Evgeny Norin talks about the gold rush on the Amur, far-eastern California, and the standoff between a small Russian republic and China Read Full Article at RT.com
Zheltuga: The Illegal Russian Gold Mining Town That Sprang Up in China amusingplanet.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from amusingplanet.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
How Russians secretly set up their own California in China An entire year went by before the Chinese authorities realized that Russian gold miners had founded their own independent republic on Chinese territory.
At the end of the 19th century a gold rush swept the Far East of the Russian Empire and neighboring northern areas of China. Tens of thousands of prospectors rushed to the many mines there to dig for gold, an activity that was not always legal.
Sometimes de facto states with their own president, legislative and judicial bodies, as well as law-enforcement authorities and armed forces, sprang up around these goldmines. The most famous among them was the Zheltuga Republic - also known at the time as California on the Amur , or simply “Zheltuga”, which was founded by Russian prospectors of the precious metal.