Siberian Fur Trade Route

Timeline

1. 1582–1585Siberian Khanate (around present-day Tyumen Oblast) · Tyumen OblastThe Cossack leader Yermak Timofeyevich, financed by the Stroganov merchants, led some 840 men across the Ural Mountains to defeat the Siberian Khanate and capture its capital, Kashlyk. This event marked the historic starting point of Russia's systematic exploitation of Siberia's fur resources, and the state promptly dispatched officials to establish a yasak (fur tribute) collection system.
2. 1632–1649Yakutsk · YakutskRussia established the Yakutsk ostrog (fortress) on the middle Lena River, using it as the hub and administrative center of the East Siberian fur trade. Expeditions from Yakutsk pushed north (the Kolyma River) and east (the Anadyr River); by 1649 Semyon Dezhnev had rounded the easternmost cape of Asia (present-day Bering Strait), proving that Asia and America were not connected.
3. 1651–1660Amur River basin · Amur River basinYerofey Khabarov led a team deep into the Amur River basin, establishing the Albazin fortress (1651) and engaging in armed conflict with local Daur people and Qing frontier forces. The Qing army repelled the Russians twice, in 1652 and 1658, but Russian covetousness of the region's fur resources drove continued penetration; the Qing-Russian border friction of this decade laid the groundwork for the later Albazin conflicts.
4. 1661–1680Irkutsk · IrkutskThe Irkutsk fortress was established on the banks of the Angara River (the outlet of Lake Baikal), becoming a new core node of the East Siberian trade network. The Baikal region's abundant sable resources provided new supply points for the system and also served as a springboard for further advances into Transbaikal and the Amur basin, marking the fur trade route's penetration into the heart of East Siberia.
5. 1689Nerchinsk · NerchinskRussia and the Qing dynasty signed the first boundary treaty in Sino-Russian history at Nerchinsk (in Latin, Russian, and Manchu). The treaty confirmed Russia's abandonment of Albazin and the region on the left bank of the Amur, with the Argun River and the Stanovoy Mountains as the boundary, halting the fur trade route's southeastward expansion and laying the groundwork for the later overland trade framework centered on Kyakhta.