10 Monuments & Statues in Sakha (Yakutia) Republic That You Shouldn't Miss

Reviewed By sergeyk147

Yes, Pyotr - not Petr! - Beketov (stress is on the second syllable) really built a small wooden dwelling on the Lena river in 1632 but, first, some 70 kilometers to the north, second, on its opposite bank and, third, it bore a different name - Lensky ostrog which means "a wooden fort on Lena". Pretty soon, however, Mother Nature demonstrated that that was a bad choice 'coz spring debacles and consequent floods brought the settlement on the verge of total annihilation. So the ostrog was moved to the place where Yakutsk stands now - and renamed. Beketov was not a typical Russian conquistador. Though not exactly a tender prince of a guy he still mostly treated locals in a human way and preferred peaceful means of governing them. It sounds absolutely astonishing but he built that fort right in the center of a populous region with just 30 - THIRTY! - cossacks and immediately started to collect fur tribute from indigenous people. Yakutsk was not the only city founded by him. Then came Zhigansk, Nerchinsk (main Russian silver-mining district for decades) and Chita - a city with about 350,000 inhabitants nowadays. The monument is not in the downtown but the place is nice - Lena flowing nearby, green landscape. The major deficiency is that to get there one must cross a wide and rather buzy street so mind the traffic.