6. Scan the text: Amur River History
Tungus-Manchurian tribes named the Amur “Amar” or “Damar” (Big River). Chinese firstly named it “Kheikhe” (Black River) and later Heilongjiang (River of a Black Dragon). And the Mongols named the river “Amur-Khara-Muren” (Black water). The Amur River has always been closely associated with the island of Sakhalin, and most names for the island, even in the languages of the indigenous peoples of the region, are derived from the name of the river: "Sakhalin" derives from a Tungusic dialectal form cognate with Manchu sahaliyan ("black," as in sahaliyan ula, "Black River").
For many centuries the Amur Valley was populated by the Tungusic (Evenki, Solon, Ducher, Nanai, Ulch), Mongolian (Daur) people, and, near its mouth, by the Nivkhs. All local peoples regarded this river to be sacred. For many of them, fishing in the Amur and its tributaries was the main source of their livelihood. Until the 17th century, these peoples were not known to the Europeans, and little known to the Chinese, who sometimes collectively described them as the Wild Jurchens.
I
n
the 13–14th
centuries the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty, ruling by China, established a
tenuous military presence on the lower Amur. Ruins of their
Yuan-era
temple were excavated near the village of Tyr
.
In the early 15th century Manchurian Ming Dynasty reached the Amur and established control over the lands in the northeast.
The 17th century was a period of struggle for control over the Amur River between Russia, which has expanded to Eastern Siberia and Manchuria, whose main forces were concentrated in the south-eastern Manchuria. In 1643–1651 Russian Cossack expeditions led by Vasily Poyarkov and Yerofey Khabarov explored the Amur and its tributaries.
Yerofey Khabarov established the fort of Albazin on the upper Amur, at the site of the former capital of the Solons.
This event deprived the Manchurian rulers from the tribute of sable fur that the Solons and Daurs of the area supplied them. So they tried to return that territory back and in 1685 during a short military campaign Albazin fell. In 1689 in accordance with the Nerchinsk Treaty the left entire Amur valley, from the confluence of the Rivers Shilka and Argun downstream, became the Manchurian property.
The Amur region remained a backwater of Manchuria for the next century and a half, with Aigun being practically the only major town on the river. Russians re-appeared on the river in the mid 19th century, forcing Manchuria to yield all lands north of the river to the Russian Empire by the Treaty of Aigun (1858). Lands east of the Ussury and the lower Amur were acquired by Russia as well, by the Treaty of Peking (1860).
The acquisition of the lands on the Amur and the Ussury was followed by the migration of Russian settlers to the region and the construction of such cities as Blagoveshchensk and, later, Khabarovsk.
Economy of the Amur Basin
The economy of the Amur Basin includes manufacturing, metallurgy, iron mining, non-ferrous metals, gold, coal, hydroelectricity, wheat, millet, soybeans, fishing, timber and Chinese-Russian trade.
The ecological register of the Amur River numbers 133 fish species. This fish permanently lives in its waters and is distinguished for its delicious taste and big size: grass carp and black carp, called Amur fish; bambusa, big head fish, sky gazer, snakehead, taimen, mirror carp, Amur sturgeon and kaluga fish (great Siberian sturgeon). Passing salmon make its way to the upper reaches of rivers in taiga to spawn by the Amur River and its tributaries.
The valley of the Amur River in Khabarovsk Territory is characterized by a large variety of nature, presence of archeological and historical objects. They are lotus lakes and ancient volcanoes, picturesque and rear valley lakes, Tyr Cliff with the traces of the Manchurian temple of the XVth century, ancient Sikachi-Alian petroglyphs and so on. The history of Khabarovsk Territory is closely connected with the Amur River.
The Amur River borders on Heilongjiang province of China in the south, Amur Oblast, Jewish Autonomous Oblast, and Khabarovsk Territory of Russia in the north.