Mangazeya was the first Russian polar city built in the north of Western Siberia. This city was called “the golden-boiling patrimony”, they strove here for the difficult Russian northern happiness, which was built on labor and mutual assistance.
Tireless labors
The great advance of the Russian people to Siberia is shrouded in secrets and legends. The assimilation of Siberia is a feat of the Russian people, before which the enterprises of "various Kortets and Pizars" in America pale in color. One of these secrets is associated with the legendary Mangazeya, a fabulous city where enterprising Pomors lived, brave sailors and explorers, who discovered the northernmost peninsula of Eurasia - Taimyr Peninsula to the world.
At the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries. Siberia was actively assimilated by "the tireless labors of our people." And, as M. V. rightly noted. Lomonosov, "Pomor residents from the Dvina and from other places near the White Sea, the main thing is to take part."
In the course of the movement of the Pomors "meeting the sun" (to the east), permanent settlements appeared on the territory of Siberia - wooden "fortresses", winter huts and forts. one of the first such urban settlements was Mangazeya, built in the lower reaches of the Taza River. She became the first polar sea and river port in Siberia. And the Mangazeya sea passage led into it. This was the name of the first Arctic mainline connecting the White and Barents Seas with the Kara Sea in those distant times.
Why Mangazeya?
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The fabulous name, so unusual for Russian cities, keeps its secret. There is a version according to which the name "Mangazeya" came from the name of the Malgonzei Nenets tribe who lived in those parts. According to the historian Nikitin, the name of Molgonzei goes back to the Komi-Zyryan Molgon - "extreme" "final" - and means "outlying people". We do not know the exact date of the foundation of the city; it is roughly known that it existed already at the beginning of the 17th century.
In winter, large masses of commercial and industrial people came to Mangazeya on sledges, and in summer on koches, carabases and plows through the polar seas, swamps and small tributaries. People called Mangazeya "the golden-boiling sovereign's fiefdom", referring to its fur riches. For their sake, brave traders and hunters strove here, they were ready to endure hardships, if only then to get rich.
Saints of the Russian North
What was this "ornate" city like? It had a wooden fortress-kremlin, a fortress wall, a posad, a cemetery, three churches, a guest courtyard, and the sovereign's granaries. Mangazeya did not differ from other chopped medieval towns of the Pomor North. The Pomors also brought the memory of the saints of the Russian North to this circumpolar region: Procopius of Ustyug, the Solovetsky miracle workers, Metropolitan Philip. One of the churches was erected in honor of Mikhail Malein and Makariy Zheltovodsky, revered in the North. Nicholas the Wonderworker, revered throughout Pomorie, had his own side-altar in the Cathedral Trinity Church. There was also his saint - Vasily of Mangazey, who was considered the patron saint of industrial people.
Churches and other buildings stood on permafrost, so the foundations of the buildings were anchored on a layer of frozen building chips.
World
The Mangazeyan community ("mir") differed from the zemstvo worlds in the homeland of the Pomors in that it united not a territory, not a volost and not an uyezd with a permanent population, but those commercial and industrial people who found themselves in the "golden boiling patrimony". Whoever got into Mangazeya became his own. The harsh life rallied people.
Information about Mangazeya is very fragmentary, and more shrouded in mystery. The chronicle of Mangazeya also existed, but disappeared. The rich city appeared as quickly as it disappeared. Its existence lasted no more than seventy years. The reasons why people left here for Novaya Mangazeya - Turukhansk are not fully understood. It disappeared like a fabulous city of Kitezh, but remained in the people's memory as a land of fabulous wealth, where dreams come true.