Blagoveshchensk ( rus, Благовещенск, p=bləɡɐˈvʲeɕːɪnsk, ) is a
city
A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...
and the
administrative center
An administrative centre is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune, is located.
In countries with French as the administrative language, such as Belgiu ...
of
Amur Oblast,
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
. It is located at the
confluence
In geography, a confluence (also ''conflux'') occurs where two or more watercourses join to form a single channel (geography), channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main ...
of the
Amur
The Amur River () or Heilong River ( zh, s=黑龙江) is a perennial river in Northeast Asia, forming the natural border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China (historically the Outer Manchuria, Outer and Inner Manchuria). The Amur ...
and the
Zeya Rivers, opposite to the Chinese city of
Heihe
Heihe (; ; Russian language, Russian: Хэйхэ) is a prefecture-level city of northern Heilongjiang province, China, located on the Sino-Russian border, Russian border, on the south bank of the Amur River, Amur (Heilong) River, across the r ...
. Population: The Amur has formed
Russia's border with China since the 1858
Aigun Treaty and the 1860
Treaty of Peking. The area north of the Amur belonged to the Manchu
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
by the
Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689 until it was ceded to Russia by the Aigun Treaty in 1858.
History
Early history of the region
The early residents of both sides of the Amur in the region of today's Blagoveshchensk were the
Daurs and
Duchers. An early settlement in the area of today's Blagoveshchensk was the Ducher town whose name was reported by the Russian explorer
Yerofey Khabarov as Aytyun in 1652, as Aigun from 1683 to 1685, and as Aigun Old Town from 1685 until
the massacre in 1900, which is known to Russian archaeologists as the Grodekovo site, after the nearby village of
Grodekovo about southeast of Blagoveshchensk. The Grodekovo site is thought by archaeologists to have been populated since ca. AD 1000.
[Амурская область: История. Народы Амурской земли](_blank)
(Amur Oblast - the History. The peoples of the Amur Land)

As the Russians tried to assert their control over the region, the Ducher town was probably vacated when the Duchers were evacuated by the
Qing to the
Sungari or
Hurka in the mid-1650s.
Since 1673, the Chinese reused the site for their fort ("Old Aigun", in modern literature),
[Олег Анатольевич Тимофеев (Oleg Anatolyevich Timofeyev)]
"Российско-китайские отношения в Приамурье (сер. XIX – нач. XX вв.)"
(''Russian-Chinese relations in the Amur region, mid-19th - early 20th centuries''). Part 1. Blagoveshchensk, 2003. which served in 1683-1685 as a base for the Manchus's campaign against the Russian fort of
Albazin further north.
After the capture of Albazin in 1685 or 1686, the Chinese relocated their town, to a new site on the right (southwestern, i.e. presently Chinese) bank of the Amur, about downstream from the original site; it later became known as
Aigun.
[ E. G. Ravenstein, ]
The Russians on the Amur
'. London (1861), pg. 48.
The
series of conflicts between Russians and China ended with Russia's recognition of the Chinese sovereignty over both sides of the Amur by the
Nerchinsk Treaty of 1689.
Russian settlement
As the balance of power in the region had changed by the mid-19th century, the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
was able
to take over the left (generally northern, but around Blagoveshchensk, eastern) bank of the Amur from China. Since the 1858
Aigun Treaty and the 1860
Treaty of Peking, the river has remained the border between the countries, although the
Qing subjects were allowed to continue to live in the so-called
Sixty-Four Villages east of the Amur and the Zeya (i.e., within today's Blagoveshchensk's eastern suburbs).

Although Russian settlers had lived in the area as early as 1644 and was known as (), the present-day city began in 1856
as the military outpost of ''Ust-Zeysky''; this name means ''settlement at the mouth of the
Zeya River'' in Russian.
Tsar
Tsar (; also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar''; ; ; sr-Cyrl-Latn, цар, car) is a title historically used by Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word '' caesar'', which was intended to mean ''emperor'' in the Euro ...
Alexander II gave approval for the founding of the city in 1858 as the seat of government for the Amur region, to be named Blagoveshchensk (literally "the city of good news") after the parish church which was dedicated to the
Annunciation
The Annunciation (; ; also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation of Our Lady, or the Annunciation of the Lord; ) is, according to the Gospel of Luke, the announcement made by the archangel Gabriel to Ma ...
. According to Blagoveshchensk authorities, by 1877 the city had some 8,000 residents, with merely 15 foreigners (presumably, Chinese) among them.
The city was an important river port and trade centre during the late 19th century, with growth further fuelled by a
gold
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
rush early in the 20th century and by its position on the Chinese border opposite the city of
Heihe
Heihe (; ; Russian language, Russian: Хэйхэ) is a prefecture-level city of northern Heilongjiang province, China, located on the Sino-Russian border, Russian border, on the south bank of the Amur River, Amur (Heilong) River, across the r ...
.
Local historians noted the pre-eminence of Blagoveshchensk in the economy of the late 19th century
Russian Far East
The Russian Far East ( rus, Дальний Восток России, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in North Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asia, Asian continent, and is coextensive with the Far Easte ...
, which was reflected when the heir to the Russian throne,
Nicholas Alexandrovich (the future Tsar Nicholas II), visited in 1891 during his
grand tour of Asiatic Russia, and the locals presented him with
bread and salt on a gold tray, rather than on a silver one as in other cities of the region.
The Boxer Rebellion
In the course of the
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious F ...
, the Qing Imperial army (made out of Manchus and Han Chinese) and Boxer insurgents
shelled the city in July 1900. Chinese
Honghuzi forces joined the attack against Blagoveshchensk. According to the
Orthodox belief, the city was allegedly saved by a miraculous
icon
An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic Church, Catholic, and Lutheranism, Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, mother of ...
of Our Lady of Albazin, which was prayed to continuously during the shelling which lasted almost two weeks.
On 3 July (
Old Style
Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, they refer to the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various European countries betwe ...
), a decision was made by the city's Police Chief Batarevich and the Military Governor Gribsky to deport the city's entire community of Qing subjects including ethnic
Manchus,
Daur people and Han, numbering 4,008
), who were viewed as potential
fifth columnists. As cross-river shipping was interrupted by the rebellion, the question arose how to get them from the Russian to the Chinese side of the Amur. Batarevich suggested that the deportees could be first taken east of the
Zeya, where they should obtain boats from the local Chinese villagers. The plan, however, was vetoed by the governor, and the decision was made instead to take the deportees to the ''
stanitsa
A stanitsa or stanitza ( ; ), also spelled stanycia ( ) or stanica ( ), was a historical administrative unit of a Cossack host, a type of Cossack polity that existed in the Russian Empire.
Etymology
The Russian word is the diminutive of the word ...
'' of Verkhneblagoveshchenskaya—the place where the Amur is at its narrowest—and make them leave Russia there. As the local ''
ataman
Ataman (variants: ''otaman'', ''wataman'', ''vataman''; ; ) was a title of Cossack and haidamak leaders of various kinds. In the Russian Empire, the term was the official title of the supreme military commanders of the Cossack armies. The Ukra ...
'' refused to provide boats to take them across the river (despite the orders of his superior), few of them made it to the Chinese side. The rest drowned in the Amur, or were shot or axed by the police, Cossacks and local volunteers, if they refused to leave the bank. Local Chinese memory holds that a massacre that took place then, at the hands of the Cossacks, which killed so many that the Amur River was choked. According to Chinese sources, about 5,000 people reportedly died during these events of 4–8 July 1900.
There were 1,266 households in the city, including 900 Daurs and 4,500 Manchus until the massacre. Many Manchu villages were burned by Cossacks in the massacre according to Victor Zatsepine.
This expulsion of the local Chinese caused some hardships for Blagoveshchensk consumers. For example, during the second half of 1900 it became almost impossible to buy any green vegetables in the town, and ten eggs would cost 30-50
kopecks (and in winter, as much as a rouble), while before it had been possible to buy ten eggs for 10-15 kopecks.
The massacre angered the Chinese and had ramifications for the future: the Chinese
Honghuzi fought a guerilla war against Russian occupation and assisted the Japanese in the
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was fought between the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan over rival imperial ambitions in Manchuria and the Korean Empire. The major land battles of the war were fought on the ...
against the Russians in revenge.
Louis Livingston Seaman mentioned the massacre as being the reason for the Chinese
Honghuzi hatred towards the Russians:
The Chinaman, be he Hung-hutze or peasant, in his relation to the Russians in this conflict with Japan has not forgotten the terrible treatment accorded him since the Muscovite occupation of Manchuria. He still remembers the massacre at Blagoveshchensk when nearly 8,000 unarmed men, women, and children were driven at the point of the bayonet into the raging Amur, until — as one of the Russian officers who participated in that brutal murder told me at Chin-Wang-Tao in 1900 — "the execution of my orders made me almost sick, for it seemed as though I could have walked across the river on the bodies of the floating dead." Not a Chinaman escaped, except forty who were employed by a leading foreign merchant who ransomed their lives at a thousand roubles each. These, and many even worse, atrocities are remembered and now is their moment for revenge. So, it was easy for Japan to enlist the sympathy of these men, especially when emphasized by liberal pay, as is now the case. It is believed that more than 10,000 of these bandits, divided into companies of from 200 to 300 each and led by Japanese officers, are now in the pay of Japan.
Civil war and the Soviet era
The city was also the site of conflict during the
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...
, with Japanese troops occupying the city in support of the
White Army. From 1920 until 1922, the city was declared part of the
Far Eastern Republic, an area which was nominally independent, but in reality, a buffer zone under control of the
Russian SFSR
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...
. The city became the administrative centre of
Amur Oblast in 1932.
During the
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...
in China, the city was subject to
Maoist propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...
blasted from
loudspeaker
A loudspeaker (commonly referred to as a speaker or, more fully, a speaker system) is a combination of one or more speaker drivers, an enclosure, and electrical connections (possibly including a crossover network). The speaker driver is an ...
s across the river 24 hours a day.
Administrative and municipal status

Blagoveshchensk is the
administrative centre
An administrative centre is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune, is located.
In countries with French as the administrative language, such as Belgi ...
of the
oblast
An oblast ( or ) is a type of administrative division in Bulgaria and several post-Soviet states, including Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Historically, it was used in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The term ''oblast'' is often translated i ...
[Law #127-OZ] and, within the
framework of administrative divisions, it also serves as the administrative centre of
Blagoveshchensky District,
[Law #51-OZ] even though it is not a part of it.
As an administrative division, it is, together with six
rural localities, incorporated separately as Blagoveshchensk
Urban Okrug—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the
districts.
As a
municipal division, this administrative unit also has urban okrug status.
[Law #447-OZ]
Politics
In July 2013, a public hearing was held at which citizens declared themselves to be in favour of a return to the direct election of the mayor. A meeting of deputies voted for rejection of the "two-headed" management. In September 2013, City Council voted for a return to the
Geography
The city is located at the confluence of the Amur and the Zeya Rivers, opposite the Chinese city of Heihe.
Climate
Blagoveschensk experiences a monsoon-influenced
hot-summer humid continental climate (
Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...
''Dwa'',
Trewartha ''Dcac''), bordering on a monsoon-influenced
warm-summer humid continental climate (''Dwb'', ''Dcbc'') which it had before 1990. The climate is very strongly continental. The city features frigid, windy, but dry winters due to the influence of the
Siberian high, and warm, wet summers, due to the
East Asian monsoon. On 1 August 2011, it became the first city in the
Russian Far East
The Russian Far East ( rus, Дальний Восток России, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in North Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asia, Asian continent, and is coextensive with the Far Easte ...
to be hit by a tornado..
Temperatures have never risen above freezing from December 21 to January 26, inclusive; conversely, there has never been a freeze between May 23 and September 12
Economy
Since the
dissolution of the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...
, the city's economic focus has turned to border trade with China. The town is now home to a large Chinese expatriate community. Blagoveshchensk is part of a free-trade zone which includes the Chinese city of Heihe, located on the other side of the Amur River.
Main industries in the town include
metal
A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, electricity and thermal conductivity, heat relatively well. These properties are all associated wit ...
and
timber
Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes (dimensional lumber), including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, window frames). ...
processing, as well as
paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, Textile, rags, poaceae, grasses, Feces#Other uses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is dra ...
production.
Transportation
The city is served by a branch highway and railway connecting it to
Belogorsk on the
Trans-Siberian Railway and
Trans-Siberian Highway. It is also served by a river port. On the other side of the
Amur River
The Amur River () or Heilong River ( zh, s=黑龙江) is a perennial river in Northeast Asia, forming the natural border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China (historically the Outer and Inner Manchuria). The Amur ''proper'' is ...
is
Heihe
Heihe (; ; Russian language, Russian: Хэйхэ) is a prefecture-level city of northern Heilongjiang province, China, located on the Sino-Russian border, Russian border, on the south bank of the Amur River, Amur (Heilong) River, across the r ...
,
Heilongjiang Province, China, which is the starting point of
China National Highway 202 that goes south to
Harbin
Harbin, ; zh, , s=哈尔滨, t=哈爾濱, p=Hā'ěrbīn; IPA: . is the capital of Heilongjiang, China. It is the largest city of Heilongjiang, as well as being the city with the second-largest urban area, urban population (after Shenyang, Lia ...
and
Dalian
Dalian ( ) is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China (after Shenyang ...
.
Ignatyevo Airport, located northwest of the city center, serves domestic destinations.
The
Blagoveshchensk–Heihe Bridge, completed at the end of 2019, includes a 2-lane highway bridge over the Amur to link Blagoveshchensk and Heihe.
The world's first international
cable car to Heihe has also been proposed to open in 2022.
Education
Universities
*Amur State Medical Academy
*
Amur State University
*
Blagoveshchensk State Pedagogical University
*
Far Eastern Higher Combined Arms Command School
*Far Eastern State Agricultural University
*
Finance University under the Government of the Russian Federation (Blagoveschensk Branch)
*
Maritime State University named after admiral Gennady Nevelskoy (Blagoveschensk Branch)
*
Modern University for the Humanities (Blagoveschensk Branch)
*Moscow Academy of Business in Association with the Government of Moscow (Blagoveschensk Branch)
Sister city
*
Heihe
Heihe (; ; Russian language, Russian: Хэйхэ) is a prefecture-level city of northern Heilongjiang province, China, located on the Sino-Russian border, Russian border, on the south bank of the Amur River, Amur (Heilong) River, across the r ...
,
Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang is a province in northeast China. It is the northernmost and easternmost province of the country and contains China's northernmost point (in Mohe City along the Amur) and easternmost point (at the confluence of the Amur and Us ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
Blagoveshchensk and Heihe partner cities
See also
* Nikolay Muravyov-Amursky
* Amur Cossacks
References
Notes
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Official website of Blagoveshchensk
Blagoveshchensk Business Directory
Video: Tornado in Blagoveshchensk, July 31, 2011
{{Authority control
Amur Oblast (Russian Empire)
Russian Far East
China–Russia border crossings
Populated places established in 1856
1856 establishments in China