Abakan

Settlements near the mouth of the Abakan River have been known since the Bronze Age. Local inhabitants called this elevation Ah-Tigey (the white top, because there were numerous birch-bark yurts of nomads).. At the foot of Mount Samohval there was a Hun stone fortress. In the I century BC, 8 km upriver for a captive Chinese general was built the so-called palace of Lin.

In 1675, the first Russian fortress in Khakassia, the Abakan stockaded town, was founded on Sosnovy Island, at the mouth of the Abakan River at its confluence with the Yenisei.. It was the first major military-engineering structure on the territory of the future city, recorded in historical documents. Abakan ostrog from the day of its foundation became an administrative center in the lands inhabited by "foreigners". Abakan administration office - a management institution of the Khakasses living in the Minusinsk hollow - was located in the ostrog.

From this fortress and begins the biography of modern Abakan. Here, in this fortress first sounded the name Abakan: Cossack post Abakan, Abakan ostrog.