Editing Omsk Oblast (section)

==History==

===Prehistory and the Middle Ages===
Archeological findings indicate that the present day territory of the oblast has been inhabited for the last 14,000 years. [[Neolithic]] societies in the area lived by fishing and hunting. About three thousand years ago, [[pastoralism]] began to take hold. [[Ust'-Ishim man]], the remains of a man that lived 45,000 years ago, was discovered in Omsk Oblast.

Various [[Turkic peoples|Turkic]] states dominated the area throughout the Medieval era. The most notable of these were the [[Western Turkic Khaganate]] and the [[Siberian Khanate]]. [[Siberian Tatars]], [[Mongols]], [[Khanty people|Khanty]] and [[Mansi people|Mansi]] tribes, along with others, inhabited the territory.

===Exploration of Siberia===
The Russian history of Omsk began with the 1584 arrival of a Cossack force under the command of ataman [[Yermak Timofeyevich]], who defeated local rulers and established nominal Russian control of the area. To support further expansion tsars [[Feodor I]] and [[Boris Godunov]] initiated the construction of fortified settlements and military outposts in the south of Siberia in order to defend their subjects from raiding nomadic tribesmen and to exert authority over local populations, specifically over the tribute-paying [[Siberian Tatars]] of The Baraba Lands. The first permanent Russian settlement in the region, the city of [[Tara, Omsk Oblast|Tara]], was founded in 1594, soon it began to play an important part in fur trade that connected Russia with Central Asia and China.

In 1716 a fortress was constructed at the confluence of the [[Om]] and [[Irtysh]] rivers on the orders of sublieutenant Ivan Bugholtz. The fortress would form the nucleus for the development of the future city of Omsk. By the second half of the 18th century, Omsk fortress was the largest building of any kind in the eastern part of Russia.

As Russian settlements continued to spread through the [[Yenisei]], [[Tobol River|Tobol]] and Irtysh watersheds in the course of the 18th century, so did the development of the Omsk and the surrounding region. In 1753 a customs post was established to tax goods brought into the city by the ever-increasing trade with Kazakh tribesmen. In 1764, when the Siberian provinces of Russia were organized into two governorates with centers in [[Irkutsk]] and [[Tobolsk]], the city of Tara and the fortress of Omsk were assigned to the latter. In 1780, on the orders of [[Catherine the Great]] the fortress was transferred to [[Kolyvan, Novosibirsk Oblast|Kolyvan Oblast]]. By this time Omsk had grown to the size of a small city, however, from 1797 to 1804 it did not possess its own [[uyezd]].

===Russian Empire===
In 1804, the territories surrounding Omsk were organized into the Omsk [[Okrug]]. The city rose to prominence when Siberia was once again reorganized in 1822, Omsk became the administrative center of the General Governorate of Eastern Siberia rising above the old center of Siberia, Tobolsk. The new governorate was divided into oblasts around the cities of Omsk, Petropavlovsk, [[Semipalatinsk]] and [[Oskemen|Ust-Kamenogrsk]] populated by Russian colonists and okrugs populated by Kazakh nomads. In subsequent reforms the name of the Oblast was changed repeatedly to The Oblast of The Siberian Kyrgyz (1854), Akmolinsk Oblast (1868), and Omsk Oblast (1917) before finally reverting to the Omsk Governorate in 1918. The authority of the oblast followed further expansion of the empire to Central Asia and included significant parts of modern-day [[Kazakhstan]].

In the 19th century, Omsk, given its strong system of frontier fortresses, became notorious as a premier destination for political exiles and prisoners from the European part of the Russian Empire. [[Decembrists]], [[History of Poland|Polish rebels]], French prisoners of war and political activists of every stripe found their way to Siberia. Among them was [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]], who spent four years (1850–1854) at the Omsk prison.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://omskobl.ru/his/ |title=История Омской области |publisher=Omskobl.ru |access-date=13 August 2012 |archive-date=22 November 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121122220855/http://www.omskobl.ru/his/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The early nineteenth century also saw the growth of industry in the city and in the rest of the Irtysh basin. The [[Siberian Cossacks|Siberian Cossack Army]] was headquartered in Omsk after 1808 and contributed to the development of the city, by the beginning of the 20th century the Cossacks were a dominant component in the society of both the city of Omsk and the surrounding lands, having reached a population of 174 thousand and holding title to five million hectares of agricultural land. The 18th and 19th centuries also saw the influx of a significant number of German immigrants both from Russia's [[Volga Germans|Volga Regions]] and from abroad.

===Soviet years===
In 1925 the Omsk governorate was dissolved into the newly formed [[Siberian Krai]] and again reorganized, this time as an Oblast by order of the [[All-Russian Central Executive Committee]] on 7 December 1934. Parts of the Ob-Irtysh Oblast and the [[West Siberian Krai]] as well as the southern part of [[Chelyabinsk Oblast]] were given over to Omsk. In 1943, [[Kurgan Oblast]] created from the western portion of the [[Chelyabinsk Oblast]] also got a number of Omsk territories. In 1944, the northern part of the Omsk Oblast along with the districts previously transferred to Kurgan became newly established [[Tyumen Oblast]] that included [[Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug|Khanty-Mansi]] and [[Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug|Yamalo-Nenets]] autonomous okrugs.

The 1950s saw the creation of the petroleum processing industry, as well as the development of various high-technology facilities that came to define the economy of the Oblast for the remainder of the century.

===Post-Soviet era===
With the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]] the oblast became part of the newly independent Russian Federation. The independence of Kazakhstan gave Omsk an international border to the south, while continued federal policy aiming to rectify the effects of [[population transfer in the Soviet Union|Stalin era population transfers]] led to the creation of a [[Azovsky Nemetsky National District|national German district]] in an area with a significant, although not a majority, German population around the town of [[Azovo]]. On 19 May 1996 Omsk Oblast signed a power-sharing agreement with the federal government, granting it autonomy.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.rferl.org/a/1141174.html|title=Newsline - May 20, 1996 Yeltsin Promises to Maintain Stability, Plays Regional Card|date=20 May 1996|website=Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty|language=en|access-date=2 May 2019}}</ref> This agreement would be abolished on 21 December 2001.<ref name= "demokratiztsiya">{{Cite journal|last=Chuman|first=Mizuki|title=The Rise and Fall of Power-Sharing Treaties Between Center and Regions in Post-Soviet Russia|url=http://demokratizatsiya.pub/archives/19_2_L7H017206G216817.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://demokratizatsiya.pub/archives/19_2_L7H017206G216817.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|journal=Demokratizatsiya|pages=146}}</ref>