Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tyumeñ

TYUMEÑ, a district town of West Siberia, in the government of Tobolsk, is situated at a point where the chief highway from Russia across the Urals touches the first navigable river (the Tura) of Siberia. A railway passing through Ekaterinburg and the principal iron works on the eastern slopes of the middle Urals connects Tyumeñ with Perm, the terminus of steamboat traffic on the Kama and Volga. The Tura being a tributary of the Tobol, which joins the Irtish, a tributary of the Ob, Tyumeñ has regular steam communication with Omsk and Semipalatinsk by the Irtish (steamers penetrating as far as Lake Zaisan in Dzungaria); with Tomsk, Barnaul, and Biysk, in the Altai, by the Ob and the Tom; with Irbit—the seat of the great Siberian fair—by the Tura and the Nitsa; and by the Tobol, the Irtish, and the Ob with the Arctic Ocean and the fisheries of the lower Ob. Tyumeñ stands also at the western extremity of the Siberian highway which goes via Omsk, Tomsk, and Krasnoyarsk to Irkutsk. In summer the Tura sometimes falls so low that steamers have to stop 90 miles off, passengers and goods being taken thence to Tyumeñ in lighter vessels. The town is well built, and stands on both banks of the Tura, which is here spanned by a bridge. The portion on the low left bank is inhabited by the poorest class and is often inundated; the best houses are on the high right bank. The streets are unpaved, but the houses (principally wooden) are for the most part inclosed by gardens. The people, who are famed throughout Siberia for their good looks, have always been renowned for their industrial skill. Woollen cloth, linen, belts, and especially boots and gloves, are manufactured to a large amount (70,000 pairs of boots and 300,000 pairs of gloves annually). Tyumeñ carpets, although made in the simplest way and with the plainest tools, have a wide renown in Russia and Siberia, and recently have appeared in the markets of western Europe as of Oriental origin. All kinds of metal wares are made in small workshops. Sheepskins and various kinds of cloth are extensively manufactured, and the leather prepared at the tanneries (100 in number) is extensively sold all over Siberia, the Kirghiz steppe, and Bokhara. An establishment has recently been opened for the construction of barges, and a paper-mill, the first in Siberia, was opened in 1886. The trade of Tyumeñ is exceeded only by that of Irkutsk and of Tomsk. In addition to its primary schools Tyumeñ has a "real" school. The population, which is of a fluctuating character in summer, is differently estimated at 13,000, 14,500, and 18,000.