Understand
Despite looking much like an ahistorical barren land of interest only for its natural gas and oil reserves, Yamalia was the site of some of the most interesting conflicts of Russia's Siberian expansion. Prior to conquest by Yermak Timofeyich who was killed in the process, Yamalia was known as the Khanate of Sibir, led by the energetic Tatar Khan Kumuch, who mounted fierce resistance to Russian expansion and attempted to convert and thereby unify against the Cossacks his diverse people of Siberian Tatars, Khanti, Mansi, Nenets, Yamals, and Selkups to Islam. In the wake of the region's conquest, colonists established the first Russian settlement of the region, Salekhard, in 1595.
