Verkhnyaya Sinyachikha

Verkhnyaya Sinyachikha grew beside an ironworks begun in 1769 after ore was found near the Sinyachikha River. A dam powered the works; houses stood on one bank and workshops on the other. Mansi people had earlier lived in the region and called the river Syanga, to which Russian settlers added the ending that gave Sinyachikha its name. By 1782 iron from the works was sold in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and England. Charcoal came from forests many kilometers away, where clearings became meadows and fields.