Blagoveshchensk

Blagoveshchensk is a city and the authoritative focal point of Amur Oblast, Russia, situated at the conjunction of the Amur and Zeya Rivers, inverse to the Chinese city of Heihe. The Amur has shaped Russia's outskirt with China since the 1858 Aigun Treaty and 1860 Treaty of Peking. The region north of the Amur had a place with the Manchu Qing line by the Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689, until the point that it was surrendered to Russia by Aigun Treaty in 1858.

The early occupants of the two sides of the Amur in the locale of the present Blagoveshchensk were the Daurs and Duchers. An early settlement in the zone of the present Blagoveshchensk was the Ducher town whose name was accounted for by the Russian wayfarer Yerofey Khabarov as Aytyun in 1652; it has been related to what is as of now referred to the archeologists as the Grodekovo site, after the close-by town of Grodekovo.

As the Russians attempted to state their command over the locale, the Ducher town was likely cleared when the Duchers were emptied by the Qing to the Sungari or Hurka in the mid-1650s. Since 1673, the Chinese re-utilized the site for their fort, which served in 1683-1685 as a base for the Manchus' battle against the Russian stronghold of Albazin further north. After the catch of Albazin in 1685 or 1686, the Chinese moved their town, to another site on the correct bank of the Amur, around 3 miles downstream from the first site; it later wound up known as Aigun.