Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai
Chita is founded in 1653. After 1825, the Decembrists gave exile to Chita. George Kennan said, "Among the exiles in Chita were some of the brightest, most cultivated, most sympathetic men and women that we had met in Eastern Siberia." When Richard Maack visited Chita in 1855, he saw a wooden town, with one, also wooden, church. He estimated Chita's population at under 1,000, but predicted that the Chita would soon get fast growth in population and economy, due to the upcoming annexation of the Amur valley by Russia.