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Updated: May 13, 2025
Men, women, and children are addicted to the practice, and the amount of tobacco they burn is enormous. At daylight on the morning after leaving Igoon, we were passing the mouth of the Zeya, a river half a mile wide, flowing with a strong current. It was along this river that the first white men who saw the Amoor found their way.
There was an annual fair at the Gilyak village of Pul, below Mariensk, and this was made the center of commerce. The fair lasted ten days, and during that time Pul was a miniature Nijne Novgorod. Manjour and Chinese merchants met Japanese from the island of Sakhalin, Tunguse from the coast of the Ohotsk Sea, and others from, the head waters of the Zeya and Amgoon.
In the middle of the Amoor valley and at the mouth of the Zeya, its commercial advantages are good and its importance increases every year. It was founded in 1858 by General Mouravieff, but did not receive any population worthy of mention until after the treaty of Igoon in 1860.
Many are killed every autumn and winter in the valley of the Zeya and along the middle Amoor. The flesh is eaten and the skin used for winter coats and similar articles. The commerce of Blagoveshchensk is in the hands of half a dozen merchants, one French, one German, and the rest Russian.
I well knew that the capital of the Province of the Amoor was just above the mouth of the Zeya. It stands on a prairie fifteen or twenty feet above the river, and when approached from the south its appearance is pleasing. The houses are large and well built, and each has plenty of space around it.
They have the same military precision that is observed below the Zeya, and each has a bath house set in the bank. Frequently we found these bath houses in operation, and on one occasion two boys came out clad in the elegant costume of the Greek Slave, without her fetters. They gazed at the boat with perfect sang froid, the thermometer being just above freezing point.
It is said to be practicable for steam navigation three or four hundred miles from its mouth. At present four or five thousand peasants are settled along the Zeya, with excellent agricultural prospects. As I came on deck rubbing my half-opened eyes, I saw a well-built town on the Russian shore. "Blagoveshchensk," said the steward, as he waved his arm in that direction.
Above the mouth of the Zeya there are two other tribes of similar character, the Managres and Orochons. The principal difference between them is that the former keep the horse and the latter the reindeer. The Birars have no beasts of burden except a very few horses. None of these people live in permanent houses, but move about wherever attracted by fishing or the chase.
Captain Anossoff proposes to erect a smelting establishment at Blagoveshchensk, supplying it with iron ore from the Buryea region and with coal from the Zeya. Copper and silver exist in several localities, but the veins have not been thoroughly examined. The mountains are like those in the Nerchinsk district that have yielded so richly in precious metals.
On the north the plain was wider, but it terminated about forty miles above Blagoveshchensk, a series of low hills taking its place. The first day we ran twenty-five or thirty versts before sunset. The river was less than a mile wide, and the volume of water sensibly diminished above the Zeya.
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