Amga

Amga lies on the river of the same name in the forested country east of the Lena. The valley was home to Sakha communities before Russian settlement, and its meadows and riverbanks offered a place for both herding and cultivation despite the long Siberian winter. The river eventually joins the Aldan, a tributary of the Lena.

Russian records mention Amga in 1633, when tribute collectors returned from the local Sakha. In 1652 Voin Bogdanov was sent from Yakutsk with six Russian exiles to cultivate grain here. Their settlement, Amginskaya Sloboda, became one of the early centres of arable farming in Yakutia, where Sakha neighbours also took up the cultivation of crops. Growing grain locally helped feed the newcomers without carrying all their provisions from distant parts of Siberia.