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Kyakhta is a town and the administrative center of Kyakhtinsky District in the Republic of Buryatia, Russia, located on the Kyakhta River near the Mongolia–Russia border. The town stands directly opposite the Mongolian border town of Altanbulag. Population: From 1727 it was the border crossing for the Kyakhta trade between Russia and China. [edit] History
Kyakhta was founded in 1727 soon after the Treaty of Kyakhta was negotiated just north at Selenginsk. It was the starting point of the boundary markers that defined what is now the northern border of Mongolia. Kyakhta's founder, the Serb Sava Vladislavich, established it as a trading point between Russia and the Qing Empire. The Manchus built Maimaicheng just south of Kyakhta on their side of the border. Before 1762, state caravans traveled from Kyakhta to Peking. After that date, trade was mostly by barter at Kyakhta-Maimaicheng, with merchants crossing the border to make their business.
Kyakhta was crowded, unclean, ill-planned, and never came to reflect the wealth that flowed through it, although several Neoclassical buildings were erected in the 19th century, including a tea bourse (1842) and the Orthodox cathedral (1807–1817), both of which still stand. In 1996 the Voskreskenskaya church was being used as a stable. It was from Kyakhta that Nikolay Przhevalsky, Grigory Potanin, Pyotr Kozlov, and Vladimir Obruchev set off on their expeditions into the interior of Mongolia and Xinjiang. Town status was granted to Kyakhta in 1805. After the entire Russian-Chinese frontier was opened to trade in 1860 and the Trans-Siberian and the Chinese Eastern Railways bypassed it, Kyakhta fell into decline. The town was renamed Troitskosavsk during the first part of the 20th century, but the original name was restored in 1935. Other sources[1] have Troitskosavsk as a fort a short distance north, Troitskosavsk being the administrative and military center while Kyakhta was the trading post on the border. In the mid-20th century, a branch railway was built from Ulan-Ude (on the Trans-Siberian) to Mongolia's Ulan Bator, and, eventually, to China, paralleling the old Kyakhta trade route. However, this railway crosses the Russian-Mongolian border not in Kyakhta itself, but in nearby Naushki. [edit] Kyakhta PidginAs the first market town on the border between the Russian and Chinese Empires, Kyakhta gave its name to the so-called Kyakhta Russian–Chinese Pidgin, a contact language that was used by Russian and Chinese traders to communicate. [edit] Research Tips
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