History of Mangazeya. The disappeared city of Mangazeya. Director for legal support in the field of subsoil use

Yes, today, 400 years later, few people even know the name Mangazeya. But once upon a time, in the middle of the 17th century, M. was one of the largest cities located beyond the Arctic Circle, in the permafrost zone. And the entire 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 traveling north, the “Land of Mangazeya” was a fairyland. Legends have been formed about this mysterious area full of animals for centuries.

The legendary Lukomorye, in Pushkin’s fairy tales, is part of the vast territory of the Mangazeya district, the coast of the Ob Bay. Here is a map of Lukomorye from the 17th century. Its original is kept in Holland. But the author, place of creation and dating are unknown.

The drawing “The Mangazeya Sea from the tract”, like all Russian drawings of that time in general, is oriented from south to north. In the drawing, the compiler does not yet separate the Ob and Taz Bays; according to the concepts of the 16-17 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 depth, 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 fish in it are whales and beluga and seals.” Modern ichthyological studies confirm this characteristic.

The word "Mangazeya" is of Zyryan 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 ran along the coast of the Pechora Sea, through the Yugorsky Shar Strait into the Kara Sea, crossing the Yamal Peninsula along a system of rivers and lakes from west to east and exiting into 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 berths of the Dudinsky port. You can’t help but think: what kind of courage and bravery did you have to have in order to set sail across the seas of the Arctic Ocean on a koch, such a fragile boat. A drawing of a kocha 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 entire vessel is shown, and on the back its individual parts: the side set and the oval contour 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 he needed, obtain information about the steering device and bot 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 vessel comes from the concept “kotsa”, which means ice protection. Iron staples were packed along the waterline of the ship, onto which ice was frozen. It seemed to be dressed in an ice coat. The ship had an egg-shaped hull. For this feature, Mangazeya kochi were called round ships. When the ice melted, the ship's hull was squeezed to the surface without receiving damage. The sails were made from linen and rovduga, made from reindeer suede. These were the first Russian sea-class vessels adapted for Arctic navigation.

The small carrying capacity of the nomads, 6-8 tons, allowed them to float along the very edge of the shore, where the water did not freeze for a long time. This is clearly visible in the painting by the artist S. Morozov "Explorers of Peter the Great's Time 1700." Canvas. Oil.

The snow-covered expanses of the North have long attracted Russian and foreign travelers. Some of them, striving for the unknown, thirsted for new discoveries, others sought fame, and still others 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 riches of Siberia are ore reserves, oil and gas deposits, then in the past Siberia was famous for its wealth of fur, marine and fishing industries, and the abundance of mammoth ivory.

Mammoth ivory was delivered in huge quantities to the central regions of the country and beyond. Products made from it were also in demand on the local market. Buttons, household items and parts of reindeer harness were made from mammoth bone: a needle for weaving nets, cheek pads.

Goods brought to the north by Russian merchants: household items, firearms (flint guns), jewelry, beads, large blue beads, which in Rus' were called odekuy, were incredibly expensive and were exchanged for soft junk, skins of fur-bearing animals, sable, ermine, beaver, arctic fox.

The exchange was clearly unequal. The metal cauldron cost as much as it could hold sable skins.

Expensive beads were used by local tribes to make jewelry and embroider clothes.

It is the rich sable crafts of the Mangazeya district, the fame of which has spread throughout Rus', that attracts the attention of the Moscow sovereign.

In 1600, Tsar Boris Godunov sent to the river. Taz and Yenisei from Tobolsk a hundred Streltsy and Cossacks led by Prince Miron Shakhovsky and Streltsy Head Danila Khripunov. In the Gulf of Ob, the Kochi were caught in a storm, and 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 the winter, Miron Shakhovskaya with a small detachment on skis again went on a hike to the lower reaches of the Taz, where in the summer of 1601, on the site of a Pomeranian town, he cut down a fort.

Mangazeya has an amazing fate; many glorious pages of the history of Rus' and Siberia are associated with its name: the first campaigns beyond the Urals, geographical discoveries near the Icy 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 residents and soon forgotten.

Systematic archaeological research into the legendary Mngazeya began on the initiative of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute. A complex historical and geographical expedition under the leadership of Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Belov, spent several field seasons exploring the cultural layer and the remains of wooden structures of the settlement with an area of ​​more than 3 hectares...

The expedition participants had to make a lot of effort, since the entire area of ​​the monument was covered with a thick layer of turf and overgrown with forest and bushes.

"Dive into the water, ice snakes.

Move aside, curtain of snow,

Gates of golden boiling Mangazeya

Opening in front of me and you!"

Leonid Martynov

Archaeologists have discovered over a thousand objects characterizing the life of the ancient city. The result of the work was a two-volume monograph by M. Belov.

The findings of Belov's expedition made it possible to recreate a picture of a large Russian medieval city, numbering about 500 buildings, with rich voivodeship estates, church domes, craft workshops and a guest courtyard. With a population of up to 2000 people.

In 1607, under the governors Davyd Zherebtsov and Kurdyuk Davydov, the construction of city defensive structures consisting of solid city cages began. The construction of five Kremlin towers dates back to this time. In which the 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 an official hut - the voivode's administration, streltsy's guardhouses, voivod's estates, mirroring each other. Two governors were appointed at a time to remote Russian cities.

The remains of the voivode's court were discovered during excavations.

One of the most significant religious buildings in the city is located here - 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, as a lender, she provided funds to the residents of the settlement for the development of trades, trades and crafts.

Archaeologists discovered burials under the floor of the church. The burials took place on the site of the burnt church even before the re-construction. This is the tradition. Subsequently, Mikhail Belov, based on archival documents, suggested that people of noble origin of the governor were buried here - Grigory Teryaev, his wife, someone close to him, his two daughters and his niece.

They died while returning from Tobolsk in the fall of 1643, with a caravan loaded with grain supplies for the starving Mangazeya. Grigory Teryaev tried to deliver bread along the sea route, sacrificing not only his life for this, but also the lives of his loved ones.

Throughout the entire period of its existence, Moscow was 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 people's memory. At the beginning of the 20th century, believers visited the building of the chapel of St. Basil of Mangazeya on the site. The name of Vasily of Mangazeya in Siberia in the 17th and 18th centuries was widely known as the name of the defender of the poor and disadvantaged. It was a cult of industrialists and explorers.

The legend says: Vasily the youth worked for hire from the evil and ferocious Mangazeya rich man. One day there was a theft in a merchant’s house, which he reported to the governor, accusing Vasily of theft. The reprisal was not long in coming. The accused was tortured in the Kremlin, in a hut, 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 knocked together coffin in a vacant lot. Later, many years later, after the great fire of 1742, when almost all of Mangazeya burned. The coffin broke through the pavement and came out of the ground. Apparently it survived to the surface of the permafrost. The murdered man was found.

At the expense of pilgrims, a chapel was built at the site of the apparition of the coffin.

In the 60s, the abbot 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 was not given to 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 remaining bones in Mangazeya, at the burial site.

The secrets of the Trinity Church and the chapel of Vasily of Mangazeya turned out to be 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 program.

On the territory of the posad there was a two-story gostiny yard, numbering more than 20 barns and shops filled with goods from all over the world.

This is how he appeared before archaeologists.

No, it was not for nothing that all over Rus', Mangazeya was famous as a golden boiling land. Trade in bread, overseas 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 up to one hundred thousand sable skins into the country’s domestic market for a total amount of 500 thousand rubles. An income for that period equal to the annual income of the royal court.

In the city, located on the banks of the river, fishing was especially well developed. This is evidenced by many finds characterizing this type of activity. Wooden floats, birch bark weights of various shapes.

In Mangazeya, which is located on permafrost, no grain was sown. Every year, whole coravans of ships loaded with grain supplies, numbering from 20 to 30 kochs, came to the city. But they raised goats, sheep, and pigs. They raised cows and horses. They only moved around the city on horseback; outside the city walls lay swampy tundra.

Despite the large distances in time and space separating ancient Mangazeya and Norilsk, the common Arctic features inherent in the appearance of these polar cities are clearly visible. The ancient city, like Norilsk, stood on permafrost, on stilts. Not on reinforced concrete ones, of course.

The house frames 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 stilts belongs to the people of Mangazeya.

Crafts: pottery, leatherworking, bone carving.

But the main sensation of Mangazeya is the discovery of a foundry. On the ruins of which crucibles were discovered - ceramic pots for smelting copper ore. An analysis of the copper remains found in 1978 at the Institute of Arctic Geology showed that they contained 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 Mangazeya people smelted carbonate Norilsk ore.

Oxide ores come to the surface, are fusible, and are clearly visible due to their 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 that, from time to time, ore was mined in the required quantities and transported to Mangazeya on reindeer sleds. Despite the huge distance of 400 km, between the Norilsk winter quarters, founded presumably in the 20-30s. 17th century and Mangazeya, there were quite stable connections at that time.

Today the Norilsk Combine produces millions of tons of copper, nickel, and cobalt. And the beginning was made in tiny medieval foundries and primitive furnaces that had almost nothing in common with modern giant factories.

Enterprising Mangazeya ore miners were the first to attempt to begin the 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 advance to the North and East of Siberia. From here, in search of new lands and fur riches, the pioneers set off further, “meeting the sun,” to the Yenisei and Lena. The portage routes crossed the entire interior of Taimyr from west to east.

In 1610, Russian trading people led by Kondraty Kurochkin sailed down the Yenisei, calling the newly discovered land Pyasida. What does treelessness mean? This is what our peninsula was called in the past. Local tribes living on the newly discovered lands were immediately subject to tribute - yasak...

Ivashka Patrikeev, a Mangazean yasak collector in Taimyr, wrote a petition to Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich.

In the 17th century, the first Russian settlements appeared on Taimyr - Khantaika, Khatanga. Volochanka, Some of them have retained their ancient Russian names to this day, such as the village of Volochanka located on the portage.

Name of the area Norilsk and r. Norilskaya, too, according to Urvantsev, is of ancient Russian origin; fishermen call “noril” or “dive” a flexible pole for underwater fishing. From the word “norilo” the river began to be called Norilka, and then the city received 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. Photographs taken in 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 Russian Ministry of Culture, testify to this more than eloquently.

There are remains of old fishing huts and entire villages that existed in the 17th century and later, in the form of ruins of log houses with semi-decayed logs or plates of wooden tiles. Traces of life that once flourished here.

It’s hard to believe, but the current capital of Taimyr, Dudinka, also once 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 tribute 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 turned local tribes against themselves, led to the desolation and gradual destruction of the city. On the initiative of the governor, the administrative capital was moved to a safer place, the Turukhanskoe winter hut, built by the Magazeyas back in 1607, and was named New Mangazeya.

In 1672, by order of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the last Streltsy garrison left Mangazeya. The city, which once resounded with its exploits, crafts and wealth, fell into oblivion.

source http://www.osanor.ru/np/glavnay/pochti%20vce%20o%20taimire/goroda/disk/mangazey.html

At the end of the 16th century, Ermak’s detachment cut the door to Siberia for Rus', and since then the harsh regions beyond the Urals have been persistently developed by small but persistent detachments of miners who set up forts and moved further and further to the east. By historical standards, this movement did not take very long: the first Cossacks clashed with the Siberian Tatars of Kuchum on Tour in the spring of 1582, and by the beginning of the 18th century the Russians secured Kamchatka for themselves. As in America at about 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 stand safely to this day - Tyumen, Krasnoyarsk, Tobolsk, Yakutsk were once advanced forts of servicemen and industrial people (not from the word "industry", these were hunters and fishermen), who went further and further beyond "fur Eldorado". However, no fewer towns suffered the fate of the mining settlements of the American gold rush: having received fifteen minutes of fame, they fell into desolation 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 became legendary, became the first polar city of Siberia, a symbol of Yamal, and in general its history turned out to be short but bright. In the ferocious frosty lands inhabited by warlike tribes, Mangazeya, which quickly became famous, grew up.

The Russians knew about the existence of a country beyond the Urals long before Ermak’s expedition. Moreover, several sustainable routes to Siberia have emerged. One of the routes led through the Northern Dvina basin, Mezen and Pechora. Another option involved traveling from the Kama through the Urals.

The most extreme route was developed by the Pomors. On kochas - ships adapted for navigation in ice - they sailed across the Arctic Ocean, making their way to Yamal. Yamal was crossed by portages and along small rivers, and from there they went out into the Gulf of Ob, also known as the Mangazeya Sea. “Sea” here is hardly an exaggeration: it is a freshwater bay up to 80 kilometers wide and 800 (!) kilometers long, and a three-hundred-kilometer branch to the east, the Tazovskaya Bay, extends from it. There is no clear 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 Molkanzee tribe, which lived somewhere at the mouth of the Ob.

Pomeranian Koch in an engraving from 1598

There is also an option that traces the name of the land and the city to the Zyryansk word “land by the sea.” The Mangazeya Sea Route, with knowledge of the route, compliance with the optimal timing of departure and good navigation skills of the team, led from Arkhangelsk to the Gulf of Ob in a few weeks. Knowledge of many nuances of weather, winds, tides, and river fairways could make the path easier. The technology of moving ships by dragging was also developed long ago - they dragged loads on themselves, the 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 back then voyages were made on small wooden ships, and in case of emergency one could not count on the help of the Ministry of Emergency Situations with helicopters. The Mangazeya route was a 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 Perevolok has a name that is translated from the aboriginal language as “lake of the dead Russians.” So there was no need to think about regular safe travel. The main thing was that there was not even a hint of some kind of base at the end of the journey, where it was possible to rest and repair ships. In fact, the Kochi made one long journey to the Ob Bay and back.

There were enough furs at the mouth of the Ob, but one could not yet 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 Kuchum's loose "empire", 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, simply by force of events, was first in line for colonization. Rivers for the Russians were a key transport artery throughout the Siberian conquest: a large stream is both a landmark and a road that does not need to be laid in impassable 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 founded there. And from there, by the standards of Siberia, it was only a step away to the Ob Bay.

As you move north, the forest gives way to forest-tundra, and then to tundra, intersected by many lakes. Unable 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 under the command of governors Miron Shakhovsky and Danila Khripunov left Tobolsk. The Gulf of Ob, to which they rafted without much incident, immediately showed its character: the storm destroyed 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 its destination using reindeer. On the way, however, the Samoyeds attacked the travelers and were badly beaten; the remnants of the detachment retreated on the selected deer.

This circumstance adds intrigue to this story. In correspondence with Moscow, there are hints of Russian participation in the attack (or at least its provocation). This is not such a surprise. Industrial people almost always overtook servicemen, climbed to the most distant lands and did not have any warm feelings towards the sovereign people who carried centralized taxation and control. We can say for sure that some Russian people were already building in the area of ​​the future Mangazeya: subsequently, archaeologists found buildings from the late 16th century on Taz.

Drawing of the land of the Turukhansk city (New Mangazeya) from the “Drawing Book of Siberia” by S. U. Remezov (1701). Swedish copy; Mangazeya at the end of the 18th century.

Nevertheless, apparently, some part of the injured detachment still reached Tazovskaya Bay, and a fortification of Mangazeya itself grew on the shore. Soon a city was built next to the fort, 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 progressed, and by 1603 a guest house and a church with a priest had already appeared in Mangazeya, in a word, the beginning of the city had been laid.

Mangazeya turned into Klondike. True, there was no gold there, but a huge country full of sables stretched around. The bulk of the residents dispersed to surrounding areas that stretched for many hundreds of kilometers. The fortress garrison was small, only a few dozen archers. However, hundreds, or even thousands of industrial people were constantly milling about in the town. Some left to hunt for animals, others returned and sat in taverns. The city grew quickly, and artisans came to fetch the industrial people: from tailors to bone carvers. Women also came there, who did not have to complain about the lack of attention in the harsh and heat-deprived region. In the city one could meet both merchants from central Russia (for example, a merchant from Yaroslavl donated to one of the churches) and runaway peasants. In the city, of course, there was a moving 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 aborigines in full force; detachments of Cossacks reached from Mangazeya even to Vilyui. Metal products, beads, and small coins were used as currency. Since the cyclopean scale of the Mangazeya district was impossible to tightly control entirely from one place, small winter huts grew around. The sea route 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 bones, has become more accessible. Mangazeya received the nickname “boiling gold” - as such there was no gold there, but there was an abundance of “soft” gold. 30 thousand sables were exported from the city per year.

The tavern was not the only entertainment for residents. Later excavations also revealed the remains of books and beautifully crafted, decorated chessboards. Quite a few people 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 at all just a transit point: children lived in the city, ordinary people got animals and farmed near the walls. In general, livestock farming, of course, took into account local specifics: Mangazeya was a typical old Russian city, but residents preferred to ride around the surrounding area on dogs or deer. However, pieces of horse harness were also later found.

Alas! Taking off rapidly, Mangazeya quickly fell. There were several reasons for this. Firstly, the polar zone is not a very productive place as such. The Mangazeans dispersed hundreds of miles from the city for an obvious reason: fur-bearing animals were disappearing from the immediate vicinity too quickly. For local tribes, sable was not of particular importance as a hunting object, so in northern Siberia the population of this animal was huge and the sables lasted for decades. However, sooner or later the fur-bearing animal had to dry up, which is what happened. Secondly, Mangazeya fell victim to bureaucratic games within Siberia itself.

Map of Tobolsk, 1700.

In Tobolsk, the local governors looked without enthusiasm to the north, where huge profits were slipping out of their hands, so from Tobolsk they began to write complaints to Moscow, demanding that the Mangazeya sea passage be closed. The rationale 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, rifle outposts appeared in Yamal, turning away everyone trying to overcome the drag. It was intended to expand trade flows to the cities of southern Siberia. However, the problems overlapped one another: Mangazeya was already becoming poorer in the future, and now administrative barriers were being 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 started a real civil strife: the townspeople kept their own garrison under siege, and both had cannons. The chaos inside the city, administrative difficulties, scarcity of land... Mangazeya began to fade. In addition, Turukhansk, also known as New Mangazeya, was rapidly growing to the south. The center of the fur trade shifted, and people left behind it. Mangazeya was still alive due to the inertia of the fur boom. Even the fire of 1642, when the town completely burned down and, among other things, the city archive was lost in the fire, did not finish it off completely, nor did a series of shipwrecks, which caused shortages of bread. Several hundred fishermen wintered in the city in the 1650s, so Mangazeya remained a significant center by Siberian standards, but it was already only a shadow of the boom of the beginning of the century. The city was sliding towards final decline slowly but steadily.

In 1672, the Streltsy garrison withdrew and went to Turukhansk. Soon the last people left Mangazeya. One of the latest petitions indicates that in the town that was once bursting with wealth, only 14 men and a number of women and children remained. At the same time, the Mangazeya churches also closed.

The ruins were abandoned by people for a long time. But not forever.

A traveler of the mid-19th century once noticed a coffin sticking out from the bank of the Taz. 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. 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 60s and 70s. An archaeological expedition from Leningrad spent four years excavating the Golden Boiling.

The polar permafrost created enormous difficulties, but in the end 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 carts, sledges, compasses, children's toys, weapons, tools... There were amulets like a carved winged horse. The northern city was revealing its secrets. In general, the value of Mangazeya for archeology turned out to be great: thanks to the permafrost, many finds that would otherwise crumble to dust are perfectly preserved. Among other things, there was a foundry with a master’s house, and in it there were rich household utensils, including even Chinese porcelain cups. The seals turned out to be no less interesting. A lot of them were found in the city, including the Amsterdam Trading House. The Dutch came to Arkhangelsk, maybe someone got beyond Yamal, or perhaps this is just evidence of the removal of some furs for export to Holland. Finds of this kind also include a half-taler from the mid-16th century.

One of the finds is filled with gloomy grandeur. Under the floor of the church, a whole family was buried. 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 caravan of grain.

Mangazeya only existed for a little over 70 years, and its population is incomparable with the famous cities of Old Rus' 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 it presented a real treasure to archaeologists and an impressive history to descendants.

Everything you wanted to know about the “Secrets of Mangazeya” expedition is in the presentation at the link.
https://yadi.sk/d/bOiR-ldcxrW6B
Information on how to become a member of the expedition is located here -

, Russian Empire , Russian Historical Dictionary

MANGAZEYA was a 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. Masala-Rub. Named after the local Nenets tribe. Devastated by fires, moved to a new location (until 1780 it was called Novaya M., now the village of Turukhansk - the regional center of the Krasnoyarsk Territory).

In the world and in Rus', this land has been known since ancient times (“The Tale of the Midnight Kingdom” of the 11th century, entry under 1096 in the “Tale of Bygone Years”). In reality, Mangazeya is a large country, which is clearly visible on maps of the 16th century. It was known to Novgorod merchants back in the 12th century (Leonid Martynov. “The Tale of the Tobolsk Voivodeship.” Chapter “Lukomorye”), it was famous for its furs (sables, arctic foxes) - for this reason it received the name “Gold-boiling”. Legends were made about the riches of this fabulous country.

Mangazeya. Reconstruction based on materials from excavations 1968-70.

At the beginning of the 17th century, several campaigns of Russian servicemen to Mangazeya took place. The first campaign ended in failure, the second turned out to be more effective: 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 was founded with the same name of the territory - Mangazeya. The city becomes an outpost of Russia in Western Siberia: trade and collection of yasak from the aborigines brought the Russian treasury up to 80% of income at that time.

Before the great fire of 1619, there was a fortress, 200 houses, 2 churches, a guest courtyard with 20 trading shops, bread, salt and gunpowder stores, 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 sat in Mangazeya were in charge of all the Tazov and Lower Yisei foreigners. The local Enets population was dissatisfied with their situation and extortions from tsarist officials, which led to several uprisings against the Russians. During the 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 the Russians, Nenets, and Selkups, the number of indigenous inhabitants of 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 Entets family, and there is an oil company of the same name. The memory of the country of Mangazeya and the Monkasi family has not faded, passing through the centuries. And representatives of the Monkasi clan still live in Russia - the heirs of ancient Mangazeya...

IN 1601 by order of Tsar Boris Godunov, it was founded in the lower reaches of the Taz River, near the Yenisei portages. city ​​of Mangazeya. In the local Zyryan dialect the word meant “land near the sea.” The city was built near the shores of the Ob Bay - a bay of the Kara Sea.

These shores are inhospitable: grass-covered hummocks, bushes, low-growing trees. Not a soul around. Only splashes of waves hitting the high right bank of the river. Nothing disturbed the sleep of the local land until the Tsar’s people came and began to cut down trees and erect fortress walls of the future trading settlement.

The “Painted List” for 1626 says: “above the Taz River... stood a beautiful chopped five-tower Kremlin - Detynets...”

Mangazeya became the final point for merchant trade caravans from Europe to Siberia. It completed the Man-Gazea sea route, an ancient Arctic route that connected Russian Pomerania (White Sea) with the great Yenisei. Peasants from all over Rus' flocked to the city, looking for freemen and wanting to get rich in the sable industry.

Life began to boil in Mangazeya very quickly. The trading people were not transferred either in winter or in summer. There was so much money and goods that it was enough to rebuild the church and the guest courtyard, and they also furnished their own courtyards very well.

There were all sorts of rumors about the wealth of Mangazeya and it was no coincidence that it was nicknamed “boiling gold.” The city bigwigs fought, as usual, over money. In 1630, as a result of an artillery duel between adherents of two Mangazeya governors who had quarreled, Grigory Kokorev and Andrei Palitsyn, the famous Gostiny Dvor was destroyed.

In 1619, by another royal decree, the Mangazeya sea passage was prohibited under pain of severe punishment - in order, on the one hand, to block the access of foreign trading companies to the rich fur market - annually up to one hundred thousand silver sable skins were mined in the Yenisei taiga and transported for sale to Mangazeya! On the other hand, the boyars wanted to stop uncontrolled trips there by Pomeranian peasants.

In 1642, the city was badly burned, and in 1672, by the next order of the new Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, it was completely abandoned. The district center, such as it was, moved to the banks of the Yenisei River, to the Turukhansk winter quarters - to Novaya Mangazeya.

Centuries have passed - more than 300 years - and a scientific expedition of the Institute of the Arctic and Antarctic, led 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 shopping arcades. Three Kremlin towers are well preserved - Spasskaya, Uspenskaya and Ratilovskaya; the other two were washed away by an earlier landslide.

The fortress walls were erected in 1604 by the Moscow governors, Prince Mosalsky and boyar Pushkin. The former voivode's courtyard was excavated on an area of ​​800 square meters. In the central part of the settlement, the remains of buildings - foundries - were discovered, and in them, among the slag, were parts of crucibles and smelting furnaces.

Unprocessed precious stones were found in the jeweler's home - agates, carnelians, emerald grains, silver and copper rings, rings and crosses. A shoemaker's workshop was excavated with a bunch of leather scraps and a special shoemaker's knife.

On the banks of the Taz River there were also the remains of a guest courtyard and there lay magnificent bone and wooden chessboards, chests, sledges, skis, knives and axes, drills, earthenware and glassware, leather shoes, clothes and much more. Among the finds are a remarkable comb carved from mammoth bone, several hundred coins from the times of Ivan III, Ivan the Terrible, Boris Godunov, and copper coins of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich - the very ones whose release 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, primarily the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, the Assumption Church, which stood behind the fortress wall, and the chapel of St. Vasily of Mangazeya - a young man who was villainously killed by local pagans. The story goes that after a fire in 1642, the coffin with Vasily “came out” of the ground, after which miracles of healing occurred among those who touched the relics of the young man. Later, Vasily’s coffin was taken to Novaya Mangazeya.

The famous trading post existed in the north of Tyumen for only a few decades. Many trading people came to him from Rus' - Permyachs and Vyatchans, and Vymyachis and Pustozerts, and Usoltsy, and Vazhan, and Kargopol and Dvivyans, and Vologda - and trading people of all Moscow cities...”

We walked along the streets paved with the keels of ancient ships - kochas - laid on edge. They had a chance to see Mangazeya in all its splendor, listen to the ringing of the bells of wooden churches, live in houses with double walls for protection from the northern winds...

Nowadays, only imagination allows us to restore the appearance of the once noisy polar “city of Kitezh”. Mangazeya flashed 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 M.I.’s expedition was able to save and preserve for posterity. Belova is an invaluable asset to Russia.

Irina STREKALOVA

At the end of the 16th century, Ermak’s detachment cut the door to Siberia for Rus', and since then the harsh regions beyond the Urals have been persistently developed by small but persistent detachments of miners who set up forts and moved further and further to the east. By historical standards, this movement did not take very long: the first Cossacks clashed with the Siberian Tatars of Kuchum on Tour in the spring of 1582, and by the beginning of the 18th century the Russians secured Kamchatka for themselves. As in America at about 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 stand safely to this day - Tyumen, Krasnoyarsk, Tobolsk, Yakutsk were once advanced forts of servicemen and industrial people (not from the word "industry", these were hunters-traders), who went further and further beyond "fur Eldorado". However, no fewer towns suffered the fate of the mining settlements of the American gold rush: having received fifteen minutes of fame, they fell into desolation 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 became legendary, became the first polar city of Siberia, a symbol of Yamal, and in general its history turned out to be short but bright. In the ferocious frosty lands inhabited by warlike tribes, Mangazeya, which quickly became famous, grew up.

The Russians knew about the existence of a country beyond the Urals long before Ermak’s expedition. Moreover, several sustainable routes to Siberia have emerged. One of the routes led through the Northern Dvina basin, Mezen and Pechora. Another option involved traveling from the Kama through the Urals.

The most extreme route was developed by the Pomors. On kochas - ships adapted for navigation in ice - they walked along the Arctic Ocean, making their way to Yamal. Yamal was crossed by portages and along small rivers, and from there they went out into the Gulf of Ob, also known as the Mangazeya Sea. “Sea” here is hardly an exaggeration: it is a freshwater bay up to 80 kilometers wide and 800 (!) kilometers long, and a three-hundred-kilometer branch to the east, the Tazovskaya Bay, extends from it. There is no clear 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 Molkanzee tribe, which lived somewhere at the mouth of the Ob.

There is also an option that traces the name of the land and the city to the Zyryansk word “land by the sea.” The Mangazeya Sea Route, with knowledge of the route, compliance with the optimal timing of departure and good navigation skills of the team, led from Arkhangelsk to the Gulf of Ob in a few weeks. Knowledge of many nuances of weather, winds, tides, and river fairways could make the path easier. The technology for moving ships by dragging was also developed long ago - they dragged loads on themselves, the 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 back then voyages were made on small wooden ships, and in case of emergency one could not count on the help of the Ministry of Emergency Situations with helicopters. The Mangazeya route was a 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 Perevolok has a name that is translated from the aboriginal language as “lake of the dead Russians.” So there was no need to think about regular safe travel. The main thing was that there was not even a hint of some kind of base at the end of the journey, where it was possible to rest and repair ships. In fact, the Kochi made one long journey to the Ob Bay and back.

There were enough furs at the mouth of the Ob, but one could not yet 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 Kuchum's loose "empire", 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, simply by force of events, was first in line for colonization. Rivers for the Russians were a key transport artery throughout the Siberian conquest: a large stream is both a landmark and a road that does not need to be laid in impassable 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 founded there. And from there, by the standards of Siberia, it was only a step away to the Ob Bay.

As you move north, the forest gives way to forest-tundra, and then to tundra, intersected by many lakes. Unable 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 under the command of governors Miron Shakhovsky and Danila Khripunov left Tobolsk. The Gulf of Ob, to which they rafted without much incident, immediately showed its character: the storm destroyed 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 its destination using reindeer. On the way, however, the Samoyeds attacked the travelers and were badly beaten; the remnants of the detachment retreated on the selected deer.

This circumstance adds intrigue to this story. In correspondence with Moscow, there are hints of Russian participation in the attack (or at least its provocation). This is not such a surprise. Industrial people almost always overtook servicemen, climbed to the most distant lands and did not have any warm feelings towards the sovereign people who carried centralized taxation and control. We can say for sure that some Russian people were already building in the area of ​​the future Mangazeya: subsequently, archaeologists found buildings from the late 16th century on Taz.

Nevertheless, apparently, some part of the injured detachment still reached Tazovskaya Bay, and a fortification of Mangazeya itself grew on the shore. Soon a city was built next to the fort, 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 progressed, and by 1603 a guest house and a church with a priest had already appeared in Mangazeya, in a word, the beginning of the city had been laid.

Mangazeya turned into Klondike. True, there was no gold there, but a huge country full of sables stretched around. The bulk of the residents dispersed to surrounding areas that stretched for many hundreds of kilometers. The fortress garrison was small, only a few dozen archers. However, hundreds, or even thousands of industrial people were constantly milling about in the town. Some left to hunt for animals, others returned and sat in taverns. The city grew quickly, and artisans came to fetch the industrial people: from tailors to bone carvers. Women also came there, who did not have to complain about the lack of attention in the harsh and heat-deprived region. In the city one could meet both merchants from central Russia (for example, a merchant from Yaroslavl donated to one of the churches) and runaway peasants. In the city, of course, there was a moving 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 aborigines in full force; detachments of Cossacks reached from Mangazeya even to Vilyui. Metal products, beads, and small coins were used as currency. Since the cyclopean scale of the Mangazeya district was impossible to tightly control entirely from one place, small winter huts grew around. The sea route 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 bones, has become more accessible. Mangazeya received the nickname “boiling gold” - as such there was no gold there, but there was an abundance of “soft” gold. 30 thousand sables were exported from the city per year.

The tavern was not the only entertainment for residents. Later excavations also revealed the remains of books and beautifully crafted, decorated chessboards. Quite a few people 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 at all just a transit point: children lived in the city, ordinary people got animals and farmed near the walls. In general, livestock farming, of course, took into account local specifics: Mangazeya was a typical old Russian city, but residents preferred to ride around the surrounding area on dogs or deer. However, pieces of horse harness were also later found.

Alas! Taking off rapidly, Mangazeya quickly fell. There were several reasons for this. Firstly, the polar zone is not a very productive place as such. The Mangazeans dispersed hundreds of miles from the city for an obvious reason: fur-bearing animals were disappearing from the immediate vicinity too quickly. For local tribes, sable was not of particular importance as a hunting object, so in northern Siberia the population of this animal was huge and the sables lasted for decades. However, sooner or later the fur-bearing animal had to dry up, which is what happened. Secondly, Mangazeya fell victim to bureaucratic games within Siberia itself.

In Tobolsk, the local governors looked without enthusiasm to the north, where huge profits were slipping out of their hands, so from Tobolsk they began to write complaints to Moscow, demanding that the Mangazeya sea passage be closed. The rationale 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, rifle outposts appeared in Yamal, turning away everyone trying to overcome the drag. It was intended to expand trade flows to the cities of southern Siberia. However, the problems overlapped one another: Mangazeya was already becoming poorer in the future, and now administrative barriers were being 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 started a real civil strife: the townspeople kept their own garrison under siege, and both had cannons. The chaos inside the city, administrative difficulties, scarcity of land... Mangazeya began to fade. In addition, Turukhansk, also known as New Mangazeya, was rapidly growing to the south. The center of the fur trade shifted, and people left behind it. Mangazeya was still alive due to the inertia of the fur boom. Even the fire of 1642, when the town completely burned down and, among other things, the city archive was lost in the fire, did not finish it off completely, nor did a series of shipwrecks, which caused shortages of bread. Several hundred fishermen wintered in the city in the 1650s, so Mangazeya remained a significant center by Siberian standards, but it was already only a shadow of the boom of the beginning of the century. The city was sliding towards final decline slowly but steadily.

In 1672, the Streltsy garrison withdrew and went to Turukhansk. Soon the last people left Mangazeya. One of the latest petitions indicates that in the town that was once bursting with wealth, only 14 men and a number of women and children remained. At the same time, the Mangazeya churches also closed.

The ruins were abandoned by people for a long time. But not forever.

A traveler of the mid-19th century once noticed a coffin sticking out from the bank of the Taz. 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. 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 60s and 70s. An archaeological expedition from Leningrad spent four years excavating the Golden Boiling.

The polar permafrost created enormous difficulties, but in the end 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 carts, sledges, compasses, children's toys, weapons, tools... There were amulets like a carved winged horse. The northern city was revealing its secrets. In general, the value of Mangazeya for archeology turned out to be great: thanks to the permafrost, many finds that would otherwise crumble to dust are 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. The seals turned out to be no less interesting. A lot of them were found in the city, including the Amsterdam Trading House. The Dutch came to Arkhangelsk, maybe someone got beyond Yamal, or perhaps this is just evidence of the removal of some furs for export to Holland. Finds of this kind also include a half-taler from the mid-16th century.

One of the finds is filled with gloomy grandeur. Under the floor of the church, a whole family was buried. 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 caravan of grain.

Mangazeya only existed for a little over 70 years, and its population is incomparable with the famous cities of Old Rus' 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 it presented a real treasure to archaeologists and an impressive history to descendants.