Chukotka

OVERVIEW

GEOGRAPHY

HISTORY

The first inhabitants were Paleo-Siberian hunters who came to Chukotka from Central and East Asia. The area was then part of the Beringia land bridge that is believed to have enabled human migration to the Americas. Traditionally Chukotka was the home of the native Chukchi people, Siberian Yupiks, Koryaks, Chuvans, Evens/Lamuts, Yukaghirs and Russian Old Settlers. After the Russians conquered the Kazan and Astrakhan Khanates in the 16th century, the trade routes to the Urals, Siberia, and Central Asia opened for travel and traders and Cossacks moved eastwards. The Cossacks built forts in strategic locations and subjected the indigenous people to the Tsar.

During the first half of the 17th century, Russians reached the far north-east. In 1641, the first reference to Chukchi people was made by the Cossacks. In 1649, Russian explorer Semyon Dezhnyov explored the far north-eastern coast and established winter quarters on the upstream portion of the Anadyr River that became the fortified settlement of Anadyrsk. Dezhnyov tried to subjugate the Chukchi and exact tribute during the next ten years, but was mostly unsuccessful. Eventually the fort was abandoned because of the harsh northern conditions and lack of game animals for food.

At the end of the 17th century, the fort regained some importance when the sea route from Anadyrsk to Kamchatka was discovered. It was used as the staging base for expeditions to Kamchatka and all other forts and settlements were made subject to Anadyrsk. When the wealth of Kamchatka's natural resources was discovered, the Russian government started to give the far north-eastern region more serious attention. In 1725, Tsar Peter the Great ordered Vitus Bering to explore Kamchatka and Afanasy Shestakov to lead a military expedition to subjugate the Chukchi. This expedition failed when the fleet suffered shipwreck and the survivors, including Shestakov, were killed by the Chukchi.

In 1731, Dimitry Pavlutsky tried again, aided by Cossacks, Yukaghirs and Koryaks (indigenous Siberian tribes that were subjugated earlier). Pavlutsky sailed up the Anadyr River and destroyed the Chukchi garrison on the Arctic Ocean. His ruthless methods had some limited success in forcing tribute from some Chukchi. But in 1747 the Chukchi defeated the Russian regiment and killed Pavlutsky.

Realizing that the Chukchi could not easily be subjugated by military means, the Russians changed tactics and offered the Chukchi citizenship in the Russian Emprire. A peace treaty was concluded in 1778 in which the Chukchi were exempted from paying "yaksak" or fur tribute.

That same year, British Captain James Cook made an exploration of Cape North (now Cape Schmidt) and Providence Bay. Anxious that European powers would occupy the area, Tsar Catherine II ordered a mapping of the area. Starting in 1785, an expedition led by Joseph Billings and Gavril Sarychev mapped the Chukchi Peninsula, the west coast of Alaska, and the Aleutian Islands. Then from 1821 to 1825, Ferdinanc von Wrangel and Fyodor Matyushkin led expeditions along the coast of the East Siberian Sea and explored the Kolyma, Great Anyuy and Little Anyuy Rivers.

Chukotka remained mostly outside the control of the Russian Empire and consequently other foreign powers (American, British, Norwegian) and began to hunt and trade in the area from about 1820 onwards. After the sale of Alaska to the United States, American whalers and traders especially extended their activities into Chukotka and foreign influence reached its peak. By 1880, the Russians reacted by setting up coastal patrols to stop American ships and confiscate their property. Then in 1888, the administrative region of Anadyr was created. Yet Russian control diminished again and around 1900 a large stream of foreigners entered Chukotka, lured to the region by the Yukon Gold Rush in 1898.

In 1909, in order to keep the region within Russian control, two districts were created within the Anadyr Region: the districts of Anadyr and Chukotka. The Russian government granted concessions to foreign companies such as the Hudson's Bay Company and the US Northeast Siberia Company, which was granted gold, iron, and graphite mining rights between 1902 and 1912.

Wrangel Island in particular was subject to claims by the United States and Canada. In 1916 the Russians officially claimed the uninhabited island. But in 1921, Canadian Vilhjalmur Stefansson made a serious attempt to claim it for Canada by populating it and building a small settlement. Another contingent arrived in 1923 but a year later, the Soviets permanently conquered the island, removing the remaining inhabitants, and thereby ending all foreign influence.

From 1919 onwards, the region was subject to collectivization and resettlement of the indigenous people. When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, everything was done to start tin production as quickly as possible in Chukotka. Mining rapidly developed, and this industry would become its economic base. Also during the war, geologists discovered large reserves of gold that would be mined in the 1950s. In 1977, Chukotka became administratively subordinated to Magadan Oblast.

In 1991, Chukotka declared its separation to become a subject of the Russian Federation in its own right, a move that was confirmed by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation in 1993. From 2001 to 2008, Roman Abramovich was the Governor of Chukotka. He invested billions of roubles, including his own money, into the Chukotka economy by developing its infrastructure, schools, and housing. This helped to double the GDP of the region and to more than triple the income of its residents.

FAUNA & FLORA

FURTHER READING

Niven, Jennifer: The Ice Master - the doomed 1913 voyage of the Karluk.  Macmillian Books 2000.

Gray, Patty A: The Predicament of Chukotka's Indigenous Movement: Post-Soviet Activism in the Russian Far North
Cambridge University Press, 2005 - Political Science - 276 pages

Kasten, Erich: People and the Land: Pathways to Reform in Post-Soviet Siberia
Reimer, 2002 - Social Science - 257 pages

Ziker, John Peter: Peoples of the Tundra: Northern Siberians in the Post-Communist Transition
Waveland PressInc, 2002 - Social Science - 197 pages

Experience this destination by expedition cruising with Heritage Expeditions on the following departures: