Abakan ' onMouseout='HidePop("65551")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Khakas_language">Khakass
Khakas is a Turkic language spoken by the Khakas people, who mainly live in the southern Siberian Khakas Republic, or Khakassia, in Russia. The Khakas number 78,500, of whom 60,168 speak the Khakas language; most people are bilingual in Russian...
: Ағбан) is the capital city of the
Republic of KhakassiaRepublic of Khakassia or Khakasiya is a federal subject of Russia located in south central Siberia....
in
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, in South
SiberiaSiberia , is the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the USSR from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the...
.
Abakan ' onMouseout='HidePop("65551")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Khakas_language">Khakass
Khakas is a Turkic language spoken by the Khakas people, who mainly live in the southern Siberian Khakas Republic, or Khakassia, in Russia. The Khakas number 78,500, of whom 60,168 speak the Khakas language; most people are bilingual in Russian...
: Ағбан) is the capital city of the
Republic of KhakassiaRepublic of Khakassia or Khakasiya is a federal subject of Russia located in south central Siberia....
in
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, in South
SiberiaSiberia , is the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the USSR from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the...
. It is located in the central part of
Minusinsk DepressionMinusinsk Hollow or Khakass-Minusinsk Hollow is the southern part of the wide Minusinsk Depression in Khakassia, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia located among mountains of South Siberia. It is bounded on the west by Kuznetsk Alatau, and east by the Sayan Mountains. See Geography of South-Central Siberia...
, at the
confluenceConfluence, in geography, describes the meeting of two or more bodies of water. It usually refers to the point where a tributary joins a more major river, called the mainstem, when that major river is also the highest order stream in the drainage basin....
of the
YeniseiYenisei is the greatest river system flowing to the Arctic Ocean, and at 5,539 km is the fifth longest river in the world. Rising in Mongolia, it follows a northerly course to the Yenisei Gulf in the Kara Sea, draining a large part of central Siberia, the longest stream following the...
and
Abakan RiverThe Abakan , the Khakas word for 'bear's blood', is a river in the Republic of Khakassia, Russia formed by the confluence of the Bolshoy Abakan and Maly Abakan Rivers. It rises in the western Sayan Mountains and flows northeast through the Minusinsk Depression to the Yenisei River...
s, at approximately the same
latitudeLatitude, usually denoted by the Greek letter phi gives the location of a place on Earth north or south of the equator. Lines of Latitude are the imaginary horizontal lines shown running east-to-west on maps that run either north or south of the equator...
as
HamburgHamburg is the second-largest city in Germany and the sixth-largest city in the European Union...
and
MinskMinsk is the capital and largest city in Belarus, situated on the Svislach and Niamiha rivers. Minsk is also a headquarters of the Commonwealth of Independent States . As the national capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is also the administrative centre of Minsk...
. Population: 159,000(1994 est.).
History
Abakan fort was built at this location in 1675, also known as
Abakansk. In
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
it belonged to Yenisei gubernia. During 1823–1931 the grown settlement was known as
Ust-Abakanskoye, 1914–1925: Abakan, 1925–1931:
Khakassk. It received the status of town and its current name in 1931.
Chinese exiles
In 1940, Russian construction workers found ancient ruins during the construction of a highway between Abakan and the nearby district center village of Askyz (Аскыз). When the site was excavated by Soviet archaeologists during 1941-45, they realized that they had discovered a building absolutely unique for the area: a large (1500 square meters) Chinese-style, likely
Han DynastyThe Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
era palace. The identity of the high-ranking personage who lived luxuriously in Chinese style, far outside of the borders of the Han Empire, has remained a matter for discussion ever since. Russian archaeologist L.A. Evtyukhova surmised, based on circumstancial evidence, that the palace may have been the residence of Li Ling, a Chinese general who had been defeated by the
XiongnuThe Xiongnu were a confederation of nomadic tribes from Central Asia with a ruling class of unknown origin and other subjugated tribes. The bulk of information on the Xiongnu comes from Chinese sources. What little is known of their titles and names comes from Chinese transliterations from their...
in 99 BC, and defected to them as a result. While this opinion has remained popular, other view have been expressed as well. More recently, for example, it was claimed by A.A. Kovalyov as the residence of Lu Fang (盧芳), a
HanThe Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
throne pretender from the
GuangwuEmperor Guangwu , born Liu Xiu, was an emperor of the Chinese Han Dynasty, restorer of the dynasty in AD 25 and thus founder of the Later Han or Eastern Han...
era.
Lithuanian exiles
In the late eighteenth and during the nineteenth century, Lithuanian participants in the 1794, 1830-1831, and 1863 rebellions against the Russian czarist rule were exiled to Abakan. A group of
campCAMP may stand for:* Cyclic adenosine monophosphate * Cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide* Campaign Against Marijuana Planting* Central Atlantic Magmatic Province* CAMP, an Italian manufacturer of climbing equipment....
s was established, and prisoners were forced to work in the coal mines. After
StalinJoseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953...
's death, Lithuanian exiles from the nearby settlements moved in
Economy
Abakan (together with
TayshetTayshet is a town and a railroad junction in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. Population: 36,880 . Here the Baikal Amur Mainline begins, branching northeast from the Trans-Siberian Railway. It is also on the M53 highway...
) was a terminal of the major Abakan-Taishet Railway. Now it is an important railway junction.
The city is served by the
Abakan International AirportAbakan International Airport is an airport located in Abakan, Republic of Khakassia, Russia.-Airport description:The airport is located to the north of the city not far from the city limits. City bus and trolleybus connections are available...
.
The city has a river port, industry enterprises, Khakas State University, and three theatres. Furthermore, it has a commercial center that produces footwear, foodstuffs, and metal products.
The 100th Air Assault Brigade of the Russian Airborne Troops was based in the city until c.1996. (Schofield, The Russian Elite)
Sites
Abakan's sites of interest include Holy Transfiguration Cathedral, "Good Angel of Peace" sculpture, park of topiary art, and many others.
Sports
BandyBandy is a team winter sport played on ice, in which skaters use sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal.The rules of the game have many similarities to those of association football: the game is played on a rectangle of ice the same size as a soccer field. Each team has eleven...
is the biggest sport in the city. Sayany plays in the highest division of Russian Bandy League.
External links
Abakan web portal