Chumikan (russian: Чумикан) is a rural locality (a '' selo'') and the

administrative center An administrative center is a seat of regional administration or local government, or a county town, or the place where the central administration of a commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or ...

Tuguro-Chumikansky District Tuguro-Chumikansky District (russian: Тугу́ро-Чумика́нский райо́н) is an administrativeResolution #143-pr and municipalLaw #194 district (raion), one of the seventeen in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. It is located in the center ...

Khabarovsk Krai Khabarovsk Krai ( rus, Хабаровский край, r=Khabarovsky kray, p=xɐˈbarəfskʲɪj kraj) is a federal subject (a krai) of Russia. It is geographically located in the Russian Far East and is a part of the Far Eastern Federal District ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, located at the mouth of the Uda River. Population:

Geography and climate

Chumikan lies on the southern side of the Uda River delta, at the westernmost extremity of

Uda Gulf Uda Gulf or Uda Bay (russian: Удская губа; ''Udskaya Guba'') is a gulf or bay in Khabarovsk Krai, Russian Federation. Geography Uda Gulf is located in the northwestern Sea of Okhotsk. It lies just west of the Shantar Islands. The Uda ...

in the

Sea of Okhotsk The Sea of Okhotsk ( rus, Охо́тское мо́ре, Ohótskoye móre ; ja, オホーツク海, Ohōtsuku-kai) is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean. It is located between Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula on the east, the Kuril Islands ...

, which contains a number of small islands. The terrain surrounding the town is almost entirely mountainous except for the narrow river valley extending to the west. On the southern side rise the northern spurs of the

Taikan Range The Taikan Range (russian: Тайканский хребет; zh, 札格第嶺) is a mountain range in Khabarovsk Krai, Russian Far East. The closest inhabited place is Chumikan, Tuguro-Chumikansky District. The nearest airport is Chumikan A ...

, highest point .Topographic map N-53; M 1: 1,000,00
/ref> The climate of Chumikan is

subarctic The subarctic zone is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic, north of humid continental regions and covering much of Alaska, Canada, Iceland, the north of Scandinavia, Siberia, and the Cairngorms. Generally, ...

( Köppen ''Dfc''), with mild, wet summers and very cold dry winters which are only marginally moderated by the sea due to prevailing offshore flow from Siberia, although there is sufficient moderation that permafrost is

discontinuous Continuous functions are of utmost importance in mathematics, functions and applications. However, not all Function (mathematics), functions are Continuous function, continuous. If a function is not continuous at a point in its Domain of a function ...

rather than continuous as in most of Siberia. Owing to the village’s location near the sea, summers are markedly cooler and wetter than those of the inland territories, with the result that a different type of forest from the inland larch forest, dominated by ''

Picea obovata ''Picea obovata'', the Siberian spruce, is a spruce native to Siberia, from the Ural Mountains east to Magadan Oblast, and from the Arctic tree line south to the Altay Mountains in northwestern Mongolia. Description and uses It is a medium-size ...

'', occurs. Chumikan is located at a similar latitude as

Kaliningrad Oblast Kaliningrad Oblast (russian: Калинингра́дская о́бласть, translit=Kaliningradskaya oblast') is the westernmost federal subject of Russia. It is a semi-exclave situated on the Baltic Sea. The largest city and administr ...

on the other side of the country, although being colder over the year as a whole due to the combined influence of the Siberian High in winter and of the cold Sea of Okhotsk in summer.

History

It was founded in 1885 as a fishing port on the

, and up to these days has never been made accessible by

road A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types of ...

, even though the area had been a winter port for the Yakut and Evenki people for many years before Russians discovered it. Chumikan soon became a trading center for

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

, which was discovered inland within a decade after founding. In the 1920s, after the gold was depleted, Chumikan became, along with other localities along the coast, a center of resistance to the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

. In the decades that followed, Chumikan's chief role was as a center for the extremely rich fisheries of the Sea of Okhotsk, but during the latter part of the Soviet era, there were efforts to develop major

phosphorite Phosphorite, phosphate rock or rock phosphate is a non-detrital sedimentary rock that contains high amounts of phosphate minerals. The phosphate content of phosphorite (or grade of phosphate rock) varies greatly, from 4% to 20% phosphorus pentoxi ...

reserves known to occur inland.See American Geographical Society of New York; Soviet Geography, Volume 23 (1982); p. 696 The

dissolution of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

meant that these efforts have largely disintegrated.

References

{{Authority control Rural localities in Khabarovsk Krai Ports and harbours of the Russian Pacific Coast Populated places established in 1885 1885 establishments in the Russian Empire Road-inaccessible communities of Russia