“A region beautiful and bountiful”

The Russians first appeared in the Amur river valley in the 1630s, in the course of their movement east across Siberia. This movement had begun some 50 years earlier, with the penetration across the Urals by Yermak's cossack band and their victory over the Tatar prince Kuchum. From the outset, the Russians were pulled eastward by a single and simple goal: the quest for the fabulous fur wealth of the Siberian taiga. Furs played a critical role in the finances of the early Russian state, serving not only as the most important item of barter with foreign countries but as a major commodity of domestic exchange as well. Indeed, furs represented one of the most significant sources of mercantile capital for the Muscovite economy, and were used in much the same way and for the same purposes as were the gold and silver of the New World by the Iberian empires. The high value of Siberian pelts ensured that they would be hunted intensively, and as the fur-bearing population of one locale was exhausted the promyshlenniki or fur traders pressed further east, seeking out new reserves. In this manner, furs may well be said to have drawn the Russians across the north Asian landmass, and indeed they did so with remarkable rapidity. Most accounts date Yermak's initial crossing of the Urals to 1582, and the Pacific coast was reached by Ivan Moskvitin in 1639.