Providensky District

Providensky District (Russian: Провиде́нский райо́н; Chukchi: Урэлӄуйым район, Urèlḳujym rajon; Yupik: Уӷрилӄуйым район) is an administrative and municipal district (raion), one of the six in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. It is located in the northeast of the autonomous okrug, in the southern half of the Chukchi Peninsula with a northwest extension reaching almost to the Kolyuchinskaya Bay on the Arctic. It borders with Chukotsky District in the north, the Bering Sea in the east and south, and with Iultinsky District in the west. The area of the district is 26,800 square kilometers (10,300 sq mi). Its administrative center is the urban locality (an urban-type settlement) of Provideniya. Population: 3,923 (2010 census); 4,660 (2002 census); 9,778 (1989 Soviet census). The population of Provideniya accounts for 50.2% of the district's total population.

The district lies in a mountainous region, with most of its inhabited localities located along the coast. Wetlands occupy the territory between mountain ranges and areas close to the shore, particularly near inlets and brackish lagoons. The southern section of the coastline is approximately 850 kilometers (530 mi) long. About a quarter of this coastline consists of beaches and gravel spits, with the remainder made up of rugged, rocky shores containing numerous fjords.

Lakes Pychgynmygytgyn, Achchyon and Medvezhye are located within the district.

The history of human existence in what would become Providensky District can be traced back to the Paleolithic age, when hunter-gatherers lived in the area. Over the next few millennia, the hunters-gatherers split into two groups, with one staying in the tundra and the other moving closer to the sea for food.

Gradually, those who settled by the shore began to develop their own individual culture, including the construction of their homes and other buildings using whale bones as support, structures which would later develop into the yarangas. Excavations at many sites along the coast of the district, including present-day localities such as Enmelen, Nunligran, Yanrakynnot, and Sireniki, indicate an abundance of food as well as indicating a considerable degree of continuity in terms of indigenous settlement. As a result, the southeastern part of the coast is home to a large number of Beringian monuments and archaeological sites, with the area around Arakamchechen Island, Yttygran Island, and the Senyavin Straits having been given protected area status as part of the Beringia Park. Providensky District also includes Yttygran Island, which features an area known as "Whale Bone Alley", where the jaw bones and ribs of Bowhead whales are arranged on the beach. There is also a large, permanent polynya near Sireniki.

In the 17th century, Semyon Dezhnyov and his Cossacks founded the ostrog (fortress) of Anadyrsk and began to explore Chukotka. One expedition, led by Dezhnyov's successor Kurbat Ivanov, resulted in the discovery of the Provideniya Bay, although the bay did not receive this name until it was "re-discovered" by Captain Thomas E. L. Moore in 1848. Vitus Bering discovered the Preobrazheniye Bay on his first Kamchatka expedition in 1728.

In the 18th century, further inland exploration was performed by Joseph Billings under orders from Catherine the Great to explore her new land of Chukotka and to negotiate trade between Russians and Chukchi, something the Chukchi were pleased to do, since Anadyrsk, which had previously been the center for trade between the Russians and the local indigenous peoples, had closed and the Chukchi needed Russian goods.

Further exploration took place during the 19th century, when Fyodor Litke, the Arctic explorer, discovered and mapped the Senyavin Strait, the body of water that separates Arakamchechen Island, on which the rural locality of Yanrakynnot is found, from the mainland.