Sakha

Sakha Republic is the only subject of Russia which uses more than one time zone. Sakha spans three time zones (no Daylight Saving Time in summer)

1. 
   Yakutsk Time Zone (YAKT, UTC+9). Covers the republic's territory to the west of the Lena River as well as the territories of the districts located on both sides of the Lena River.
2. 
   Vladivostok Time Zone (VLAT, UTC+10). Covers most of the republic's territory located between 127°E and 140°E longitude. Districts: Oymyakonsky, Ust-Yansky, Verkhoyansky.[14]
3. Magadan Time Zone (SRET, UTC+11). Covers most of the republic's territory located east of 140°E longitude. Districts: Abyysky, Allaikhovsky, Momsky, Nizhnekolymsky, Srednekolymsky, Verkhnekolymsky.

Ura River.

Olyokma River.

Lena Pillars.

The largest river is the navigable Lena River (4,400 km). As it moves northward, it includes hundreds of small tributaries located in the Verkhoyansk Range.

• Lena River
  • Vilyuy River (2,650 km) Lena River tributary
    • Markha River (1,181 km) Vilyuy River tributary
      • Morkoka River (812 km) Markha River tributary
    • Tyung River (1,092 km) Vilyuy River tributary
  • Aldan River (2,273 km) Lena River tributary
    • Amga River (1,462 km) Aldan River tributary
    • Maya River (1,053 km) Aldan River tributary
    • Uchur River (812 km) Aldan River tributary
  • Olyokma River (1,320 km) Lena River tributary
  • Linde River (804 km) Lena River tributary
  • Nyuya River (798 km) Lena River tributary
• Olenyok River (2,292 km)
• Kolyma River (2,129 km)
• Indigirka River (1,726 km)
  • Selennyakh River (796 km) Indigirka River tributary
• Alazeya River (1,590 km)
• Anabar River (939 km)
• Yana River (872 km)

There are over 800,000 lakes in the republic.[15] Major lakes and reservoirs include:

• Lake Mogotoyevo
• Lake Nedzheli
• Lake Nerpichye
• Vilyuyskoye Reservoir

Sakha's greatest mountain range, the Verkhoyansk Range, runs parallel and east of the Lena River, forming a great arc that begins in the Sea of Okhotsk and ends in the Laptev Sea.

The Chersky Range runs east of the Verkhoyansk Range and has the highest peak in Sakha, Peak Pobeda (3,147 m). The second highest peak is Peak Mus-Khaya reaching 3,011 m.

The Stanovoy Range borders Sakha in the south.

Udachnaya pipe diamond mine.

The Republic's extensive coastline contains a number of peninsulas; from west to east the most prominent are:

• Uryung-Tumus Peninsula
• Nordvik Peninsula
• Terpyay-Tumsa Peninsula
• Bykovsky Peninsula
• Buor-Khaya Peninsula
• Manyko Peninsula
• Shirokostan Peninsula
• Merkushina Strelka Peninsula
• Lopatka Peninsula

From west to east the main islands of Sakha are:

• Preobrazheniya Island
• Bolshoy Begichev Island
• Maliy Begichev Island
• Peschany Island
• Salkay Island
• Orto Ary
• Daldalakh
• Dyangylakh Island
• Dunay Islands
• Leykina Island
• Islands of the Lena Delta
• Brusneva Island
• Muostakh Island
• Ulakhan Ary Island
• Yarok Island
• Shelonsky Islands
• Makar Island
• Stolbovoy Island
• New Siberian Islands (by far the largest group)
• De Long Islands
• Medvezhyi Islands
• Kolesovsky Island
• Kolesovskaya Otmel
• Gabyshevskiy Island
• Kamenka Island
• Markhayanovskiy Island
• Gusmp Island
• Sukhanyy Island

Sakha is well endowed with raw materials. The soil contains large reserves of oil, gas, coal, diamonds, gold, silver, tin, tungsten and many others. Sakha produces 99% of all Russian diamonds and over 25% of the diamonds mined in the world.[16][17]

Sakha is known for its climate extremes, with the Verkhoyansk Range being the coldest area in the Northern Hemisphere. Some of the lowest natural temperatures ever recorded have been here. The Northern Hemisphere's Pole of Cold is at Verkhoyansk, where the temperatures reached as low as −67.8 °C (−90.0 °F) in 1892, and at Oymyakon, where the temperatures reached as low as −71.2 °C (−96.2 °F) in January 1924.

Average annual precipitation: 200 mm (central parts) to 700 mm (mountains of Eastern Sakha).

Siberia, and particularly Sakha is of paleontological significance, as it contains bodies of prehistoric animals from the Pleistocene Epoch, preserved in ice or permafrost. In 2015, the frozen bodies of Dina and Uyan the cave lion cubs were found. The region was also the location the bodies of Yuka and another Woolly mammoth from Oymyakon, a Woolly rhinoceros from the Kolyma River, and bison and horses from Yukagir.[22] In June 2019, the severed yet preserved head of a large wolf from the Pleistocene, dated to over 40,000 years ago, was found close to the Tirekhtyakh River.[23][24][25]

Ymyakhtakh culture (c. 2200–1300 BC) was a Late Neolithic culture of Siberia, with a very large archaeological horizon. Its origins were in Sakha, in the Lena river basin. From there it spread both to the east and to the west.[26]

The Turkic Sakha people or Yakuts may have settled the area as early as the 9th century or as late as the 16th century, though most likely there were several migrations. They migrated up north from around Lake Baikal to the middle Lena due to pressure by the Buryats, a Mongolic group.[27]

The Sakha displaced earlier, much smaller populations who lived on hunting and reindeer herding, introducing the pastoralist economy of Central Asia. The indigenous populations of Paleosiberian and Tungusic stock were mostly assimilated to the Sakha by the 17th century.[28]

The Tsardom of Russia began its conquest of the region in the 17th century, moving east after the defeat of the Khanate of Sibir. Tygyn, a king of the Khangalassky Sakha, granted territory for Russian settlement in return for a military pact that included war against indigenous rebels of all North Eastern Asia (Magadan, Chukotka, Kamchatka and Sakhalin). Kull, a king of the Megino-Khangalassky Sakha, began a Sakha conspiracy by allowing the first stockade construction.

1821 map of Yakutsk Oblast.

In August 1638, the Moscow Government formed a new administrative unit with the administrative center of Lensky Ostrog (Fort Lensky), the future city of Yakutsk, which had been founded by Pyotr Beketov in 1632.

The arrival of Russian settlers at the remote Russkoye Ustye in the Indigirka delta is also believed to date from the 17th century.[29] The Siberian Governorate was established as part of the Russian Empire in 1708.

Russian settlers began to form a community in the 18th century, which adopted certain Sakha customs and was often called Yakutyane (Якутя́не) or Lena Early Settlers (ленские старожилы). However, the influx of later settlers had assimilated themselves into the Russian mainstream by the 20th century.

In an administrative reform of 1782, Irkutsk Governorate was created. In 1805, Yakutsk Oblast was split from Irkutsk Governorate.

Yakutsk Oblast in the early 19th century marked the easternmost territory of the Russian Empire, including such Far Eastern (Pacific) territories as were acquired, known as Okhotsk Okrug within Yakutsk Oblast. With the formation of Primorskaya Oblast in 1856, the Russian territories of the Pacific were detached from Sakha.

Members of the Siberian Regional Duma from Yakutsk, 1917.

The Russians established agriculture in the Lena River basin. The members of religious groups who were exiled to Sakha in the second half of the 19th century began to grow wheat, oats, and potatoes. The fur trade established a cash economy. Industry and transport began to develop at the end of the 19th century and in the beginning of the Soviet period. This was also the beginning of geological prospecting, mining, and local lead production. The first steam-powered ships and barges arrived.

Sakha's remoteness, even compared to the rest of Siberia, made it a place of exile of choice for both Tsarist and Communist governments of Russia. Among the famous Tsarist-era exiles were the democratic writer Nikolay Chernyshevsky; Doukhobor conscientious objectors, whose story was told to Leo Tolstoy by Vasily Pozdnyakov; the Socialist Revolutionary and writer Vladimir Zenzinov, who left an interesting account of his Arctic experiences; and Polish socialist activist Wacław Sieroszewski, who pioneered in ethnographic research on the Sakha people.

A Sakha national movement first emerged during the 1905 Revolution. A Yakut Union was formed under the leadership of a Sakha lawyer and city councilor by the name of Vasily Nikiforov, which criticized the policies and effects of Russian colonialism, and demanded representation in the State Duma. The Yakut Union acted to make the city council of Yakutsk stand down and was joined by thousands of Sakha from the countryside, but the leaders were arrested and the movement fizzled out by April 1906. Their demand for a Sakha repsentative in the Duma, however, was granted.[30]

Sakha was home to the last stage of the Russian Civil War, the Yakut Revolt. On April 27, 1922, former Yakutsk Oblast was proclaimed the Yakut ASSR, although in fact the eastern part of the territory, including the city of Yakutsk, was controlled by the White Russians.

The early Soviet period saw a flourishing of Sakha literature as men such as Platon Oyunsky wrote down in writing the traditionally oral and improvised olonkho, in addition to composing their own works. Many early Sakha leaders, including Oyunsky, died in the Great Purge.

Sakha experienced significant collectivization between 1929 and 1934, with the number of households experiencing collectivization rising from 3.6% in 1929 to 41.7% in 1932. Policies by which the Sakha were harshly affected resulted in the population dropping from 240,500 in 1926 down to 236,700 at the 1959 census.[31]

Sakha's demographics shifted wildly during the Soviet period as ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, among other groups, settled the area en masse, primarily in Yakutsk and the industrial south. Previously, even Yakutsk had been primarily Sakha and Sakha-speaking. With the end of korenizatsiya, usage of the Sakha language was restricted in urban areas such as Yakutsk, which became primarily Russian-speaking.

In 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Sakha was recognized in Moscow as the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. Sakha is historically part of Russian Siberia, but since the formation of the Far Eastern Federal District in 2000, it is administratively part of the Russian Far East.

Breakdown of population changes, 1939–2002.

Russian President Vladimir Putin with local residents in Lensk.

Statehood Day celebrations in Yakutsk.

Vitim, Sakha Republic.

Dapparay.

Cruise on the Lena River.

Source: Russian Federal State Statistics Service

According to the 2010 Census, the ethnic composition was:[6]

• 466,492 Sakha (49.9%)
• 353,649 Russians (37.8%)
• 21,080 Evenks (2.2%)
• 20,341 Ukrainians (2.2%)
• 15,071 Evens (1.6%)
• 8,122 Tatars (0.9%)
• 7,011 Buryats (0.8%)
• 5,022 Kyrgyz (0.5%)

Historical population figures are shown below:

The official languages are both Russian and Sakha, also known as Yakut, which is spoken by approximately 40% of the population. The Sakha language is a member of the Turkic language family.

Before the arrival of the Russian Empire, the majority of the local population was Tengrist, similar to the other Turkic people of Central Asia, or in Paleoasian indigenous shamanism with both 'light' (community leading) and 'dark' (healing through spirit journey) shamans. Under the Russians, the local population was converted to the Russian Orthodox Church and required to take Orthodox Christian names, but in practice generally continued to follow traditional religions. During the Soviet era, most or all of the shamans died without successors.

In the 1990s, a neopagan shamanist movement called aiyy yeurekhé was founded by the controversial journalist Ivan Ukhkhan and a philologist calling himself Téris.[38] This group and others cooperated to build a shaman temple in downtown Yakutsk in 2002.[39]

Currently, while Orthodox Christianity maintains a following (however, with very few priests willing to be stationed outside of Yakutsk), there is interest and activity toward renewing the traditional religions. As of 2008, Orthodox leaders described the worldview of the republic's indigenous population (or, rather, those among the population who are not completely indifferent to religion) as dvoyeverie (dual belief system), or a "tendency toward syncretism", as evidenced by the locals sometimes first inviting a shaman, and then an Orthodox priest to carry out their rites in connection with some event in their life.[40]

According to the Information Center under the President of Sakha Republic (Информационный центр при Президенте РС(Я)), the religious demography of the republic was as follows:[41] Orthodoxy: 44.9%, Shamanism: 26.2%, Non-religious: 23.0%, New religious movements: 2.4%, Islam: 1.2%, Buddhism: 1.0%, Protestantism: 0.9%, Catholicism: 0.4%.

The Russian Orthodox Eparchy (Diocese) of Yakutia is led by Bishop Roman (Lukin) of Yakutsk (2011).

According to a 2012 survey,[36] 37.8% of the population of Sakha adheres to the Russian Orthodox Church, 13% to Tengrism or Sakha shamanism, 2% to Islam, 1% are unaffiliated Christians, 1% to forms of Protestantism, and 0.4% to Tibetan Buddhism. In addition, 26% of the population deems itself atheist, 17% is "spiritual but not religious", and 1.8% follows other religions or did not give an answer to the question.[36]

• Верховный Совет Республики Саха (Якутия). 4 апреля 1992 г. «Конституция (основной закон) Республики Саха (Якутия)», в ред. Конституционного закона №581-З 53-IV от 22 июля 2008 г. (Supreme Council of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic. April 4, 1992 Constitution (Basic Law) of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, as amended by the Constitutional Law #581-Z 53-IV of July 22 2008. ).