Ancient Siberian ghost towns - before the arrival of Ermak

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-10 19:46

Even the official historiography has preserved information about the ancient settlements that existed in Siberia and Altai even before Yermak. But for some reason, these data are deprived of the attention of historians, archaeologists and other specialists. Everyone should consider that Siberia is not a historical land …

One of the founders of the notorious “Norman theory”, Gerard Miller, a German in the Russian service, was the first to assess Siberia as a “land of unhistorical”. In the "History of Siberia" and "Description of the Kuznetsk district of the Tobolsk province in Siberia in its present state, in September 1734" he only briefly mentions the cities that existed on this territory before the arrival of the Russian people. For example, he notes that in Malyshevskaya Sloboda (which for almost two centuries belonged to the Altai mining plants, now in the Novosibirsk Region), “at the mouth of the Nizhnyaya Suzunka River, 8 versts above the settlement, and near the village of Kulikova, 12 versts higher than the previous places on the Ob - you can still see traces of old cities that were built here by the former inhabitants of these places, probably the Kyrgyz. They consist of earthen ramparts and deep ditches with holes dug here and there, over which, it seems, stood houses."

Elsewhere, the first historian of Siberia clarifies that "immediately before the Russian conquest of these places … they were possessed by the Kyrgyz, the pagan Tatar nation … Here and there they still find traces of old cities and fortifications in which these peoples were located."

A similar approach, when the existence of ancient cities on the territory of Siberia is not denied, but is not of particular interest to researchers, has been preserved to this day. The overwhelming majority of Russian historians still share the assessment given by the “father of Siberian history” Gerard Miller as an unhistorical land, and in this regard, they stubbornly ignore the cities that stood here for hundreds, but what is there! - thousands of years before the appearance of Ermak. Archaeologists, with a few exceptions, almost did not unearth the remains of Russian forts, cities and settlements, although there is a lot of information about these signs of the highest civilization of the peoples who once lived here.

Siberian cities were counted back in pre-Ermak times. In 1552 Ivan the Terrible ordered to draw up the "Big Drawing" of the Russian land. Soon such a map was created, but during the Time of Troubles it disappeared, and the description of the lands was preserved. In 1627, in the Discharge Order, clerks Likhachev and Danilov completed the "Book of the Big Drawing", in which about a hundred cities are mentioned in the northwest of Siberia alone.

Yes, indeed, when the Cossacks came to Siberia at the beginning of the 17th century, they no longer found large cities. But small fortresses, called towns, met them in great numbers. So, according to the Ambassadorial Prikaz, in the Ob region alone, at the end of the 17th century, 94 cities were taxed with fur yasak.

On the foundation of the past

In 1940-1941 and 1945-1946, the staff of the Abakan Museum under the leadership of L. Evtyukhova excavated the ruins of a palace built around 98 BC, which existed for about a century and was left by people at the turn of the old and new era. The majestic structure is believed to have belonged to the Chinese general Li Ling. He was the governor of the western Xiongnu lands in the Minusinsk Basin. The palace, which received the name Tashebinsky in literature, was located in the center of a large city with an area of ten hectares. The building itself had 20 rooms, 45 meters in length and 35 in width. The building is also characterized by a tiled roof, the total weight of which was about five tons. Surprisingly, two thousand years ago, builders managed to create rafters that could withstand such a weight.

The news about Siberian cities in antiquity came from Arab travelers. So, at the turn of the VIII-IX centuries, the Arab Tamim ibn al-Muttawai, traveling from the city of Taraz on the Talas River to the capital city of the Uyghurs Ordu-byyk on the Orkhon River, reported about the capital of the Kimak king on the Irtysh. 40 days after his departure from Taraz, he arrived in a large fortified city of the king, surrounded by cultivated land with villages. The city has 12 huge iron gates, many inhabitants, cramped conditions, lively trade in numerous bazaars.

Al-Muttawai saw a destroyed city in the southwestern Altai, near Lake Zaisan, but could not establish from inquiries who and when it was built and by whom and when it was destroyed. The richest ore region discovered by Russian miners in the Altai Mountains at the beginning of the 18th century, which is now called the Ore Altai, was actually discovered many centuries before them. The miners only rediscovered it. Developments hastily abandoned by ancient people served as a sure search sign. Who they are is not known for certain until now, experts, along with publicists, call them chudyu.

Legends about the riches of the Altai Mountains were known even in Ancient Greece. The father of history, Herodotus, wrote about the Arimasps and "vultures guarding gold."

According to famous scientists Alexander Humboldt, Pyotr Chikhachev and Sergei Rudenko, Herodotus meant the population of Rudny Altai by arimasps and vultures (flu). In addition, Humboldt and Chikhachev believed that it was the Altai and Ural deposits of gold ores that were the main sources of gold supply to the European Scythians and Greek antique colonies.

In the Altai Mountains in the first millennium BC, there was a rich and vibrant culture, which was discovered by Sergei Rudenko in 1929-1947 during the excavations of the Pazyryk burial mounds. As he believes, civilization disappeared in a short time, possibly as a result of an epidemic, an enemy invasion or famine. However, when the Russians found themselves in the south of Siberia, they found that the aborigines, in this case the Shors, do an excellent job of metal processing. No wonder the first city, founded here in 1618, was erected on the site of their town and named Kuznetsk. This is evidenced by the formal reply filed in the Siberian order by the Kuznetsk governor Gvintovkin.

Tyumen, Tomsk, Omsk, Semipalatinsk, Barnaul and many other Siberian cities were also built where the settlements of ancient people were formerly located.

For example, it is reliably known that in the area of the Oktyabrskaya metro station in modern Novosibirsk there was a large fortress of the local tribe Tsattyrt (in Russian - Chaty). In it, on June 22, 1589, the 16-year-old war of the Moscow state with Khan Kuchum ended. Voevoda Voeikov gave him a fight on the site of the present Novosibirsk hydroelectric power station. Khan Kuchum hid for some time in the fortress from pursuit, but then decided to leave, forever parting with his Siberian Khanate. Its ruins survived until the arrival of the bridge builders. And in 1912 they were described by Nikolai Litvinov, the compiler of the very first reference book of Novonikolaevsk. By the way, Nikolai Pavlovich in 1924-1926 headed the Rubtsovsky district health department.

However, experts, as if spellbound, continuing to repeat about the "richest history of Siberia", are reluctant to look into the depths of the centuries. As if they are dealing with the legendary city of Kitezh, plunged into the lake …

Russian aborigines

In 1999, an ancient city was discovered, located in the Zdvinsky district of the Novosibirsk region (until 1917 it was the territory of Altai), on the shores of Lake Chicha. The age of the settlement turned out to be sensationally great - VIII-VII centuries BC, that is, in much earlier times than the appearance in Siberia of the first cities of the Hunnic era was dated. This confirmed the hypothesis that the Siberian civilization is much older than it seemed. Judging by the excavations carried out and the fragments of household utensils found, people of almost European appearance lived here. It is possible that Chichaburg was the intersection of the paths of various peoples, the center of Ancient Siberia.

The first mention of a trade campaign along the Ob River by Russian merchants was noted in 1139. Then the Novgorodian Andriy went to its mouth and brought from there a large load of furs.

It is interesting for us that he discovered a Russian settlement at the mouth of the Ob, in which there was a bargaining, at which, as it turned out, Russian merchants had long exchanged their goods for excellent Siberian furs. There is scant information, published, in particular, in the book by Leonid Kyzlasov "Ancient cities of Siberia" that Russian merchants in the XII - early XIII centuries traded with the cities of the Kyrgyz Kaganate. Surprisingly, the perfectly preserved mummies of a woman and a man, discovered in the mid-1990s on the Altai high plateau Ukok, did not belong to the Mongoloid, but to the Caucasian race. And the jewelry and fine items of the Scythian, or "animal" style, dug by the hillockers in the ancient mounds of Altai, also testify to the high culture of the ancient peoples who lived here, their close ties with the world, in particular, with Western Asia.

Not far from the borders of the Altai Territory and Kazakhstan, archaeologists have discovered large settlements of the Bronze Age, which they called, not quite well - proto-cities or settlements claiming the status of cities. These are unfenced formations occupying unusually large areas - from five to thirty hectares. For example, Kent occupies 30 hectares, Buguly I - eleven, Myrzhik - three hectares. The villages of Baishura, Akim-bek, Domalaktas, Naiza, Narbas, Kzyltas and others were located around the settlement of Kent within a radius of five kilometers.

Descriptions of both flourishing and destroyed ancient Siberian cities before Yermak can be found in authors such as Takhir Marvazi, Salam at-Tarjuman, Ibn Khordadbeh, Chan Chun, Marco Polo, Rashid ad-Din, Snorri Sturlusson, Abul-Gazi, Sigismund Herberstein, Milescu Spafari, Nikolay Witsen. The following names of the disappeared Siberian cities have come down to us: Inanch (Inandzh), Kary-Sairam, Karakorum (Sarkuni), Alafkhin (Alakchin), Kemidzhket, Khakan Khirkhir, Darand Khirkhir, Nashran Khirkhir, Ordubalyk, Kamkamchut, Apruchian, Chinhai,, Arsa, Sahadrug, Ika, Kikas, Kambalyk, Grustina, Serpenov (Serponov), Kanunon, Kossin, Terom and others.

newspaper "Altayskaya Pravda", 04.02.2011

Author: Anatoly Muravlev

A large number of previously not advertised Siberian cities are contained in the Remezov Chronicle, which was first publicly demonstrated by Nikolai Levashov.

The "Drawing Book of Siberia" by Semyon Remezov and his three sons can be safely called the first Russian geographical atlas. It consists of a preface and 23 large-format maps covering the entire territory of Siberia and differing in the abundance and detail of information. The book contains handwritten drawings of the lands: the City of Tobolsk and townships with streets, the Tobolsk city, the Tara city, the Tyumen city, the Turin prison, the Vekhotursky city, the Pelym city, and other cities and environs.

Illustrations from the "Drawing Book of Siberia" by Semyon Remezov: