How artists painted Siberia (PICS)

Russians came to Siberia en masse in the second half of the 16th century. After overcoming the “Stone” (aka the Ural Mountains), tsarist troops and Cossack detachments began to move slowly, but surely, eastward. 

Along the way, they founded small fortresses, which later turned into major cities (such as Irkutsk and Yakutsk). More than four centuries have passed since then, but even today the vast region is still underdeveloped and underpopulated.

In the era of the Russian Empire, Siberia served as a place of exile for political opponents of the supreme power, revolt and rebellion participants, as well as all kinds of revolutionaries and anarchists. Until the early 1960s, this was also practiced in the Soviet Union.

Today, Siberia is the treasury of Russia. There are enormous reserves of various minerals, including lead, platinum, peat, coal, copper, gas, silver and, of course, “black gold”.

Siberian Cossacks at the Inspection of New Lands, 1891.

Nikolai Karazin

Thick twilight, 1889.

Apollinariy Vasnetsov

The Conquest of Siberia by Yermak Timofeyevich, 1895.

Vasily Surikov/The State Russian Museum

Taiga near Lake Baikal, 1900

Konstantin Korovin/The State Russian Museum

Russian exploration of new lands, 1904.

Claudius Lebedev/The Vologda Regional Picture Gallery

Pisaniy Stone on the Chusovaya River, 1877.

Vasily Vereshchagin

Avvakum’s Journey in Siberia, 1898.

Sergei Miloradovich/The State Museum of the History of Religion

Nomadism in the Altai Mountains, 1920s.

Grigory Choros-Gurkin/The State Art Museum of Altai Krai

Along the Great Siberian Way (In Exile), 1883.

Nikolay Sverchkov/The State Art Museum of Altai Krai

On the Teletskoye Lake, 1926.

Nikolay Chevalkov/The State Russian Museum

View of the Selenga River in Siberia, 1817.

Andrey Martynov/The State Tretyakov Gallery

Lake Baikal. The Rock of the Little Bell in Sandy Bay, 1840-1850.

Leopold Nemirovsky

Lake Karakol, 1916.

Grigory Choros-Gurkin/The Altai Republic's National Museum Named after A.V. Anokhin

Lake of Mountain Spirits (Dena Der), 1910.

Grigory Choros-Gurkin/The Irkutsk Regional Art Museum Named after V. Sukschyov

Siberia, 1894.

Apollinariy Vasnetsov/The State Russian Museum

Irtysh River, 1928.

Vikenty Trofimov/Sovcom

The Khan Altai, 1912.

Grigory Choros-Gurkin/The State Art Museum of Altai Krai

View of St. Nicholas Monastery on Lake Baikal, 1806.

Andrey Martynov

Overnight stay in the forest along the Okhotsk Highway, 1856.

Leopold Nemirovsky

The Outskirts of Ulala, 1900.

Grigory Choros-Gurkin/The Omsk Regional Museum of Fine Arts Named after M.A. Vrubel

Old Krasnoyarsk, 1914.

Vasily Surikov

Landscape, 1930.

Dmitry Karatanov/The Krasnoyarsk Regional Studies Museum

Siberian oilmen, 1980.

Mikhail Ombysh-Kuznetsov/V.German/Sputnik

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