At the very end of the 19th century, in the north of Western Siberia, on the Taz River, a settlement was found, the remains of an ancient settlement. Archaeologists have determined that there was a Russian city here in the 17th century. It was located beyond the Arctic Circle, in the permafrost zone, at 67 degrees north latitude.
Around 1572, the first trading post founded by the Pomors appeared near the mouth of the Taz River. In 1600, a detachment of Cossacks was sent there, headed by the voivode Prince M. Shakhovsky and the written head D. Khripunov, with instructions to build a city there. Due to the resistance of local tribes, the detachment was forced to stop 200 miles below the Taz Bay. In March 1601, here, on a cape formed by the confluence of the Osetrovka (Mangazeyka) river into the Taz river, the construction of the "sovereign prison" began. And six years later in its place the city was “felled” by the voivode D. Zherebtsov.
By 1625, the total length of the "city walls" was about 280 meters, and the area of the city was about 4 thousand square meters. meters. The fortress had five towers, and the pass, Spasskaya, was twelve meters high. During the excavations it turned out that Mangazeya consisted of a fortress and a settlement. Inside the fortress there was a voivodship court, a hut, a cathedral fortress and a prison. The posad outside the fortress walls was divided into a trade and handicraft section. In the trading half there were a guest house, a customs house, merchants' houses, three churches and a chapel. The craft sector housed foundries, forges and other establishments, as well as from 80 to 100 residential buildings.
On the fortress square there was another tower with a chime clock: a rare phenomenon in Siberian cities. In the city there were even two-story houses on high basements, decorated with carvings and paintings. Today, the remains of the Mangazeisky settlement are located one and a half kilometers from the village of Sidorovsky, Krasnoselsky District, Tyumen Region.
The Mangazeyans exchanged furs from local tribes, they themselves hunted sable, were engaged in fishing, and crafts. Many merchants came to this conveniently located city. They brought grain and various goods, including foreign ones, and exported furs.
Through Mangazeya, a stream of precious furs poured into the royal treasury, and the city began to be called "the golden-boiling sovereign's fiefdom." A lot of commercial and industrial people came here, filled the streets of the city. In the Gostiny Dvor the clerks were pacing importantly. The drunken men from the evening until the morning roosters walked in taverns and drinking houses.
One of the important advantages of Mangazeya was that it was possible to get to those distant lands by water. A special Mangazeya sea passage was formed - from the mouth of the Northern Dvina through the Yugorsky Shar Strait to the Yamal Peninsula, along the Yamal along the Mutnaya and Zelenaya rivers to the Ob Bay, and from there along the Taz River. It was also possible to reach the Turukhan River, a tributary of the Yenisei, by drag.
Mangazeya was a transshipment base for those who went to the northernmost peninsula of Asia - Taimyr, to the "great and glorious" Lena River. In terms of the role that this city played in the development of Siberia and in the development of Arctic shipping, it cannot be compared with any Siberian city of the 17th century.
Promotional video:
Mangazeya served as a starting point for fishing and yasak expeditions to the Yenisei and further to the Lower and Podkamennaya Tunguska. The Mangazeya governors contributed to the construction of the Yakutsk prison, which in turn became a strong point in the process of annexing the lands of the entire north-east of Asia to Moscow.
In 1619, by the decree of the young Tsar Mikhail Romanov, it was forbidden to sail along the Mangazeya sea route. The motives behind this ban, which hit Mangazeya's economic position hard, are not entirely clear. It was officially announced that this measure would prevent foreigners from entering the wealth of Western Siberia.
It seems, however, that the main reason for the ban was different. A local voivode wrote to Moscow: "They come to Mangazeya, running from Mezen and Pustoozero, and with them all sorts of people from state taxes, and others from theft and from their brothers from all debts." The authorities tried to stop the flight of the peasants "meet the sun" to Siberia. The oppression of the landlords intensified, state taxes grew. And the Mangazeya course allowed many "eager people" to get out of Central Russia, to start a new life in the Siberian expanses.
There was another way to the east, through the Ural Mountains. But it was very hard. And in many places there were streltsy outposts, where they caught fugitives and robbed merchants. Mangazeya, however, flourished for another ten years, although the sable, the main source of the city's wealth, had already been removed in this region.
In the spring of 1628, Moscow appointed new governors to Mangazeya: the eldest - Grigory Kokorev, and the younger - Andrei Palitsyn. From the very first days, hostility arose between them. The enmity went so far that Palitsyn refused to live in the fortress, in the provincial courtyard and moved to the posad, where he ordered to build new housing for himself. The governors wrote denunciations to Moscow, accused each other of treason. Kokorev forced the archers to take a new oath and sat down in the fortress. The Posadskys, under the leadership of Palitsyn, surrounded the fortress and held it under siege for several months. Scurvy began among the besieged, people were dying of hunger. But the posad got it. Almost daily it was fired at from the fortress cannons, half of the city was destroyed.
Finally, Moscow decided to change the governor. However, the economic life of the city suffered greatly. Merchants and artisans began to leave Mangazeya. In addition, in the sultry summer of 1642, a terrible fire broke out in the city. The provincial courtyard, the sovereign's barn, where furs were kept, when moving out of the hut, part of the fortress wall, were completely burned down. After the fire, Mangazeya could not rebuild for a long time.
In 1670, the voivode Danila Naumov achieved the transfer of the voivode administration from Mangazeya to the Turukhanskoe winter hut. It was located 28 miles from the Yenisei. This settlement will play an important role in the development of the north of this great river. It was from here that a new stage in the advancement of trading and eager people began further to the north-east. In July 1672, the city of New Mangazeya was solemnly founded here.
The depletion of fur trades, the prohibition of the sea route to Mangazeya, the reluctance of the Tobolsk and Yenisei authorities to supply the townspeople with bread led to the fact that the Russian population left old Mangazeya. The city gradually collapsed. The Nenets began to call it Tagarevs-Harad, which meant “the broken city”. And the place where he once stood was gradually forgotten.
The first archaeologists who visited the ruins of old Mangazeya were V. N. Chernetsov and V. I. Moshinskaya. In the fall of 1946, they made it to the settlement with great difficulty. By that time, the excavation season was coming to an end, and scientists limited themselves to drawing up a field map and collecting ceramics and various fragments.
Museum of Taimyr. Model of the city of Mangazeya
Planned excavations began only twenty-odd years later and lasted four field seasons. The excavations were conducted by an archaeological expedition led by M. I. Belova. These works were unique in many ways. Large-scale archaeological research of the medieval city, and even in the permafrost, has not yet been carried out anywhere in the world. Archaeologists have opened and investigated about 15 thousand square meters. meters of the settlement. Foundations of ancient defensive structures and about forty buildings for various purposes were discovered.
Very few documents have been preserved in the archives about Mangazeya. And only the archeologist's shovel allowed to some extent restore the history of this amazing polar city.