Bitiim

Vitim lies on the Lena opposite the mouth of the Vitim River, where a great tributary descending from the mountains joins the northward-flowing river. A settlement was established here in the seventeenth century; local tradition gives the date as 1621, while a later encyclopaedia records its existence by 1661. The meeting of the waterways placed the Vitim settlement on an important route through the forests of eastern Siberia.