Ayan

Coordinates: 56°27′30″N 138°10′05″E / 56.45833°N 138.16806°E / 56.45833; 138.16806

The port of Ayan in the early 20th century

The port of Ayan at about 1870 from a Southeastern direction

Ayan (Russian: Аян) is a rural locality (a selo) and the administrative center of Ayano-Maysky District of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, located on the shore of a well-protected bay of the Sea of Okhotsk, 1,447 kilometers (899 mi) from Khabarovsk and 631 kilometers (392 mi) by sea from Nikolayevsk-on-Amur. Population: 1,325 (2002 Census);^[1] 2,039 (1989 Census).^[2]

The village is served by Munuk Airport.

About 1840 it was decided to move the Russian-America Company base from Okhotsk 270 miles (430 km) down the coast to Ayan. The port of Okhotsk is on a river mouth protected by a sand bar. It is subject to flooding and tends to silt up. Ayan is on a circular bay on the south side of a peninsula and can be entered without waiting for a proper wind. The area was poor in fish and ship-building timber, but there was said to be a coal deposit nearby. A survey was done in 1840 and work started in 1843 under Vasily Zavoyko of the Russian-America Company. In 1845 an overland route was established to Yakutsk. Several expeditions went south from Ayan to explore the Amur area. In 1849 the naval center was again shifted to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Zavoyko became governor there.

During the Crimean War Ayan was still an important harbour. It was used by the United States whaling fleet to a larger extend as well.^[3] The harbour was taken by the English fleet on July 9, 1855. Yet harbour and the little village had been vacated prior to that by the inhabitants. The coast batteries had been destroyed by the Russians, the guns were buried. Ayan was not destroyed. The objective of the English fleet was, to destroy all Russian ships they could find. Apart from a small steam tug there were none. The tug had been pulled on shore and was about to be buried at the time of the occupation. The English troops destroyed the tug through an explosion.^[4]

With the Amur Annexation in 1860, forces were shifted south to Nikolayevsk-on-Amur and Vladivostok. The Alaska purchase in 1867 and the end of the Russian-America company further reduced Ayan's importance. Many leading experts of diverse professions joined the exodus of merchants that had discontinued commercial traffic resulting from the trade in the region.

In the last decades of the 19th century and in the beginning of the 20th century, assistance amounted to a few steamships a year dispatched from Vladivostok that brought flour, sugar, and household supplies. The remoteness of Ayan resulted in its steady depopulation.

In 1922, Ayan was one of the centers of the Yakut Revolt against Lenin's government. The Red Army besieged Anatoly Pepelyayev's forces in Ayan in June 1923. The fall of Ayan on June 16 marked the end of the Russian Civil War. The village served as the center of the Okhotsk-Evenk National Okrug until 1934.

The Yakutsk-Ayan Track supplied Ayan from Yakutsk from 1844 to 1867. It had three sections, first a 235-255 mile road southeast from Yakutsk, crossing the Amga River at Amgisk to Ust-Maya where the Maya River joins the Aldan River, then about 250 miles south up the Maya to near its southernmost point at Nelkan, and then a 150-mile horse trail over the Dzhugdzhur Mountains to Ayan. Because the Maya flows north, it took 13-23 days to go north and 30-40 days to go south. In 1845 the Russian-America Company established ferries and 23 families of settlers and in 1852 the government spent 20,000 rubles rebuilding the route and settled 211 persons.

Weather: Ayan has a subarctic climate (Köppen Dwc) with severe winters only marginally moderated by its maritime location and mild, wet summers. Its maritime location and favourable aspect for moist summer winds makes the coast around Ayan extremely wet for a subarctic climate and much wetter than interior Siberia, with an average annual rainfall more than four times that of Yakutsk and two-and-a-half times that of Chita.

Literature

• Regel, Dr. E und Tiling, Dr. H. 1858. Florula Ajanensis, Aufzaehlung der in der Umgegend von Ajan wachsenden Phanerogamen und hoeheren Cryptogamen nebst Beschreibung einiger neuer Arten und Beleuchtung verwandter Pflanzen. Universitaets-Buchdruckerei. (Moskau)
• no author (i. e.: Heinrich Sylvester Theodor Tiling) 1854 : Eine Reise um die Welt von Westen nach Osten durch das stille und atlantische Meer. Verlag von C. Krebs, Aschaffenburg

References

External links

• http://books.google.de/books?id=6QIYAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Florula+Ajanensis,+Aufzaehlung+der+in+der+Umgegend+von+Ajan+wachsenden+Phanerogamen%22&lr=&num=100&source=gbs_book_other_versions_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false
• http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/dms/load/img/?IDDOC=427554