The Siberian fur trade is an exchange concerned with the gathering, buying and selling of valuable animal furs that originate from Siberia. The Siberian fur trade expanded from localized trade, and Siberian fur is now traded around the world. The Siberian fur trade had a significant impact on the development of Siberia through exploration and colonization. The fur trade also precipitated a decline in the number of fur-bearing animals and resulted in Siberia being conquered by Russia.
Fur market in Irbit
Siberian fur trader at the fair in Leipzig, Germany (c. 1800)
This chart shows the annual yasak collections during the seventeenth century, divided by the native peoples of Siberia.
Plate of squirrel fur backs
Russian conquest of Siberia
The Russian conquest of Siberia took place during 1580–1778, when the Khanate of Sibir became a loose political structure of vassalages that were being undermined by the activities of Russian explorers. Although outnumbered, the Russians pressured the various family-based tribes into changing their loyalties and establishing distant forts from which they conducted raids. It is traditionally considered that Yermak Timofeyevich's campaign against the Siberian Khanate began in 1580. The annexation of Siberia and the Far East to Russia was resisted by local residents and took place against the backdrop of fierce battles between the Indigenous peoples of Siberia and the Russian Cossacks, who often committed atrocities against Indigenous Siberians.
Yermak's Conquest of Siberia, a painting by Vasily Surikov
Muscovite voevodas in the new-built fortress of Tyumen, from the Remezov Chronicle.
Laminar armour from hardened leather reinforced by wood and bones such as this was worn by native Siberians
Lamellar armour traditionally worn by the Koryak people (circa 1900)