Tobolsk

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View of Tobolsk in the 1910s

Tobolsk (Russian: Тобо́льск; Tatar: Tubıl) is a historic capital of Siberia, now an ordinary town in Tyumen Oblast, Russia. It is located at the confluence of rivers Tobol and Irtysh. Population: 92,880 (2002 Census); 95,000 (2001 est.).

Tobolsk was founded by Yermak's Cossacks in 1585–1586 during the first Russian advance into Siberia near the ruins of Siberia Khanate's capital Qashliq. It became the seat of the Viceroy of Siberia and prospered on the trade with China and Bukhara. It was there that the first school, theatre, and newspaper in Siberia were established. In The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe made his Robinson Crusoe character stay in Tobolsk from September 1703 to June 1704.

With administrative divisions of the territory, Tobolsk remained the seat of the Governor-General of Western Siberia until it was moved to Omsk in 1820s–1830s. Bowing to the city's authority, many Siberian towns had their original arms display the Tobolsk insignia. This included Omsk, Tyumen, and Tomsk; Omsk honors the legacy to this day.

Until the Russian Revolution of 1917, the city served as the capital of the Tobolsk guberniya. Dmitri Mendeleev and Vasily Perov are the most famous natives of the city. Some of the Decembrists were exiled and lived there too. The city's importance declined when the Trans-Siberian Railway bypassed it in the 1890s.

St. Sofia Cathedral

In August 1917, after the February Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family were brought here to live in relative luxury in the former house of the Governor-General. In April 1918, after the White Army approached the city, the entire royal family was shot in Yekaterinburg, thus ending the imperial Romanov dynasty.

Economy of modern Tobolsk centers on a major oil refinery. Some traditional crafts, such as bone-carving, are also preserved.

Tobolsk is the only town in Siberia and one of the few in Russia which has a standing stone kremlin, or elaborate city-fortress, built at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. Its white walls and towers with an ensemble of churches and palatial buildings spectacularly sited on a high river bank were proclaimed a national historical and architectural treasure in 1870.

The principal monuments in the kremlin are the Cathedral of St. Sophia (1683–1686), a merchant courtyard (1703–1705), an episcopal palace (1773–1775), and the so-called Swedish Chamber, with six baroque halls (1713–1716). The city contains some remarkable baroque and Neoclassical churches from the 18th and 19th centuries. Also noteworthy is a granite monument to Yermak, constructed to a design by Alexander Brullov in 1839.

The city's neighbourhood is rich in ancient kurgans and pagan shrines. Some of these date back to the 10th century BCE.