Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (Yugra), Russia

Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - Yugra (KhMAO - Yugra) (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - Yugra) is a subject of the Russian Federation. Geographically it is part of the Tyumen region. Yugra is the main oil and gas bearing region of Russia and one of the largest oil producing regions in the world.

The Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug ranks 3rd in the “rating of the socio-economic status of Russian regions”, as well as 2nd in terms of economic size in Russia (second only to Moscow).

Area - 534,801 km² (9th place in Russia), population - 1,730,353 inhabitants (the largest figure among the autonomous okrugs of Russia).

The administrative center is the city of Khanty-Mansiysk, the largest city is Surgut.

It borders with the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the south of the Tyumen region, the Tomsk, Sverdlovsk regions and the Komi Republic.

The katoikonym of the territory is Ugra, Ugra, Ugra.

 

Cities

Khanty-Mansiysk is the administrative capital of the district
Beryozovo - the former town of Berezovo, known as the place of exile of Menshikov
Surgut is the largest city in the district, a city of oil workers, one of the few cities in the district founded before the revolution
Urai - the first oil of Western Siberia was found in this city
Nizhnevartovsk
Kogalym
Pyt-Yakh - Founded in 1970 (represented 3 villages near the Mamontovskoye field) in 1990 it was recognized as a city of district subordination

 

Etymology

The name of the district is associated with the self-name of two main groups of northern peoples - Khanty and Mansi (in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug there are less numerous groups of other peoples of the Far North and Middle Ob region).

In the Middle Ages, the word “Ugra” was used to describe the peoples and lands beyond the Northern Urals. This word was included in the name of the Autonomous Okrug in 2003.

 

Physiographic characteristics

Geographical position

The Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Ugra occupies the central part of the West Siberian Plain, stretching from west to east for almost 1,400 km - from the Ural Range to the Ob-Yenisei watershed. In the north, the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug borders on the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, in the east - on the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in the southeast - on the Tomsk Region, in the south - on the part of the Tyumen Region that is not part of the autonomous okrugs, in the southwest - with the Sverdlovsk region, in the west - with the Komi Republic. From north to south, the district extends approximately 800 km, lying between 58º30′ and 65º30′ northern latitude. The length of the district's borders is 4,750 km.

 

Timezone

The district is located in the MSC+2 time zone. The applied time offset relative to UTC is +5:00.

 

Relief

The territory of the Autonomous Okrug is a vast, weakly dissected plain with absolute elevations rarely reaching 200 m above sea level. In the western part, the territory of the district includes spurs and ridges of the mountain system of the Northern and Subpolar Urals. This area is characterized by low- and mid-mountain relief (in the Subpolar Urals - with alpine features). The length of the mountainous region is 450 km with a width of 30-40 km. Within the mountain system of the Subpolar Urals on the border with the Komi Republic there are maximum absolute heights on the territory of Ugra - up to 1895 m (Mount Narodnaya).

 

Hydrography

The main rivers are the Ob and its left tributary the Irtysh. Significant rivers of the district are the tributaries of the Ob (right: Vakh, Agan, Tromyogan, Lyamin, Pim, Nazim, Kazym, and left: Bolshoi Yugan, Bolshoy Salym, Northern Sosva), as well as tributaries of the Irtysh - the Konda and Sogom rivers.

The largest lakes of Ugra are Kondinsky Sor, Tormemtor, Leushinsky Tuman, Piltanlor, Tursuntsky Tuman, Itshchitokh, Syrkovaya and others.

 

Climate

The climate of the district is continental, characterized by rapid changes in weather conditions, especially during transition periods - from autumn to winter and from spring to summer. The formation of climate is significantly influenced by the protection of the territory from the west by the Ural Range and the openness of the territory from the north, which facilitates the penetration of cold Arctic masses. Winter is cold and long, with stable snow cover; Summers are relatively warm and quite short.

The average January temperature in the district ranges from −18 to −24 °C. The lowest air temperatures (down to −62 °C) were recorded on December 20-21, 2016 at the Bolshoye Olkhovskoye field in the Beloyarsk region.

In summer, the predominant wind direction is north, in contrast to winter, when the south wind is more common. Annual precipitation is 400–620 mm.

The annual duration of sunshine in the district is 1600-1900 hours.

Beloyarsky and Berezovsky districts are classified as regions of the Far North by a decree of the Government of the Russian Federation.

 

Flora

The flora of Ugra includes over 800 species of higher plants. The territory of Ugra belongs to two botanical and geographical regions: the Ural mountain region and the West Siberian plain. The main part is located within the West Siberian plain botanical-geographical region, which is characterized by a distinct zonal division of vegetation. Within the district there are subzones of northern, middle and southern taiga, but almost the entire territory of the district is located within one natural zone - taiga forests. Most of the territory is occupied by heavily swampy taiga. In the northern regions, the composition of vegetation is greatly influenced by permafrost.

The vegetation is represented by communities of forests, swamps, meadows, reservoirs, and mountain tundra. The forest cover of the district is 52%. The middle taiga zone dominates. It is represented by dark-coniferous, light-coniferous, small-leaved and mixed forests. Spruce, cedar, larch, fir, and pine grow in them. Pine forests are replaced by dark coniferous forests with increasing swamping and on sandy river terraces, ridges and ridges, where white moss pine forests form. Pine and lingonberry forests often represent secondary forests on the site of burnt dark coniferous taiga. Meadow vegetation is confined to the floodplains and lowlands. In the northern regions, lichen communities are common and used as reindeer pastures. Forests and swamps are rich in fruit and food species of vegetation: cranberries, lingonberries, blueberries, blueberries, currants, cloudberries, raspberries, rose hips, bird cherry, rowan.

 

Fauna

The mammal fauna of Ugra is quite rich and represents a typical taiga complex, including approximately 50 species belonging to six orders.

The vertebrate fauna includes 369 species. Mammals are represented by 60 species, 28 of which are commercial. The most common and economically valuable are: fox, arctic fox, squirrel, sable, pine marten, ermine, weasel, wild boar, weasel, otter, mountain hare, bear, elk, wolf, etc. The European mink, wolverine and West Siberian river beaver.

The district's avifauna is represented by 256 bird species, including 206 resident and nesting species. The most numerous orders are passeriformes, chariformes and anseriformes. The basis of the hunting fauna (48 species) is formed by geese (gray and white-fronted), wood grouse, black grouse, hazel grouse, ptarmigan, ducks (mallard, sharptail, wigeon, duck, shoveler, teal, etc.), waders (turukhtan, snails, morodunk, godwit, curlew, snipe, great snipe, humpback, woodcock, etc.). Of the predators, special mention should be made of the goshawk, marsh harrier, and long-eared owl.

There are 42 species of fish in rivers and lakes. Only 19 of them are commercially available - these are sterlet, peled (cheese), whitefish (pizhyan), Sosvinskaya herring (tugun), burbot, pike, ide, roach, bream, dace, perch, ruff, golden and silver crucian carp The species listed in the Red Book is the sturgeon, rare and in need of protection are taimen, muksun and nelma.

 

History

Territory formation

The territory of modern Ugra is a place of a special culture and history, the origins of which go back to the late Ice Age. The formation of the geological landscape occurred about 250 thousand years ago, when an 80-meter high hill, a small mountain range called the Samarovsky outlier, arose on the territory of the modern district. Khanty-Mansiysk is located at its eastern foot.

 

Development of the territory by people

Glaciation in the north of Western Siberia ended 60 thousand years ago. n., and the relief of the Ob River valley during the Late Paleolithic was similar to the modern one. Near the Karymkary River, archaeologists found a core blank, possibly an end one, for chopping small plates; near the Konolevka River, a single convex, angular, massive scraper was found on a fragment.

Currently, the Paleolithic site discovered by archaeologists at the Lugovskoye site is considered the oldest place of tribal residence of people. The presence of people here dates back to the second half of the Sartan time (10-15 thousand years ago). The most famous find here is the thoracic vertebra of a female mammoth, pierced by a stone spear tip.

The northernmost Paleolithic site in Western Siberia, Komudvana, dates back to at least 10 thousand years ago.

At the “Bolshoye Kayukovo” settlement in the upper reaches of the Bolshoy Salym River, in a settlement of the Early Neolithic era (VII-VI millennium BC), stone tools and fragments of pottery were found.

The Stone Age burial ground in the Barsova Gora tract dates back to 7 thousand years ago. n., also in the tract there are several settlements of the Bronze Age (4 thousand years ago), monuments of three cultures of the early Iron Age (from the 7th century BC), two burial grounds and a sanctuary of the Kulai culture (mid-1st millennium BC AD - mid-1st millennium AD).

A Neolithic settlement was discovered on the Lyapin River at Cape Chasty-Yag.

The site of the Karym culture in Khanty-Mansiysk dates back to the 4th-6th centuries.

The Lower Ob culture (II - III-XIII - XIV centuries) was identified by V. N. Chernetsov (1957), who divided it into 4 stages: Yarsalinsky (II-III centuries), Karymsky (IV-VI centuries), Orontursky (VI -IX centuries) and Kintusovsky (X-XIII centuries). The Vozhpai type of monuments, occupying an intermediate position between the Orontur and Kintusov stages, dates back to the 9th-10th centuries.

The cape settlement of Sherkali-1 in the vicinity of the village of Sherkali was founded on the banks of the Ob by the Slavs who came from the Northern Kama region in the 10th-11th centuries. The thickness of the cultural layer at the site reaches 3 m. Certain elements of the architectural layout of houses and stone ovens have analogues in the north of Rus' - among the Slavs of the Novgorod and Pskov lands.

 

First mention

The special Ugra peoples of these lands were first mentioned in ancient Russian chronicles. The Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences indicates that these are the “Tale of Bygone Years” and the text of the famous “Teachings of Vladimir Monomakh,” which record the story of the 1118 Novgorod mayor Gyurata Rogovich, who organized the collection of tribute to Veliky Novgorod from people on Pechora. A detachment of warriors went further to the east [of the Northern Urals] and discovered here “the land [country] of Yugra”:
...Yugra is people with an incomprehensible language, and they coexist with the Samoyeds in the northern countries.

Residents of Ugra also informed those vigilantes that “... even further north, where high mountains border the sea, people live imprisoned in the mountains.”

In connection with the establishment of the first mention of Ugra in historical chronicles from 1118, in 2016, a public movement began in the district to create an educational program “Centuries-old Ugra”. On behalf of the Governor of KHMAO-Yugra N.V. Komarova, who supported the social movement, in 2017 the Okrug Government adopted a comprehensive plan for the “Centuries-old Ugra” project, dedicated to the 900th anniversary of the first mention of Ugra in Russian historical chronicles. In 2018, leading scientists of Ugra, under the leadership of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, began the creation of an academic history of Ugra as an integral part of the history of Russia.

 

History of administrative-territorial formation

The year 1118, as the time of consolidation of information about Ugra and its people in the final edition of The Tale of Bygone Years, was fully supported by the famous researcher of ancient Russian chronicles M.D. Priselkov.

On the banks of the Endyr River, 82 km from the city of Nyagan, in the 12th-16th centuries the principality of the Ob Ugrians Emder was located.

In the period before the appearance of the Golden Horde in Northern Eurasia, the history of the Yugra peoples through the migration processes of the “great movement of ethnic groups” on the mainland turned out to be connected with the stories of the Volga Bulgaria, and with the Hungarians, and with the influence of Pomeranian merchants who walked the northern route along the Ob and Yenisei to Lake Baikal and further to China for exotic goods. The ancestral tribes of the Khanty and Mansi also interacted with the surrounding tribes of Samoyeds, Selkups, Nenets, Ostyaks, Yakuts and other peoples of the North.

During the heyday of the Golden Horde, the Siberian peoples, including new peoples who had previously moved here from China and Central Asia, found themselves under the rule of the Horde khans, who not only demanded tribute from them, but also forced them to participate in military affairs. In the late Horde period, under the rule of the Siberian-Tatar princes, a separate part of the Golden Horde was formed - the Siberian Khanate or the White Horde. In 1555, the rulers of the Siberian Khanate, the Tatar princes Ediger and Bekbulat, voluntarily included this part of Siberia into the Russian kingdom. However, years later, the Nogai-Horde Khan Kuchum stood at the head of the Siberian Khanate and in the second half of the 16th century began to pursue a policy of war against the Russian state, together with the Crimean Tatar Khan. After Ermak’s retaliatory campaign, Kuchum’s power was shaken (part of the northern Siberian peoples stopped obeying him and paying tribute) and then he was completely defeated by Russian troops. Many Siberian peoples, following the Tomsk Tatars, voluntarily became part of the Russian kingdom and began to pay yasak to the Russian Tsar.

The Koda Principality (Koda) in the 15th-17th centuries was located on both banks of the Ob River between the mouths of its tributaries Irtysh and Kazym, approximately occupying lands that now belong to the Oktyabrsky district.

A birch bark document was found on the territory of the settlement of the late 16th century - early 17th century in Berezovo.

During the reign of Catherine II, several administrative and territorial transformations of the Siberian kingdom (Tobolsk governorship) took place and the territory of modern Ugra became part of the vast Tobolsk province (Berezovsky, Tobolsk, Surgut and Pelym districts), within which there were both ordinary volosts and yasak volosts and councils , where self-government was carried out under the authority of local tribal and clan princes.

 

20th century and modern times

As a result of the October Revolution and the subsequent Civil War, the Tobolsk province in 1920-1921. as a whole was transformed into the Tyumen province. In 1923-1925. the country underwent a zoning reform and, according to the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of November 3, 1923, the territory became part of the enlarged Ural region of the RSFSR.

Further administrative and territorial reform led to changes in the Ural region and in its composition, on December 10, 1930, the Ostyako-Vogulsky national district was formed with the center in the city of Ostyako-Vogulsk, founded on the site of the village of Samarovo (from October 23, 1940 - the city of Khanty-Mansiysk ).

From 1930 to 1934, the district was part of the vast Ural region (center - Sverdlovsk, now Yekaterinburg), in 1934 - in the Ob-Irtysh region (center - Tyumen), on December 7, 1934, the district became part of the Omsk region, from 1944 to this day The day is legally part of the Tyumen region, but in 1993 Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug received autonomy and became a full-fledged subject of the Russian Federation.

The collectivization of agriculture began in the late 1920s. Farms with complete socialization of reindeer began to be created in the district. This policy caused two armed uprisings by the Khanty and Nenets in 1931-1934.

In 1930-1932, 37,400 special settlers (dispossessed peasants) were sent to the Ostyak-Vogulsky district. Of these, 11,200 people were sent to the fishing industry, 11,400 to the integrated cooperation system, and the rest to logging and construction. With their participation, the district and regional centers were built, the production capacities of the Khanty-Mansiysk Timber Industry Enterprise, the Belogorsk Wood Processing Plant, and the Samarovsk Fish Canning Plant were introduced and developed. The timber industry has become one of the leading industries in the district. In 1934, the first steps were taken to search for and explore oil and gas in the district.

On October 23, 1940, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, the Ostyak-Vogul National District was renamed Khanty-Mansiysk. On August 14, 1944, it became part of the newly formed Tyumen region.

During the Great Patriotic War, residents of the district made a great labor contribution to the cause of Victory.

On September 21, 1953, in Berezovo, the geological exploration party of A. G. Bystritsky at the P-1 well produced natural gas for the first time in Western Siberia. On June 23, 1960, a team of drilling master S.N. Urusov found oil in the Shaim area for the first time in Western Siberia. This was followed by the discovery of many other oil and gas fields. Along with the industrial exploitation of oil and gas fields, the timber industry developed in the district. The construction of the Ivdel-Priobye railway played an important role in this.

Since 1978, the Khanty-Mansiysk National Okrug was transformed into the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug (KhMAO), which in 2003 received its current name - Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug - Ugra.

An important historical event in the history of Ugra was the holding of the “Russia and the European Union” summit on June 26-27, 2008 in Khanty-Mansiysk. The event was attended by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister of Slovenia Janez Jansa, President of the European Commission Jose Barroso, and Secretary General of the EU Council Javier Solana. Ugra also declared itself as a territory for international sports competitions and championships, especially in biathlon.

In 2018, in honor of the celebrations of the 900th Anniversary of the Ugra Land, the “Centuries-old Ugra” project was launched. The result of the project will be the publication “Academic History of Ugra”, one of the sources both for the 20-volume “History of Russia” currently being created, and for textbooks and teaching aids on the history of Ugra for schools and universities in the region.