Seymchan ( rus, Сеймча́н, p=sʲɪjmˈtɕan) is an
urban locality (an
urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlementrussian: посёлок городско́го ти́па, translit=posyolok gorodskogo tipa, abbreviated: russian: п.г.т., translit=p.g.t.; ua, селище міського типу, translit=selyshche mis'koho typu, ab ...
) 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 ...
of
Srednekansky District
Srednekansky District (russian: Среднека́нский райо́н) is an administrative district (raion), one of the eight in Magadan Oblast, Russia.Law #1292-OZ As a municipal division, it is incorporated as Srednekansky Urban Okrug.La ...
of
Magadan Oblast
Magadan Oblast ( rus, Магаданская область, r=Magadanskaya oblast, p=məgɐˈdanskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subject (an oblast) of Russia. It is geographically located in the Far East region of the country, and is adminis ...
,
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 ...
. Population:
Geography
Seymchan is located in the
Seymchan-Buyunda Depression, which limits the
Upper Kolyma Highlands
The Upper Kolyma Highlands ( rus, Верхнеколымское нагорье) is a highland area in Magadan Oblast, Far Eastern Federal District, Russia. The biggest town in the highlands is Susuman.
There are large deposits of gold, tin and ...
from the east.
The town lies on the right bank of the
Seymchan River, near its
confluence
In geography, a confluence (also: ''conflux'') occurs where two or more flowing bodies of water join to form a single channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main stem); o ...
with the
Kolyma
Kolyma (russian: Колыма́, ) is a region located in the Russian Far East. It is bounded to the north by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean, and by the Sea of Okhotsk to the south. The region gets its name from the Kolyma River an ...
, about north of
Magadan
Magadan ( rus, Магадан, p=məɡɐˈdan) is a port town and the administrative center of Magadan Oblast, Russia, located on the Sea of Okhotsk in Nagayev Bay (within Taui Bay) and serving as a gateway to the Kolyma region.
History
Maga ...
.
Google Earth
Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...
History
The settlement was founded in the late 17th century by
Yakuts
The Yakuts, or the Sakha ( sah, саха, ; , ), are a Turkic ethnic group who mainly live in the Republic of Sakha in the Russian Federation, with some extending to the Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin regions, and the Taymyr and Evenk Districts ...
. Its name derives from the
Yakut language
Yakut , also known as Yakutian, Sakha, Saqa or Saxa ( sah, саха тыла), is a Turkic language spoken by around 450,000 native speakers, primarily the ethnic Yakuts and one of the official languages of Sakha (Yakutia), a federal republic ...
word ''Kheymchen'', meaning
Polynya
A polynya () is an area of open water surrounded by sea ice. It is now used as a geographical term for an area of unfrozen seawater within otherwise contiguous pack ice or fast ice. It is a loanword from the Russian полынья (), which re ...
. In the 19th century, the trade route between the
Kolyma
Kolyma (russian: Колыма́, ) is a region located in the Russian Far East. It is bounded to the north by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean, and by the Sea of Okhotsk to the south. The region gets its name from the Kolyma River an ...
region and 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 ...
, the ''Ola-Kolyma-Trakt'' was constructed through the settlement.
Economic development of the settlement increased with the opening of the first gold mines in 1931, and the discovery and later exploitation of brown coal reserves at
Elgen in 1932, tin reserves in 1937 and cobalt ore in the early 1940s.
The construction of the modern settlement Seymchan began in 1940. During World War 2, an airfield was constructed to allow the delivery of aircraft through the Lend-Lease-Program between the Soviet Union and the USA.
From 1949 until 1955, the sub-settlement Nizhny-Seymchan (later called ''Kolymskoye'' and abandoned in 2005), located a few kilometres to the south directly on the Kolyma, was the location of a prison camp of
Dalstroy
Dalstroy (russian: Дальстро́й, ), also known as Far North Construction Trust, was an organization set up in 1931 in order to manage road construction and the mining of gold in the Russian Far East, including the Magadan Region, Chukotka ...
, part of the
Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
camp network. Up to 5,700 prisoners were used in the mining of gold and tin, as well as timber production.
Seymchan was granted urban-type settlement status in 1953.
Economy
The settlement is a regional food processing and timber industry center.
Transportation
Seymchan is connected by road with Magadan through a
Kolyma Highway
The R504 Kolyma Highway (russian: Федеральная автомобильная дорога «Колыма», ''Federal'naya Avtomobil'naya Doroga «Kolyma»,'' "Federal Automobile Highway 'Kolyma'"), part of the M56 route, is a road throu ...
spur.
The
Seymchan Airport
Seymchan Airport (russian: Аэропорт Сеймчан) is an airport in Magadan Oblast, Russia located two kilometers southeast of Seymchan.
The runway is well-maintained. The facility is marked as military on some US DoD charts.
Airlin ...
is located half-way between Seymchan and Kolymskoye, with a paved
RWY 18/36.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the airport was used to distribute
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
Lend-Lease
Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, ...
war material to production facilities within the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
.
Climate
Seymchan has a severe
subarctic climate
The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a climate with long, cold (often very cold) winters, and short, warm to cool summers. It is found on large landmasses, often away from the moderating effects of an ocean, ge ...
''Dfc'', closely bordering the ''Dfd''. Winters are extreme due to the influence of the persistent
Siberian High
The Siberian High (also Siberian Anticyclone; russian: Азиатский антициклон (''Aziatsky antitsiklon'')) is a massive collection of cold dry air that accumulates in the northeastern part of Eurasia from September until April. It ...
in the months of low sun, although not as cold as ''Dfd'' climates such as
Oymyakon
Oymyakon, ; sah, Өймөкөөн, ''Öymököön'', is a rural locality (a '' selo'') in Oymyakonsky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located in the Yana-Oymyakon Highlands, along the Indigirka River, northwest of Tomtor on the Kolyma ...
,
Delyankir
Delyankir (russian: Делянкир) is a rural locality (a '' selo'') under the administrative jurisdiction of the Settlement of Artyk in Oymyakonsky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located from Artyk''Registry of the Administrative-Te ...
,
Verkhoyansk
Verkhoyansk ( rus, Верхоянск, p=vʲɪrxɐˈjansk; sah, Верхоянскай, ''Verkhoyanskay'') is a town in Verkhoyansky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located on the Yana River in the Arctic Circle, from Batagay, the ad ...
etc. Summers are short and mild, but sometimes very warm.
Precipitation
In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...
is somewhat higher in the summer but is lowest in the spring. April, which is one of the warmest six months receives less than a third of the precipitation of November, one of the coldest month. As a result, it can technically be classified as ''Dsc'', bordering on the extremely rare ''Dsd'' subtype under
Köppen Climate Classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...
.
2007 Mi-8 helicopter crash
Commercial flights from Seymchan to nearby remote areas using the local forest fire protection service's
Mi-8
The Mil Mi-8 (russian: Ми-8, NATO reporting name: Hip) is a medium twin-turbine helicopter, originally designed by the Soviet Union in the 1960s and introduced into the Soviet Air Force in 1968.
It is now produced by Russia.
In addition to ...
helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
s are routine. On September 15, 2007 one such flight crashed on the
Suruktash mountain while on its way to deliver paying passengers to the vicinity of the
Burgali River. Six people died, and one, the craft's commander, survived with severe burns. The wreck and the survivor were spotted by another Mi-8, and the victim was flown to Seymchan for transport to a hospital.
["Missing Mi-8 crashed in Magadan region, six die"](_blank)
''ITAR-TASS News Agency'', September 16, 2007. Accessed 2007-09-16.
Meteorite
The settlement's name was used to identify a huge
olivine
The mineral olivine () is a magnesium iron silicate with the chemical formula . It is a type of nesosilicate or orthosilicate. The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle, it is a common mineral in Earth's subsurface, but weathers quickl ...
bearing stony-iron meteorite of over 800 pounds, called the
Seymchan meteorite, which was discovered in the bed of a brook in the summer of 1967.
References
External links
Unofficial website of Seymchan
{{Use mdy dates, date=March 2013
Urban-type settlements in Magadan Oblast
Kolyma basin