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 what about regular safe travels I didn’t even have to think. 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. Northern city revealed his 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.

Mangazeya is the first city of the Russian Arctic, lost in the darkness of centuries

Among the forgotten and lost cities, Mangazeya occupies a special place, and not only because it is located in the Arctic. If the history of the creation and rapid rise of Mangazeya is quite clear and understandable, then a certain mystery is associated with its fall and oblivion, which historians and archaeologists are trying to unravel.

On the shore of desert waves

An ancient city on the river bank.

The banks of the Siberian Taz River cannot be called lively even today - settlements there is little on them, and nature amazes with its pristineness. And in the 16th century, when the Pomors appeared here, this area was completely perceived as the end of the world. In ancient books, the tribes living east of the Ob were called “Molgonzeans”: this word comes from the ancient Komi-Zyryan language and means “people of the outskirts”. Over time, the name of the tribes turned into the name of the area: on maps compiled by the Englishman A. Jenkins, it is designated as “Molgomzeya”. Later, in the form of “Mangazeya”, it became the name of the city.

Magnificent Mangazeya.

The Pomors were brought to these places by shipping matters: first they walked across the ocean to Yamal, and then, dragging their ships along the peninsula (this was called the “Yamal portage”), they went to the Gulf of Ob. It is believed that it was the Pomors who founded the first winter quarters on the Taz River. They also told the Moscow authorities about the unheard-of riches of the harsh Arctic.

Old map- try to figure it out.

And the wealth was indeed great: walrus tusks, mammoth tusks, and, most importantly, furs. One sable skin, bought from a hunter on the banks of the Taz, cost the merchant 40 kopecks; if a reseller got involved, you had to pay a ruble for such a skin. And in the markets of Western Europe you could get about three hundred rubles for a sable skin! It is not surprising that the state soon wanted to lay its powerful hand on these riches and take control of trade.

“Gold-boiling” Mangazeya

The detachment of M. Shakhovsky and D. Khripunov had to fight their way to their goal - the banks of the Taz River: Selkup warriors attacked them on the road. Almost a third of the detachment fell in battle, laying down in the cold soil of a foreign land. But there was no choice: they did not go to the Arctic of their own free will, but by order of Tsar Boris Godunov. Those who survived the battle reached and founded a fort in 1600 on the hitherto deserted shores. This is how Mangazeya appeared.

Mangazeya developed with extraordinary speed.

We spent the winter, and then help came from Tobolsk and Berezov - two hundred servicemen led by governors. It became clear: there will be a new city. Indeed, Mangazeya developed with extraordinary speed: in a couple of years a large wooden Kremlin grew up, churches and houses appeared. Although even in its heyday the permanent population of Mangazeya was not so large - no more than 1200 people, the city was striking in its amenities. Residents of Mangazeya sported silks and velvets, the streets were paved with boards, and the windows of the poorest house were made of mica - in the European part of Russia this was available only to the richest. But perhaps the most amazing evidence of the city's wealth is the piles of plum and cherry pits found by archaeologists: in the 17th century. Mangazeans could afford regular delivery of fresh fruit to the Arctic.

Mangazeya: who was there?

Even more than its wealth, Mangazeya surprised by the diversity of the street crowd. Rich foreign merchants in hats with feathers walked alongside the Selkups and Nenets in Malitsa, and the Moscow “aka” speech mixed with the Arkhangelsk dialect. Day and night there was a brisk trade in furs in the city, bringing huge profits. Historians estimate that up to 30 thousand sable skins alone were exported from Mangazeya to the west per year, and there were also arctic foxes, mustelids, and squirrel furs. For its wealth and vigorous activity, Mangazeya was nicknamed “Gold Boiling”.

The mystery of the disappearance of Mangazeya

Vanished splendor.

The commercial splendor that turned Mangazeya into a legendary city did not last long - about forty years. For some time, Mangazeya eked out a miserable existence as an outpost, but in 1672 the garrison was transferred to the Yenisei. And the city disappeared, went into the icy polar land. Only thanks to the efforts of archaeologists, who began regular excavations here in the 1960s, we know that Mangazeya is not a myth, but a real city. But what happened to him? Why did the population, judging by the results of the excavations, simply leave there?

Mangazeya.

Historians put forward at least three versions of the fall of Mangazeya. According to the first, the fateful role was played by the very state that founded the city: first, Tsar Mikhail Romanov in 1720 forbade sailing on the ocean to Mangazeya, and a little later, in 1729, two newly arrived governors, A. Palitsyn and G. Kokorev, they quarreled and started a riot in the city civil war in miniature. The city began to wither and gradually faded away. Another version blames the death of Mangazeya on the fire of 1642, which actually destroyed most of the city. And according to the third version, the gradual disappearance of fur-bearing animals due to too intense hunting was to blame: there is no goods - there is nothing to trade, nothing for the townspeople to live on.

Excavations of the Mangazeya settlement.

We don’t know what happened in reality, and it is unlikely that archaeological research will ever give an accurate answer. One thing is clear: Mangazeya is one of the world's first polar cities, and although it did not survive for long, its foundation became an important milestone in the development of the natural resources of Siberia.

It is worth saying that Russia is an amazing country rich in attractions. These are worth seeing, maybe.

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In the 16th-17th centuries, dozens of urban settlements appeared in Siberia. Created as strongholds for advancement 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 the 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, regular communication between Pomorie and the Taz River basin was established, where Mangazeya arose.

Around 1572, the first Pomeranian trading post appeared near the mouth of the Taz River. In 1600, a detachment of Cossacks led by Prince M. Shakhovsky and D. Khripunov was sent there with orders to build a city there. Due to the resistance of the Nenets tribes, the detachment was forced to stop 200 versts from Tazovskaya Bay. In March 1601, here, on the cape at the confluence of the Osetrovka (Mangazeika) River into the Taz, construction of the “sovereign fort” began, which was completed in the summer of the same year. And six years later, in 1607, in his place the governor D.V. Zherebtsov “hacked down the city of Mangazeya.”

The purpose of its foundation was to establish government control over the Mangazeya sea route leading to a fur-rich country, and to create a base for the further development of northern Siberia. The Mangazeya sea route, which connected the White Sea region with the Ob River, was a very busy trade route in those years.

Through it, hundreds of thousands of fur-bearing animal skins were exported to Arkhangelsk and Kholmogory, and bread, flour, salt and other goods were delivered from the White Sea region to Siberia. Large trade turnover attracted hundreds of merchants and industrialists here. “In the old days, Mangazeya was a gold mine, a kind of California, where residents of the northern provinces sought to obtain precious fur-bearing animals,” wrote the pre-revolutionary researcher of the history of Siberia M. Obolensky.

There were legends about the wealth of the city; the nickname “boiling gold” was firmly attached to Mangazeya. Only for the period 1630-1637. - the time was far from the best for Mangazeya - about half a million sable skins were exported from here. The city's trade connections went far beyond 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” the 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. The large influx of people forced the Mangazeya authorities to worry about 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 remained to live here, working in fisheries, procuring game and meat, on numerous farms, making fishing equipment, bone carving, tailoring or blacksmithing. .

Mangazeya made a significant contribution to the history of Russians geographical discoveries. Its very existence is associated with the origin and development of northern maritime shipping. From here detachments of industrial pioneers left to explore new lands in Taimyr, in the lower reaches of the Yenisei. People from Mangazeya discovered Yakutia and compiled the first map of the Lena River. The “boiling gold” city lasted only one century. In 1672, Mangazeya was abandoned by its inhabitants.

There were many reasons for this. First of all, the fate of the city was affected by the general change in the ways of colonization of Siberia. In addition, the local fur trade has become scarce, and the “sea route” from Pomerania has collapsed. All this made maintaining a large polar city economically unprofitable. At the same time, on the Taz River and on the Lower Tunguska, uprisings of the Samoyed tribes began to break out one after another. The rebels repeatedly approached the city walls. The 65 archers who made up the permanent garrison of Mangazeya were unable to cope with the rebels.

New military detachments sent from Tobolsk also failed to do this. Then it was decided to transfer the Streltsy garrison to the Turukhansk winter quarters and to build New Mangazeya there. Old Mangazeya ceased to exist, forever entering the history of the development of the vast spaces of Siberia. However, over the years, the appearance of the real Mangazeya became more and more blurred, 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 scientists faced. What, for example, was the character of this settlement? It was assumed that Mangazeya was a large fortified trading post that served as a concentration of fishing people going to fisheries, and one of the main tasks of the local authorities was to collect duties from traders and fishermen.

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, caravans of nomads arrived here by sea, and the city, deserted in normal times, came to life. An industrial settlement arose under the log walls of a small fort... The settlement lived a unique life: it existed for the arrival of trade and industrial people from Rus', and came to life in the fall...”

In his other work, S.V. Bakhrushin argued that “the Mangazeya city is a deserted fort, thrown deep into the “icy tundra”, almost under the Arctic Circle, among the warlike tribes of the “bloody Samoyeds” and other “non-peaceful foreigners”, cut off from Rus' and even from the rest of Siberia by the storms of the Mangazeya Sea "

Thus, Mangazeya was considered a large trading and fishing post, a small fort - 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 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 Mangazeika River (in ancient times - Osetrovka) flowing into the Taz.

Yu.I. was the first to reach Mangazeya in 1862. 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 deciduous boards hanging over the water,” he wrote. After him, V.O. visited here. Margrave. He also noted here the remains of an ancient city: “In the place where the “chapel” is listed, from the high bank, washed away by the river, the logs of the basement buildings of the city of Mangazeya that was once here are exposed. Residents occasionally find metal objects at the bottom of the shore.”

The first attempt to penetrate the secrets of Mangazeya was made in August 1914 by I.N. Shukhov, 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. On the bank there are logs of buildings sticking out, the lower frames of buildings stretching along the high collapsed bank to the stream. Only one building has survived - judging by the architecture, a tower... The place where Mangazeya was was hummocky, overgrown with weeds and bushes. The shore collapses and small objects remain, like arrows and knives. I found an arrowhead."

The first archaeologists to visit the ruins of Mangazeya were V.N. Chernetsov and V.I. Moshinskaya. In the fall of 1946, they reached the settlement with great difficulty. By that time, the excavation season was already coming to an end, and scientists limited themselves to only drawing up a field map and collecting excavated material - mainly ceramics and fragments of various objects. This did not stop V.N. Chernetsov was the first to publicly declare that “Mangazeya was not... just a military-trade outpost. It was a firmly settled place.”

But only systematic excavations could finally solve all the mysteries 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 under the leadership of M.I. Belov, 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 Mangazeya settlement and it was rapidly being destroyed.

This was evidenced by the remains of wooden structures sticking out from the cliff of the bank and numerous objects from the cultural layer that dotted the sandy edge. According to experts, by 1968, about 25-30% of the monument’s territory had already perished. The excavations of Mangazeya represent a unique case in many ways. This kind of large-scale archaeological research later medieval city have not yet been carried out anywhere else in the world. As in Old Ryazan, archaeologists here were not hampered by any late development, and the polar permafrost, although it made excavations difficult, nevertheless contributed to the good preservation of wooden structures and products, items made of leather and fabric.

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 an archaeological point of view, conditions for a detailed study of ancient Mangazeya. Archaeologists opened and explored about 15 thousand square meters. m of the Mangazeya settlement. The remains of ancient defensive structures and about forty buildings of various purposes - residential, economic, administrative, commercial and religious - were discovered and examined.

Excavations showed that Mangazeya had a typical division for ancient Russian cities into the city itself (the Kremlin) and the suburb. The city grew and developed especially intensively in 1607-1629. At this time, Mangazeya acquired those special features of a Siberian “uncultivated” city, which make it possible to put it on a par with such large cities of Siberia 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 craft itself and the trading one. Between private buildings, narrow streets and alleys paved with pine boards appeared. Particular attention was paid to the development and improvement of the central part of the trade side, where a large guest courtyard 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 of Zheltovodsky. To the east there are drinking establishments and a city commercial bathhouse. The construction of new houses in the Kremlin has expanded. This primarily affected the voivode's 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 voivode's courtyard with the old huts with hanging closed galleries. The voivode's mansions were also connected to the neighboring hut. Essentially, the entire residential area of ​​the settlement was built up, with the exception of the most remote northeastern parts. This was the time of the culmination of development.

In 1625, the total length of the perimeter walls of the Mangazeya Kremlin was about 280 m. There were four blind towers in the corners: Davydovskaya, Zubtsovskaya, Ratilovskaya and Uspenskaya. On the south side, between the Zubtsovskaya and Uspenskaya towers, there was the Spasskaya road tower, reaching a height of 12 m. The smallest was the Ratilovskaya tower - 8 m, and the most massive was the Davydovskaya tower, each side of which had a length of about 9 m. All towers were quadrangular .

The fortress wall reached its greatest height in the area between the Davydovskaya and Ratilovskaya towers - about 10 m; the remaining walls were 5-6 m high. A third of the Kremlin’s territory (800 sq. m) was occupied by the voivode’s court complex. Its excavations provided archaeologists with a huge number of household items of the 17th century - birch bark boxes, iron handles for buckets, candlesticks, axes, knives with ornamented handles, drills, chisels, chisels, locks of various sizes, drills, holes, door bolts, hinges, latches, wooden spoons, plates, bowls, ladles, tubs, rockers, scoops, rollers, cookie cutters, boxes, caskets.

Some of these items are artistically designed. For example, a gingerbread mold is carved in the shape 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. The frame contains significant fragments of mica. Several tongs were found, with the help of which carbon deposits were removed from candles and splinters. Even pieces of furniture were found - small benches for upper rooms and a massive wide chair.

The discovery of horse harness - bells, bells and saddles, as well as the presence of a rather thick layer of manure in the lower layers of the canopy indicates that the voivode's court had a number of horses and, probably, small livestock. Excellent pastures and hayfields were located directly outside the city, so keeping a small number of livestock did not present much difficulty. Main vehicle for communication with winter huts and travel over longer distances, sledges with reindeer teams were used.

Documents from the 17th century note that in winter it took three days to travel between Mangazeya and Turukhansk. During the excavations of the voivodeship's courtyard, the archaeologist found large fragments of the sledges themselves, pulls from the harness, and bone overlays for the harness, often with ornaments. In general, the bone-carving craft, apparently, was widely developed in Mangazeya. Even the courtyard people who lived on the voivodeship estate were engaged in making bone crafts from mammoth bone.

Archaeologists found unfinished parts - pieces of mammoth tusks sawed off for work, crafts made from bull and cow horns, bear fangs, plates from deer antlers sawn in half to fight off snow that stuck to boots. The making of women's beads was in use. Bone scrapers and other tools for making leather from animal skins, and 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 crosses and women's jewelry. Findings of fragments of musical instruments confirm evidence from 17th century documents that young people in the families of governors learned to play the musical instruments and singing. The discovery of book clasps and leather bindings with beautiful embossed designs indicates that the governors had home libraries. On one of the bindings there is a gold-plated image of a woman with a lute, and next to her is a deer.

In addition to books and music, the inhabitants of the voivode's court probably liked to while away their time playing various board games. Archaeologists have discovered several wooden chess pieces and two well-made chessboards. On the reverse side of one of them, the signs of the zodiac and stars are carved. Details of some not entirely clear game were found - small bone plates, each of which has a certain number of circles - from 6 to 3. Perhaps these are dominoes.

To the east of the voivode's courtyard, in the very center of the fortress, stood the cathedral Trinity Church, built from cedar. The exact time of its foundation 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 a new one was built in the early 50s of the 17th century (and according to dendrochronological analysis of the found remains of the church - in 1654-1655). The new temple was erected strictly according to the plan of the old one. The base of the building occupied 550 square meters. m.

Excavation data and the image of Mangazeya on the map of Isaac Massa (1609) allowed specialists to reconstruct the architecture of the Trinity Church. When clearing the building in the area of ​​the altar, several burials were discovered. Two burials contained the remains of infants, and the third contained a 12-year-old girl. In the southeast corner of the church, archaeologists found three more graves: a 27-year-old woman and two men, 35 and 36 years old. The fact of burial in the cathedral church indicated that the people were of noble origin. Who are these people?

Researchers connect 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 grain to Mangazeya, cut off from the mainland, he lost 70 people from his detachment and, already one passage from the city, died himself.

Together with Teryaev, his wife, two daughters and niece were traveling 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 settlement buildings with the churches of Macarius of Zheltovodsk and the Assumption of the Mother of God, the chapel of Vasily of Mangazeya, and the large Gostiny Dvor complex with a customs hut. The dozens of barns that were part of it occupied about a third of the entire commercial part of the city. The two- and three-story buildings of Gostiny Dvor with a clock and observation tower rose high above the roofs of residential huts. The most important buildings of the settlement included a two-story house of the customs head, a hut, a drinking house and grain yards, and a commercial tax bathhouse.

The main streets were paved with wooden blocks. A staircase led from the pier to Gostiny Dvor. Behind it was the main part of the settlement with craft workshops. Mangazeya was a large craft center, in which almost all craft specialties characteristic of big city- shoemakers, bone cutters, foundry workers. In total, according to experts, up to 700-800 people could permanently live in Mangazeya Posad.

In addition, during the peak 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 voivodeship unrest, it was destroyed, and in 1644, the residents of Mangazeya sent a petition to Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich to build 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 excavations at Mangazeya and was crowned with complete success. The materials collected here opened many important pages in the life and everyday life of the polar commercial and industrial city.

During the excavations, a huge number of wooden cases for seals for numerous charters were discovered. Seals were issued in the official hut, and only the governor had the right to issue them on behalf of the tsar. Each industrialist and merchant who paid the duty at customs 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 intended for securing the case with twine. This string ran down the center of the seal and came out of holes along the edges of the cylinder.

The number of such cases found in Mangazeya amounts to thousands, which indicates a large number of commercial and industrial people coming to the city and the scope of city trade. Even a whole wooden case was found with a wax seal with laces preserved inside. The fact that the main road to the “boiling” Mangazeya was the Mangazeya sea passage is recalled by two bone compasses found by archaeologists at the site and a metal dial of a third, as well as three leather cases for compasses. The outer sides of the cases are decorated with an embossed pattern: on one there are spreading branches on which four small birds are sitting, on the second there is an imprinted design in the form of two crossed rulers ending in four crescents, and in the center and along the four fields there are flowers.

The third case shows quadrangles. The discovery of a lead seal with the inscription “Amsterdam ander Halest”, which most likely came here with Arkhangelsk or Kholmogory merchants, testifies to the connections of Mangazeya with European trading houses. Foreign goods include a gold ring with an aquamarine, a gold coin - a half-taler from 1558, and a gilded caftan button.

Among the imported Russian goods are carved caskets with beautiful designs. Among them there are caskets with the inscriptions: “Khariton”, “Kirill Timokhov Progolokishchev”, “Ondrei Trofimov”. Connections with the local market are evidenced by beads discovered at the Mangazeya Gostiny Dvor, blanks for Nenets chums, embossed birch bark for decorating wooden products (some pieces of birch bark have inscriptions), details of traps for fur-bearing animals, devices for drying leather, needles for weaving nets, wicker bags, tues, leather patches, children's toys, wooden floats and birch bark weights, skis, parts of sledges 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 (mainly copper and bronze) objects were found in large quantities - bronze arrowheads, bronze pins, tweezers, women's earrings, links of twisted copper wire, bronze pendants, bronze and lead buttons.

In excavations at the settlement, stone forms of figured casting were discovered, and in the cultural layers of Gostiny Dvor - the castings themselves. The materials from 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, date almost all of its buildings using the dendrochronological method, and determine the general layout of the city and the nature of the 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. Today, Mangazeya is the first and only excavated city dating back to the era of the development of the gigantic spaces 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 the study of the Siberian city of the 16th-17th centuries. On some issues, this source is today the only and fairly reliable one, which is facilitated by the accurate dating of almost all buildings in the city.

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. Many were attracted by the riches of the new land, and primarily by furs.

A number of cities founded during this advance still stand today - Tyumen, Krasnoyarsk, Tobolsk, Yakutsk. Once they were the advanced forts of servicemen and industrial people, who went further and further behind the “fur Eldorado”. However, many settlements suffered the fate of the mining towns of the American Gold Rush: having received fifteen minutes of fame, they fell into desolation when the resources of the surrounding areas 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 was first in line for colonization.

Tyumen / Nicolaas Witsen

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.

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 beat them up badly, and the remnants of the detachment retreated on the selected deer.

Nevertheless, apparently, some part of the injured detachment still reached Tazovskaya Bay, and a fortification grew up on the shore - Mangazeya. Soon a city was built next to the fort. 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 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 take advantage of the industrial people - from tailors to bone carvers. In the city one could meet both merchants from central Russia and fugitive peasants. In the city, of course, there was a moving hut (office), customs, a prison, warehouses, trading shops, and a fortress with several towers. Interestingly, this entire space was built according to 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. The sea route became more active: despite all the risk, the delivery of goods that were urgently needed locally (from lead to bread), and the return transportation of mammoth bones and “soft junk” - sables and arctic foxes, became more accessible. Mangazeya received the nickname “gold-boiling”. There was no gold there as such, 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 in the city were literate, which is not surprising for a trading post. Archaeologists have often found objects with the names of their owners carved on them. Mangazeya was not at all just a transit point: women and children lived in the city, the inhabitants had 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.

Alas, having taken 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.

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. There is chaos inside the city, administrative difficulties, scarcity of land. 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 began to fade, but still lived due to the inertia of the fur boom.

Turukhansk (New Mangazeya) / Nikolaas Witsen

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, an official decree of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was issued on the abolition of the city. The Streletsky 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.

A traveler in the mid-19th century once noticed 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. 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 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. Figures-amulets were found that looked 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. There was also a foundry with a master's house, and in it 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. The burial of an entire family was discovered under the floor of the church. 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.

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 presented a real treasure to archaeologists and an impressive history to descendants.

Materials used from an article by Evgeniy Norin

By Siberian standards, Taz is not very large river. In addition, in comparison with the Ob, its banks today look almost pristinely deserted: for more than 300 km, separating the mouth of the Taz River, where the villages of Tazovsky (regional center), Gazsale and Tibeysale are located, to another regional center - the village of Krasnoselkup, there are no settlements you will meet. But there is a tract on this section of the waterway that is a source of special pride for the local population: when sailing past it, ship crews salute with a long 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 Takharavyhard - “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 Samoyed tribes. A little later the name “Gold-boiling Mangazeya” appeared - because of the riches of this region, primarily furs. Later the city began to be called that. A successful voyage 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 fishing camp appeared on the Taz River, near the confluence of the small Osetrovka River. They came here for sea ​​vessels- Kochakh from the west, from Onega, Dvina, Pinega, Mezen for sable and marten skins, walrus tusk, mammoth tusks.

The rich region could not remain outside the sphere of state interests for long. Already in 1600, princes Miron Shakhovskaya 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 nomads were defeated in a storm on Tazovskaya Bay, the detachment was attacked by warlike Nenets, who threw the Tobolsk people back to the Ob. The next year, 1601, a new detachment of Vasily Mosalsky and Savluk Pushkin nevertheless ascended the Taz River, and at the beginning of the forest zone, on the site of a fishing winter hut, they set up the Mangazeya fort.

The prison stood on a high hill. There was a voivode's courtyard, a hut (in which business was conducted) and a prison. Soon a settlement began to form around it - 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 along the route known as the “Mangazeya sea route”. They walked along the polar coast, crossing Yamal along a portage between the Mutnaya and Zelenaya rivers (now Mordyyakha and Seyakha) so as not to bypass its northern tip, usually covered with ice. Food, metal objects, and exchange material for the local population (knives, mirrors and beads) were brought to Mangazeya. The Kochis went back the next year, after wintering, loaded with furs. Since furs weighed much less, it was not uncommon for one of the three nomads who came to be sold in Mangazeya - many of the city’s buildings were made of nomadic boards and logs.

Already by 1610 the fort was replaced by a wooden Kremlin with four corner towers and one roadway. Wise builders separated it from the suburb with a 40-50 meter field free of buildings, which subsequently saved the suburb from a fire in the Kremlin, and the Kremlin from fires in the suburb. Unlike other similar settlements in Siberia, the Mangazeya settlement was not fenced with a tynom - the local residents 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, concerned about the uncontrolled voyages of the British and Dutch in the White and Barents Seas, as well as their trade with the Pomors, banned sailing along the polar coast on pain of death. A detachment of archers was stationed at the Yamal portage, cutting off the heads of everyone who tried to reach Mangazeya this way. The ban on sea navigation changed the conditions of existence of the city. It was necessary 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 “uncultivated” city again began to be supplied in the same way as Tobolsk itself was supplied: surprised archaeologists find pits forgotten with 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 those wintering between campaigns with “ big land" and back. Dozens of nomads from different cities stood along the bank 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 ineffectiveness, chickens, cows, and horses were bred in polar conditions. The streets of the posad were paved with boards, which was undoubtedly a rarity for polar Russian settlements at that time. In their free time, the Mangazeans 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 bathhouses, or 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 official hut. This pit was found during excavations, resulting in the largest collection of medieval chess pieces.

In the history of Mangazeya there was only one case when its fortress weapons truly 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, the next two governors arrived in the city - Andrei Palitsyn and Grigory Kokorev. They were connected by old differences, which during their stay in Mangazeya resulted in open hostility. Kokorev and his supporters occupied the Kremlin, Palitsyn took the posad. The three-year struggle of the governors with the use of cannons and arquebuses led to the fact that a significant part of the settlement (the guest courtyard, merchant barns, etc.) was destroyed. Alarmed by numerous complaints and denunciations, the tsar sent the Tobolsk clerk to study the situation on the spot, and recalled Palitsyn and Kokorev to Moscow. They did not suffer any punishment, but after this incident only one governor was appointed to Mangazeya.

After the departure of the grumpy governors, the city took a long time to heal its wounds, 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 sea route ban played a role here, but it was not decisive. It has been suggested that the number of fur-bearing animals in the Pura 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 this was also influenced by the aggravation of relations with local tribes. One way or another, in 1672 the Streltsy garrison was transferred to the Yenisei, where Novaya Mangazeya (the area of ​​the present city of Turukhansk) was founded. Residents of the village followed the archers. The Taz River is empty.

In the polar climate, the city's buildings took a very long time to collapse. For some time after Mangazeya was abandoned, there was a tribute winter hut in this place, then a fishing camp. At the beginning of the 20th century, the remains of walls and one tower could be seen at the site. Now in place of Mangazeya there is a clearing covered with sparse 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 unrotten logs of the lower crowns of the log houses. 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 the slender spruce trees on a high cliff. Imagine in their place the towers and walls of the Kremlin, and to the right - where the bank goes down to the mouth of the Mangazeika (as Osetrovka is now called) - the posad buildings with the high tower of the Gostiny Dvor, decorated with a clock.

Mangazeya lived a short life for the city - only 71 years. But its importance for the development of the vast expanses of northern Siberia cannot be overestimated. The world's largest gas fields - Urengoyskoye, Medvezhye, Zapolyarnoye, Russkoye - are located in Russia. And much of the credit for this 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.

Traces of excavations.

We have never seen more delicious red currants during the entire expedition.

The detail of the kocha recovered by archaeologists is the stem or sternpost. Length about 2 m, weight more than 100 kg.

The side boards in the piles were sewn on with spruce roots.

This is how the Mangazeya governors saw Taz.

The shore under the fort. You can sometimes find coins and other items here.

Coastal erosion is destroying Mangazeya. The Kremlin wall facing the river, along with two towers, has already collapsed into the river. All along the shore there are logs and boards sticking out from the cliffs.

Archaeological camp. This group has been working in Mangazeya for the seventh year.

A cross on the site of the main temple of Mangazeya - the Trinity Church.

General view of the fort.

Kremlin logs.

Sometimes you can find cuttings along which buildings were built.

This field separated the Kremlin from the Posad.

The building is destroyed, but under a layer of grass you can still see the unrotten logs of the lower crowns.

Sunset over the island.

View of the Mangazeya settlement from the river.

Kremlin. Free reconstruction)