Primorsky Krai, the Amur Region or the Green Wedge? The Far East was settled, for the most part, by Ukrainians! Siberia and the Far East are offered to be populated by Ukrainians Resettlement of Ukrainians to the Far East.

Ukrainians played an important role in the development and industrialization of Russia. The largest flows of immigrants from Little Russia were directed primarily to the eastern regions. So, Primorye at the beginning of the 19th century was called the second Ukraine.

First wave. Exiled nationalists

Although from the very annexation of Siberia to Russia, Ukrainians served in fortresses there, the first large flow of settlers from Ukraine came in the second half of the 17th century, after it was annexed to Russia.

Various figures who spoke out against Moscow, people who were suspected or convicted of treason, were exiled to Siberia. For example, in the 1650s, among others, they were supporters of Hetman Vyhovsky, in the 1660s - opponents of Hetman Bryukhovetsky, etc. After the Battle of Poltava, of course, all like-minded Mazepa, after the liquidation of the Zaporizhzhya Sich - Cossack foremen, as well as participants in the Haidamak movement.

Second wave. Agricultural development

It was a completely agrarian period of colonization of the region, very successful. Fertile Siberian soils made it possible to harvest a good harvest, despite the harsh continental climate. At the end of the 17th century, there were no more than 20 thousand peasants in the region, at the end of the 18th century - already half a million, by the middle of the 19th century - 1.5 million.

By the beginning of the 18th century, Siberia was fully self-sufficient in bread and began trading with Asia and Europe. During this period, not only state-owned, but also much larger numbers of runaway serfs settled in Siberia, who were eventually given the right to settle. According to one of the leading researchers in the development of Siberia, Doctor of Historical Sciences Tamara Mamsik, in percentage terms, the Ukrainian provinces gave almost 40% of the settlers.

During the Stolypin reform, thousands of Ukrainian families moved to lands in Siberia and the Far East. Compact settlements were formed, many toponyms remind of Ukraine: Novokievka, Kharkivka, Poltavka. Until now, in a number of districts of the Tyumen region there are villages in which the descendants of those settlers live. In the neighboring Omsk region there are districts, for example, Kyiv, Poltava, which were settled at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century by immigrants from Ukraine.

Third wave. Stolypin reform

The Amur governor-general Unterberger wrote that the settlers for the Far Eastern regions were selected from Little Russia, "they were supposed to create a stable cadre of Russian farmers on the spot, as a bulwark against the spread of the yellow race." From 1868 to 1914, 22,122 peasant families arrived in Primorye, of which 69.95% were immigrants from Ukraine.

Some tend to divide this period into several: dispossession, flight from hunger, convicted nationalists, military evacuation, but in general the flow was constant and steady, so there is not much point in splitting this stage.

More than half a million Ukrainians were sent to Siberia through the Gulag, a million were evacuated. It was Ukrainian nationalists who made up the majority in the Norilsk Gorlag, where they raised an uprising in 1953. A significant part of this category of migrants returned to their homeland, but many remained.

Fifth wave. Orgnabor

In order to provide Siberian industrial facilities with working hands, a system of organized recruitment of workers worked in the USSR. In the 1960s, people from a union republic with surplus labor resources were sent to a specific place.

So, employees from Ukraine were sent to Siberia and the Far East to work in the forestry and fishing industries, to construction sites. The inter-republican exchange plan was approved annually by the Council of Ministers.

During the existence of the organizational recruitment from the 1930s to the 1970s, at least 5 million Ukrainians were resettled to Siberia. According to the 1989 census, more than 600,000 ethnic Ukrainians lived in the Tyumen region alone - about a third of the region's population at that time. In Tyumen, even the Consulate General of Ukraine is open, the National-cultural autonomy of Ukrainians operates.

Sixth wave. Reverse

In the post-Soviet period, the number of Ukrainians in the population of Siberia has been declining in all regions, and significantly. First of all, in the northern regions. More than 3 times - in the Chita region, almost twice - in the Irkutsk region, Buryatia, Yakutia, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Kemerovo region.

In southwestern Siberia, the reduction was less significant, by about a third. In the Far East, compared with 1989, the number of Ukrainians has halved. It should be emphasized that this wave is not only centrifugal, but also, so to speak, internal: it’s just that Ukrainians in new generations do not consider themselves Ukrainians, many have lost their knowledge of the language and Ukrainian identity.

Ukrainian refugees will be offered to resettle in Siberia and the Far East. The Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East supported the initiative of a group of State Duma deputies from the Communist Party headed by Sergei Obukhov, who asked for the development of a federal target program for the voluntary resettlement of people who were forced to leave Ukraine to the territory of Siberia and the Far East. According to the agency, by 2020, more than 50,000 jobs will be created in the Far Eastern Federal District (FEFD) that could be occupied by Ukrainians (Izvestia has the answer from the Ministry for the Development of the Far East). The agency notified the Federal Migration Service (FMS) of Russia of its position for further study of the issue.

The Deputy Minister of the Russian Federation for the Development of the Far East, Sergey Kachaev, in his response expresses support for the initiative of the State Duma deputies and says that "the corresponding position has been sent to the FMS." The Ministry for the Development of the Far East notes that by 2020 more than 50 thousand jobs will be created in the territories of socio-economic development and in investment projects.

“The list of territories for priority settlement includes the Republic of Buryatia, the Trans-Baikal Territory, the Kamchatka Territory, the Primorsky Territory, the Khabarovsk Territory, the Amur Region, the Irkutsk Region, the Magadan Region, the Sakhalin Region and the Jewish Autonomous Region,” they say in the Ministry for the Development of the Far East.

Sergey Obukhov at the end of 2015 sent appeals to the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, the Federal Migration Service and the Ministry for the Development of the Far East with a request to develop a federal target program "Voluntary resettlement of people who were forced to leave Ukraine to the territory of Siberia and the Far East."

The deputies remind that on October 31, 2015, the preferential stay of Ukrainians in Russia ended (except for refugees from the Luhansk and Donetsk republics). In the period from 1 to 30 November 2015, Ukrainian migrants had to obtain a legal legal status on a general basis, otherwise they would face administrative expulsion. According to parliamentarians, Ukrainians who have not received documents can be offered to voluntarily move to Siberia and the Far East in order to accelerate the development of these territories.

Thus, in the Far Eastern Federal District, according to Rosstat, in 2011, 6,284,900 people lived, and as of January 1, 2015 - 6,211,021 people. At the same time, according to the state program "Socio-economic development of the Far East and the Baikal region", by 2025 the population in the region is expected to grow to 10.75 million people. This task "is difficult to consider fully realistic while maintaining the identified trends."

Despite the fact that Russia has a state program to assist the voluntary resettlement of compatriots living abroad in the Russian Federation, according to Sergei Obukhov, the pace of its implementation does not meet expectations and the tasks set are not being solved.

At the same time, the FMS believes that at present there is no need to develop a program for the resettlement of Ukrainians in Siberia and the Far East, since this task is being implemented with the help of the existing state program to assist voluntary resettlement in the Russian Federation of compatriots living abroad. At the same time, for Ukrainians who have received temporary asylum, the list of documents and the period for their consideration for participation in the program have been reduced.

Today, the reception of compatriots within the framework of regional resettlement programs is carried out by 59 constituent entities of the Russian Federation, including 9 constituent entities of the Siberian Federal District (the republics of Buryatia and Khakassia, Altai, Trans-Baikal and Krasnoyarsk Territories, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, Omsk regions), and 7 subjects included in the Far Eastern Federal District (Kamchatsky, Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories, Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin Regions, Jewish Autonomous Region). The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and the Tomsk Region are preparing to start accepting migrants, the press service of the FMS explains.

As of January 1, 2016 (since 2007 - the beginning of the practical implementation of the state program), about 440 thousand compatriots moved to Russia, of which more than 106.8 thousand people arrived in the regions of the Siberian Federal District and the Far Eastern Federal District.

According to the FMS, the number of Ukrainians participating in the program has increased over the past 2 years.

In 2014, more than 106 thousand people moved to Russia, of which 41.7 thousand are compatriots from Ukraine. 29.6 thousand people arrived in the regions of Siberia and the Far East, including 10.8 thousand from Ukraine. In 2015, the number of program participants and members of their families amounted to more than 183 thousand people, of which about 111 thousand were immigrants from Ukraine. 38.8 thousand people arrived in the regions of the Siberian Federal District and the Far Eastern Federal District, including about 18.5 thousand Ukrainian compatriots, the press service noted.

The FMS stressed that the subjects that are part of the Far Eastern Federal District are among the territories of priority settlement, therefore, those who want to move to the Far East are provided with state support - compensation for travel, paperwork, a settling allowance (240 thousand rubles), etc. .

Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Regional Policy and Problems of the North and the Far East Petr Romanov believes that the population must be financially motivated to move to Siberia and the Far East.

You can have a great idea, but the government will say that there is no money for its implementation, especially at the present time, he says. - The very idea of settling Siberia and the Far East is very relevant. We have lands, but they have not been developed, people work on them in exceptional cases, for example, they extract coal in the Kemerovo region, oil - in the Tyumen region, the Khanty-Mansiysk district, gas - in the Yamalo-Nenets region. Without a perspective, people cannot be attracted to these regions. Another thing is if they say that you will get an apartment and a decent salary.

Petr Romanov also believes that it is necessary to actively promote the idea of resettlement in the Far East.

There were such slogans in the Soviet Union. The authorities threw ideas to the people, for which people grabbed: the slogans "Five-year plan - ahead of schedule!", "Catch up and overtake the Americans", "The enemy will be defeated, victory will be ours," and so on, he recalled.

The chairman of the Trade Union of Migrant Workers, Renat Karimov, believes that Ukrainians will not want to develop Siberia and the Far East.

If there were many jobs in these regions, then the Russians would not seek to leave there. Probably, these are low-paid vacancies, and Ukrainians will not want to work there either. We have all the money and work concentrated in the Central Federal District, so both Russians and migrants go there,” he says. - The idea sounds beautiful, in fact it is unlikely to be able to competently implement it. If the government wanted and knew how to develop the Far East, then they could do it without the Ukrainians.

According to Renat Karimov, now Ukrainians have no problems with paperwork.

In general, the new requirements are met, especially since it is not so difficult - you need to return to Ukraine, and then go to Russia and go to apply for a patent. At least, there were no appeals to us with any problems, and there was no information about deportations,” he noted.

According to the FMS, there are currently about 2.6 million Ukrainian citizens in Russia, of which about 1.1 million people come from the south-east of Ukraine.

A century ago, Ukrainians made up two-thirds of the population of the Far East, and during the years of the Civil War, they made an unsuccessful attempt to create their own statehood there.

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Alexey Volynets

At the end of the 19th century, the first peasants who settled in Primorye were people from the Chernigov and Poltava provinces. On the eve of 1917, Ukrainian villages surrounded Vladivostok; censuses showed 83% of the Ukrainian population in the region. During the years of the revolution and the Civil War, along with the whites, reds and various interventionists, Ukrainian “kuren” units also arose here. But after the creation of the USSR, all Ukrainians of Primorye quickly became Russians.

When in 1858-60 the Russian Empire took away the northern coast of the Amur and Primorye from the Qing Empire, these lands were not inhabited and remained so for the first quarter of a century of Russian rule. Vladivostok was a small fleet base in the middle of deserted spaces. Only on April 13 and 20, 1883, the first two passenger steamships "Russia" and "Petersburg" arrived here from Odessa, on board of which there were 1504 migrant peasants from the Chernigov province. They founded the first nine villages in the south of Primorye.

It was from 1883 that the route of passenger-and-freight steamships from Odessa to Vladivostok began to work. There were still 20 years left before the completion of the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway. And the long, one and a half month route from Odessa, through Beaufort and the Suez Canal, past India, China, Korea and Japan to Vladivostok, remained much faster, easier and cheaper than nine thousand miles of unpaved Siberian highway and Transbaikal off-road.

Odessa has long been the main link with the Russian Far East. Therefore, it is not surprising that immigrants from Ukraine dominated among the migrants. First of all, landless peasants moved to distant lands. The provinces closest to Odessa with the greatest "agrarian overpopulation" were Chernigov and Poltava. It was they who gave the main flow of the first colonists to distant Primorye.

In the Far East, peasants were provided with a 100-tithe plot of land (109 hectares) free of charge. For comparison, in central Russia the average peasant allotment was 3.3 acres, and in the Chernigov province - 8 acres. But it was more difficult for peasants from Russia to get to Odessa than for residents of villages from the nearest Ukrainian provinces. In addition, communal land ownership did not exist in Ukraine, so it was easier for local peasants to sell their individual allotments and set off on a long journey. The peasants in the Russian provinces were deprived of this opportunity right up to the Stolypin agrarian reforms.

Therefore, during the first decade of the Russian colonization of Primorye, from 1883 to 1892, immigrants from Ukraine accounted for 89.2% of all immigrants. Of these, 74% are peasants from the Chernihiv province, the rest - from Poltava and Kharkov.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the resettlement of Ukrainians in Primorye was becoming even more widespread. From 1892 to 1901, over 40 thousand Ukrainian peasants came here, who accounted for 91.8% of all colonists in Primorye. The famine that engulfed the northern provinces of Ukraine in 1891-1892 contributed to the intensification of such migration.

In 1903, the Trans-Siberian Railway began operating, connecting central Russia with the Far East. This opened a new stage in the settlement of Primorye and divided the entire population of the region into “watchmen” - those who arrived here on steamboats from Odessa, and “new settlers” who had already arrived by rail.

By 1909, the "old-timer" population of the Primorsky region numbered 110,448 people, of which 81.4% were Ukrainians, 9.5% were Russians, and 5.6% came from Belarusian provinces.

In the last decade before 1917, 167,547 people moved to Primorye. But even after the creation of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the Stolypin agrarian reforms, which abolished communal land ownership in the Russian provinces, over 76% of the settlers were Ukrainian peasants. Of these, almost a third of the settlers were given by the Chernigov province, a fifth by Kyiv and a tenth by Poltava.

In total, according to statistics, from 1883 to 1916, over 276 thousand people, 57% of all immigrants, moved to Primorye and the Amur region from Ukraine. Ukrainian peasants settled in the South of Primorye and the Zeya Valley near the Amur, which, by nature and landscape, very much resembled the forest-steppe regions of Chernihiv and Poltava regions. In the more northern taiga regions of the region, they almost did not settle.

The arrival of settlers in Blagoveshchensk, 1905-1910. Source: pastvu.com

As a result, the cosmopolitan Vladivostok of the beginning of the 20th century was surrounded entirely by Ukrainian villages, and according to eyewitnesses, the townspeople called all the rural residents of the region "nothing but crests." Ukrainians gave rise to a lot of geographical names in Primorye in honor of cities and localities of Ukraine - the river and the village of Kievka, the villages of Chernigovka, Chuguevka, Slavyanka, Khorol and others.

The territories of the Primorsky and Amur regions, most densely populated by immigrants from Ukraine, were remembered in the Ukrainian ethnic consciousness under the name "Green Wedge". The origin of this name is associated with the lush green vegetation of Primorye, as well as the geographical position of the South Ussuri Territory, a “wedge” squeezed between China and the Sea of Japan. Also, the word "wedge" was used in the meaning of a certain part of the earth's surface, land ("land wedge"), because it was here that the Ukrainian peasant received huge allotments by European standards.

In relation to the Ukrainian settlement lands in the south of the Far East, along with the name "Green Wedge", the names "New Ukraine", "Far Eastern Ukraine", "Green Ukraine" were also used. In local history literature, the use of the name "Far Eastern Ukraine" was recorded already in 1905, in relation to the southern part of the Ussuri Territory.

The Ukrainian peasant colonists themselves in the vicinity of Vladivostok, according to ethnographers, called their new land "Primorshchina" - by analogy with Chernihiv and Poltava regions.

Most of the ethnic Ukrainians of Primorye already in the second generation considered themselves Russians. So, according to the 1897 census of the population of the Russian Empire, out of 223 thousand inhabitants of the Primorsky region, only 33 thousand, 15% of the total population, indicated "Little Russian" as their native language, although people of Ukrainian origin made up more than half of the population of Primorye and spoke Russian-Ukrainian mixtures. At the same time, ethnographers of those years noted that Russian and Ukrainian villages coexisted with each other without mixing for at least the first two or three generations of settlers. And the Ukrainian dialect dominated here in the villages until the end of the 30s of the XX century.

A contemporary describes the villages around Vladivostok a century ago as follows: “The daubed huts, gardens, flower beds and vegetable gardens near the huts, the layout of the streets, the interior of the huts, household and household property, inventory, and in some places clothing - all this seems to have been completely transferred from Ukraine. .. The bazaar on a trading day, for example, in Nikolsk-Ussuriysky is very reminiscent of some place in Ukraine; the same mass of strong-horned oxen, the same Ukrainian clothes in public. Everywhere you hear a cheerful, lively, lively Little Russian dialect, and on a hot summer day you might think that you are somewhere in Mirgorod, Reshetilovka or Sorochintsy of the times of Gogol.

The picture of “Far Eastern Ukraine” was completed by ubiquitous sunflowers near rural houses, indispensable signs of Ukrainian villages, and the predominant use of oxen, characteristic of Ukraine, as a draft force, rather than horses more familiar to Russian villages. As the Far Eastern ethnographer of those years, V. A. Lopatin, wrote, the Ukrainians “transferred Little Russia with them to the Far East.”

Among the Ukrainians of Primorye at the beginning of the 20th century there was a self-name "Ruski", which was separated and not mixed with the ethnonym "Russians". And in Primorye itself at the beginning of the 20th century, the situation was similar to Ukraine itself - Russian-speaking multinational cities surrounded by Ukrainian villages. In this regard, Vladivostok did not differ much from Kyiv.

Ukrainian village at the beginning of the 20th century. Photo: Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky / Library of Congress

According to official data from the 1897 census, the literacy rate for Ukrainians in Primorye was 26.9% for men and 2.7% for women, while for Russians it was 47.1% for men and 19.1% for women. This was explained by the fact that almost all Ukrainian settlers were from villages, while among Russian settlers the proportion of immigrants from cities was much higher.

From 1863 until 1905, the Russian Empire at the legislative level prohibited the publication of school textbooks in Ukrainian and any other literature, even of a religious nature. By the decree of Alexander II of 1876, the Ukrainian language was allowed only in theatrical productions and plays "from the past of Little Russian life."

Therefore, legal Ukrainian national organizations appear in the Far East only after the 1905 revolution. But the first Ukrainian organization in the Far East was created outside of Russia - in Shanghai. Here, in 1905, the “Shanghai Ukrainian Community” arose, uniting Ukrainians from among the entrepreneurs and employees of various Russian institutions in Shanghai. Information about the activities of the Shanghai Community is very scarce, there is only information that it collected 400 rubles, which were sent to St. Petersburg for the publication of the Gospel in Ukrainian.

On the territory of the Russian Far East or the Green Wedge itself, the first Ukrainian organization that received the right to legal activity was the Vladivostok Student Ukrainian Community, formed in October 1907 by Ukrainian students of the local Oriental Institute, which trained experts in Chinese and Japanese languages. "Hromada" - in Ukrainian means society, and, just like in Russian, it means society, as a kind of association of persons, and society in the social sense.

It is curious that, in addition to the actual students of Ukrainian origin, among the first Far Eastern Ukrainophiles, the founders of the Vladivostok "Hromada", was Lieutenant Trofim von Wikken, who came from a family of German nobles who received estates in the Poltava province. The lieutenant studied Japanese, until 1917 he was a Russian intelligence officer in Japan, and after the revolution he worked in the Japanese company Suzuki, and then taught Russian at the Japanese military academy. Actively cooperating in the 1930s and 40s with the Japanese and German special services, Trofim von Wicken remained an inveterate Ukrainian nationalist until the end of his life.

But let us return to the era of the first Russian revolution. On December 7, 1905, the Ukrainian Club was established in Harbin - the first Ukrainian organization in Manchuria. The official opening of the club took place on January 20, 1908, after the registration of its charter by the local authorities. At the same time, the Harbin club became the first Ukrainian club in the Russian Empire to receive official permission for its activities. The second similar club arose somewhat later in St. Petersburg, and only the third in April 1908 was created in Kyiv. The activities of the Ukrainian Club in Harbin were patronized by the head of the CER, General Dmitry Horvat, who considered himself a Ukrainian descendant of the Serbian nobles who settled in the Kherson province under Catherine II.

In general, quite a few Ukrainians worked and lived in Harbin and at the Russian-controlled CER stations in Chinese Manchuria, almost 22,000 people, a third of the entire Russian population in this region.

In connection with the defeat of the revolution of 1905-1907 and the beginning of the reaction, legal Ukrainian public organizations in the Far East did not last long. Already in 1909, by order of the Minister of Public Education, the Vladivostok Student Community was closed. The police were given the task of establishing supervision not only of the revolutionaries, but also of the "Mazepians". However, as noted in a police report to the governor of the Primorsky region for 1913, "no connections with any Ukrainian organizations in European Russia or abroad with the aim of uniting the Little Russians in Vladivostok have yet been found."

Construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, 1895. Photo: W. H. Jackson / Library of Congress

Until 1917, "Ukrainian" activities in the Far East were limited to cultural events, Little Russian songs and "Shevchenko evenings". It is curious that on February 25, 1914, the 100th anniversary of the birth of T. G. Shevchenko was solemnly celebrated in Vladivostok at the Golden Horn Theater, while holding such events in Kyiv was prohibited by the authorities.

The revolution of 1917 led to a surge of the Ukrainian movement not only in Kyiv, but also in the Far East.

On March 26, 1917, at a rally, the Ukrainians of Vladivostok and its environs created the "Vladivostok Ukrainian Community". The first chairman of the community was a former political exile, social democrat, journalist from Poltava Nikolai Novitsky. Already in May 1917, the “leftist” Novitsky went to work in the Vladivostok Soviet and the deputy military prosecutor of Vladivostok (and “for the soul” music critic) Lieutenant Colonel Fyodor Steshko, a native of the Chernigov province, took the post of chairman of the community.

Later, Novitsky would become “red” and in the 30s he would be a major rank in the press of the Ukrainian SSR, and his colleague in “Ukrainianism” Steshko would become “white”, in 1920 he would reach Ukraine around the globe in order to establish links between the “Green Wedge” and Petliurists. Novitsky was shot in 1938 along with other "Ukrainizers" of the Ukrainian SSR, and Steshko died in exile in Prague.

In the spring of 1917, similar "Ukrainian Hromadas" were founded in almost all cities of the Far East. They arose in Khabarovsk, Blagoveshchensk, Nikolsk-Ussuriysk (now Ussuriysk), Iman (now Dalnorechensk), Svobodny, Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Chita, Harbin, at many railway stations and in the villages of the Russian Far East and Manchuria. During this period, all Far Eastern Ukrainian organizations advocated the autonomy of Ukraine as part of a "federal democratic Russian state."

In a number of cities of the Far East, "Gromadas" existed almost until their dissolution by the Bolsheviks in November 1922. Some of them were very numerous and influential - for example, in the Ukrainian Community of Khabarovsk by 1921, more than 940 families (more than 3,000 people) were registered. Through the efforts of these "communities" Ukrainian schools, cooperatives were organized, active educational and publishing activities were carried out.

In 1917, newspapers in the Ukrainian language appeared in the Far East - Ukrainets na Zeleny Klini (Vladivostok), Ukrainian Amurska Right (Blagoveshchensk), Khvili Ukrainy (Khabarovsk), News of the Ukrainian Club (Kharbin). The All-Russian agricultural census conducted in the summer of 1917 recorded 421,000 Ukrainians here, which accounted for 39.9% of the total population of the region.

In the summer of 1917, a number of "District Councils" arose in the Far East - analogues of the revolutionary Soviets, but built on an ethnic basis. These "Okruzhny Radas" have already claimed not only for social activities, but also for the political leadership of local Ukrainians. For example, from 1917 until the early 1920s, the Manchurian Okrug Rada with its center in Harbin was active. Since 1918, this council has been issuing passports to citizens of the "independent" Ukraine to Far Eastern Ukrainians (the text of such documents was printed in three languages - Ukrainian, Russian and English).

After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Soviet Moscow for some time even recognized the Far Eastern District Councils as consulates of independent Ukraine. But since 1922, when the Bolsheviks created a buffer Far Eastern Republic in the Far East, they refused to recognize the Rada and the "Ukrainian passports" issued by them. The Blagoveshchensk and Khabarovsk Okrug Councils themselves received the status of bodies of national-cultural autonomy within the FER.

In 1917-1919, several general congresses of Ukrainians from the Far East were held in Vladivostok. At the third such congress in April 1918, the "Ukrainian Far Eastern Secretariat" was elected, claiming the status of the government of the "Far Eastern Ukraine". However, this "government" had neither the means nor the mass support after it tried to take a neutral position in the escalating civil war. However, the Secretariat operated until the arrest of its members by the Soviet authorities in November 1922.

Flag of the "Green Wedge"

In addition to public “communities” and “district councils” claiming the status of local authorities, at least two Ukrainian political parties have been active in the Far East since the summer of 1917 - the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labor Party (USDRP) and the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries. The Vladivostok branch of the USDRP immediately stood in opposition to the "bourgeois" Vladivostok Gromada.

In the elections to the Constituent Assembly, held in November 1917, the "Amur Regional Ukrainian Rada" put forward its own list of candidates. In the election campaign, these candidates were defined as "Ukrainian Trudoviks-Socialist-Revolutionaries." They had to defend in the Constituent Assembly "the Land and the Will of the working people, the eight-hour working day and the Federal Democratic Russian Republic."

But, despite the fact that the list of the "Amur Ukrainian Regional Rada" was supported by all Ukrainian organizations in the Far East, he collected only 3265 votes (1.4%). Accordingly, it was not possible to get a Ukrainian candidate from the Far East into the Constituent Assembly - the Far Eastern Ukrainians gave preference to candidates from all-Russian parties.

In March 1920, the Vladivostok organization USDRP announced "recognition of Soviet power", but with a reservation about the independence of Soviet Ukraine and "the need to ensure the national and cultural rights of the Ukrainian people in the Far East." In fact, by 1920 all the Ukrainian socialists of the "Far Eastern Ukraine" had joined the Bolshevik coalition.

During the Civil War, naturally, the military organizations played the main role. Back in July 1917, the Provisional Government, yielding to the demands of the Kyiv Central Rada, agreed to the creation of separate Ukrainian units within the Russian army. As a result, in the summer of 1917, 8 "Ukrainian companies" were created in the Vladivostok garrison. Although the Vladivostok garrison consisted of two thirds of Ukrainians and people of Ukrainian origin, the idea of a "Ukrainian army" in the Far East did not gain much popularity.

However, at the end of 1918, the idea of Ukrainian troops became more popular, but for a completely "pacifist" reason. When the Siberian Provisional Government tried to start mobilizing the Ukrainians of the Amur and Primorye to the front for the war against the Bolsheviks, the local "Little Russians" began to refuse under the pretext that they wanted to fight only in the national Ukrainian units.

Created in Omsk on the bayonets of the Czechoslovak legion, the "All-Russian Provisional Government" on November 4, 1918 issued a separate declaration on the creation of Ukrainian military units as part of the "white" armies. In Vladivostok, a Ukrainian headquarters was organized to form Ukrainian units. A certain Yesaul Kharchenko became his chief, and then General Khreschatitsky, the former commander of the Ussuri Cossack division. The plans were Napoleonic - to create a 40,000-strong Ukrainian corps of "free Cossacks".

But all these attempts were mired in the intrigues and squabbles of various white power structures, and most importantly, they did not find unanimous support from foreign masters - if the head of the Entente military mission in Siberia, French General Janin, was supportive of the idea of a "Far Eastern Ukrainian army", then the Japanese categorically opposed.

As a result, on May 15, 1919, Admiral Kolchak, who had already become the “Supreme Ruler,” issued an instruction about the inadmissibility of the formation of Ukrainian units. The “1st Novo-Zaporozhye Volunteer Plastunsky Kuren” (battalion) just created in Vladivostok was arrested by the white counterintelligence in full force under the pretext of “pro-Bolshevik sentiments”.

Ukrainian nationalists again tried to create their troops in January 1920, when Kolchak's power, which had collapsed under the blows of the Reds, was overthrown in Vladivostok. The "Ukrainian Far Eastern Secretariat" even turned to the Bolsheviks for help in this matter, but the Bolshevik Military Council of Primorye declared that it could not give "Russian money to foreign Ukrainian troops."

Ukrainian activists were asked to support their units at their own expense, but donations from the Ukrainian population for these needs were not enough. Under these conditions, the Ukrainian military units, lacking the most necessary and, above all, food, could not survive for a long time even in the conditions of virtual anarchy that prevailed in Primorye.

During the upheavals of the civil war in Khabarovsk, a former member of the "Ukrainian Far Eastern Secretariat" Yaremenko became the chairman of the local Bolshevik Revolutionary Committee. The Revolutionary Committee recognized the expediency of forming Ukrainian units, however, under pressure from the Vladivostok Bolsheviks, it was forced to abandon the implementation of this idea.

On the Amur, several units formed from local anti-Kolchak partisans from peasants of Ukrainian origin, and one of them entered the city of Svobodny under the yellow-blue flag (until 1917 the city was called Alekseevsk, in honor of the heir and son of Nicholas II). However, the local Bolsheviks demanded the disarmament of this detachment, threatening otherwise to use military force against it.

By the way, numerous Ukrainian organizations of the Far East then could not agree on the flag of "Far Eastern Ukraine" - options were offered for a yellow-blue flag with a green triangle or a green flag with a yellow-blue insert.

On the night of April 4-5, 1920, the Japanese began an open occupation of Vladivostok and Primorye. In Vladivostok, a Japanese military detachment seized weapons and ammunition from the premises of the so-called "Ukrainian revolutionary headquarters". As a result of these events, the few formed Ukrainian units of Vladivostok went into the forests, where they eventually merged with the Red partisans.

At the end of the civil war, in the summer of 1922, a number of Far Eastern "Ukrainian Radas" took part in the elections to the People's Assembly of the "buffer" Far Eastern Republic, put forward their lists of candidates, but by that time the population of all nationalities was already clearly oriented towards the Bolsheviks and their allies. Only one "Ukrainian candidate" from the "Zavitinskaya Rada" (Zavitinsk is a district center in the Amur Region) entered the People's Assembly of the Far Eastern Republic.

Photo: REUTERS/Eduard Korniyenko

According to the FMS, the number of Ukrainians participating in the program has increased over the past 2 years.

Petr Romanov also believes that it is necessary to actively promote the idea of resettlement in the Far East.

The chairman of the Trade Union of Migrant Workers, Renat Karimov, believes that Ukrainians will not want to develop Siberia and the Far East.

According to Renat Karimov, now Ukrainians have no problems with paperwork.

According to the FMS, there are currently about 2.6 million Ukrainian citizens in Russia, of which about 1.1 million people come from the south-east of Ukraine.

The government will prepare a program for the resettlement of refugees from Ukraine to Siberia and the Far East.

Its necessity is due to the fact that on October 31, 2015, the preferential regime for the stay of Ukrainians in Russia (except for those from the Lugansk and Donetsk republics) expired, and in the period from November 1 to November 30, 2015, the settlers had to obtain a legal legal status on a general basis.

Those who fail to do so will face administrative expulsion.

However, a group of State Duma deputies from the Communist Party, headed by, reasoned that Ukrainians who did not complete the documents could be offered to voluntarily move to Siberia and the Far East.

Thus, their problem will be solved, and the development of regions will accelerate.

To this end, at the end of 2015, Obukhov sent appeals to the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, the Federal Migration Service and the Ministry for the Development of the Far East, in which he asked to develop a federal target program "Voluntary resettlement of people who were forced to leave Ukraine to the territory of Siberia and the Far East."

The Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East supported the initiative.

The department plans to create more than 50,000 jobs in the Far Eastern Federal District (FEFD) by 2020, which could be occupied by Ukrainians, Izvestia writes, having read the officials' response. The ministry also notified the Federal Migration Service (FMS) of its position for further consideration of the issue.

"The list of territories of priority settlement includes the Republic of Buryatia, the Trans-Baikal Territory, the Kamchatka Territory, the Primorsky Territory, the Khabarovsk Territory, the Amur Region, the Irkutsk Region, the Magadan Region, the Sakhalin Region and the Jewish Autonomous Region", - says the letter of the Ministry for the Development of the Far East, signed by Deputy Minister Sergey Kachaev.

Settlers are needed in those parts, as evidenced by statistics.

In particular, in the Far Eastern Federal District, according to Rosstat, in 2011, 6,284,900 people lived, and as of January 1, 2015 - already 6,211,021 people.

At the same time, according to the state program "Socio-economic development of the Far East and the Baikal region", by 2025 the population in the region is expected to grow to 10.75 million people. It is difficult to understand where they will come from if existing trends continue..

However, the FMS believes that so far there is no need to develop a separate program for the resettlement of Ukrainians in Siberia and the Far East, since this task is being implemented with the help of the existing state program to assist voluntary resettlement in the Russian Federation of compatriots living abroad.

As for the Ukrainians who received temporary asylum, the list of documents and the period for their consideration have been reduced for them if they want to participate in the program.

"Today, 59 constituent entities of the Russian Federation are accepting compatriots within the framework of regional resettlement programs, including 9 constituent entities of the Siberian Federal District (the republics of Buryatia and Khakassia, Altai, Trans-Baikal and Krasnoyarsk Territories, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, Omsk Regions), and 7 subjects that are part of the Far Eastern Federal District (Kamchatsky, Primorsky and Khabarovsk Territories, Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin Regions, Jewish Autonomous Region). The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and the Tomsk Region are preparing to start accepting migrants"- say the press service of the FMS.

During the program since 2007, about 440 thousand compatriots have moved to Russia, of which more than 106.8 thousand people arrived in the Siberian Federal District and the Far Eastern Federal District.

In 2014 alone, 41.7 thousand Ukrainians moved to Russia, and 10.8 thousand of them went to the Siberian Federal District and the Far Eastern Federal District. In 2015, the number of Ukrainians grew to 111 and 18.5 thousand people, respectively.

Those who want to move to the Far East are provided with state support - compensation for travel, paperwork, accommodation allowance (240 thousand rubles), etc. In the future, each Far East resident will be entitled to a free hectare of land.

Chairman of the Trade Union of Migrant Workers Renat Karimov believes that Ukrainians will not want to explore Siberia and the Far East.

"If there were many jobs in these regions, then the Russians would not want to leave there. Probably, these are low-paid vacancies, and Ukrainians will not want to work there either".

However, visitors from Ukraine are in somewhat different circumstances than Russian citizens..

What does not look very attractive in the eyes of Russians, for Ukrainians will be a chance to get citizenship and settle in a new country.

On the other hand, such a program will serve as a powerful propaganda factor.

Fighting in the Donbass is not currently underway, but if it suddenly resumes, a clear guideline will appear before potential soldiers: if you don’t want to participate in a fratricidal war, go to Russia and move to Siberia or the Far East.

And then, as the country continues to slide into poverty on the way to Europe (and nothing else is foreseen there, because it has nowhere to come from) and internal chaos intensifies, the opportunity to settle in the promising and calm territories of Russia will not be the worst option to establish a normal life.

True, one can foresee in advance how Kyiv politicians can try to turn the situation in their favor.

Previously, they have already tried to do such a trick, demanding almost a part of Siberia for themselves, on the grounds that the oil and gas fields, they say, were developed by the Ukrainians and, therefore, "they deserved it."

When they were asked in response how they pay off the workers who make repairs in their apartment - money or square meters, they admitted that it was money.

Well, so the Ukrainians received very good money for their work in Siberia, they answered them. And there was nothing left to say to that. Talk about the rights of Ukrainians subsided by itself.

This time, however, the situation is different.

IDPs from Ukraine will have Russian citizenship, and they will not owe anything to Kyiv.

And looking at them, the rest of the fellow countrymen can catch up.

Then, by the way, Kyiv will have a lot of free land to receive extra refugees from the European Union. True, Europe will come to him in a somewhat unexpected form.

Alexander Romanov