Yeniseisk is located in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The city is
located on the left bank of the Yenisei. Situated, of course, on the
Yenisei, the city of Yeniseisk stands 80 km below the mouth of the
Angara. It was founded in 1619 by Cossacks from Mangazeya and for
the next couple of hundred years became the gateway to Eastern
Siberia. The ancient route to Yeniseisk went along rivers, dragging
from the right tributaries of the Ob to the left tributaries of the
Yenisei. In the second half of the 18th century, the Siberian
Highway was built - the first road in Siberia - and at first it had
a rather strange trajectory: from Achinsk to the north, to
Yeniseisk, and then along the Yenisei to Krasnoyarsk. Later the road
was straightened to Krasnoyarsk past Yeniseisk.
When
provinces were formed in Russia, all of Siberia first went to
Siberia with its center in Tobolsk. Within it, the hierarchy was no
less rough, and Yeniseisk at one time was the center of a province
that included almost all of Central Siberia. The city flourished in
the second half of the 18th century. During this period, the first
stone buildings on the Yenisei were built here, including amazingly
beautiful temples, which formed a special variety of the Baroque
style - the Yenisei.
In the 19th century, the importance of
Yeniseisk began to decline. When the Yenisei province of the same
name was formed in 1822, Krasnoyarsk became its center, and
Yeniseisk became a district town. It, however, did not repeat the
fate of Mangazeya, remaining an important trading port, since then
(as, indeed, now) no transport routes other than waterways existed
in these parts. With the opening of the Trans-Siberian Railway,
Yeniseisk finally becomes a wilderness. It owes the presence of an
asphalt road mainly to neighboring Lesosibirsk, where the timber
industry actively developed during the Soviet years.
Now
Yeniseisk is slowly overcoming the consequences of the Soviet
period, when all the city churches were closed and partially
destroyed. On the main street, old buildings have been restored and
even tiles are appearing. To attract tourists, private museums are
opened and excursion programs are invented, although this is, in
essence, almost hopeless: Yeniseisk is too far from anything, and a
trip here requires at least two days and a willingness to spend six
hours on a bus or travel hundreds kilometers of the road in some
other way. The city is small, but incredibly atmospheric - with old
signs, cows roaming the streets, the huge free Yenisei and the
feeling of the edge of the earth. This is certainly one of the most
interesting cities in Siberia.
By plane
You can’t fly to Yeniseisk, but you can fly from here.
The airport serves small aviation flights to hard-to-reach settlements
in the Yenisei region.
1 Airport. Mon–Fri 8:00–17:00. For some
reason, locals call it the airport. You are unlikely to be able to use
it for its intended purpose, but it may be interesting to look here just
like that, without the intention of flying away. From the outside, the
airport resembles a large wooden barn. It does, however, have a check-in
desk (one), security control, and even a separate door leading to the
arrivals area. This is a relict object, of which there are almost none
left on the mainland. The airport is located in a suburban area 6 km
from the center, you can get there by bus 1.
By train
The
nearest railway station is in Lesosibirsk. A commuter train from Achinsk
runs there once a day, but it does it either during the day or at night
and drags through the taiga for a good six hours, after which you in
Lesosibirsk will have to look for the way to the bus station (about 2
km, through not the most pleasant places) and wait there for the bus to
Yeniseisk. It is much easier to take a bus directly from Krasnoyarsk.
By bus
Buses from Krasnoyarsk run, on average, every 2 hours.
Travel time: 6-7 hours. The buses are large and usually quite modern,
although there is apparently a chance of running into an old wreck. All
buses pass through Lesosibirsk. Also, commuter buses run between
Lesosibirsk and Yeniseisk 4-5 times a day. Travel time is about an hour.
2 Bus station, st. Raboche-Krestyanskaya, 86. 4:30–24:00. Perhaps
the only building in Yeniseisk with signs of the Stalinist style. It has
ticket offices (including railway and air ticket offices), a luggage
room (8:00–22:00) and several benches on which you can sit.
By
car
There is only one road to Yeniseisk - this is the old Yenisei
highway, running from Krasnoyarsk strictly north (330 km). The first 200
km, approximately to Kazachinsky, the road is good and fairly straight.
Further it becomes winding, and the condition of the surface leaves much
to be desired, but following local drivers in their speed limit, you can
easily complete the journey from Krasnoyarsk to Yeniseisk in 4-4.5
hours. This road is not the most picturesque in the Krasnoyarsk
Territory, but it is is also of considerable interest. The first part of
the path will pass through a rather beautiful forest-steppe, behind it
the taiga will begin, and after Kazachinsky the road comes close to the
Yenisei.
There are almost no gas stations or other infrastructure
on the road. Gas stations with 95 gasoline are only in the area of the
village of Bolshaya Murta and in Lesosibirsk. The flow of cars is small,
but sufficient for, for example, hitchhiking.
On the ship
The
Krasnoyarsk-Dudinka motor ships, which ply on average once every five
days, make a stop in Yeniseisk. The travel time from Krasnoyarsk
(downstream) is 17 hours, and the ship travels most of the way during
the day. In the opposite direction, i.e. upstream, the journey takes 32
hours. On the way you will see the Kazachinsky rapids and the mouth of
the Angara.
Another form of river transport is a modern
high-speed catamaran to the village of Bor, which is downstream of the
Yenisei opposite the mouth of the Podkamennaya Tunguska. The catamaran
takes 8-10 hours, and this can be a good (but tiring) form of river
excursion, unless, of course, you don’t mind spending money on tickets:
in 2016 they cost a little more than 4,000 rubles one way.
3 River station, at the beginning of the street. Babkina. The ships
approach the landing stage, which has ticket offices and a small waiting
room. Both open only upon the arrival of the ship or catamaran in Bor.
There are 8 bus routes in the city. Bus 1 runs between the airport and the military town of Polyus, passing through the center of Yeniseisk along Lenin Street. There are also some other, more suburban routes, but you most likely will not have to use them.
1 Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery, st. Raboche-Krestyanskaya, 101. ☎
+7 (39195) 2-22-89.
2 Iversky Convent, st. Lenina, 100.
3 Assumption Cathedral, st. Dudareva, 7.
4 Epiphany Cathedral,
lane. Fireman, 1.
5 Yenisei Museum of Local Lore named after. A.I.
Kytmanova, st. Lenina, 106. ✉ ☎ +7 (39195) 2-21-09. Mon-Fri: 9.00 -
17.00, Sat-Sun: closed, last. Fri mo. – san. day.
6 Resurrection
Church, st. Lenina, 104.
7 Trinity Church, st. Perenson, 34.
8
Museum-Estate “Photoizba”, st. Lenina, 81.. ☎ +7 39195 2-27-26.
10:00-15:00. The museum was founded by the Yenisei photographer and
enthusiast Petr Yakovlevich Drozdov. Here you will find fascinating
excursions dedicated to the history of the city of Yeniseisk, the life
and fate of its inhabitants. The excursions are conducted by the founder
of “Photo Hut” and his wife Nadezhda Petrovna. Unique exhibits,
historical photographs of the city, the decoration of the house and its
courtyard create a unique atmosphere of antiquity. The artifacts were
carefully collected and restored by the owner himself.
Yeniseisk was founded as a prison in 1619 and due to
its favorable geographical position quickly became the
administrative and economic center of Eastern Siberia, from here
came the movement of Russian explorers to the south and east.
The Yenisei prison (first Tunguska) was built in the summer of
1619 by a detachment of Tobolsk Cossacks led by the boyar's son
Peter Albychev and the streltsy centurion Cherkas Rukin. From 1623,
local governors were appointed directly from Moscow.
Initially, the Yenisei prison was subordinated to the Tobolsk, and
from 1629 - to the Tomsk category of the Order of the Kazan Palace.
In 1677, Yeniseisk itself became a category city; all
settlements and forts along the Yenisei, as well as the entire
Trans-Yenisei Siberia, up to and including the city of Nerchinsk,
come under his jurisdiction. In 1690, the population of Yeniseisk
was about 3000 people. The main economic activity is the extraction
of furs. In 1645-1646, the turnover of the Yenisei market exceeded
60 thousand rubles. At the beginning of the 17th century, the annual
collection of tithes at the Yenisei customs was about 500 rubles. By
the 1660s, uncontrolled fur production led to a decline in the fur
trade. In 1684, a decree appeared prohibiting hunting for sables in
the counties that were part of the Yenisei category. The fur trade
was transferred to a state monopoly. Freedom of the internal trade
in furs was returned by a decree dated July 26, 1727. The second
most important type of activity is fish trade and fishing. The
largest fishmonger in the north of the Yenisei at the beginning of
the 18th century was the Yenisei Posad Nikita Vereshchagin.
In 1708, in connection with the creation of provinces and the
abolition of ranks, Yeniseysk became a district town within the
newly formed Siberian province.
From 1724 to 1775, Yeniseisk
was the main city of the Yenisei province. The city reached its
greatest prosperity in the middle of the 18th century, turning into
a large craft and trade center. In 1743, stone living rooms were
built. In 1765, there were 143 merchants of the first guild and over
1200 of the second guild in Yeniseisk.
The Yenisei Fair was
the main center of the fur trade in Siberia in the 18th century.
Yeniseisk was located between the waterways of Western and Eastern
Siberia. The fair was held annually from 1 to 15 August. West
Siberian merchants brought manufactured and haberdashery goods,
grape wine, etc. to the fair. East Siberian merchants brought
Kyakhta goods for sale. The Yenisei merchant Matvey Fedorovich
Khoroshikh, who made a fortune in the fur trade, became at the
beginning of the 19th century the most influential of the Yenisei
merchants. For a long time he remained the only merchant of the
first guild in Yeniseisk.
In 1789, the city council began to
work in Yeniseisk.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the
Yenisei Fair lost its significance, and along with it, the
importance of the city itself began to decline, which was again
transferred to the category of district cities. Fur trade moved to
the Irbit and Turukhansk fairs. After the construction of the
Siberian Highway, most of the cargo transportation began to be
carried out not by water, but by horse-drawn transport. Thus, by the
beginning of the 19th century, only 10-30% of Chinese goods
purchased in Kyakhta were transported by water transport.
Since 1796 - the district town of the Tobolsk province, since 1804 -
the Tomsk province, and since 1822 - the newly formed Yenisei
province.
In the 1840s, Yeniseisk became the base of a large
gold-mining region (see also Gold Rush in Siberia). In the 1860s,
gold production fell, which had a heavy impact on the economy of
Yeniseisk: industries decreased, production fell, and capital
outflow began.
On July 3, 1869, there was a major fire. 14
common courtyards, an alcohol-cleaning basement, five shops, many
residential and non-residential buildings were burnt down. Two
people were killed. The Trinity Church suffered. Losses were
estimated up to 50 thousand rubles. On August 27, 1869, another fire
destroyed almost the entire city, except for the mountainous part.
The fire started on Barabinskaya Street at about 10 am. From a
strong wind, the flame spread to the city center. Government
offices, a seating yard and about 2 thousand houses, five churches
burned down. The Trinity Church was completely destroyed by fire.
During the fire, 98 people were burned, about 50 drowned trying to
hide from the fire in the Yenisei and the Melnichnaya River. The
total death toll was estimated at hundreds. The archives of churches
and monasteries, the archives of the Yenisei spiritual government
were burnt down. In September and October 1869, there were several
more minor fires. On October 4, 1869, 30 houses burned down in the
surviving part of the city.
Ice drifts on the Yenisei and
Angara caused floods on April 27 and May 8, 1870.
In 1876 a
telegraph connection was established with Krasnoyarsk.
After passing the Trans-Siberian Railway through Krasnoyarsk at
the end of the 19th century, Yeniseisk finally loses its position.
The population declines from 11,500 in 1897 to 7,100 in 1917.
The October Socialist Revolution brought socio-political
changes, and the subsequent Civil War caused serious damage to the
population, economy and culture of the city. In February 1919, A. V.
Kolchak's White Guard detachment suppressed the Yenisei-Maklakov
uprising of workers and soldiers of the local garrison. On the other
hand, the Soviet power established in 1920-1921 in the district was
forced to suppress the movement of local peasants dissatisfied with
the surplus appropriation system, headed by Lieutenant Colonel A. V.
Oliferov.
On May 17, 1962, Yeniseysk received the status of a
city of regional subordination.
In 2016, in Yeniseisk,
archaeologists, during excavations in the cellar of the voivodship
court in the middle of the 17th century, discovered a birch bark
letter, on which, according to preliminary data, a curse was
written. This is the second (after Staroturukhansk) birch letter
found in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Near the wall of the fort,
archaeologists have found a jug made in Western Europe 300 years ago
with the image of, possibly, the god of winemaking Bacchus.