holes along the edges of the cylinder.
The number of such cases found in Mangazeya is in the thousands, which indicates a large number of commercial and industrial people coming to the city and the scope of urban trade. Even a whole wooden case was found with a wax seal with laces preserved inside. The fact that the Mangazeya Seaway served as the main road to the “boiling” Mangazeya is reminiscent of two bone compasses found by archaeologists at the settlement and a metal dial of the third, as well as three leather cases for compasses. The outer sides of the cases are decorated with an embossed ornament: on the first one there are sprawling branches on which four small birds sit, on the second one there is an imprinted pattern in the form of two crossed rulers ending in four crescents, and in the center and along the four margins there are flowers.
The third case shows quadrangles. The discovery of a lead seal with the inscription "Amsterdam ander Halest", most likely found here with Arkhangelsk or Kholmogory merchants, testifies to Mangazeya's ties with European trading houses. Foreign goods include a gold ring with aquamarine, a gold coin - a half-thaler of 1558, a gilded caftan button.
Among the imported Russian goods are carved chests with a beautiful pattern. Among them there are chests with inscriptions: "Khariton", "Kirill Timokhov Progolokishev", "Ondrey Trofimov". Beads found at the Mangazeya Gostiny Dvor, blanks for Nenets plagues, embossed birch bark for decorating wooden products (some pieces of birch bark have inscriptions), details of traps for fur-bearing animals, devices for drying skins, needles for weaving nets, wicker bags, tuesas, leather patches, children's toys, wooden floats and birch bark sinkers, skis, details of sleds and reindeer harnesses, many of which are decorated with ornaments.
Pieces of mammoth tusk, cow and deer antlers with traces of processing were also found here. Metal objects (mainly copper and bronze) came across in large quantities - bronze arrowheads, bronze pins, tweezers, women's earrings, links of copper twisted wire, a bronze pendant, bronze and lead buttons.
In the excavations in the suburb, stone forms of figured casting were found, and in the cultural layers of Gostiny Dvor - the castings themselves. The materials of the Mangazeya excavations illuminated those aspects of Russian urban culture that had previously remained in the shadows. They made it possible to reconstruct the stages of the city's history, to date almost all of its buildings using the dendrochronological method, to determine the general layout of the city and the nature of material culture.
Today it has been established that Mangazeya in its heyday was a large urban settlement with all its inherent features, and not a trading post, as previously thought. To date, Mangazeya is so far the first and only excavated city dating back to the era of the development of the gigantic expanses of Siberia.
The archaeological material obtained as a result of the four-year work of the Mangazeya expedition became one of the most important sources for studying the Siberian city of the 16th-17th centuries. For some issues, this source is today the only and fairly reliable one, which is facilitated by the exact dating of almost all the buildings of the city.
, Russian Empire , Russian Historical Dictionary
MANGAZEYA - trade and fishing center and port in 1601-72 in Western Siberia, on the right bank of the Taz River. Founded by governor V.M. Masalsky-Rubets. Named after the local Nenets tribe. Devastated by fires, moved to a new place (until 1780 it was called Novaya M., now the village of Turukhansk - the regional center of the Krasnoyarsk Territory).
In the world and in Russia, this land has been known since ancient times (“The Legend of the Midnight Kingdom” of the 11th century, entry under the year 1096 of the “Tale of Bygone Years”). In fact, Mangazeya is a large country, which is clearly seen on the maps of the 16th century. It was known to Novgorod merchants as early as the 12th century (Leonid Martynov. “The Tale of the Tobolsk Voivodeship.” Chapter “Lukomorye”), was famous for furs (sables, arctic foxes) - for this reason it was called “Gold-boiling”. There were legends about the wealth of this fabulous country.
Mangazeya. Reconstruction based on materials from excavations of 1968-70.
At the beginning of the 17th century, several campaigns of Russian servicemen against Mangazeya took place. The first campaign ended in failure, the second turned out to be more productive: on the right bank of the Taz River, where the chapel of the Holy Martyr Basil of Mangazeya now stands, in 1601 a Russian city with the same name of the territory, Mangazeya, was founded. The city becomes an outpost of Russia in Western Siberia: trade and the collection of yasak from the natives brought the Russian treasury at that time up to 80% of the income.
Before the big fire of 1619, there was a fortress, 200 houses, 2 churches, a guest yard with 20 trading shops, bread, salt and gunpowder shops, a wine cellar, 2 drinking houses in Mangazeya. In the city, in addition to the Cossacks, there were a hundred archers with cannons. The governors who were sitting in Mangazeya were in charge of all the Taz and Lower Nisei foreigners. The local Enets population was dissatisfied with their position and extortion from the tsarist officials, which led to several uprisings against the Russians. During last uprising, which occurred in 1669, the tsarist troops had to leave the city.
As a result of numerous military skirmishes between the Enets and Russians, Nenets, and Selkups, the number of indigenous people in the region decreased. The Enets lose control over the territory of Mangazeya and go east to the Yenisei.
To this day, the legendary country of Mangazeya is the richest region of Russia, where huge reserves of oil, gas, and polymetals are concentrated. And today the name "Gold-boiling Mangazeya" has not lost its meaning. Ships are named after an ancient Enets clan, there is an oil company of the same name. The memory of the country of Mangazeya and the Moncasi family did not fade away, having passed through the centuries. And until now, representatives of the Moncasi family live in Russia - the heirs of the ancient Mangazeya ...
At the end of the 16th century, Yermak’s detachment cut through the door to Siberia for Russia, and since then the harsh lands beyond the Urals have been stubbornly settled by small but persistent detachments of miners who set up prisons and moved further and further east. By historical standards, this movement did not take so long: the first Cossacks clashed with the Siberian Tatars of Kuchum on Tura in the spring of 1582, and by early XVIII For centuries, Russians have secured Kamchatka for themselves. As in America around the same time, the conquistadors of our icy lands were attracted by the riches of the new land, in our case it was primarily furs.
Many cities founded during this advance are safely standing to this day - Tyumen, Krasnoyarsk, Tobolsk, Yakutsk were once advanced forts of service and industrial people (not from the word "industry", they were hunters-fishers), who went further and further beyond "Fur El Dorado". However, no less than the towns suffered the fate of the mining settlements of the times of the American gold rush: having received fifteen minutes of fame, they fell into disrepair when the resources of the surrounding regions were exhausted. In the 17th century, one of the largest such towns arose on the Ob. This city existed for only a few decades, but entered the legend, became the first polar city in Siberia, a symbol of Yamal, and in general, its history turned out to be short but bright. In the fierce frosty lands inhabited by warlike tribes, Mangazeya quickly became famous.
The Russians knew about the existence of a country beyond the Urals long before Yermak's expedition. Moreover, several sustainable routes to Siberia have developed. One of the routes led through the basin of the Northern Dvina, Mezen and Pechora. Another option was to travel from the Kama through the Urals.
The Pomors developed the most extreme route. On kochs - ships adapted for navigation in ice - they walked along the Arctic Ocean, making their way to Yamal. Yamal was crossed by portage and along small rivers, and from there they went to the Gulf of Ob, also known as the Mangazeya Sea. "Sea" is hardly an exaggeration here: it is a freshwater bay up to 80 wide and 800 (!) Kilometers long, and a three hundred-kilometer branch to the east - the Taz Bay - departs from it. There is no unambiguous opinion about the origin of the name, but it is assumed that this is an adaptation to the Russian language of the name of the Molkanzeev tribe, who lived somewhere in the mouth of the Ob.
There is also a variant that raises the name of the land and the city to the Zyryan "land by the sea". The "Mangazeya sea route", with knowledge of the route, observance of the optimal time for setting off and good orientation skills of the team, took them from Arkhangelsk to the Gulf of Ob in a few weeks. Knowledge of the many nuances of the weather, winds, tides, and river fairways could make the path easier. The technology of moving ships by portage was also worked out long ago - they dragged loads on themselves, ships were moved using ropes and wooden rollers. However, no skill of sailors could guarantee a successful outcome. The ocean is the ocean, and the Arctic is the Arctic.
Even today, the Northern Sea Route is not a gift for travelers, but then voyages were made on small wooden ships, and in which case it was not necessary to count on the help of the Ministry of Emergency Situations with helicopters. The Mangazeya route was the route for the most desperate sailors, and the bones of those who were unlucky became the property of the ocean forever. One of the lakes on the Yamal perevoloka bears the name, which is translated from the language of the natives as "the lake of the dead Russians." So there was no need to think about regular safe travel. Most importantly, there was not even a hint of some kind of base at the end of the journey, where one could rest and repair ships. In fact, the Kochi made one long way to the Gulf of Ob and back.
There were enough furs at the mouth of the Ob, but so far one could not even dream of a permanent trading post: it is too difficult to supply it with everything necessary in such conditions. Everything changed at the end of the 16th century. The Russians defeated the loose "empire" of Kuchum, and soon servicemen and industrial people poured into Siberia. The first expeditions went to the Irtysh basin, the first Russian city in Siberia - Tyumen, so that the Ob, simply by the force of things, turned out to be the first in line for colonization. The rivers for the Russians were the key transport artery throughout the entire Siberian conquest: a large stream is both a landmark and a road that does not need to be laid in impenetrable forests, not to mention the fact that boats increased the volume of transported cargo by an order of magnitude. So at the end of the 16th century, the Russians moved along the Ob, building up the coast with fortresses, in particular, Berezov and Obdorsk were laid there. And from there, by the standards of Siberia, it remained a step to step to the Gulf of Ob.
As you move north, the forest gives way to the forest-tundra, and then to the tundra, crossed by many lakes. Not being able to gain a foothold here, having come from the sea, the Russians managed to enter from the other end. In 1600, an expedition of 150 servicemen left Tobolsk under the command of the governor Miron Shakhovsky and Danila Khripunov. The Gulf of Ob, to which they rafted without any special adventures, immediately showed its character: the storm beat the kochi and barges. The nasty start did not discourage the governor: it was decided to demand that the local Samoyeds deliver the expedition to their destination by deer. On the way, however, the Samoyeds attacked the travelers and badly beaten them, the remnants of the detachment retreated on the selected deer.
The following circumstance adds intrigue to this story. In correspondence with Moscow, there are hints of participation in the attack (or at least its provocation) by the Russians. It's not such a surprise. Industrial people almost always overtook the servicemen, climbed into the most distant lands and did not have any warm feelings towards the sovereign people, who carry centralized taxation and control. It can be said for sure that some Russian people were already building in the area of the future Mangazeya: subsequently, archaeologists found buildings of the late 16th century on Taza.
Nevertheless, apparently, some part of the affected detachment nevertheless reached the Taz Bay, and a fortification, in fact, Mangazeya, grew on the shore. Soon, a city was also built next to the prison, and we know the name of the city planner - this is a certain Davyd Zherebtsov. A detachment of 300 servicemen went to the fortress - a large army by the standards of time and place. The work was progressing, and by 1603 a guest yard and a church with a priest had already appeared in Mangazeya, in a word, the beginning of the city was laid.
Mangazeya turned into a Klondike. True, there was no gold there, but a huge country full of sables stretched around. The bulk of the inhabitants traveled around the neighborhood, stretching for many hundreds of kilometers. The garrison of the fortress was small, only a few dozen archers. However, hundreds and even thousands of industrial people constantly crowded in the town. Someone left to get the beast, someone returned and sat in taverns. The city grew rapidly, and craftsmen came for industrial people: from tailors to bone carvers. Women also came there, who did not have to complain about the lack of attention in a harsh and devoid of heat land. In the city one could meet both merchants from central Russia (for example, a merchant from Yaroslavl donated to one of the churches), and fugitive peasants. In the city, of course, there was a moving out hut (office), customs, a prison, warehouses, trading shops, a fortress with several towers ... It is interesting that all this space was built up in accordance with a neat layout.
Furs were bought from the natives with might and main, detachments of Cossacks reached from Mangazeya even to Vilyui. Metal products, beads, small coins were used as currency. Since the Mangazeya district of cyclopean proportions could not be tightly controlled entirely from one place, small winter huts grew around. The sea passage has sharply revived: now, despite all the risk, the delivery of goods that were urgently needed locally - from lead to bread, and the return transportation of "soft junk" - sables and arctic foxes - and mammoth ivory, has become more accessible. Mangazeya received the nickname "gold-boiling" - as such, there was no gold there, but "soft" gold - in abundance. 30,000 sables were taken out of the city every year.
The tavern was not the only entertainment of the inhabitants. Later excavations have unearthed both the remains of books and excellently crafted, decorated chessboards. Quite a few in the city were literate, which is not surprising for a trading post: archaeologists often found objects with the names of the owners carved on them. Mangazeya was not just a transit point at all: children lived in the city, the townsfolk started animals and ran a household near the walls. In general, animal husbandry, of course, took into account local specifics: Mangazeya was a typical old Russian city, but residents preferred to travel around the neighborhood on dogs or deer. However, pieces of horse harness were later also found.
Alas! Taking off rapidly, Mangazeya quickly fell. There were several reasons for this. First, the circumpolar zone is not a very productive place as such. The Mangazeans traveled hundreds of miles from the city for an obvious reason: the fur-bearing animal from the immediate vicinity disappeared too quickly. For local tribes, sable was not of particular importance as an object of hunting, therefore, in northern Siberia, the population of this animal was huge and sables lasted for decades. However, sooner or later, the fur-bearing animal had to dry up, which happened. Secondly, Mangazeya fell victim to bureaucratic games within Siberia itself.
In Tobolsk, the local governors looked to the north without enthusiasm, where huge profits floated out of their hands, so from Tobolsk they began to scribble complaints to Moscow, demanding that the Mangazeya sea passage be closed. The justification looked peculiar: it was assumed that Europeans could penetrate Siberia in this way. The threat looked dubious. For the British or Swedes, traveling through Yamal became completely pointless: too far, risky and expensive. However, the Tobolsk governors achieved their goal: in 1619, archery outposts appeared on Yamal, deploying everyone who tried to overcome the barrier. It was supposed to expand trade flows to the cities of southern Siberia. However, the problems overlapped one another: Mangazeya was already impoverished in the long term, and now administrative barriers were added.
In addition - the king is far away, God is high - internal turmoil began in Mangazeya. In 1628, two governors did not share powers and staged a real civil strife: the townspeople kept their own garrison under siege, and both of them had guns. A mess inside the city, administrative difficulties, impoverishment of the land ... Mangazeya began to fade. In addition, Turukhansk, aka New Mangazeya, was growing rapidly to the south. The center of the fur trade shifted, and people left behind it. Mangazeya still lived by inertia from the fur boom. Even the fire of 1642, when the town was completely burned down and the city archive, among other things, perished in the fire, did not finish it off completely, as well as a series of shipwrecks, due to which there were shortages of bread. Several hundred fishers wintered in the city in the 1650s, so that Mangazeya remained a significant center by Siberian standards, but this was already only a shadow of the boom at the beginning of the century. The city was heading towards final decline slowly but steadily.
In 1672, the Streltsy garrison withdrew and left for Turukhansk. Soon the last people left Mangazeya. One of the last petitions indicates that only 14 men and a certain number of women and children remained in the once bursting with wealth town. At the same time, the Mangazeya churches were also closed.
The ruins were abandoned by people for a long time. But not forever.
A traveler of the middle of the 19th century somehow drew attention to a coffin sticking out of the shore of the Taz. The river washed away the remnants of the city, and from the ground one could see the ruins of the most different items and structures. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, where Mangazeya stood, the remains of fortifications were visible, and in the late 40s, professional archaeologists began to study the ghost town. The real breakthrough came at the turn of the 60s and 70s. An archaeological expedition from Leningrad spent four years excavating the Golden Boiling.
The polar permafrost created enormous difficulties, but as a result, the ruins of the Kremlin and 70 various buildings buried under a layer of soil and a grove of dwarf birches were brought to light. Coins, leather goods, skis, fragments of koches, sleds, compasses, children's toys, weapons, tools... There were amulets like a carved winged horse. The northern city revealed its secrets. In general, the value of Mangazeya for archeology turned out to be great: thanks to permafrost, many finds that would otherwise crumble to dust have been perfectly preserved. Among other things, there was a foundry with a master's house, and in it - rich household utensils, including even Chinese porcelain cups. No less interesting were the prints. They were found in the city a lot and among others - the Amsterdam trading house. The Dutch went to Arkhangelsk, maybe someone got beyond the Yamal, or maybe this is just evidence of the export of part of the furs for export to Holland. The finds of this genus also include a half-thaler mid-sixteenth century.
One of the finds is full of gloomy grandeur. Under the floor of the church was found the burial of an entire family. Based on archival data, there is an assumption that this is the grave of governor Grigory Teryaev, his wife and children. They died during the famine of the 1640s while trying to reach Mangazeya with a grain caravan.
Mangazeya lasted only a little over 70 years, and its population is incomparable with the famous cities of Old Russia like Novgorod or Tver. However, the disappeared city of the Far North is not just another settlement. At first, Mangazeya became a springboard for the movement of Russians into the depths of Siberia, and then presented a real treasure to archaeologists and an impressive history to descendants.
What is Mangazeya? The legendary city, founded in 1601 in the Turukhansk lands, which existed for only 70 years. There were legends about the unprecedented riches of the city. Over the centuries, it became like a fairy tale, as the location of the legendary city was not known. The expedition of the Russian traveler V.O.
Formation of the name Mangazeya
The word Mangazeya for a long time denoted the legendary city, which was called "gold-boiling". What is Mangazeya, how did this word appear? Ethnographers suggest that the name of Mangazeya came from the name of Prince Makazey (Mongkasi) - the leader of the local Samoyed tribe, as the Russian pioneers called the local residents - the Nenets, Enets and Selkups, who ate their fellow tribesmen during the famine. It is believed that the word Mangazeya comes from the ancient name of the Taz River. Another version says that the name comes from the Molgonzeev tribe, as modern Enets were called in the past.
First expedition
The first mention of people living beyond the land of Yugra appeared at the end of the 15th century. There is evidence of this from the Novgorod chroniclers, who wrote that Samoyeds, called Malgonzees, live beyond the Eastern Country and Yugora. Russian hunters for sable had already mastered this region well at that time.
The history of Mangazeya began with the first detachments sent to these places by Boris Godunov. In the voivode Miron Shakhovsky with a hundred archers went there from Tobolsk, but, as they assume, as a result of a storm, he lost his ships and the further path of the detachment was by land. On Pure, the Yenisei and Purov "Samoyed" attacked the detachment. As a result of the collision, some of the archers died, and the wounded governor himself continued on his way with the remnants of the detachment.
There is an assumption that the Samoyeds were hired by Russian fishermen who did not want to pay to the treasury, as they understood that the appearance of sovereign persons in these places would stop freemen. The fate of the detachment remained unknown for a long time. In the footsteps of the first expedition in 1601, a second detachment of two hundred archers was sent, led by governors Savluk Pushkin and Vasily Mosalsky, who reached the Shakhovsky prison and the church laid down by the remnants of the detachment.
First settlement
The detachment of Pushkin and Mosalsky, having reached Mangazeya, located on the high right bank of the Taz River, three hundred kilometers from the mouth, began to equip the prison and lay the settlement. By that time, presumably Shakhovsky had died from his wounds, so Mosalsky and Pushkin are considered to be the first governors. What is Mangazeya, they knew at that time in Russia, since rumors about these regions, where in large quantities there were fur-bearing animals, they reached Moscow.
In 1603, by decree of Tsar Boris Godunov, a new governor, Fyodor Bulgakov, was sent. Along with him was a priest with church utensils. Under him, a guest yard was laid. In 1606, Vasily Shuisky sent new governors - D. Zherebtsov and K. Davydov. State power was firmly established in this region.
The first city beyond the Arctic Circle
In 1607 a fortress was built - a Kremlin with five towers. At the entrance was the Spasskaya Tower, which had the appearance of a quadrangle in plan. Under it were two gates. Four towers are located at the corners of a powerful fence, which has a width of 3 meters. Uspenskaya was built opposite the Osterovka River, the Davydovskaya tower - opposite the Tilovskaya and Zubtsovskaya towers overlooked the taiga.
In the Kremlin itself there were two churches - Trinity and Assumption, the governor's courtyard, customs, a moving out hut, a prison. There were only a hundred officially registered sovereign people - archers and Cossacks.
200 huts, a church, a guest house, a public bathhouse, barns, trading shops, and inns were built. More than a thousand people lived in the settlement. These were artisans, mostly casters and blacksmiths, as well as merchants and fishermen. There were many temporary residents in the city, mostly merchants, as well as vagrants, drunkards and dissolute women.
Golden Mangazeya
How did Mangazeya get rich, what was so special about this city? Fishing and trade in gold junk, so called the skins of fur-bearing animals, which were found in abundance in the district. From all over the Taz region, hunters flocked here, most of whom were natives. Here, the role of money was played by the skins of fur-bearing animals, sable fur was especially highly valued.
Merchants brought essential goods, mainly salt, flour, other products, clothes and household utensils, which were exchanged for fur. Metal products were also highly valued, so the bulk of the inhabitants of the settlement were artisans. Fish farming, cattle breeding flourished, shipping was developed.
Why did the city disappear
In 1671, the garrison was ordered to leave the city along with the inhabitants and move to the Turukhansk winter hut, where a new Mangazeya was laid. Now it is the city of Staroturukhansk. The main reasons for the disappearance are:
- The closure of the sea passage to was founded on the initiative of the state as a stronghold for the collection of yasak. He brought in huge profits to the treasury. English, Dutch and German merchants traded here. The rumor about the sparsely populated lands reached the governments of these countries. The king, fearing the interest of foreigners, issued a decree on the closure of the sea passage under pain of death. Foreign merchants, and with them Russian Pomor merchants, no longer came here. This is the main reason that turned Mangazeya into a disappeared city.
- A sharp reduction in the number of fur-bearing animals.
- Introduction of new customs rules when trade became unprofitable.
- Fires.
- Hunger. From 1641 to 1644, due to strong storms, not a single kocha with bread and salt came to the city. Hunger and disease set in.
- Wealth and remoteness were the reason for the unlimited arbitrariness of the governors. The enmity between the two governors - Palitsyn and Kokarev, led to an armed confrontation.
Gradually, the remains of the settlement without inhabitants were destroyed and overgrown with taiga. Stories about the golden Mangazeya turned into legends and tales that excited the imagination of people who were trying to find the remains of a fabulous city.
Mangazeya is the first Russian city of the 17th century in Siberia. It was located in the north of Western Siberia, on the Taz River.
Founded as a prison in 1601, the status of the city - since 1607. It ceased to exist after a fire in 1662. It was part of the so-called Mangazeya sea route (from the mouth of the Northern Dvina through the Yugorsky Shar Strait to the Yamal Peninsula and along the Mutnaya and Zelenaya rivers to the Gulf of Ob, then along the Taz River and dragged to the Turukhan River, a tributary of the Yenisei).
The name, presumably, comes from the name of the Samoyed prince Makazei (Mongkasi).
History of Mangazeya
As early as the 16th century, Pomors made campaigns along the route indicated above. Mangazeya, on the other hand, was founded in 1601-1607 by the Tobolsk and Berezovka archers and Cossacks, as a stronghold for the advancement of Russians deep into Siberia. Construction was carried out on the right, high bank of the Taz River, 300 km from its mouth. The four-walled five-tower city immediately became a significant economic center.
In 1619 (at the beginning of the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov), navigation along the Siberian rivers through Mangazeya was prohibited under pain of death. There are several versions about the reasons for the ban. It was not possible to control the sea route, while all land routes were blocked by customs posts, and it was impossible to transport a single sable skin without paying a duty. The second reason was that it was mainly the Pomors who used the sea route, undermining the "monopoly" of the merchants on furs. Another reason is the fear of foreign expansion of Western European trading companies to the fur-rich regions of Siberia (semi-sea travel of Russians through the Gulf of Ob continued later). Although the viability of the latest version is called into question by some historians.
Excavations have established that Mangazeya consisted of a Kremlin-detinets with internal buildings (a voivodship yard, a moving out hut, a cathedral church, a prison) and a suburb, divided into a trading half (gostiny yard, customs, merchants' houses, 3 churches and a chapel) and a craft (80 -100 residential buildings, foundries, forges, etc.).
In the city, in addition to the Cossacks, there were a hundred archers with cannons. Mangazeya was in charge of all the Taz lower Nisei foreigners (mainly Nenets), who paid the yasak imposed on them with furs.
The locals engaged in barter (exchanged furs, especially sable) with the surrounding local population, hunted sable themselves, were also engaged in fishing, cattle breeding, shipping, crafts (foundry, bone carving and others). Many Russian merchants came to the “gold-boiling” Mangazeya, bringing domestic and Western European goods and exporting furs.
