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Nikolayevsky Post on Amur founded
On August 1 (13) 1850 the Russian navigator Gennady Ivanovich Nevelskoy founded the first military administrative settlement — Nikolayevsky Post, located on the Amur River, which later grew into the city of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur.
In 1643-46 the Russian explorer V. D. Poyarkov, and 5 years later the navigator I. A. Nagib discovered that the River Amur was navigable, and Sakhalin was an island. The results of the expedition were not formalized, therefore the Russian government was mistakenly supporting an idea that the Amur was unnavigable, and Sakhalin was a peninsula. Meanwhile a poor exploration of Priamurye (Amur Oblast) was a principal reason why the territories of Russia and China under the Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689 were not exactly demarcated.
In the mid. 19th c. the rapid expansion of Britain, USA and France into the East, as well as a threat of seizure of the Amur River mouth and Sakhalin brought the issue of Priamurye into focus of the Russian government. Having studied the reports of expeditions to the Amur and Sakhalinin a detailed way, the naval officer G. I. Nevelskoy succeeded in taking up a position of a commander of the “Baikal” vessel, which headed for the Kamchatka peninsula. In summer 1849 Nevelskoy reached the Amur Liman on “Baikal”. He explored the north-eastern shore of Sakhalin, rounded its northern extremity and made its way along the western shore of Sakhalin to the south. During the voyage he opened a navigable strait (today the Nevelskoy Strait), which divided the island from the continent. Thus, Nevelskoy proved the island nature of Sakhalin. Moreover, he found out, that the mouth of the River Amur and the Amur Liman were accessible for vessels.
In June 1850 on the order of the Emperor Nikolas I Nevelskoy was sent to the Far East, where he set up a winter hut in Shchastya Bay, called Petrovsky. In August 1850 100 kilometers up the Amur River on the Cape Kuegda he founded Nikolayevsky Post, later to become the city of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur. In front of the local population Nevelskoy hoisted the Russian flag and on behalf of the Russian government announced that the “shore of the Bay and the whole Amur krai, up to the border with Korea with the island Sakhalin were Russian possessions”.
By spring 1854 Nikolayevsky Post had already become a small settlement with five houses, a warehouse, a yard and a bell-tower. A dock was built for the arriving ships. In 1856 was created Primorskaya Oblast, and Nikolayevsky Post was reorganized into the town, which was named Nikolayevsk and given the right of an administrative center of Primorye and the main port in the Far East.
Lit.: Алексеев А. И. Геннадий Иванович Невельской (1813–1876). М., 1984; Алексеев А. И. Любовь, Амур, счастье. Петропавловск-Камчатский, 2003; Винокуров И., Флорич Ф. Подвиг адмирала Невельского. М., 1951; Задорнов Н. П. Капитан Невельской. М., 1974; Полевой Б. П. Подробный отчёт Г. И. Невельского о его исторической экспедиции 1849 г. к о-ву Сахалин и устью Амура [Электронный ресурс] // Lib.ru/Классика. 2004. URL: http://az.lib.ru/n/newelxskoj_g_i/text_0040.shtml.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials: