Biirakaan

Byrakan lies in the forested Vilyuy country of the Sakha interior, where rivers and winter roads cross long distances between small clusters of settlement. The Vilyuy valley came into Russian view in the first half of the seventeenth century, when a winter quarters established on the river grew into the town of Vilyuysk. Before that, Sakha herders kept cattle and horses on the river meadows, and Evenki hunters followed game through the forests, travelling by boat in summer and by sledge in winter.