Template:Wp-Komi Republic-History

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The Komi people first feature in the records of the Novgorod Republic in the 12th century, when East Slavic traders from Novgorod traveled to the Perm region in search of furs and animal hides. The Komi territories came under the influence of Muscovy in the late Middle Ages (late 15th to early 16th centuries). The site of Syktyvkar, settled from the 16th century, was known as Sysolskoye (Сысольскoe). In 1780, under Catherine the Great, it was renamed to Ust-Sysolsk (Усть-Сысольск) and used as a penal colony.

Russians explored the Komi territory most extensively in the 19th and early 20th centuries, starting with the expedition led by Alexander von Keyserling in 1843. They found ample reservoirs of various minerals, as well as timber, to exploit. After the founding of the Soviet Union in 1922, the Komi-Zyryan Autonomous Oblast was established on August 22, 1921, and on December 5, 1936, it was reorganized into the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic with its administrative center located at the town of Syktyvkar.

Many of the "settlers" who arrived in the early 20th century were prisoners of the Gulag – sent by the hundreds of thousands to perform forced labor in the Arctic regions of the USSR. Towns sprang up around labor-camp sites, which gangs of prisoners initially carved out of the untouched tundra and taiga. The first mine, "Rudnik No. 1", became the city of Vorkuta, and other towns of the region have similar origins: "Prisoners planned and built all of the republic's major cities, not just Ukhta but also Syktyvkar, Pechora, Vorkuta, and Inta. Prisoners built Komi's railways and roads, as well as its original industrial infrastructure." On 21 March 1996, the Komi Republic signed a power-sharing agreement with the government of Russia, granting it autonomy. The agreement was abolished on 20 May 2002.