Описание (английский)
Blagoveshchensk is a city and the administrative center of Amur Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Amur and Zeya Rivers, opposite to the Chinese city of Heihe.
The Amur has formed Russia's border with China since the 1858 Aigun Treaty and 1860 Treaty of Peking. The area north of the Amur belonged to the Manchu Qing dynasty by the Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689, until it was ceded to Russia by Aigun Treaty in 1858.
As the balance of power in the region has changed by the mid-19th century, the Russian Empire
was able to take over the left (generally northern, but around
Blagoveshchensk, eastern) shore of the Amur from China. Since the 1858 Aigun Treaty and the 1860 Treaty of Peking, the river has remained the border between the countries, although the Qing subjects were allowed to continue to live in the so-called Sixty-Four Villages east of the Amur and the Zeya (i.e., within today's Blagoveshchensk's eastern suburbs).
Although Russian settlers had lived in the area as early as 1644 as "Hailanpao" (the Chinese name for the city), the present-day city began in 1856 as the military outpost of Ust-Zeysky; its name means settlement at the mouth of the Zeya River in Russian. Tsar Alexander II
gave approval for the founding of the city in 1858, to be named
Blagoveshchensk, literally means "the city of good news", after the
parish Church of the Annunciation and declared to be seat of government
for the Amur region.
According to Blagoveshchensk authorities, by 1877 the city had some
8,000 residents, with merely 15 foreigners (presumably, Chinese) among
them.
The city was an important river port and trade center during the late 19th century, with growth further fueled by a gold rush early in the 20th century and by its position on the Chinese border, just hundreds of meters across from the city of Heihe.
Local historian note the preeminence of Blagoveshchensk in the economy of the late 19th century Russian Far East, which was reflected by a "small detail": When the heir to Russian throne, HIH Nicholas Alexandrovich (future Tsar Nicholas II) visited in 1891 during his grand tour of Asia, the locals presented him with bread and salt on a gold tray, rather than on a silver one, as it was done in other cities of the region.
In the course of the Boxer Rebellion, the Qing Imperial army (made out of Manchus and Han Chinese) and Boxer insurgents shelled the city in July 1900. Chinese Honghuzi forces joined the attack against Blagoveshchensk.
According to the Orthodox belief, the city was allegedly saved by a miraculous icon of Our Lady of Albazin, which was prayed to continuously during the shelling which lasted almost two weeks.
On July 3 (Old Style),
a decision was made by the city's Police Chief Batarevich and the
Military Governor Gribsky to deport the city's entire ethnic Chinese
community (which, according to the official statistics, numbered 4,008
in 1898), viewed as potential "fifth columnists".
As the cross-river shipping was interrupted by the rebellion, a
question arose how to get them from the Russian side of the Amur to the
Chinese side. Batarevich suggested that the deportees could be first
taken east of the Zeya, where they could try to obtain boats from the local Chinese villagers. The plan, however, was vetoed by the governor, and the decision was made instead to take the deportees to the stanitsa of Verkhneblagoveshchenskaya—the place where the Amur is at its narrowest—and made them leave the Russian shore. As the local ataman
refused to provide the deportees with boats to take them across the
river (despite the orders of his superior), few of them made it to the
Chinese side. The rest drowned in the Amur, or were shot or axed by the
police, Cossacks and local volunteers, when refusing to leave the dry
land. According to Chinese sources, about 5,000 people reportedly died
during these events of July 4–8, 1900.
The expulsion of local Chinese caused some hardships for
Blagoveshchensk consumers. Historians note that during the second half
of 1900, it became almost impossible to buy any green vegetables in
town; ten eggs would cost 30-50 kopecks (and in winter, as much as a
ruble), while before it had been possible to buy ten eggs for 10-15
kopecks.
The massacre angered the Chinese, and had ramifications for the future: the Chinese Honghuzi fought a guerilla war against Russian occupation and assisted the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese war against the Russians in revenge. Louis Livingston Seaman mentioned the massacre as being the reason for the Chinese Honghuzi hatred towards the Russians:
The Chinaman, be he Hung-hutze or peasant, in his relation to the
Russians in this conflict with Japan has not forgotten the terrible
treatment accorded him since the Muscovite occupation of Manchuria. He
still remembers the massacre at Blagovestchensk when nearly 8,000
unarmed men, women, and children were driven at the point of the bayonet
into the raging Amur, until—as one of the Russian officers who
participated in that brutal murder told me at Chin-Wang-Tao in 1900—
"the execution of my orders made me almost sick, for it seemed as though
I could have walked across the river on the bodies of the floating
dead."
Not a Chinaman escaped, except forty who were employed by a
leading foreign merchant who ransomed their lives at a thousand roubles
each. These, and many even worse, atrocities are remembered and now is
their moment for revenge. So it was easy for Japan to enlist the
sympathy of these men, especially when emphasized by liberal pay, as is
now the case. It is believed that more than 10,000 of these bandits,
divided into companies of from 200 to 300 each and led by Japanese
officers, are now in the pay of Japan.
The city was also the site of conflict during the Russian Civil War, with Japanese troops occupying the city in support of the White Army. From 1920 until 1922, the city was declared part of the Far Eastern Republic, an area which was nominally independent, but in reality a buffer zone under control of the Russian SFSR.
The city became the administrative center of Amur Oblast in 1932.
During the Cultural Revolution the city was subject to Maoist propaganda blasted from loudspeakers across the river 24 hours a day.