Nerchinsk (; , Nershüü; , Nerchüü; ; ) is a town and the administrative center of Nerchinsky District in Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia, located on the left bank of the Nercha River, above its confluence with the Shilka River, east of Lake Baikal, about west of the Chinese border, and east of Chita, the administrative center of the krai. Population: 6,713 (1897). Town name in other languages Two important treaties between the Russian Empire and Manchu China mention Nerchinsk: the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk and the 1727 Treaty of Kyakhta. Non-Russian comments on these treaties or on the history of the town may mention other names: Latin: Nipchou or Nipcha (however, the Treaty of Kyakhta called the town Nipkoa) Manchu: Nibcu hoton Chinese: 尼布楚; Pinyin: Níbùchǔ History The fort of Nerchinsk dates from 1654. founded the town four years later; in that year he opened direct communication between the Russian settlements in Transbaikalia and those on the Amur River which had been founded by Cossacks and fur-traders from the Yakutsk region. In 1689 Russia and China signed the Treaty of Nerchinsk, which stopped the farther advance of the Russians into the basin of the Amur for two centuries (see Sino-Russian border conflicts). After that, Nerchinsk became the chief center for Russian trade with China. The opening of the western route through Mongolia, via Urga, and the establishment of a custom-house at Kyakhta in 1728 diverted this trade into a new channel. But Nerchinsk acquired fresh importance from the influx of immigrants, mostly exiles, into eastern Dauria, from the discovery of rich mines and from the arrival of great numbers of convicts to the Nerchinsk katorga. Ultimately Nerchinsk became the chief town of Transbaikalia. The famous English adventurer and engineer Samuel Bentham visited Nerchinsk in 1782. Bentham had seen a potential for Nerchinsk as a base for access to the Sea of Okhotsk, provided the Chinese would authorize navigation on the Amur River. Such a venture would have opened up the possibility of fur trade with the Pacific Ocean, as far as the Chinese port of Canton. In 1812, Nerchinsk was transferred from the banks of the Shilka to its present site, on account of floods. The town relinquished its supremacy to Chita in the late 19th century, when the Trans-Siberian Railway bypassed it. According to George Kennan, "a few of the Decembrist conspirators of 1825" and "thousands of Polish insurgents" from