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 in 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 has made a significant contribution to the history of Russian 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 Rus', 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 Rus' 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 of the ancient city here: “In the place where the “chapel” is listed, from the high bank, washed away by the river, 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.
At the same time, a characteristic feature of the monument is the 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.
In the documents of the 17th century, it is noted that in winter it took three days to travel between Mangazeya and Turukhansk. 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 17th-century documents that young people in the families of voivodes were taught to play musical instruments and sing. 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. The exact time of its laying is unknown, but from written sources it follows 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 the tragic fate of the family of the Mangazeya governor Grigory Teryaev. Making his way in the autumn and winter of 1643/44. with a caravan of bread to Mangazeya, cut off from the mainland, he lost 70 people from his detachment and, already being in one passage from the city, 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. The two and three-story buildings of Gostiny Dvor with clock and observation 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.
Yes, today, 400 years later, few even know the name of Mangazeya. But once, in the middle of the 17th century, Moscow was one of the largest cities located beyond the Arctic Circle, in the permafrost zone. And the whole of Taimyr, including the modern territory of the Norilsk industrial region, was part of the Mangazeya district. The history of Mangazeya is the beginning of our Norilsk history.
For many travelers who went to the north, the "Mangazeya Land" was a fairy-tale land. For centuries, legends have been made up about this mysterious area full of animals.
The legendary Lukomorye, in Pushkin's fairy tales, is part of the vast territory of the Mangazeya district, the coast of the Gulf of Ob. Here it is a map of Lukomorye of the 17th century. Its original is kept in Holland. But the author, place of creation and dating are unknown.
The drawing "The Sea of Mangazeya from the tract", like all Russian drawings of that time in general, is turned from south to north. In the drawing, the compiler still does not separate the Ob and Taz Bays, according to the concepts of the 16-17th centuries, this is a single Mangazeya Sea.
The map is conditional. The territories presented on it do not coincide with the images on modern maps. But despite the inaccuracies, the ancient drawing contains not only valuable physical and geographical data, but also the necessary ethnographic and biological information. It shows the depths, color and nature of the water, the settlement of the Nenets tribes and the animal world. In the center of the lip there is an inscription: "The water is fresh. They rest three times a day. The whale and the beluga and the seal fish in it." Modern ichthyological studies support this characterization.
The word "Mangazeya" is of Zyrian origin. It means "end of the earth" or "land near the sea".
The path to Mangazeya was well known to the Pomeranian peasants for a long time. Mangazeya sea passage. - The Arctic route connecting Pomorie with Siberia passed along the coast of the Pechora Sea, through the Yugorsky Shar Strait to the Kara Sea, crossing the Yamal Peninsula along the system of rivers and lakes from west to east and leaving the Ob and Taz Bays. It is here at the confluence of the river. Taz in the Gulf of Ob by Pomeranian industrialists and merchants, according to historians, no later than 1572, a stronghold was founded - the Tazovsky town.
This place was also convenient for the parking of Pomeranian ships - koches - the main ice ships of that time.
Looking at the modern, powerful icebreaking class vessels moored at the port of Dudinka. You involuntarily think: what kind of courage and courage you had to have in order to set sail on the seas of the Arctic Ocean on a koch, such a fragile ship. The drawing of a koch, created by an unknown medieval author, helped scientists recreate the appearance of the ship.
On the front side of the board, discovered during the excavations of Mangazeya, the whole ship is shown, and on the reverse side of its individual parts: the side set and the oval bypass line. This is not so much a drawing as a kind of construction drawing of that time. Using it, an experienced carpenter could determine the proportions of the main parts of the vessel that he needed, obtain information about the steering gear and the boat set, and position the masts.
Kochi appeared in Rus' on the coast of the White and Barents Seas in the 16th century. The name of the ship comes from the concept of "kotsa", which means ice protection. Iron staples were stuffed along the waterline of the ship, on which ice was frozen. It was as if dressed in an ice coat. The ship had an egg-shaped hull. For this feature, the Mangazeya kochi were called round courts. When the ice melted, the ship's hull was squeezed out to the surface without getting damaged. The sails were sewn from linen and rovduga dressed with reindeer suede. These were the first Russian ships of the sea class adapted for the Arctic navigation.
The small carrying capacity of koches, 6-8 tons, allowed them to swim along the very edge of the coast, where the water did not freeze for a long time. This is clearly seen in the painting by the artist S. Morozov "Explorers of the time of Peter the Great, 1700." Canvas. Oil.
The snow-covered expanses of the North have long attracted Russian and foreign travelers. Some of them, striving for the unknown, longed for new discoveries, others were looking for fame, and still others were looking for ways to get rich quick. For many centuries Siberia has been and remains a source of wealth, a source of replenishment of the state treasury.
If today the main wealth of Siberia is ore reserves, oil and gas deposits, then in the past Siberia was famous for the wealth of fur, sea and fisheries, the abundance of mammoth ivory.
Mammoth ivory was delivered in huge quantities to the central regions of the country and beyond. Products from it were in demand in the local market. Buttons, household items and details of reindeer harness were made from mammoth bone: a needle for weaving nets, cheek pads.
Goods imported to the north by Russian merchants: household items, firearms (flintlock gun), jewelry, beads, large blue beads, which in Rus' were called odekuem, were fabulously expensive and went in exchange for soft junk, skins of fur-bearing animals, sable, ermine, beaver, arctic fox.
The exchange was clearly unequal. A metal cauldron cost as much as it could hold sable skins.
Expensive beads were used by local tribes in making jewelry and embroidering clothes.
It is the rich sable trades of the Mangazeya district, the fame of which has spread throughout Rus', that attract the attention of the Moscow sovereign.
In 1600, Tsar Boris Godunov sent to the river. Taz and the Yenisei from Tobolsk, a hundred archers and Cossacks led by Prince Miron Shakhovsky and the head of the archery Danila Khripunov. In the Gulf of Ob, the Kochi fell into a storm, some of the expedition members died. The survivors were attacked by the Nenets tribes, who had long lived in the Mangazeya district, and were forced to return back to Berezov.
Later, in winter, Miron Shakhovskoy, with a small detachment on skis, again goes on a campaign to the lower reaches of the Taz, where in the summer of 1601, on the site of a Pomeranian town, he cuts down a prison.
Mangazeya has an amazing fate, many glorious pages in the history of Rus' and Siberia are connected with her name, the first campaigns beyond the Urals, geographical discoveries near the very Cold Sea, the development of trade and crafts in the taiga and tundra.
Fate was unkind. The northern city did not last long. After 70 years, it was abandoned by the inhabitants and soon forgotten.
Systematic archaeological research of the legendary Mngazeya began at the initiative of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute. A comprehensive historical and geographical expedition led by Doctor of Historical Sciences Professor Belov, over several field seasons, explored the cultural layer, and the remains of wooden structures of the ancient settlement with an area of more than 3 hectares...
The expedition members had to make a lot of efforts, as the entire area of the monument was covered with a thick layer of turf, overgrown with forest and shrubs.
"Dive into the water, ice snakes.
Move apart, you snow veil,
Gates of golden boiling Mangazeya
Opening before me and you!"
Leonid Martynov
Archaeologists have discovered over a thousand items that characterize the life of the ancient city. The result of the work was a two-volume monograph by M. Belov.
The finds of Belov's expedition made it possible to recreate a picture of a large Russian medieval city, numbering about 500 buildings, with rich voivodship estates, church domes, craft workshops and a gostiny yard. With a population of up to 2000 people.
In 1607, under the governors Davyd Zherebtsov and Kurdyuk Davydov, the construction of city defensive structures began, consisting of continuous gorodenny - cages. The construction of the five towers of the Kremlin also dates back to this time. In which archers served, observing the Mangazeya district. The Mangazeya garrison included 100 archers.
Behind the walls of the Kremlin, the total length of which was more than 280 meters, there was a command hut - the administration of the voivode, archery lodges, voivodship estates, mirroring one another. In remote Russian cities, two governors were appointed at the same time.
The remains of the voivodship court discovered during excavations.
It also housed one of the most significant places of worship in the city - the five-domed Trinity Church. The church played a significant role in the life of the city. She was the custodian of the royal treasury and at the same time, a lender gave funds to the inhabitants of the town for the development of trades, trades and crafts.
Burials were discovered under the floor of the church by archaeologists. Burials were made on the site of the burnt church even before the re-construction. Such is the tradition. Subsequently, Mikhail Belov, on the basis of archival documents, suggested that people of noble origin of the governor were buried here - Grigory Teryaev, his wife, one of his close associates, his two daughters and niece.
They died returning from Tobolsk in the autumn of 1643 with a caravan loaded with grain supplies for the starving Mangazeya. Grigory Teryaev tried to deliver bread by sea, sacrificing for this not only his life, but also the lives of his loved ones.
Throughout the entire period of its existence, Moscow has been the center of Russian culture and Orthodoxy in the north of the country.
The legend associated with another religious building of the city is still alive in the people's memory. At the beginning of the 20th century, believers visited the building of the chapel of Vasily Mangazeya on the settlement. The name of Vasily Mangazeya in Siberia in the 17th-18th centuries was widely known as the name of the defender of the poor and destitute. It was a cult of industrialists-explorers.
The legend tells: Vasily the lad worked for hire from the evil and ferocious Mangazeya rich man. Once a theft occurred in the merchant's house, about which he reported to the governor, accusing Vasily of theft. The massacre was not slow to happen. The accused was tortured in the Kremlin, in a moving house, but he completely denied his guilt. Then the enraged merchant, hitting the boy in the temple with a bunch of keys, killed him.
To hide the murder, the merchant and the governor decided to bury the body in a hastily put together coffin in a wasteland. Later, many years later, after the grandiose fire of 1742, when almost the entire Mangazeya burned. The coffin broke through the pavement and came out of the ground. Apparently it survived on the permafrost surface. The deceased was found.
At the expense of the pilgrims, a chapel was built on the site of the appearance of the coffin.
In the 60s, the rector of the Turukhansk Trinity Monastery, Tikhon, tried to secretly take the relics to the Yenisei. But, according to the abbot, the coffin rose into the air and did not give him. In the legend, fiction is closely intertwined with real events. During excavations, archaeologists found a chapel, under the ruins of which a cult burial was discovered, with the remains of limbs. Perhaps priest Tikhon nevertheless took part of the skeleton to Turukhansk, leaving the rest of the bones in Mangazeya, at the burial site.
The secrets of the Church of the Trinity and the chapel of Vasily Mangazeya were far from the only ones in a series of amazing discoveries and unexpected surprises revealed to scientists who explored this mysterious Russian city. But we will talk about this in the next episode.
On the territory of the settlement there was a two-story gostiny yard with more than 20 barns and shops filled with goods from all over the world.
In this form, he appeared before archaeologists.
No, not in vain throughout Rus', there was fame about Mangazeya, as about a gold-boiling earth. Trade in grain, foreign and Russian goods in exchange for furs brought fabulous profits to the artels of merchants and industrialists. One ruble invested in the economy of Mangazeya gave an increase of 32 rubles.
Every year, M. threw out to the domestic market of the country up to one hundred thousand sable skins for a total of 500 thousand rubles. Income, for that period equal to the annual income of the royal court.
In the city, standing on the banks of the river, fisheries were especially well developed. This is evidenced by many finds characterizing this type of activity. Wooden floats, birch bark sinkers of various shapes.
In Mangazeya standing on permafrost, they did not sow bread. Every year, whole coravans of ships loaded with grain stocks, numbering from 20 to 30 koches, came to the city. But they raised goats, sheep, pigs. Raised cows and horses. Horses traveled only around the city, outside the city walls lay swampy tundra.
Despite the large distances in time and space that separate the ancient Mangazeya and Norilsk, there are clearly visible common Arctic features inherent in the appearance of these polar cities. The ancient city, like Norilsk, stood on permafrost, on piles. Not on reinforced concrete, of course.
Log houses were installed on layers of frozen wood chips with birch bark pads, which protected them from moisture and contributed to the preservation of permafrost.
So, the first experience of building houses on piles still belongs to the Mangazeans.
Crafts: pottery, leather, bone carving.
But the main sensation of Mangazeya is the discovery of the foundry. On the ruins of which crucibles were found - ceramic pots for melting copper ore. An analysis of the found remains of copper produced in 1978 at the Institute of Geology of the Arctic showed that they contain nickel.
In the original document, the conclusion of the examination of copper ore, NN Urvantsev, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, one of the discoverers of the Norilsk deposit, comes to the conclusion that the Mangazeians smelted Norilsk carbonate ore.
Oxide ores come to the surface, fusible, clearly visible due to the green or blue color. They were used by people of the Bronze Age.
We are located at the foot of the Norilsk Mountains. Perhaps, it was here, from time to time, that ore was mined in the right quantities and taken to Mangazeya on reindeer sleds. Despite the huge distance of 400 km., Between the Norilsk winter hut, founded presumably in 20-30 years. 17th century and Mangazeya, there were fairly stable ties at that time.
Today, the Norilsk Combine produces millions of tons of copper, nickel, and cobalt. And the beginning was laid back in tiny medieval foundries and primitive furnaces, which have almost nothing in common with modern giant factories.
The enterprising Mangazeya miners were the first to make an attempt to start industrial development of the Norilsk deposit, long before the construction of the Sotnikovskaya copper-smelting furnace.
Mangazeya copper, smelted in crucibles in very small quantities, was used for all kinds of crafts and jewelry: crosses, rings, pendants, which were always in great demand among the local population.
But Mangazeya is not only a craft and cultural center, it is an outpost of Russian advancement to the North and East of Siberia. From here, in search of new lands and fur riches, the pioneers went further, "meeting the sun", to the Yenisei and Lena. Volkovye ways crossed the entire inner Taimyr from west to east.
In 1610, Russian merchants led by Kondraty Kurochkin sailed down the Yenisei, naming the newly discovered land Pyasida. What does deafness mean. This is how our peninsula was called in the past. The local tribes living on the newly discovered lands were immediately subjected to tribute - yasak ...
The collector of yasak in Taimyr, the Mangazeite Ivashka Patrikeev, wrote in a petition to Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich.
In the 17th century, the first Russian settlements appeared on Taimyr - Khantayka, Khatanga. Volochanka. Some of them have retained their ancient Russian names to this day, such as the village of Volochanka standing on a portage.
The name of the locality is Norilsk and the river. Norilsk, too, according to Urvantsev, has an old Russian origin, "noril" or "diving" among fishermen is called a flexible pole, for underwater fishing. From the word "norilo" the river began to be called Norilka, and then the city gets the same name ...
Until now, time has preserved silent evidence of eras long gone from us in the form of traces of dragging in the tundra or objects left over from that time. The photographs taken on Taimyr by members of Vladimir Kozlov's expedition, undertaken in 1989, on the initiative of the Main Directorate for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments of the Ministry of Culture of Russia, testify to this more than eloquently.
There are remains of old fishing huts and entire settlements that existed in the 17th century and later, in the form of ruins of log cabins with semi-decayed logs or plates of wooden tiles. Traces of the life that once boiled here.
It is hard to believe, but the current capital of Taimyr, Dudinka, once also began with a similar winter hut, lost in the endless snowy expanses of the north.
In 1667, the Mangazeya archer Ivan Sorokin set up a yasak winter hut below the Dudina River. The newly founded settlement was at the same time a convenient point for the further development of new lands in the east.
The shift of trade routes to the Yenisei and Lena, the predatory extermination of sable in the Mangazeya district, the bribery and greed of the governors who set the local tribes against themselves, led to desolation and the gradual destruction of the city. At the initiative of the voivode, the administrative capital was moved to a safer place, the Turukhansk winter hut, built by the shopkeepers back in 1607, and received the name New Mangazeya.
In 1672, on the orders of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the last streltsy garrison left Mangazeya. The city once thundering with its exploits, crafts and riches has gone into oblivion.
source http://www.osanor.ru/np/glavnay/pochti%20vce%20o%20taimire/goroda/disk/mangazey.html
AT 1601 by order of Tsar Boris Godunov, in the lower reaches of the Taz River, near the Yenisei portages, was laid city of Mangazeya. In the local, Zyrian dialect, the word meant "land near the sea." The city was built near the shores of the Gulf of Ob - the Gulf of the Kara Sea.
These shores are unwelcome: grass-covered hummocks, shrubs, low-growing trees. Not a soul around. Only bursts of waves hitting the high right bank of the river. Nothing disturbed the sleep of the local land until the time when the king's people came and began to cut down trees and build the fortress walls of the future trading quarter.
The “Painted List” for 1626 says: “a river above the Taz ... stood a beautiful chopped five-towered Kremlin - detinets ...”
Mangazeya became the end point of merchant trade caravans from Europe to Siberia. It completed the Mangazeya sea route, an ancient Arctic route that connected the Russian Pomorie (White Sea) with the great Yenisei. Peasants from all over Rus' rushed to the city, looking for freemen and wanting to get rich in the sable trade.
Life began to boil in Mangazeya very quickly. Merchant people were not transferred either in winter or in summer. So much money and goods were divorced that it was enough to rebuild the church, and the Gostiny Dvor, and even their own courtyards were equipped very soundly.
There were all sorts of rumors about the wealth of Mangazeya and it was no coincidence that they called it “gold-boiling”. City bigwigs fought, as usual, because of the money. In 1630, as a result of an artillery duel between adherents of two major quarreled Mangazeya governors - Grigory Kokorev and Andrey Palitsyn, the famous Gostiny Dvor was destroyed.
In 1619, by another royal decree, the Mangazeya sea route was banned under pain of severe punishment - in order, on the one hand, to block foreign trading companies from accessing the fur-rich market - annually up to one hundred thousand skins of silver sable were mined in the Yenisei taiga and taken for sale to Mangazeya! On the other hand, the boyars wanted to stop the uncontrolled trips there by the peasants of Pomorye.
In 1642, the city burned down badly, and in 1672, by another order of the new Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, it was completely abandoned. The county center, which it was, moved to the banks of the Yenisei River, to the Turukhansk winter hut - to New Mangazeya.
Centuries passed - more than 300 years - and a scientific expedition of the Institute of the Arctic and Antarctic, headed by Doctor of Historical Sciences Mikhail Ivanovich Belov, went to the places where the once "gold-boiling" Mangazeya became famous. Researchers quickly found traces of an urban settlement beyond the Arctic Circle.
Excavations have shown that Mangazeya was a typical medieval Russian city with a Kremlin and a suburb, with craft workshops and trade rows. Three Kremlin towers are well preserved - Spasskaya, Uspenskaya and Ratilovskaya; the other two had previously been washed away by a landslide.
The fortress walls were erected in 1604 by the governors of Moscow, Prince Mosalsky and the boyar Pushkin. The former voivodship yard was excavated on an area of 800 square meters. In the central part of the settlement, the remains of buildings were found - foundries, and in them among the slag - parts of crucibles and smelting furnaces.
Raw precious stones were found in the jeweler's dwelling - agates, carnelian, emerald grains, silver and copper rings, rings and pectoral crosses. A shoemaker's workshop was excavated with a bunch of leather scraps and a special cobbler's knife.
On the banks of the Taz River, there were also the remains of the Gostiny Dvor and right there lay magnificent bone and wooden chess, chests, sleds, skis, knives and axes, drills, faience and glassware, leather shoes, clothes and much more. Among the finds are a wonderful comb carved from a mammoth bone, several hundred coins from the times of Ivan III, Ivan the Terrible, Boris Godunov, copper coins of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich - the very ones whose issue caused the famous "copper riot" in Moscow.
The researchers determined not only the boundaries of the Kremlin and the contours of the settlement, but also traces of three religious buildings, first of all, the cathedral church of the Holy Trinity, the Assumption Church, which stood behind the fortress wall and the chapel of St. Basil of Mangazeya - a young man who was villainously murdered by local pagans. The story says that after a fire in 1642, the coffin with Vasily “came out” of the earth, after which miracles of healing occurred among those who touched the relics of the young man. Later, Vasily's coffin was taken to New Mangazeya.
The famous trade settlement existed in the north of Tyumen for only a few decades. Many trading people came to him from Rus' - Permians and Vyatchans, and Vymyachis and Pustozers, and Usoltsy, and Vazhans, and Kargopols and Dvivyans, and Vologdas - and all Moscow cities trading people ... "
They walked along the streets paved with the keels of ancient ships - koches - laid on edge. They happened to see Mangazeya in all its splendor, listen to the chimes of wooden churches, live in houses with double walls to protect them from the northern winds...
Nowadays, only the imagination allows us to restore the appearance of the once noisy polar “city of Kitezh”. Flashed Mangazeya on the pages of history and sank into oblivion. A third of the ancient settlement has already been taken away by the river, but what the expedition of M.I. Belova is an invaluable asset of Russia.
Irina STREKALOVA
By Siberian standards, the Taz is not a particularly large river. In addition, in comparison with the Ob, its shores today look almost pristine desert: for more than 300 km of kilometers separating the mouth of the Taz, where the villages of Tazovsky (regional center), Gazsale and Tibeisale stand, to another regional center - the village of Krasnoselkup, there are no settlements meet. But there is a tract on this stretch of the waterway, which is a source of special pride for the local population: sailing past it, the crews of the ships salute with a lingering siren. The tract is located at the mouth of a small river - the right tributary of the Taz, near the almost abandoned village of Sidorovsk. The Nenets call this place Taharavykhard - “Ruined City”, and in historical sources it is known as Mangezeya.
Back in the 14th century, the Pomors called the area east of the Ob "Mangazeya" - after the name of one of the local Samoyedic tribes. A little later, the name "Gold-boiling Mangazeya" appeared - because of the wealth of this region, primarily furs. Later, the city was also called that. A successful flight to these parts, which usually took two years, could provide some Ustyug merchant for many years. In the second half of the 14th century, a small winter hut and a fishing camp appeared on the Taz River, near the confluence of the small Osetrovka River. People came here on sea-going boats from the west, from Onega, Dvina, Pinega, Mezen for sable and marten skins, walrus tusks, mammoth tusks.
The rich region could not remain outside the sphere of state interests for a long time. Already in 1600, Princes Miron Shakhovskoy and Danila Khripunov with a hundred Cossacks were sent from Tobolsk to found a fortress town on the Taz River. The fate of this expedition was sad - after several koches were defeated in a storm on the Taz Bay, the detachment was attacked by the warlike Nenets, who threw the Tobolts back to the Ob. The following year, 1601, a new detachment of Vasily Mosalsky and Savluk Pushkin nevertheless climbed the Taz River, and at the beginning of the forest zone, on the site of a fishing winter hut, they set up the Mangazeya prison.
The fort stood on a high hill. The voivodship court was located there, a moving out hut (in which business was conducted) and a prison. Soon, a settlement began to form around it - the huts of industrialists, barns, craft buildings. The wealth of this region attracted people like a magnet - every year several caravans, during a short summer navigation, came here from the west by the way known as the "Mangazeya sea route". We walked along the polar coast, crossing the Yamal along the portage between the Mutnaya and Zelenaya (now Mordyyakha and Seyakha) rivers so as not to bypass its northern tip, usually covered with ice. Food, metal objects, exchange material for the local population (knives, mirrors and beads) were brought to Mangazeya. Kochi went back the next year, after wintering, loaded with furs. Since the furs weighed much less, it was not uncommon for one of the three koches who came to be sold in Mangazeya - many of the city's buildings were made of nomadic boards and logs.
Already by 1610 the prison had been replaced by a wooden Kremlin with four corner towers and one carriageway. Wise builders separated it from the settlement by a 40-50 meter field free from buildings, which subsequently saved the settlement from a fire in the Kremlin, and the Kremlin from fires in the settlement. Unlike other similar settlements in Siberia, the Mangazeya settlement was not surrounded by a fence - the locals clearly did not try to attack Mangazeya (in any case, not a single such attempt is known in its history).
In 1619, Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, worried about the uncontrolled navigation of the British and Dutch in the White and Barents Seas, as well as their trade with the Pomors, banned navigation along the polar coast on pain of death. A detachment of archers was placed on the Yamal portage, chopping off the heads of everyone who tried to reach Mangazeya this way. The prohibition of sea navigation changed the conditions for the existence of the city. I had to establish supplies from the Ob, from Verkhoturye and Tobolsk, the path to Mangazeya became longer and more complicated. Over time, the problems were solved, and this northern “unplowed” city again began to be supplied in the same way as Tobolsk itself was supplied: surprised archaeologists find pits forgotten by hazelnut (hazel) shells, plum and cherry pits. However, exporting "soft gold" became less profitable, and subsequently this factor played a role in the history of Mangazeya.
According to various sources, the permanent population of Mangazeya was up to 1,200 people, and in winter it at least doubled due to wintering between campaigns from the "mainland" and back. Dozens of koches from different cities stood along the banks of the Taz River, along its tributaries - Ratilovka and Osetrovka. By collecting yasak from the local population and taxes from merchants, Mangazeya quite significantly replenished the Moscow treasury.
Despite the difficulty and obvious inefficiency, chickens, cows, and horses were bred in polar conditions. The streets of the settlement were paved with boards, which was an undoubted rarity for the polar Russian settlements at that time. In their free time, the Mangazeys played grain (dice) and even chess. True, the fight against gambling (which also included chess) at that time was carried out almost more harshly than in our time: it was possible to play only in baths, or in a special hut on the outskirts of the settlement. Various punishments were applied to violators of this order, and the objects of the games themselves were taken away and thrown into a special pit near the command hut. This pit was found during excavations, resulting in the largest collection of medieval chess pieces.
There was only one case in the history of Mangazeya when its fortress guns really spoke. At first, not one governor was appointed to Mangazeya, but two at once - it was believed that one person could not cope with such a complex economy. In 1629, two more governors arrived in the city - Andrey Palitsyn and Grigory Kokorev. They were bound by old disagreements, which, during their stay in Mangazeya, resulted in open enmity. Kokorev and his supporters occupied the Kremlin, Palitsyn - the settlement. The three-year struggle of the governors with the use of cannons and squeakers led to the fact that a significant part of the settlement (gostiny yard, merchant barns, etc.) was destroyed. Alarmed by numerous complaints and denunciations, the tsar ordered the Tobolsk clerk to study the situation on the spot, and recalled Palitsyn and Kokorev to Moscow. They did not suffer any punishment, however, after this incident, only one governor was appointed to Mangazeya.
After the departure of the grumpy governors, the city healed its wounds for a long time, but a new blow was dealt to it by a catastrophic fire in 1642, in which the Kremlin burned down along with all the buildings. After the fire, the Kremlin was rebuilt in the same place.
The reason for the abandonment of Mangazeya by the population has not yet been reliably established. The prohibition of the sea route played a role here, but it was not decisive. There are suggestions that the number of fur-bearing animals in the Pur and Taz basins has decreased due to intensive fishing, and as a transit transport hub from the Yenisei to the Ob, Mangazeya was not very convenient. It is possible that the aggravation of relations with local tribes was superimposed on this. One way or another, in 1672 the Streltsy garrison was transferred to the Yenisei, where Novaya Mangazeya was founded (the area of the current city of Turukhansk). The inhabitants of the settlement followed the archers. The Taz River is empty.
In the subpolar climate, the buildings of the city were destroyed for a very long time. Some time after Mangazeya was abandoned, a yasak winter hut stood in this place, then a fishing camp. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, the remains of walls and one tower could be seen on the settlement. Now, on the site of Mangazeya, there is a clearing covered with rare trees and tall grass. The collapsed buildings of the settlement, untouched by archaeologists, form small mounds, at the bottom of which, under the grass, you can find logs of the lower crowns of log cabins that have not yet decayed. The archaeological study of this place, begun in the 1960s by the expedition of M.I. Belov, continues.
If you happen to visit Mangazeya, be sure to look at it from the river - at slender fir trees on a high cliff. Imagine in place of their towers and walls of the Kremlin, and to the right - where the bank goes down to the mouth of Mangazeika (as Osetrovka is now called) - the buildings of the settlement with a high tower of the Gostiny Dvor, decorated with a clock.
Mangazeya lived a short life for the city - only 71 years old. But its importance for the development of vast expanses of northern Siberia can hardly be overestimated. The world's largest gas fields - Urengoyskoye, Medvezhye, Zapolyarnoye, Russkoye - are located in Russia. And in this, a considerable merit belongs to the now forgotten small polar city.
There will be more holidays on the streets of Mangazeya - travelers, archaeologists, tourists. Happy will be the one who sees its magnificent ruins!
Mangazeya settlement in 2007
Kremlin logs.
Reconstruction of Mangazeya, carried out by the expedition of M.I. Belov.
Pillar at the confluence of the Taz and Mangazeyka.
Ancient harbor. Previously, the water level was higher, and Pomeranian kochi stood here.
Excavation traces.
We have not seen a more delicious red currant during the entire expedition.
The detail of the kocha, extracted by archaeologists, is a stem or sternpost. Length about 2 m, weight over 100 kg.
The boards of the onboard set in the kochs were sewn with a spruce root.
This is how the Mangazeya governors saw Taz.
Coast under the town. Here you can sometimes find coins and other items.
Coastal erosion is destroying Mangazeya. The wall of the Kremlin overlooking the river, together with two towers, has already collapsed into the river. Logs and boards sticking out of the cliffs come across all along the coast.
Archaeological camp. This group has been working at Mangazeya for the seventh year.
The cross on the site of the main temple of Mangazeya - the Trinity Church.
General view of the town.
Kremlin logs.
Sometimes you can find clearings along which buildings were built.
This field separated the Kremlin from the settlement.
The building is destroyed, but under a layer of grass you can still see the undecayed logs of the lower crowns.
Sunset over the island.
View of the Mangazeya settlement from the river.
Kremlin. Free reconstruction)
At the end of the 16th century, Yermak’s detachment cut through the door to Siberia for Rus', 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 the Tura in the spring of 1582, and by the beginning of the 18th century, the Russians secured Kamchatka. Many were attracted by the riches of the new land, and first of all - furs.
A number of cities founded during this advance are safely standing to this day - Tyumen, Krasnoyarsk, Tobolsk, Yakutsk. Once they were the advanced forts of service and industrial people who went further and further behind the "fur Eldorado". However, many settlements suffered the fate of the mining towns 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 cities arose on the Ob. It existed for just over 70 years, but became legendary, 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. The "sea" here is hardly an exaggeration - 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.
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. In addition, 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 one could not dream of a permanent trading post: it was 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 the Ob was the first in line for colonization.
Tyumen / Nikolaas Witsen
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.
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 bad 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, and the remnants of the detachment retreated on the selected deer.
Nevertheless, apparently, some part of the affected detachment nevertheless reached the Taz Bay, and a fortification, Mangazeya, grew on the shore. Soon, a city was built next to the prison. The name of the town planner is known - 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 progressed, and by 1603 a guest house and a church with a priest had already appeared in Mangazeya.
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. In the city one could meet both merchants from central Russia and runaway peasants. In the city, of course, there was a moving out hut (office), customs, a prison, warehouses, 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. The sea passage sharply revived: despite all the risk, the delivery of goods that were urgently needed on the spot (from lead to bread), and the return transport of mammoth ivory and “soft junk” - sables and arctic foxes became more accessible. Mangazeya received the nickname "gold-boiling". As such, there was no gold there, but there was plenty of “soft” gold. 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 have often found objects with the owners' names carved into them. Mangazeya was by no means just a transit point: women and children lived in the city, the townsfolk kept animals and farmed 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.
Alas, rapidly taking off, 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.
Map of Tobolsk, 1700
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.
Internal troubles 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 land. 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 began to fade, but still lived by inertia from the fur boom.
Turukhansk (New Mangazeya) / Nikolaas Witsen
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, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich issued an official decree on the abolition of the city. 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.
A traveler of the middle of the 19th century somehow drew attention to a coffin sticking out from the bank of the Taz River. The river washed away the remains of the city, and fragments of a variety of objects and structures could be seen from under the ground. 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 occurred at the turn of the 60-70s of the last century. 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 figurines-amulets similar to 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. There was also 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 half-thaler of the middle of the 16th century also belongs to the finds of this genus.
One of the finds is full of gloomy grandeur. Under the floor of the church, a burial of an entire family was found. 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.
The vanished 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.
Used materials from the article by Evgeny Norin
