Albazino

Albazino (Албазино́; ) is a village (selo) in Skovorodinsky District of Amur Oblast, Russia, noted as the site of Albazin (Албазин), the first Russian settlement on the Amur River. Before the arrival of Russians, Albazino belonged to the Daur people, the Mongolic peoples indigenous to this area. The town was originated by prince Albaz as the capital of Solon Khanate (Sinicized: 索倫汗國). Later in the 17th century, the town was the center of the short-lived petty state of Jaxa (Manchu: yaksa; ; Якса or "Jaxa".) In the late 1640s, a team of Russian Cossacks under Yerofey Khabarov arrived to explore Dauria. They were keen to gain a foothold in the proximity of the Amur River and, after several clashes with the Daurs under Prince Albaza or Albaaši (Sinicized: 阿爾巴西), established a Russian fort of Albazin in 1651. The Russians were defeated here by Qing China in 1686 (see below). By the Treaty of Nerchinsk the area was assigned to Qing China. Following the Treaty of Aigun in 1858 a new Amur Cossack stanitsa appeared on the site. A municipal museum is sited among the remains of the 17th-century Russian fort. Sino-Russian border conflicts In late 1650 Albazin was built as winter quarters by Yerofei Khabarov on the northernmost part of the Amur River, 125 miles downstream from the junction of the Argun and Shilka. Thereafter it was little used as the Russians concentrated on the richer grain-growing lands downriver. In 1652 the Manchus drove the Russians out of the Amur country and the land was left to outlaws and adventurers. In 1655 Nikifor Chernigovsky, a Pole who had been exiled to Siberia after an unsuccessful attempt to run away from the Russian's custody, murdered the voyevoda of Ilimsk in retaliation for the rape of his daughter, and fled to the Amur where he reoccupied the ruins of Albazin and gathered a band of supporters. Chernigovsky soon gained the support of the local Tungusic population, whom he treated with respect, in contrast to several assaults they had suffered under Russian (Cossack) sovereignty.