[edit]
Native villages near the site of the future Khabarovsk according to an English map of 1773. The village closest to today's Khabarovsk is labeled "Hitcha". Maack's "Cape Kyrma" site (thought by B.P. Polyakov to be the site of Stepanov's Kosogorsky Ostrog) is "Heremo"
Earliest record[edit]
Historical records indicate that a city was founded on the site in the eighth century. The Tungusic peoples are indigenous to the city's vicinity. The city was named Boli (伯力; Bólì) in Chinese when it was part of the Chinese empire. During the Tang dynasty, Boli was the capital of Heishui Protectorate, called Heishui Duhufu.
In AD 722, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (唐玄宗) established Heishui Protectorate and gave self-rule to Heishui Mohe tribes. The seat of this administrative region was then established near today's Khabarovsk.
17th-century Russian exploration[edit]
In the mid-17th century, the Amur Valley became the scene of hostilities between the Russian Cossacks, who tried to expand into the region and collect tribute from the natives, and the rising Manchu Qing dynasty, who were intent on securing the region for themselves.[citation needed]
Khabarov's Achansk[edit]
Monument to Yerofey Khabarov in Khabarovsk.
The Russian explorers and raiders of the 1650s set up a number of more or less fortified camps (ostrogs) on the Amur. Most of them were in use for only a few months and later destroyed. It is usually thought that the first such camp in the general area of today's Khabarovsk was the fortified winter camp named Achansk (Ачанск) or Achansky gorodok (Ачанский городок), built by the Cossacks of Yerofey Khabarov in September 1651 after they had sailed to the area from the upper Amur. The fort was named after the local tribe whom Khabarov's people called "Achans". On October 8 the fort was unsuccessfully attacked by joint forces of Achans and Duchers (who had good reasons to hate the Cossacks, due to their rather heavy-handed tribute-extraction tactics), while many Russians were away fishing. In late November, Khabarov's people undertook a three-day campaign against the local chief Zhakshur (Жакшур) (whose name is also known in a more Russian version, Zaksor (Заксор)), collecting a large amount of tribute and announcing that the locals were now subjects of the Russian Czar. A similar campaign was waged later in winter against the Ducher chief Nechiga (Нечига), farther away from Achansk.
On 24 or 26 March 1652, Fort Achansk was attacked by Manchu cavalry, led by Ninguta's commander Haise, reinforced by Ducher auxiliaries, but the Cossacks stood their ground in a day-long battle and even managed to seize the attackers' supply train. Once the ice on the Amur broke in the spring of 1652, Khabarov's people destroyed their fort and sailed away.
The exact location of Khabarov's Achansk has long been a subject for debate among Russian historians and geographers. A number of locations, both upstream and downstream of today's Khabarovsk, have been proposed since Richard Maack, one of the first Russian scholars to visit the region, identified Achansk in 1859 with the ruins on Cape Kyrma, which is located on the southern (Chinese) shore of the Amur, upstream of Khabarovsk. The most widely accepted point of view is probably that of Boris Polevoy, who believed that Khabarov's Achansk was located in the Nanai village later known as Odzhal-Bolon (Russian: Оджал-Болонь), located on the left bank of the Amur, closer to Amursk than to Khabarovsk. One of his arguments was that both Khabarov's Achan (sometimes also spelt by the explorer as Otshchan, Отщан), and Wuzhala (乌扎拉) of the Chinese records of the 1652 engagement are based on the name of the Nanai clan "Odzhal" (Оджал), corresponding to the 20th-century name of the village as well. (The name of the clan was also written as "Uzala", as in the name of its best-known member, Dersu Uzala).
Polevoy's view appeared to gain wide support among the Russian geographer community; petitioned by the Amur Branch of the Russian Geographical Society, the Russian Government renamed the village of Odzhal to Achan in 1977, to celebrate its connection with Khabarov's raid.
As to the Cape Kyrma ruins, thought by Maack to be the remains of Achansk, B.P. Polevoy identified them as the remains of another ostrog – namely, Kosogorsky Ostrog, where Onufriy Stepanov stayed a few years later.
Qing Empire[edit]
After the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) between the Tsardom of Russia and the Qing Empire, the area became an uncontested part of China for the next century and a half. Modern historical maps of the Qing period published in China mark the site of future Khabarovsk as Bólì (Chinese: 伯力). All of the middle and lower Amur region was nominally part of the Jilin Province, run first out of Ninguta and later out of Jilin City.
French Jesuits who sailed along the Ussuri and the Amur Rivers in 1709 prepared the first more or less precise map of the region. According to them, the indigenous Nanai people were living on the Ussuri and on the Amur down to the mouth of the Dondon River (i.e., in the region including the site of the future Khabarovsk). These people were known to the Chinese as Yupi Dazi ("Fish skin Tartars").
From Khabarovka to Khabarovsk[edit]
Khabarovsk – residence of the governor-general of Amur region 1895
In 1858, the area was ceded to Russia under the Treaty of Aigun. The Russians founded the military outpost of Khabarovka (Хаба́ровка), named after Yerofey Khabarov. The post later became an important industrial center for the region. Town status was granted in 1880. In 1893, it was given its present name: Khabarovsk.
In 1894, a department of the Russian Geographical Society was formed in Khabarovsk and to found libraries, theatres and museums in the city. Since then, Khabarovsk's cultural life has flourished. Much of the local indigenous history has been well preserved in the Regional Lore Museum and Natural History Museum and in places like near the Nanai settlement of Sikachi-Alyan, where cliff drawings from more than 13,000 years ago can be found. The Khabarovsk Art Museum exhibits a rare collection of old Russian icons.
In 1916, the Khabarovsk Bridge across the Amur was completed, allowing Trans-Siberian trains to cross the river without using ferries (or temporary rail tracks over the frozen river in winter). During the Russian Civil War, Khabarovsk was occupied by Japan in September 1918.
Soviet era[edit]
Khabarovsk (1950)
By the Decree of the Council of Labor and Defense of December 11, 1933, the Directorate of Road Construction of Eastern Siberia and the Far East (Daldorstroy) was created in Khabarovsk, with the task of constructing strategic highways according to the list of the government of the USSR, in the regions of Eastern Siberia and the Soviet Far East. The construction plans were announced at the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), held in Moscow from January-February 1934, when the Second Five-Year Plan for the development of the Soviet Union was adopted. In accordance with it, it was planned to build a Vladivostok-Khabarovsk highway, with a hard (gravel) surface, 600 kilometers long.
After the defeat of Japan in World War II, Khabarovsk was the site of the Khabarovsk war crimes trials, in which twelve former members of the Japanese Kwantung Army and Unit 731 were put on trial for the manufacture and use of biological weapons during World War II.
Chinese Emperor Puyi, captured by Soviet troops in Manchuria, was relocated to Khabarovsk and lived there from 1945 up to 1950, when he was returned to China.
When Japan fell in September 1945 the United States reached an agreement with Stalin to build two U.S. Naval Advance Bases (Fleet Weather Centrals) in the USSR. The U.S. built one 10 miles (16 km) outside Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on the Kamchatka Peninsula with the code name TAMA. The other was 20 miles (32 km) outside Khabarovsk in buildings provided by the Soviets, code-named MOKO. For mail Khabarovsk was assigned U.S.Navy number 1168, FPO San Francisco. The American use of these two bases was short-lived.[citation needed]
On 5 November 1956, the first phase of the city tram was commissioned. The Khabarovsk television studio began broadcasting in 1960. On 1 September 1967, the Khabarovsk Institute of Physical Education, now the Far Eastern State Academy of Physical Culture, opened. On 14 January 1971, Khabarovsk was awarded the Order of October Revolution. In 1975 the first stage of the urban trolley opened. In 1976 the city hosted an international ice hockey tournament with the ball for the prize of the newspaper Sovietskaya Rossia. In 1981 the Bandy World Championship was played in the city.
Russian Federation[edit]
Between 1989 and 2003 a memorial complex dedicated to the thousands executed during the Great Terror -- a monument, a chapel and a wall of remembrance -- was erected in Khabarovsk.
In 1996, Khabarovsk held its first mayoral elections. Paul D. Filippov, whose candidacy was supported by Governor Viktor Ishayev, was defeated. In 1998, reconstruction of the central square of Khabarovsk was completed. In May 2000, President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, decreed that new federal districts be formed, and Khabarovsk became the center of the Far Eastern Federal District.
In 2006, the Center for Cardiovascular Surgery, a high-tech medical center, was constructed according to a Russian national health project. In 2008, the train station was completely renovated, and the adjacent square was reconstructed to include fountains and an underground passage. In 2009, Khabarovsk hosted the EU-Russia summit. In 2010, the city hosted a meeting of the Great Circle of Ussuri Cossacks. On 3 November 2012, Khabarovsk was awarded the honorary title of "City of Military Glory".
On 9 July 2020, the governor of the region, Sergei Furgal, was arrested and flown to Moscow. The 2020 Khabarovsk Krai protests began on 11 July 2020 in support of Furgal.
Flag[edit]
Flag of the city of Khabarovsk
The flag of Khabarovsk displays a bear on the right (red side) and a Siberian tiger on the left (blue side), holding a yellow shield with a blue reversed pall and a red fish. The flag is a representation of the coat of arms of Khabarovsk. The flag was adopted on 30 October 2007 and is 2:3 in ratio.
