Amur River

The Amur River, in Siberia, springs from the confluence of the Shilka and Argun Rivers east of Lake BAIKAL and flows over 1,800 mi (2,897 km) toward the Tatar Straits, the passage between Sakhalin and the Russian Pacific Coast. With all tributaries, the Amur basin covers nearly 750,000 square mi (1,942,491 square km) of area. The Russian push into the river valley in the mid-17th century resulted in a border clash with the Chinese Empire. The Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) admitted the territorial sovereignty of the Manchu dynasty over the Amur region for 150

years. The Chinese know the river as the Heilongjiang.

In the mid-19th century, the Amur, as the lone river in

Siberia that flows eastward to the PACIFIC OCEAN,

gained geopolitical significance for the Russian Empire.

After the unequal treaties concluded with CHINA in

1850 and 1860, RUSSIA annexed the Amur region.

Russian 19th-century geographers spoke of the

Amur as Russia’s gateway to the Pacific. Not only is

the river is abundant with fish, but also the mild climate

is appropriate for agriculture (grain, vegetables,

fruits). A systematic geographical exploration of the

river by the Russians began in 1824 with Grigorii

Spasskii’s study “Historical and Statistical Notes about

Places along the River Amur.” In 1846, navigator

Alexander Gavrilov sailed to the mouth of the Amur

and reported that the river was too shallow for even

small ships. This was revised by Gennadii Nevel’skoi’s

expedition in 1849 that found that the mouth of the

Amur was navigable by ships of any size.

The Russian government feared a British occupation

of the river mouth and the east Siberian general

governor, Nikolai Murav’ev-Amurskii, coined the Russian geopolitical logic that whoever shall control

the mouth shall control Siberia to Lake Baikal. In

1856, the tzarist government declared the Amur region

a free trade zone. After the emancipation of the serfs

(1861), the government supported the free colonization

with tax exemptions. Though some thousands of

peasants settled along the Amur, the region remained

underpopulated until the modern era.

In view of the illegal migration between 1860 and

World War I, the tzarist government founded the socalled

Amur Cossack Division, which supervised the

border line along the river. In the Russian Civil War

(1917–22) Japanese troops occupied the Amur region.

Again in the 1930s and in the late 1960s, the Amur became

a military trouble spot between the Soviet Union

and its East Asian neighbors, JAPAN and China. In the

era of Sino-Soviet confrontation, the Soviet government

created a frontier ethos that was, at least, reflected

by the construction of the BAM (Baikal-Amur-

Magistrale). After the breakdown of the Soviet Union

in 1989, the Amur region experienced a population

outflow to European Russia that resulted in a declining

industrial production. Nevertheless, the Amur region

seeks economic cooperation with nearby China and facilitates

border trade between the cities Blagoveshchensk

and Heihe.