On May 26, 1854, the first steamboat rafting on the Amur began. It was organized on the initiative of the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, Nikolai Nikolaevich Muravyov, who four years later received the title of Count of Amur. Muravyov was in favor of strengthening Russia’s influence in the Far East, emphasizing in one of his letters: “Siberia is the property of the one who holds the left bank and the mouth of the Amur in his hands.”
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K. Makovsky. Portrait of Count Nikolai Nikolaevich Muravyov-Amursky. 1863
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is against, the tsar is for.
To do this, according to the Governor General, it was necessary to significantly strengthen Russian military power in the region and pursue an active resettlement policy. Furthermore, by the middle of the 19th century the necessary conditions had developed for the peaceful settlement of disputed territorial issues between Russia and China.
P. Bazhanov. Portrait of Gennady Ivanovich Nevelsky. 1910 Photo: wikipedia.org
Preliminary preparations for rafting were carried out by the Amur expedition created in 1851, which thoroughly studied and described the lower reaches of the Amur and the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk. Their leader, the captain of the second rank, the future admiral Gennady Ivanovich Nevelskoy, who demonstrated the passage of the mouth of the Amur for ships and established the position on the island of Sakhalin, founded a post not far from the mouth on the shore of the Amur, calling that Nikolaevsky.
However, Muravyov’s idea met with strong resistance in the upper echelons of power. Among the opponents of the governor-general were such powerful people as the Minister of Railways Pyotr Andreevich Kleinmichel and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Karl Vasilyevich Nesselrode, who proposed recognizing the Amur Basin as Chinese and abandoning it forever. But there were also active supporters. The heir to the throne, Alexander Nikolaevich, supported Nikolai Nikolaevich and on April 22, 1853 personally reported to the tsar the plan of the governor of Eastern Siberia to settle the Amur River.
He “backed” this idea on the condition that it “…not smell like gunpowder smoke.”
On May 6, 1853, it was decided to send a military contingent of the river flotilla, soldiers and Cossacks to the mouth of the Amur, and on January 11, 1854, Emperor Nicholas I granted Muravyov the right to manage all relations with the Chinese. He government to delimit the eastern outskirts and allowed the transport of troops on rafts along the Amur.
Direct training and management of the river flotilla was carried out by an officer for special assignments under the command of the governor, Pyotr Vasilyevich Kazakevich, the future military governor of the Primorsky region. The troops were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Semenovich Korsakov, the future Governor General of Eastern Siberia.
Seven feet under the keel!
Organizing the rafting required enormous efforts. As often happens, there was not enough money to finance the expedition. Siberian gold merchants and miners helped by contributing 110 thousand rubles. Another serious problem was the lack of accurate maps of the Amur Basin. We had to walk almost at random on an inaccurate general map of Asia.
The rafting was personally led by the Governor General. Having notified the Chinese authorities, the “Chamber of Dependent Territories”, on May 26, 1854, on a sunny day, after a prayer service in front of the icon of the Albazin Mother of God, the flotilla moved along the Shilka River under the canyon. fire.
In front of the floating ships was the steamer “Argun”, assembled at the Shilkinsky plant, under the command of the naval officer, Lieutenant Alexander Stepanovich Sgibnev. The money for construction was allocated by the Irkutsk gold miner Pyotr Ivanovich Kuznetsov.
The parameters of the steamship have been preserved for history: length – 87 feet, width – 22 feet – 26.5 feet, loaded draft – 5 feet, empty draft – 1.5 feet. The hull is metallic with a slight keel formation, with two masts for navigation rigs. The boiler was manufactured in Yekaterinburg, and the steam engine and ship mechanisms were cast at the Petrovsky plant in Transbaikalia. The assembly was carried out by engineer Oscar Aleksandrovich Deykhman and the hull part by naval engineer Mikhail Gavrilovich Sharubin.
Model of the steamship “Argun”. Photo: Khabarovsk Museum of Local Lore
The Crimean War that broke out in March 1953 determined the exclusively military nature of the expedition. The rafting caravan, consisting of the steamer “Argun”, six ships, four whalers, 18 launches, 13 barges, six boats and 29 rafts, carried on board two months’ supplies for the expeditionary detachment and cargo for Kamchatka: artillery. of two ten-pound mortars, two ten-pound mountain unicorns.
The expeditionary force consisted of 754 infantry with six officers and 120 horse cavalry with two officers, 16 musicians and 16 artisans. The ships carry 25,000 pounds of cargo. The merchant Kuznetsov, who donated tea, sugar and boots for the soldiers, also sailed with the troops on a self-built ship with his crew.
Amur water glass
On May 31, 1854, the expedition, having traveled several hundred miles along the Shilka River, entered the waters of the Amur. The first to enter was Nikolai Nikolaevich Muravyov’s own ship with the flag raised. A military band played its trumpet at the Arguni. The governor-general took Amur water with a glass, drank it and, amid cries of “Hurray!” He congratulated everyone on the start of the trip to Amur. It was necessary to walk almost 3,000 miles to the mouth of the great river.
Swimming was carried out only during the day. At night, the Argun and all the ships of the flotilla docked on the shore. During night stops, the ship’s crew repaired the damage and soldiers and Cossacks prepared firewood for the steam boilers. At dawn the flotilla began to move, and after it the steamer “Argun” weighed anchor, which then overtook the flotilla and was the first to reach the night anchorage.
As the expedition approached the lower Amur, the rafts were freed of food and, after being dismantled and sawn, served the ship as fuel. Below the mouth of the Ussuri, the caravan encountered a severe storm. Most of the ships were flooded and almost sank. Many supplies got wet and spoiled.
K. pistol. View from the Mariinsky post. 1860 Photo: Irkutsk Regional Art Museum named after him. vice president Sukacheva
30 days after the start of the journey, the expedition arrived at the Mariinsky post, where Muravyov met with Nevelsky. The governor-general especially thanked Gennady Ivanovich for his contribution to the Amur cause. The arriving troops, through Lake Kizi and an eight-kilometer strip of land, arrived safely at the port of De-Kastri on the shore of the Tatar Strait, and then by sea on the Irtysh and Dvina transports to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky , which helped his The small garrison successfully repelled the attack of the Anglo-French squadrons.
The first rafting on the Amur marked the beginning of the intensive development of the richest region. Soon the villages of Khabarovka and Ust-Zeyskaya were founded on the banks of the Amur, which soon became the cities of Khabarovsk and Blagoveshchensk.
