The Chukchi fought Russian armies for generations, but their story didn’t end in defeat – it became one of survival and coexistence
In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, on the frozen edge of Eurasia, the Chukchi watched strangers approach across the tundra. Tall, bearded, clad in breastplates and iron helmets, the men seemed like figures torn from legend. “They had whiskers like walruses, iron eyes, and spears so wide they could block out the sun,” Chukchi elders would later recall.
These were Russian Cossacks – pioneers sent by the tsar to collect tribute and push the empire’s borders ever further east. For decades, they had swept across Siberia with little resistance, subduing one indigenous group after another. They believed they were unstoppable.
But on the Chukchi Peninsula, they met a people who would not yield. Nomadic, fiercely independent, and hardened by a landscape where survival itself was a daily battle, the Chukchi refused to be conquered. The collision of these two worlds would ignite one of the longest and bloodiest conflicts in the history of Russia’s eastward expansion.
FILE PHOTO. Reindeer on the coast of the Chukchi Sea.
The Chukchi were few in number – perhaps no more than 15,000 at the time – but their way of life had made them nearly impossible to subdue. For millennia they had roamed the windswept Chukchi Peninsula, a world of brutal winters, short summers, and endless tundra. Temperatures could plunge to -40°C, and in summer, swarms of mosquitoes turned every journey into torment. Survival in such a place was a daily act of endurance.
They lived in small, highly mobile camps, moving with their reindeer herds twice a year. Each settlement had its own leader, known as an umilik, and there was no central authority – no single chief who could negotiate, surrender, or be coerced. This political fragmentation made it nearly impossible for outsiders to strike lasting agreements with them.
Chukchi society revolved around two things: The herds that sustained them and the sea that bordered their lands. Inland clans were reindeer herders; coastal groups, dubbed ‘foot Chukchi’ by Russians, hunted whales and fished in Arctic waters. Their dwellings reflected this dual life: Semi-subterranean huts reinforced with walrus bones in winter, and collapsible, cone-shaped yarangas for summer migrations.
But life in the tundra was not simply about endurance – it was about strength and dominance. The Chukchi had a reputation for launching sudden raids on neighboring peoples, including the Koryaks, Yukaghirs, and even Eskimo groups across the Bering Strait. These raids were not mere skirmishes: Several camps could band together, attack without warning, and vanish into the tundra with stolen reindeer and supplies. These campaigns were central to their survival and prestige.
From childhood, Chukchi boys and girls were trained for hardship. Running long distances with heavy loads, learning to go hungry for days, and sleeping little were all part of their upbringing. They became expert archers, spearmen, and hand-to-hand fighters. Armor was fashioned from bone, horn, or leather, and they perfected tactics of surprise – striking at night or when enemy men were away, then disappearing into the wilderness before reinforcements could arrive.
(L) Laminar armor worn by native Siberians (L), warrior armor and sinew bow, 19th century (R).
To the Chukchi, capture was unthinkable. Warriors, women, even children would rather take their own lives than be enslaved. The elderly and the gravely ill were expected to choose death rather than burden the camp. This unforgiving code of survival, combined with their mobility, warrior culture, and intimate knowledge of the land, made the Chukchi extraordinarily resilient opponents.
And yet, on the horizon, a new kind of adversary was drawing closer – one unlike any they had ever faced.The Russian Empire was pushing relentlessly eastward, driven by the lure of fur and the promise of new lands. When its Cossack detachments finally reached the Chukchi Peninsula, a clash was inevitable.
By the late 17th century, Russia was driving deeper and deeper into Siberia. The motivation was clear: furs. Sable pelts in particular were so valuable in Europe and Asia that they were called ‘soft gold’. Detachments of Cossacks – semi-autonomous warrior-settlers – moved ever farther east, following rivers through dense forests and across endless plains in search of new lands and new sources of tribute.
The model was simple. When the Cossacks reached a new territory, they would build a small fortified outpost, declare the local tribes subjects of the tsar, and demand yasak – an annual tax in furs. Resistance was met with violence. Most of the indigenous groups they encountered were fragmented, lightly armed, and poorly equipped to fight organized Russian units.
This rapid advance gave the Cossacks a sense of inevitability. They had pushed across Siberia in a matter of decades, subduing one people after another, and now only the tundra of the Far Northeast remained. Rumors whispered that beyond the Chukchi Peninsula lay even richer lands, perhaps even a route to America.
‘Bringing the Siberian Foreigners under the High Royal Hand’ – Nikolay Karazin, 1870s.
But as the Cossacks crossed the Kolyma River and approached Chukchi territory, they were entering a world unlike any they had faced before. Here the distances were immense, the climate unforgiving, and the people both armed and ready. The Chukchi would not be intimidated by shows of force, nor would they be persuaded by gifts or treaties.
What followed was not the swift conquest the Russians had come to expect, but a drawn-out war in the tundra – one that would test both sides to their limits.
The first encounters: Small detachments in a vast land
The first Russian expeditions into Chukchi territory began cautiously. In 1642, the Cossack Dmitry Zyryan encountered a group of Chukchi while traveling with their neighbors, the Yukaghirs. The meeting ended in blood. The Cossacks, armed with iron weapons and coveted goods, were ambushed. Several Russians were badly wounded, and a number of Chukchi were killed. It was a small skirmish, but it set the tone: this would not be an easy land to tame.
In 1648, seven small sailing ships known as koches pushed off from the mouth of the Kolyma River, led by the merchant Fedot Popov and the legendary Cossack Semen Dezhnev. The journey was catastrophic. Storms scattered the flotilla; two vessels were wrecked on the rocks, two others vanished at sea, and only a handful of survivors made it ashore. Dezhnev, against all odds, reached the mouth of the Anadyr River by land, built a makeshift fort, and declared the surrounding peoples subjects of the tsar.
Route of Semyon Dezhnev’s expedition, from Thomas Kitchin’s General Atlas of the Whole Universe, 1773.
But Russian footholds in the region remained fragile. When the officer Kurbat Ivanov replaced Dezhnev, the Chukchi began attacking Cossack hunters and patrols near Anadyr. Their arrows and sling stones turned daily tasks such as fishing into life-or-death gambles.
Through the late 17th century, expedition after expedition met the same fate. Small Cossack detachments would march into the tundra to collect yasak or punish raiders, only to be picked off and disappear. The Chukchi had no forts to besiege, no villages to burn, and no central leader to capture. They fought on their own terms – striking quickly, vanishing into the vast emptiness, and forcing the Russians to spread themselves thin.
Even hostages yielded little leverage. Over time, a grim system of exchanges developed: if the Chukchi captured Russians, they would trade them for their own kin, but rarely for anything else. And while they began acquiring captured firearms, they never relied on them; muskets were scarce and ammunition hard to come by.
By the early 18th century, frustration in St. Petersburg was mounting. The Chukchi were not only resisting imperial control, but also terrorizing Russia’s tributary tribes – the Koryaks and the Yukaghirs – seizing reindeer and land in a cycle of raids and counter-raids. Afanasiy Shestakov, head of the Yakut Cossacks, petitioned the imperial Senate for a major campaign to “pacify the unruly Chukchi.”
In 1730, Shestakov personally led a small mixed force of Cossacks, Koryaks, and Tungus deep into Chukchi territory. Outnumbered by hundreds of Chukchi warriors, his detachment was overwhelmed; Shestakov was struck by an arrow and speared as he tried to flee by sled. Only half of his men survived.
The rise and fall of Captain Pavlutskiy
Shestakov’s death galvanized the empire, and soon a new figure arrived who would change the course of the war: Captain Dmitry Pavlutskiy of the Tobolsk regiment. Unlike most who had served on the frontier, Pavlutskiy was a regular army officer – trained, disciplined, and ambitious. He quickly became a near-mythical figure.
The Russian Far East as mapped after the Shestakov-Pavlutskiy expedition.
To the Koryaks and Yukaghirs, long harassed by Chukchi raids, Pavlutskiy was a savior. Songs celebrated him as a northern Sir Lancelot, a fearless protector who avenged decades of violence.
To the Chukchi, he was something entirely different. They whispered about him as a demon in human form – relentless, cunning, and merciless. Entire camps fled at the rumor of his approach; others chose suicide over capture, unwilling to face the shame and suffering they believed would follow.
Pavlutskiy understood the scale of the challenge and brought unprecedented force: more than 500 Russians and allied tribesmen, supported by 700 reindeer sleds laden with supplies. He drove his men deep into the tundra, covering distances of nearly 2,000km. His campaign was devastating. In the first ten months alone, he killed more than 1,500 Chukchi – over 10% of their entire population – and took another 150 captive.
But even Pavlutskiy could not secure a decisive victory. The Chukchi melted away into the wilderness, resurfacing to strike at isolated settlements and tributary tribes. Pavlutskiy’s columns could annihilate Chukchi bands they managed to corner, but they could not occupy the land or break the people’s will.
In 1747, Pavlutskiy made what would be his final march. Pursuing a Chukchi raiding party with just 100 men, he suddenly found himself outnumbered by 500 warriors. One of his aides urged him to build a defensive ring of sleds, but Pavlutskiy refused, choosing open battle instead. The Chukchi defied their usual tactics of harassing from a distance and charged head-on. Pavlutskiy fought like a berserker, cutting down attackers with sword and musket, until lassos dragged him from his horse and spears pierced his armor.
Dmitry Pavlutskiy on his campaign into Chukchi territory.
His death sent shockwaves through both sides. St. Petersburg mourned a commander who had become the embodiment of Russia’s struggle in the Far Northeast. The Koryaks and Yukaghirs grieved the loss of a protector. The Chukchi, by contrast, celebrated. Legends sprouted almost immediately: Some said Pavlutskiy was roasted after his death; others claimed he fought to the last breath, “like a tiger cornered in the snow.” Whatever the version, all agreed on one point: He had been their fiercest adversary.
The war had ground into stalemate. Maintaining remote garrisons drained imperial coffers, and every expedition consumed lives and resources. The tundra devoured armies as surely as the cold devoured the unprepared.
By the 1750s, the Russian Empire was exhausted by the Chukchi war. Expedition after expedition had drained the treasury, and garrisons in the remote Anadyr fortress were costly to maintain and constantly under threat. The Senate in St. Petersburg began to rethink its approach. If the Chukchi could not be subdued by force, perhaps they could be persuaded by profit.
The Anadyr fortress was dismantled in 1764, its church bells hauled away to other settlements. But this withdrawal was not a surrender. Imperial officials, encouraged by Catherine the Great, began pursuing a new policy: negotiating directly with Chukchi leaders and offering trade as an incentive for peace.
By this point, the Chukchi themselves had changed. Years of warfare and the constant need to guard their herds had created a clearer hierarchy among umiliks, the camp chiefs. Weaker leaders had perished, and the survivors understood that raiding could no longer secure their status or wealth. Trade offered an alternative.
The Russians organized fairs at small fortified posts along the Anuy River. There, merchants exchanged tea, tobacco, metal tools, and textiles for fox and sable pelts, beaver skins, and walrus ivory. These goods were precious in the tundra, and commerce flourished.
What Cossack muskets and imperial decrees could not achieve, merchants accomplished quietly. The Chukchi acknowledged the sovereignty of the Russian Empire, not as a conquered people but as partners in trade. In return, they gained access to valuable goods and the right to live as they always had – on their own terms, without the threat of military campaigns hanging over them.
Chukchi mythology even adapted to this new reality. In their stories, there were only two true peoples in the world: themselves and the Russians. Everyone else was little more than useful fauna, like reindeer or walruses. Russians, they said, existed for a specific purpose: to produce tea, tobacco, sugar, salt, and metal items, and to trade them with the Chukchi.
By the late 18th century, open warfare on the Chukchi Peninsula had ended. Russians and Chukchi had moved beyond raids and punitive campaigns, forging a relationship built on trade and mutual respect. This understanding laid the foundation for something far more lasting: a shared life in one country.
Over the centuries that followed, the Chukchi became part of the Russian Empire, then the Soviet Union, and now the Russian Federation. Yet they have retained their traditions, language, and way of life in one of the harshest environments on Earth. Reindeer herding, fishing, and seasonal migrations remain central to Chukchi culture, and their spiritual beliefs and legends are still passed down from generation to generation.
Today, the Chukchi enjoy their own federal subject – Chukotka Autonomous Okrug –a reflection of the unique place they hold within Russia. Regional and federal authorities support the preservation of Chukchi culture, ensuring that the nomadic camps, ancient rituals, and language of this small Arctic nation are not lost to time.
What began centuries ago as one of the most protracted and difficult conflicts in Russia’s eastward expansion ultimately gave way to coexistence. The Chukchi and the Russians, once bitter adversaries, now share not just a land but a future. Their story is a reminder that even in the most inhospitable of places, people can find a way to live side by side – without losing who they are.
