Pomor

The Pomors, whose name means seasiders, are the Russian maritime people of the White Sea coasts, descended chiefly from Novgorodian settlers who entered those waters from the twelfth century. Kholmogory long served as their chief town until Arkhangelsk, founded in 1584, became a window for English and Dutch trade with Muscovy.

In flat-bottomed koch ships built for ice, Pomor hunters and traders ranged to Novaya Zemlya, Vaygach and Svalbard, and opened the northern sea route into Siberia. Mangazeya beyond the Yamal Peninsula grew in the early seventeenth century into a fur-and-ivory emporium, until Tsar Michael closed the route under pain of death and the city withered.

Their lives rested on fishing, hunting, salt boiling and barter trade with Norwegians in Finnmark. Their voyages blazed the trail for the Russian conquest and settlement of Siberia.