The Former city Duma is one of the oldest buildings in the city
The lands near the confluence of the Ussury and the Amur, where today's Khabarovsk stands, have been populated for centuries by the indigenous Tungusic people. Chinese expeditions reached this area as early as the first half of the 15th century, and in the mid-17th century the Amur Valley became the scene of hostilities between the Russian Cossacks, trying to expand into the region, and the rising Manchu Qing Dynasty, bent on securing the region for itself. Nearly a century of skirmishes between the Chinese, Koreans and Cossacks followed, one of those involving Russian explorer Yerofey Khabarov, whose name the city later adapted. The Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) brought the conflict to a close and made the area an undisputed part of the Chinese Qing Empire. According to French Jesuits mapping the Ussury and the Amur rivers in 1709, the future site of Khabarovsk was known to the Chinese as Yupi Dazi ("Fishskin Tartars").
In 1858, the area was ceded to Russia under the Treaty of Aigun. The Russians founded the military outpost of Khabarovka (Хаба́ровка), which subsequently became an important industrial centre for the region. The Russian Geographical Society then began founding libraries, theaters, and museums in the growing 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 Sikhachi-Alyan, where cliff drawings from more than 1,300 years ago can be found.
The Trans-Siberian first reached Khabarovsk from Vladivostok in 1897, while the complete railway to Moscow did not see completion until 1913. Three years later, the Khabarovsk Bridge across the Amur was completed, allowing Trans-Siberian trains to cross the river without using ferries. The city was occupied by the Japanese for much of the Russian Civil War, which may offer some explanation to the many old buildings still standing around the city center.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Khabarovsk
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Khabarovsk - updated May 2024
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Khabarovsk Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
