Kiakhta

a city, the center of Kiakhta Raion, Buriat ASSR. Situated on the border of the USSR with the Mongolian People’s Republic, 35 km east of the Naushki railroad station, it is linked by highways to Ulan-Ude (234 km). Population, 15,300 (1973).

Kiakhta was founded in 1727 and became a center for trade with China after the signing of the Bura Treaty of 1727. The Russo-Chinese Kiakhta Treaty of 1727 was concluded there. Kiakhta became a trading settlement in 1743, and in 1792 the customhouse was moved there from Irkutsk. Goods exported via Kiakhta to China included cloth, manufactured goods, fur articles, and Russian leather; imports from China were mainly tea. With the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railroad in 1903, Kiakhta lost its importance as the chief center for trade with China and became a center of Russian trade with Outer Mongolia. In 1915 the Kiakhta Agreement was signed in this city. Soviet power was established in Kiakhta in February 1918. The city was the center of the revolutionary activity of Sukhe-Bator and Choibalsan in 1920–21 and the site of the First Congress of the Mongolian People’s Party, held on Mar. 1, 1921. Kiakhta was the starting or terminal point of the travels of N. M. Przheval’skii, P. K. Kozlov, G. N. Potanin, A. V. Potanin, V. A. Obruchev, and other explorers of Central Asia.

Classical-style buildings erected in Kiakhta in the 19th century include the Troitskii Cathedral (1807–17), the Voskresen-skaia Church (1838), and a merchants’ arcade (mid-19th century). During the Soviet period there has been large-scale housing construction according to standard designs. Kiakhta is the site of a spinning and knitted goods factory, enterprises of the food industry, a medical school, the V. A. Obruchev Museum of Local Lore (founded in 1891), and the Sukhe-Bator Museum.