Krasnoyarsk

Krasnoyarsk stands where the Kacha joins the Yenisei, amid hills marking the transition from the Sayan mountain country to the Siberian plain. Its name recalls the red bank above the rivers. Founded as a frontier stockade, the town grew into an important centre on the Yenisei and on the road across southern Siberia.

In 1628 a Cossack detachment led by Andrey Dubensky built the wooden fort of Krasny Yar at the confluence. The site was chosen to guard the southern approaches to Yeniseysk and the river routes on which Russian expansion depended. Its establishment brought a fortified Russian presence close to the lands of the Yenisei Kyrgyz and other Indigenous communities, whose resistance shaped the early history of the frontier. In the eighteenth century the Siberian road reached Krasnoyarsk, connecting it with Achinsk, Kansk and the regions farther west. The town’s position combined the long-distance overland route with the Yenisei waterway. As trade and settlement grew around the former stockade, Krasnoyarsk became more than a military outpost, serving the surrounding agricultural country and the travellers crossing Siberia.