The settlement was named Zheltuga after the Shilka river, whose tributary is the Albazikha.
The Shilka river eventually becomes Amur after its confluence with the Argun on the Russia-China border.
The nearest large Chinese settlement, on the other hand, was hundreds of kilometers away.
Escaped convicts and deportees were prominent among the Russians who came in search for gold.
A sizeable portion of Zheltugas population was also made up by deserters from private goldmines in the Amur district.
Not all arrivals came to Zheltuga with the intention of digging for gold.
An the mining community expanded, so its needs for supplies and entertainment grew.
Merchants supplied alcohol to the settlement while transporting its gold at the same time.
Zheltuga was divided into five districtsfour Russian and one Chinese.
Two foremen were elected from each district, and they jointly oversaw the colony’s administration.
The main street within the settlement was named Millionnaia street.
A black-and-yellow flag was created, symbolizing the land and the gold.
Murder was publishable by execution, while offenders of other crimes received flogging and sometimes banishment from the camp.
The law was ruthlessly implemented.
Once in a single day 30 people accused of murder were hanged.
Headmen of the Zheltuga Republic.
The first two weeks could, with justification, be called the time of the terrible floggings.
It took almost a year before the Chinese authorities got wind of Zheltugas existence.
They decided to await the storm by hiding in the surrounding forests.
When they departed, the miners returned and the Chinese workers also came out of hiding.
Within half a year, Zheltuga was back in business.
A messenger offered the Russians a chance to retreat unharmed to the other bank of the Amur.
What happened next is difficult to ascertain.
Another version has it that the Russians stayed behind to protect their fellow Chinese miners.
Either way, what followed was a carnage.
But there was no deliverance there either.
It was a terrible, monstrous, savage carnage.
The brutal destruction of Zheltuga was reported positively in press across Siberia.
The newspapers spoke essentially in one voice of the damage that Zheltuga was causing to the Russian Far East.
Illegal gold mining in Amur continued to be headache for private mine operators.
