Описание (английский)
Chita is a city and the administrative center of Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia, located at the confluence of the Chita and Ingoda Rivers and on the Trans-Siberian Railway, 900 kilometers (560 mi) east of Irkutsk.
For several centuries before the Russians arrived, local Mongolic and Turkic tribes inhabited the Chita region, along with various Chinese traders.
Pyotr Beketov's Cossacks founded Chita in 1653.
After 1825, several of the Decembrists suffered exile to Chita;
thus, Chita is on occasion called the "City of Exiles". Many of the
Decembrists were intellectuals and members of the middle class, and
consequently their arrival had a positive effect.
According to George Kennan,
"Among the exiles in Chita were some of the brightest, most cultivated,
most sympathetic men and women that we had met in Eastern Siberia."
Chita was granted town status on July 11, 1851.
When Richard Maack
visited the city in 1855, he saw a wooden town, with one, also wooden,
church. He estimated Chita's population at under 1,000, but predicted
that the city would soon experience fast growth, due to the upcoming annexation of the Amur valley by Russia.
By 1885, Chita's population had reached 5,728, and by 1897 it increased to 11,500.
At the end of the 19th century, many Muslims settled in Chita, attracted by its trading potential. These Muslims were mainly of Tatar origin. They settled down near the Jewish quarter and built a mosque. Many Tatars living in Chita descend from these immigrants.
Chita was occupied by the Japanese between 1918 and 1920. From 1920 to 1922, Chita served as the capital of the Far Eastern Republic. From the 1930s to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Chita was a closed city. During this period, foreigners were prohibited from traveling to Chita, as were many Russians.
In 1945, Puyi, the last Emperor of China, and some of his associates were held prisoner in the city, in a former sanatorium for officers.The Trans-Siberian Highway passes through Chita. Two sections of the highway connect in Chita: the M55 Baikal Highway, which goes from Chita to Irkutsk, and the M58 Amur Highway, which goes from Chita to Khabarovsk.
Chita is served by Kadala Airport, situated 15km to the west.