19.11.2016 0 11897

World Russian North has always been perceived as special, full of secrets and mysteries. It was not only nature that made him this way, but also people. Strong characters were brought up in the harsh climate. And therefore Pomors(or Pomeranians) managed to carry their uniqueness through the centuries without losing it under the pressure of inexorable time.

If you want to put a resident of the Arkhangelsk region in an awkward position, ask him a question about whether he considers himself a Pomor. Most people will not be able to give an intelligible answer, since some of them believe that all residents of the north of Russia are, by definition, Pomors, while others are confident that the Pomors lived a very long time ago, were different from other peoples, and now they are nowhere to be found.

Judging by the 2002 All-Russian Population Census, about 6,500 people considered themselves Pomors. And in 2010, only 3,113 people identified themselves as such. Pomerania includes Murmansk, part of Karelia and Komi, but the “capital” is Arkhangelsk.

Valuable crafts

The first to populate the modern north of Russia after the glaciers disappeared were the Sami. In memory of themselves, they left rock paintings, stone labyrinths and sites with various household items on the shores of the White Sea. Perhaps they are the direct ancestors of the Pomors.

Novgorodians began to explore the north in the 9th century. At first, few people settled there and reluctantly - the lands were quite poor. But after 988, when Rus' began to accept Christianity, many people went north because they did not want to give up the beliefs of their ancestors.

An interesting fact is that even in the 19th century in Pomerania there were a very large number of people who professed paganism or retained some elements of pagan rituals and beliefs in everyday life. That is why various amulets of Pomors have come down to us. From the 12th to the 15th centuries, Pomorie was a colony of the Novgorod Republic, and was later annexed to Moscow.

Also, after the church schism of the 17th century, those who were against the reforms of Patriarch Nikon, the Old Believers, moved to the north. To this day, in the villages of the Russian North you can find communities of Old Believers who carefully preserve their traditions.

The Old Orthodox Pomeranian Church unites about 250 religious communities and groups in Russia and about the same number abroad. Communities of Pomors-Old Believers can be found all over the world - from the Baltic countries and former Soviet republics to the USA, Argentina and Canada.

Pomors fishing. Early 20th century

The main occupations of the Pomors were fishing and hunting animals. But besides this, they were also engaged in other trades. The lands of the Russian North were famous for their salt production. For example, in the Solovetsky Monastery there were 50 brewhouses, which employed about 800-1000 workers. The Dvina land and the Vologda region also supplied Moscow and other cities with salt, extracting about 1000 poods per year.

Also, oddly enough, pearls were mined in Pomorie. True, they looked for shells not in the sea, but in the mouths of small rivers. The best pearls were sent to the capital - the sovereign. It was in the Pomeranian region that the fashion for pearl jewelry and edging caftans and other outfits with pearls arose. In the 15th century, mica fishing was quite developed, which was used for windows and lanterns. Its price ranged from 15 to 150 rubles per pood.

Before the founding of St. Petersburg, Pomorie was the main platform for foreign trade. The Arkhangelsk fair brought huge money to the treasury of the sovereign: goods such as caviar, honey, furs, various fabrics, incense, and paper could be found there. According to foreigners who came to Pomorie for trade, the Pomors were taciturn, but hospitable and kind people.

Peasant family in festive costumes. Belomorye. Early 20th century

Free people

An interesting fact is that the Pomors did not lock their doors, as they trusted other people. At the same time, they were well-mannered and did not come to visit their neighbors unless necessary. The Pomors valued their freedom extremely highly. Perhaps due to the fact that they did not know either the Mongol-Tatar yoke or serfdom: in the 17th century, most of the population consisted of black-sown (free) peasants.

Mutual respect has always reigned in the Pomeranian family. Parents tried to teach their children to read and write. From childhood, children were instilled with love and respect for a woman, who was not just a mother and homemaker, but also an irreplaceable helper to her husband. Women helped men in fishing, and when they left for a long time to trade in distant lands, they remained the heads of families.

Unlike other regions of Russia, in Pomorie relations between men and women were based on equality. This is reflected even in Pomeranian fairy tales - the main character in them can be either a man or a woman. The common thread is that fairy-tale heroes are almost always poor.

The house of a Pomor peasant consisted of two parts: living quarters and a two-story barn, on the ground floor of which livestock was located, and hay and equipment were stored on the top. The living space was small. Only one room, which served as a living room, was quite spacious. Pomors rarely slept on stoves, preferring benches that were located around the perimeter of the room. The windows were very narrow so that the cold did not penetrate through them.

The Pomors were real master architects. Wood was most often used as a building material. Wooden houses, chapels and bridges blend very harmoniously with northern nature. Only in the 15th century did stone structures begin to be built. For example, churches in Kargopol, Nikolo-Karelian monastery. Solovetsky Monastery and cathedrals in Solvychegodsk. Many of them have survived to this day.

Conquerors of the seas

Since the 12th century, Pomors sailed the northern seas, because Pomorie was a shipbuilding center. The boat of Peter I is not at all the first ship built on the territory of our country. In the north, boats, augers and kochis have long been built - vessels that were created for long voyages. The length of the koch was about 16 meters, and the width was 4.

It could carry approximately 50 people and up to 30 tons of cargo. The egg-shaped shape of the ship's hull helped to avoid the danger of being trapped in ice - thanks to it, the koch "climbed" to the top. The average speed of a kocha in the 17th century was 80 miles per day, and sometimes even 100. The maximum speed of English merchant ships then was only 55 miles.

Pomeranian sailors explored new lands. For example, they reached Mangazeya, located in Western Siberia. Dragging through the Rybachy Peninsula, along the coast of the White Sea and the Kola Peninsula, they reached the northern shores of Scandinavia. And also to Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen (the Pomors called him Grumant).

On Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen, Dutch navigators who visited Novaya Zemlya in the 16th century discovered navigational crosses and processed walrus carcasses. After a few decades, the Pomors were driven to the southern part of Spitsbergen by the British, Dutch and other Europeans and remained there until the 18th century.

Scientists and archaeologists carefully studied the huts assembled from imported wood, the remains of ships and crosses. The felling of one tree dates back to the 16th century, but historians are trying to find earlier monuments and things related to the Pomors, since some researchers believe that the Pomors, even before the Baptism of Rus', made their sea voyages along the northern seas. The Norwegians, who now own Spitsbergen, do not deny that they were not the first to discover it, and in honor of the Pomors they opened a museum on the archipelago.

Group of farriers, late 19th century, Arkhangelsk Regional Museum of Local Lore

Despite the rich history of the people, scientists still cannot decide what exactly the concept of “Pomors” means. Some believe that this is a subethnic group (Russian, Finno-Ugric or mixed). Others say that the Pomors were united only by a common household.

Still others call the entire population of the Russian North Pomors. But there are also those who are firmly convinced: the Pomors are a full-fledged, albeit small, indigenous northern people, formed from Russian, Finno-Ugric and Scandinavian elements.

One of the most striking signs of the community of Pomors is the Pomor dialect of the Russian language. It is distinguished by the presence of vocabulary of Finno-Ugric and Scandinavian languages, as well as the angularity and length of vowels. It is interesting that the vocabulary of the Old Russian language (more precisely, its Novgorod dialect) has been preserved in the Pomeranian dialect.

We can safely say that the traditional culture of the Pomors, including their language and national crafts, is one of the fragments of Ancient Rus', our common past, that has survived to our time. After all, the past is not only the pages of chronicles, the walls of fortresses and temples. It is also the memory of the people.

Maria RYZHIK

For many centuries, Russia remained almost completely cut off from the seas: the country had only access to the northern White Sea. But the harsh natural conditions did not stop the brave sailors -...

For many centuries, Russia remained almost completely cut off from the seas: the country had only access to the northern White Sea. But harsh natural conditions did not prevent brave sailors - Russian Pomors - from making daring journeys to distant polar islands and lands. Back in the 12th century. The first Russian people, the Novgorodians, appeared on the shores of the White Sea.

The forests of this northern region were rich in fur-bearing animals, and the sea abounded in fish and marine animals. Walruses were considered especially valuable prey - skins, meat, and tusks were used. But besides fishing, the Novgorodians were, of course, driven by the eternal human desire to explore unknown lands.

Pomors hunted polar bears, seals, walruses, deer, whales, fished, and collected eider down

Gradually, Russian villages began to be built on the coast near the dwellings of the indigenous inhabitants, Karelians and Sami, whose inhabitants were later called Pomors - “living by the sea”, and this entire region was called the Pomeranian coast. From the XII to the XV centuries. The coast of the White Sea was a colony of Veliky Novgorod, although freedom-loving people from other Russian lands also flocked here. Over time, the Pomors became not only hunters, fishermen and hunters of sea animals, but also skilled shipbuilders.

Pomors went to sea on wooden boats, karbass, shnyaks, but the best ships were kochis, specially designed for long voyages and not afraid of ice. The design of these small sailing boats has been refined over the centuries.

The wooden hull of the kocha had a special rounded shape that successfully withstood ice compression, and simple straight sails allowed the Pomeranian ship to maneuver with and against the wind no worse than multi-masted frigates. Over the centuries, Pomeranian sailors have accumulated vast experience in sailing both in clear water and among ice. They knew a compass, which they called the “uterus”. Handwritten directions and maps were passed down from father to son.

Usually the kochi were single-masted, but sometimes the Pomors built ships with two masts

The Pomors made their first voyages along the coast. In the sailing directions, they recorded bays and other noticeable places suitable for anchorage, information about currents and winds, and the condition of the ice. In the end, having rounded the Kola Peninsula, Russian sailors reached the northern shores of Scandinavia. Quite far from them, even further north, lay the islands of the Spitsbergen archipelago, but even here in the second half of the 15th century. The Pomors scouted out the route, daring to swim among the ice. On the rocky shores of Spitsbergen, indented by fjords and mostly covered with glaciers, they more than once remained for the winter, waiting for favorable conditions to return to their homeland with commercial catch. The Pomors themselves called Spitsbergen Grumant. Already in the 20th century. Archaeologists have discovered on these polar islands traces of Pomor houses and wooden objects on which the names of the pioneer Pomors are carved.

Leaving Cape Kanin Nos behind, the Pomeranian Kochi left the White Sea into the Barents Sea. By the 16th century Pomeranian feeders knew Novaya Zemlya, beyond which the Kara Sea began, they discovered the Yamal Peninsula and the Ob Bay. Thus, it was the Pomor sailors who became the first explorers of the Arctic Ocean. And their shipbuilding experience was later useful to many. For example, the first ships that passed in the middle of the 17th century. the strait between Asia and America were Kochi. Some Russian explorers of that time also came from Pomerania, but the story about these brave people and their discoveries is yet to come.

Domestic navigators - explorers of the seas and oceans Nikolai Nikolaevich Zubov

2. Exit of Novgorodians to the shores of the White and Barents seas

The beginning of the Russian advance to the north and northeast - to the shores of the White and Barents Seas - must be dated back to the 9th–10th centuries.

Three main motives drew the Russians to the harsh North. The first is the desire to escape boyar oppression and internecine wars. The second is the desire to escape religious persecution. The third is the hope of getting out of poverty in the rich fisheries and animal industries of the White and Barents Seas.

A forced change of religion, under the compulsion of the authorities, always and everywhere caused resistance, sometimes expressed in uprisings, sometimes in a kind of going underground, and sometimes in relocation from their homes to new areas.

Thus, Academician Lepekhin wrote:

“During Vladimirov’s baptism, many, and especially those from Novgorod, who did not want to accept the Christian faith, leaving their homes, moved to these places, which, due to their remoteness and local situation from the searches of the Vladimirovs, seemed safe to them, and were already known to them due to trade were…"

At the end of the 9th and beginning of the 10th centuries. The flow of Russians to the north and northeast intensified, similar to what began in the 15th century. and especially intensified in the 17th century. the persecution of the schismatics caused a new intensified advance of the Russians also to the north and northeast.

Fishing and hunting in the White and Barents Seas attracted not only industrialists, but also merchants who exchanged their catch from industrialists, and caused the development of navigation and shipbuilding, especially since the banks of the rivers flowing into the White Sea were rich in timber.

Very little written information about the beginning of Russian settlement of the shores of the White and Barents Seas has been preserved. One of the most ancient records about the Slavs in our north is from the Arab writer Abu Hamed, who in the first half of the 10th century. reported “about the Yugras who lived in the north of the Urals - as if they were buying iron blades from the Slavs at an expensive price...”

Abu Hamed could have heard about this from Persian and Arab merchants who traded with the Russian North.

This trade was interrupted by the Tatar invasion, and after the opening of sea routes to India by the Dutch, it ceased altogether.

But if trade relations between the North and South were stopped by the Tatar invasion, then relations between the West (Novgorod) and the East (Northwestern Siberia) continued to develop. Thus, the First Sofia Chronicle tells that already in 1032 the Novgorodian Uleb went to the “Iron Gate”.

A well-known expert on our North, Vasily Vasilyevich Krestinin, wrote:

“This name, previously unknown (Iron Gates.-N. 3.) in the geography of our northern countries now raises a new question, in the discussion of the campaign of the Novgorodians beyond the Iron Gates, which took place in the summer of 1032, described in the Novgorod chronicler; Should the river campaign of the Novgorodians be attributed to this or to the Vaigach gates?

From the above excerpt it follows that Krestinin considered it possible for the Novgorodians to penetrate the Kara Sea in the first half of the 11th century.

In 1079, the Novgorod prince Gleb Svyatoslavovich died in the northern Urals. The chronicle of Nestor under 1096 says that around 1092 the Novgorodians, on the orders of Gyuryata Rogovich, went to Pechora and Ugra for tribute.

The areas near Kholmogory were mentioned in written sources in 1137. The Monastery of Michael the Archangel at the mouth of the Northern Dvina was founded between 1110 and IZO. In the first half of the 12th century. among the Novgorod possessions the Tersky coast of the White Sea Throat is mentioned.

It is unknown when exactly Kola was founded on Murman, but it was first mentioned in the Norwegian chronicle in 1210, and in the Russian chronicle in 1264.

It is curious that already from 1200 the Norwegians were forced to maintain a permanent naval guard to protect against Russian raids, and in 1307 in the extreme northeast of Norway they even built the Vardehuz fortress (our Pomors called it Vargaev.)

It has already been emphasized that the chronicles predominantly noted events that most affected the interests of contemporaries. But such events as the founding of a city, a monastery, the establishment of a sea guard, long-distance campaigns of the Novgorodians to the Urals must have their own prehistory, sometimes long, but usually not noted in written sources. Therefore, to clarify the time of the appearance of Russians on the shores of the White and Barents Seas, one has to resort to indirect conclusions.

Firstly, we must take into account the fact that during their advance to the northeast from the ancient centers of their settlements - Novgorod and Ladoga - the Novgorodians, right up to “Kamen” (Ural), almost did not encounter resistance, since there were no many people on their way. any organized state associations. Secondly, on this path they encountered many rivers and lakes, which greatly facilitated their progress.

Rivers and lakes in those days, especially in the geographical conditions of the Russian North, were essentially the only means of communication - in the summer on rafts and boats, in the winter - on sleighs and skis on flat ice. Rivers and lakes provided the settlers with fish, and coastal forests provided material for building boats, houses, and fuel. Hunting on lakes and forests provided food and furs.

From Lake Ilmen it was easy to get along the Volkhov to Lake Ladoga, then along the Svir to Lake Onega, and then along the Vodla to Vodlozero. Further from the river basins of the Baltic Sea, it was not difficult to move along short portages to the rivers flowing into the White Sea (and the Slavs acquired the skills of moving along rivers and portages during the development of the route “from the Varangians to the Greeks”). Thus, the Novgorodians gradually reached Kem and Onega, then the Northern Dvina and Pechora.

It should be noted that the so-called Pomeranian coast (the western coast of Onega Bay) is very convenient for the initial development of the sea. This coast is very indented and forms many lips and bays, which are well protected from winds and swell by the Onega skerries stretching along the Pomeranian coast.

It is natural to assume that part of the Novgorodians moving east, having reached Onega, separated and descended along Onega to the White Sea. Here the flow of Novgorodians again split into two. Some climbed along the shores of the White Sea north to Kandalaksha, and then along rivers and portages reached Kola (hydrographer N. Morozov, noting that between Kandalaksha and Kola there was only one portage about one kilometer long, believed that the Russians penetrated into Kola from Kandalaksha ).

The other part, turning east at the exit from Onega Bay, reached the mouth of the Northern Dvina by sea, perhaps even earlier than those Novgorodians who crossed Onega during their movement to the east and descended along the Northern Dvina to its mouth.

Unfortunately, there is no direct data to support such assumptions.

Indirect confirmation of such assumptions is the great similarity of events during the advance of the Novgorodians to the east in the 10th–12th centuries. and events during the advance of explorers and sailors in Siberia in the 16th and 17th centuries.

As we will see later, the Russians, moving east through Siberia, simultaneously descended along the rivers to the Arctic Ocean and then crossed by sea from the mouth of one river to the mouth of another. The motivations that forced them to choose such paths were the same among both the Novgorodians and the Siberian explorers - the search for fishing grounds, the search for new tribes with whom barter trade could be conducted and on whom taxes could be imposed.

One cannot think that the Novgorodians, who committed in the 11th century. campaigns to Pechora and Ugra, the entire long journey from Novgorod to the Urals were made through unknown uninhabited areas. Thus, if, according to the chronicles, the Novgorodians already by the end of the 11th century. mastered military and trade routes in the Trans-Urals, then we must assume that they appeared on the shores of the White Sea no later than the end of the 10th century.

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Ancient legends and chronicles told people that the path to the Far North was paved by sailors for hundreds of years. Probably, light ships of the Normans visited the waters of the “Icy Sea” about 1000 years ago. But no reliable information about this has survived. Russian chronicles say that hundreds of years ago the Pomors, settlers on the shores of the White Sea and the Kola Peninsula from Novgorod, walked along the harsh waters of this sea. Brave, free from the yoke of serfdom, Novgorod peasants united into squads and went to unknown lands for precious furs, to fish for fish and sea animals.

The tenacious hands of the boyars and sovereign servants did not reach the distant shores of the White Sea. The common people left for the North not only from the lands of Veliky Novgorod. Peasants from the central and northwestern regions of the country fled here to get rid of the master's oppression, unbearable exactions and debt bondage.

In the XII-XV centuries. Novgorodians explored and developed the coast of the Kola Peninsula and the shores of the White Sea. They built strong ships and sailed far from their villages along the Arctic seas.

The Pomors discovered the islands of Novaya Zemlya, Kolguev, Medvezhiy, Spitsbergen (then this archipelago was called Grumant Land).

Often, brave Pomors had to stand up to defend the lands they had developed, which foreigners began to covet.

The Russian North has long been a vibrant trading place where foreign merchants from Western European countries flocked. Here they bought precious furs, fat and skins of sea animals, walrus tusks and other goods that were delivered from Western Siberia by land, through the polar Urals, and by sea.

When sailing east along the “Arctic Sea,” Western European travelers, as a rule, used the help of Russian sailors. The first Russian pilots appeared on the Neva and Volkhov during the time of Veliky Novgorod.

They were then called ship leaders (“leaders”). In the North in Pomerania there was even a special fishing industry and artels of ship leaders.

Russian sailors went far into the depths of the seas. On the Arctic islands, researchers have many times found the remains of Russian Pomeranian wintering grounds and their fishing equipment. Pomeranian Ivan Starostin is known to researchers of the Russian North; he lived for many years as a sedentary on Grumant (Spitsbergen). Bear Island was developed by the Russians. Foreigners even called its northern coast the “Russian coast.”

The Russian Pomors laid the foundation for a new type of navigation - ice navigation. They managed to explore not only the European North, but also a significant part of the Asian coast.

The study of the ships of the ancient Novgorodians and Pomors who settled in the North showed what abilities and ingenuity the first Russian Arctic sailors possessed.

Russian sea boat of the 16th century. could take on board 200 tons of cargo. It was a three-masted deck ship with straight sails. Smaller boats, with a deck and two masts, were usually intended for sailing on the White Sea. Pomors sailed on other types of ships. The oldest ship is the kochmara, or koch, a three-masted deck ship. The design of the koch is very similar to a lodya, only it is smaller in size. Pomors also built simpler types of ships: ranshins, augers and karbass.

On some types of ships, the Pomors attached the hull to the ship's hull using vicita—juniper roots. In some cases, northern shipbuilders preferred vitsa to iron nails, as they were convinced from experience that it was more reliable than iron. Sheathing sewn with wire was more waterproof than sheathing fastened with iron nails. When sailing in ice, the ship's hull became loose and leaked in places where there were nails. In addition, the nails quickly rusted and destroyed the sheathing. With a wooden fastening, the vista, swelling, almost did not allow water to pass through. The cladding boards, sewn in a special way to the frame of the ship, held tightly.

In addition to juniper, the material for the wooden “threads” was young thin spruce up to one and a half meters high. The trunks of such Christmas trees were cleared of branches, twisted and dried. They were steamed before use. The boat was sewn with such “threads”. The master's set of tools usually consisted of an axe, a saw, a drill, a level and a fathom, divided into arshins and tops. The ships were built on the river bank, near the customer’s house. Here, with a pole on the sand or in a hut, the master made a drawing with chalk on the floor and made the necessary calculations. First, the frame of the ship was built, which was then sheathed with boards outside and inside. Then they erected and secured tall straight masts and laid the deck.

A large ship - a boat - was built by a team of carpenters in one winter.

By decree of Ivan the Terrible, the first large shipyards and even a dry dock were built at the Solovetsky Monastery for the construction of ships on the White Sea.

In ancient times, sails on Pomeranian ships were sometimes made of suede - deer skin treated with the fat of sea animals. Sea hare skin was used for harness.

The boats had a flat, wide bottom and a shallow draft, so when sailing in the ice to “unseen lands” they did not need special harbors in order to hide from a storm or spend the winter. Sometimes the Pomors had to pull their boats onto the ice or onto the shore. With all these advantages, Pomeranian ships also had their drawbacks: they obeyed the rudder worse than keel ships, especially in rough weather.

Sailing on the Arctic Ocean with its harsh climate, piles of ice and unknown currents was a good school for sailors. Hardy and brave, not afraid of severe frosts and strong winds, the Pomors boldly set off on long voyages along the stormy waves of the ocean on their small wooden ships.

In their daily struggle with the elements, the Pomors studied the “Icy Sea” well. They knew that the magnitude of the ebb and flow of the tide was related to the position of the Moon in the sky, and they figuratively called the tidal phenomena “the sighs of the sea-ocean.”

“His chest is wide, powerful,” they said, “when he sighs, he lifts his chest, then the water has arrived: the tide, that means. When he exhales, the water leaves: the tide is coming. The ocean-father does not breathe often: he inhales twice, exhales twice, and the day will pass.”

The Pomors knew a compass, which they called a little mother. They have long recognized time by the sun and stars.

They also called the winds in their own way, depending on the direction. The “midnight owl,” for example, was the name given to the northeast wind; “sholonnikom” - wind blowing from the southwest; “coastal” - north-west wind; “dinner” - southeastern. Russian sailors studied not only winds, but also currents, tides, and the state of ice.

They knew well and used local remedies against scurvy: cloudberry, spoon grass, raw meat and warm animal blood. Since ancient times, northern sailors had handwritten maps, drawings and handwritten sailing directions, which briefly described the seashores, indicated profitable and safe routes and the best time for ships to sail.

The oldest handwritten sailing directions had the following headings: “Charter on how to navigate a ship”, “Ship progress of the Russian Ocean-Sea”, “Ship progress of the Grumanlandskaya”.

Sailing in the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean developed dexterity and unique techniques for controlling the ship. The Pomors improved their experience and passed it on from generation to generation. If, for example, the wind heeled the boat strongly, threatening to capsize it instantly, the Pomor would throw a sharp ax or knife at the sail, and then the wind would tear the sail to shreds, and the boat would straighten out.

Northern sailors have long used blubber as a remedy to calm unrest. Pomor ships always had several barrels of seal or seal oil in stock.

In 1771, the famous Russian academician I.I. Lepekhin wrote about it this way: “This remedy consists of blubber, which is poured into the sea when the ship is splashing, or bags filled with it are placed near the ship. This remedy has been known to our Pomeranians since ancient times and was used by them for many years before the European departments published about this remedy as some kind of important discovery.” Northern Pomor sailors were explorers of the Arctic Ocean. Fearlessly setting sail across unknown, harsh seas, they made valuable geographical discoveries.

The beginning of the Russian advance to the north and northeast to the shores of the White and Barents Seas must be dated back to the 9th-10th centuries.

Three main motives drew the Russians to the harsh North. The first is the desire to escape boyar oppression and internecine wars. The second is the desire to escape religious persecution. The third is the hope of getting out of poverty in the rich fisheries and animal industries of the White and Barents Seas.

A forced change of religion, under the compulsion of the authorities, always and everywhere caused resistance, sometimes expressed in uprisings, sometimes in a kind of going underground, and sometimes in relocation from their homes to new areas.

Thus, Academician Lepekhin wrote: “During Vladimirov’s baptism, many, and especially those from Novgorod, who did not want to accept the Christian faith, leaving their homes, moved to these places, which, due to their remoteness and local situation from the Vladimirovs’ searches, seemed safe to them, and to them due to trade were already known...”

At the end of the 9th and beginning of the 10th centuries. The flow of Russians to the north and northeast intensified, similar to what began in the 15th century. and especially intensified in the 17th century. the persecution of the schismatics caused a new intensified advance of the Russians also to the north and northeast.

Fishing and hunting in the White and Barents Seas attracted not only industrialists, but also merchants who exchanged their catch from industrialists, and caused the development of navigation and shipbuilding, especially since the banks of the rivers flowing into the White Sea were rich in timber.

Very little written information about the beginning of Russian settlement of the shores of the White and Barents Seas has been preserved. One of the most ancient records about the Slavs in our north is from the Arab writer Abu Hamed, who in the first half of the 10th century. reported “about the Yugras who lived in the north of the Urals - as if they were buying iron blades from the Slavs at an expensive price...”

Abu Hamed could have heard about this from Persian and Arab merchants who traded with the Russian North.

This trade was interrupted by the Tatar invasion, and after the opening of sea routes to India by the Dutch, it ceased altogether.

But if trade relations between the North and South were stopped by the Tatar invasion, then relations between the West (Novgorod) and the East (Northwestern Siberia) continued to develop. Thus, the First Sofia Chronicle tells that already in 1032 the Novgorodian Uleb went to the “Iron Gate”.

A well-known expert on our North, Vasily Vasilyevich Krestinin, wrote: “This previously unknown name (Iron Gates) in the geography of our northern countries now raises a new question, in the discussion of the Novgorodians’ campaign for the Iron Gates, which took place in the summer of 1032, in the Novgorod chronicler; Should the river campaign of the Novgorodians be attributed to this or to the Vaigach Gate?”

From the above excerpt it follows that Krestinin considered it possible for the Novgorodians to penetrate the Kara Sea in the first half of the 11th century.

In 1079, the Novgorod prince Gleb Svyatoslavovich died in the northern Urals. The chronicle of Nestor under 1096 says that around 1092 the Novgorodians, on the orders of Gyuryata Rogovich, went to Pechora and Ugra for tribute.

The areas near Kholmogory were mentioned in written sources in 1137. The Monastery of Michael the Archangel at the mouth of the Northern Dvina was founded between 1110 and 1130. In the first half of the 12th century. among the Novgorod possessions the Tersky coast of the White Sea Throat is mentioned.

It is unknown when exactly Kola was founded on Murman, but it was first mentioned in the Norwegian chronicle in 1210, and in the Russian chronicle in 1264.

It is curious that already from 1200 the Norwegians were forced to maintain a permanent naval guard to protect against Russian raids, and in 1307 they even built the Vardehuz fortress in the extreme northeast of Norway (our Pomors called it Vargaev.)

It has already been emphasized that the chronicles primarily noted events that most affected the interests of contemporaries. But such events as the founding of a city, a monastery, the establishment of a naval guard, the long campaigns of the Novgorodians to the Urals, must have their own prehistory, sometimes long, but usually not noted by written sources. Therefore, to clarify the time of the appearance of Russians on the shores of the White and Barents Seas, one has to resort to indirect conclusions.

Firstly, we must take into account the fact that during their advance to the northeast from the ancient centers of their settlements - Novgorod and Ladoga - the Novgorodians right up to “Kamen” (Ural) almost did not encounter resistance, since there were no many people on their way. any organized state associations. Secondly, on this path they encountered many rivers and lakes, which greatly facilitated their progress.

Rivers and lakes in those days, especially in the geographical conditions of the Russian North, were essentially the only means of communication - in the summer on rafts and boats, in the winter - on sleighs and skis on flat ice. Rivers and lakes provided settlers with fish, and coastal forests provided material for building boats, houses, and fuel. Hunting on lakes and forests provided food and furs.

From Lake Ilmen it was easy to get along the Volkhov to Lake Ladoga, then along the Svir to Lake Onega, and then along the Vodla to Vodlozero. Further from the river basins of the Baltic Sea, it was not difficult to move along short portages to the rivers flowing into the White Sea (and the Slavs acquired the skills of moving along rivers and portages during the development of the route “from the Varangians to the Greeks”). Thus, the Novgorodians gradually reached Kem and Onega, then the Northern Dvina and Pechora.

It should be noted that the so-called Pomeranian coast (the western coast of Onega Bay) is very convenient for the initial development of the sea. This coast is very indented and forms many lips and bays, which are well protected from winds and swell by the Onega skerries stretching along the Pomeranian coast

It is natural to assume that part of the Novgorodians moving east, having reached Onega, separated and descended along Onega to the White Sea. Here the flow of Novgorodians again split into two. Some climbed along the shores of the White Sea north to Kandalaksha, and then along rivers and portages reached Kola (hydrographer N. Morozov, noting that between Kandalaksha and Kola there was only one portage about one kilometer long, believed that the Russians penetrated into Kola from Kandalaksha ).

The other part, turning east at the exit from Onega Bay, reached the mouth of the Northern Dvina by sea, perhaps even earlier than those Novgorodians who crossed Onega during their movement to the east and descended along the Northern Dvina to its mouth.

Unfortunately, there is no direct data confirming such assumptions. Indirect confirmation of such assumptions is the great similarity of events during the advance of the Novgorodians to the east in the X-XII centuries. and events during the advance of explorers and sailors in Siberia in the 16th and 17th centuries.

As we will see later, the Russians, moving east through Siberia, simultaneously descended along the rivers to the Arctic Ocean and then crossed by sea from the mouth of one river to the mouth of another. The motivations that forced them to choose such paths were the same among both the Novgorodians and the Siberian explorers - this was the search for fishing grounds, the search for new tribes with whom barter trade could be carried out and on whom taxes could be imposed.

One cannot think that the Novgorodians, who committed in the 11th century. campaigns to Pechora and Ugra, the entire long journey from Novgorod to the Urals were made through unknown uninhabited areas. Thus, if, according to the chronicles, the Novgorodians already by the end of the 11th century. mastered military and trade routes in the Trans-Urals, then we must assume that they appeared on the shores of the White Sea no later than the end of the 10th century.