| Far Eastern Krai | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 4, 1926–October 21, 1938 | |||||||||||
 The Far Eastern Krai in 1938 | |||||||||||
| Capital | Khabarovsk | ||||||||||
| Area | |||||||||||
• | 2,602,600 km2 (1,004,900 sq mi) | ||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||
• 1926 | 1,881,400 | ||||||||||
• 1929 | 2,099,700 | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
• Established | 4 January 1926 | ||||||||||
• Disestablished | 21 October 1938 | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Today part of | Amur Oblast,Jewish Autonomous Oblast,Kamchatka Krai,Magadan Oblast,Primorsky Krai, northernSakhalin Oblast,Khabarovsk Krai,Chukotka Autonomous Okrug | ||||||||||
Far Eastern Krai (Russian:Дальневосточный край,romanized: Dal'nevostochnyy kray) was akrai of theRussian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic of theSoviet Union from 1926 to 1938. Its capital wasKhabarovsk. It was the largest administrative-territorial unit of the Soviet Union after theYakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and theKazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, occupying 12% of its territory. On October 21, 1938, the Far Eastern Krai was divided intoKhabarovsk andPrimorsky Krais.
The term may also informally refer toRussian Far East.
Far Eastern Avenue in St. Petersburg is named after the Far Eastern Krai. This is also partly because the street is located in the eastern part of the city.[1]
After the abolition of thebuffer state ofFar Eastern Republic in November 15, 1922, theFar Eastern Oblast was established with capitalChita which included the lands of the Far Eastern Republic (as a territory ruled of Far Easternrevolutionary committee (Dal'revcom). It also had right of way by theChinese Eastern Railway.[2]
In May 1923, the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Oblast was separated from the Far Eastern Oblast. On May 30, 1923, by merging with the Mongolian-Buryat Autonomous Oblast, theBuryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was formed.
In 1924, the capital was changed from Chita toKhabarovsk.
The Far Eastern Krai was formed by the decision of theAll-Russian Central Executive Committee on January 4, 1926 on the site of the abolished Far Eastern Krai[2] On October 21, 1938, as part of the Stalin-era policy of "unbundling", the Far Eastern Krai was divided into theKhabarovsk Krai andPrimorsky Krai.[2]
From the north, the Far Eastern Territory was bordered by theArctic Ocean, itsEast Siberian andChukchi Seas, and from the east by thePacific Ocean, theBering Sea, theSea of Okhotsk, and theSea of Japan. On land the krai to the west bordered theYakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and East Siberian Krai (since 1930), to the south bordered the possessions ofJapan such asKorea andSouth Sakhalin, and on the northeast with theAlaska Territory through thesea border in theBering Strait. In the south, along theAmur River and in what is now westernPrimorsky Krai, was the border with theRepublic of China and, since 1931, the state of Manchukuo.
The largest peninsula in the krai was theKamchatka Peninsula, and also included the much smallerChukchi Peninsula. The territory of the Far Eastern Territory also included a number of large islands, includingWrangel Island, the northern part ofSakhalin, and two large archipelagos: theCommander Islands andShantar Islands.[3]
The Far Eastern Krai had a length of 28 degrees from south to north (from 42° to 70° N) and 83 degrees from west to east (from 108° E. D. to 169° W. D.). Geographically, its borders were based on the coasts of the Pacific and Arctic Oceans, on the one hand, and the watersheds of the rivers flowing into them, on the other. The geographic unity of the region was ensured by its maritime location, and the whole of its main territory was closely connected, first of all, with the Pacific Ocean. The scale of the Far Eastern Krai was such that from west to east there was a transition from the continental landscape of dry steppes of theTransbaikal to the island landscapes of Sakhalin, Kamchatka and the Commander Islands, and from north to south the ice of Wrangel Island,tundra,taiga and southern landscapes of what is now Primorsky Krai were successively replaced. The Far Eastern Krai had a very diverse ecosystem, includingwalruses,seals,reindeer,moose,camels,Siberian tigers,leopards,forest cats,river turtles, andwhales.[4]
