318 SIBERIA 



and remarkable place. He gathered about 150 volunteers and three 

 guns. In 1651, Khabaroff again appeared on the banks of the Amur 

 and wintered at the station Albazin, which he had founded. Not- 

 withstanding the armed opposition which he met with during two 

 years from the Manchurs, who surrounded him on every side, he 

 succeeded in his operations and reported his success to Yakutsk. 



The rumour of the wealth of the new country conquered by 

 Khabaroff soon spread all over Siberia and reached the capital of 

 the mother-country. In 1654 Khabaroff was called to Moscow to 

 make a personal report on it. 



From 1654 till 1685 there were many fights with the Manchurs, 

 and in that year a horde of 15,000 men overcame the Cossacks, 

 numbering 500, at Albazin, As soon as reinforcements arrived the 

 Cossacks returned and built earthen entrenchments in place of the 

 former wooden fortifications. Seeing this, the Manchurs undertook 

 a second siege in 1686, but becoming, in 1687, perfectly exhausted, were 

 compelled to raise the siege. In 1688 a congress of plenipotentiaries 

 was appointed, at which the Chinese gained a diplomatic victory ; on 

 August 27th, 1689, the Nerchinsk treaty confirmed the Amur to the 

 Chinese, and for over 180 years deprived the Russians of the 

 possession of that outlying Siberian province. 



The actual colonisation of Siberia commenced only towards the 

 end of the seventeenth century, when its boundaries, in the large 

 sense of the term, were indicated more or less by the points of 

 defence. Cities and post stations were built and the Government 

 strove to create a class of peasant artisans and to spread corn-grow- 

 ing. With this object, by command of the Tsar, volunteer plough- 

 men were sent out, who received every privilege, besides agricultural 

 implements and financial assistance. Grain was imported from 

 Perm, Viatka, and other places to provision the people whom the 

 Government had thus settled there. 



The spread of agriculture and the establishment of fixed settle- 

 ments within the limits of the new country were ensured by re- 

 peatedly sending out fresh ploughmen, and girls to be married to 

 the Cossacks. 



In 1723 parties equipped by a well-known trader, A. Demidoff, 

 penetrated to the Altai Mountains, where they found several ore 

 mines. Works were quickly built there, and the first one taken over 

 by the State was called Kolyvansk. 



Owing to the development of miningiin the Ural, Altai, and Nert- 

 chinsk, the need for workers considerably increased, and hundreds 

 of families from the interior of Russia were sent there annually to 

 augment the population of Siberia. In addition to this colonisation 

 encouraged by the Government, many discontented people at home 



