Sakha Republic (Republic of Sakha (Yakutia))
Sakha was first home to hunting-gathering and reindeer herding Tungusic and Paleosiberian peoples such as the Evenks and Yukaghir. Migrating from the area around Lake Baikal, the Turkic Sakha people first settled along the middle Lena river sometime between the 9th and 16th centuries, likely in several waves, bringing the pastoral economic system of Central Asia with them.
The Russians colonised and incorporated the area as Yakutsk Oblast into the Tsardom of Russia in the early-mid 17th century, obliging the indigenous peoples of the area to pay fur tribute. While the initial period following the Russian conquest saw the Sakha population drop by 70%, the Imperial period also saw the expansion of the native Yakuts from the middle Lena along the Vilyuy River to the north and the east displacing other indigenous groups. Yakutia saw some of the last battles of the Russian Civil War, and the Bolshevik authorities re-organized Yakutsk Oblast into the autonomous Yakut ASSR in 1922. The Soviet era saw the migration of many Slavs, specifically Russians and Ukrainians, into the area.
The exonym Yakut comes from the Evenk term Yako (also yoqo, ñoqa, or ñoka), which was the term the Evenks used to describe the Sakha. This was in turn picked up by the Russians. The Yukaghirs, another neighboring people in Siberia, use the exonym yoqol ~ yoqod- ~ yoqon- (Tundra Yukaghir) or yaqal ~ yaqad- ~ yaqan- (Kolyma Yukaghir).
The self-designation Sakha is probably of the same origin (*jaqa > Sakha following regular sound changes in the course of development of the Yakut language) as the Evenk and Yukaghir exonyms for the Yakuts. It is pronounced as Haka by the Dolgans, whose language is either a dialect or a close relative of the Yakut language.
Map - Sakha Republic (Republic of Sakha (Yakutia))
Map
Country - Russia
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The East Slavs emerged as a recognisable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries CE. The first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus', arose in the 9th century, and in 988, it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire. Rus' ultimately disintegrated, with the Grand Duchy of Moscow growing to become the Tsardom of Russia. By the early 18th century, Russia had vastly expanded through conquest, annexation, and the efforts of Russian explorers, developing into the Russian Empire, which remains the third-largest empire in history. However, with the Russian Revolution in 1917, Russia's monarchic rule was abolished and replaced by the Russian SFSR—the world's first constitutionally socialist state. Following the Russian Civil War, the Russian SFSR established the Soviet Union (with three other Soviet republics), within which it was the largest and principal constituent. At the expense of millions of lives, the Soviet Union underwent rapid industrialization in the 1930s, and later played a decisive role for the Allies of World War II by leading large-scale efforts on the Eastern Front. With the onset of the Cold War, it competed with the United States for global ideological influence; the Soviet era of the 20th century saw some of the most significant Russian technological achievements, including the first human-made satellite and the first human expedition into outer space.
Currency / Language
ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
---|---|---|---|
RUB | Russian ruble | ₽ | 2 |
ISO | Language |
---|---|
CE | Chechen language |
CV | Chuvash language |
KV | Komi language |
RU | Russian language |
TT | Tatar language |