It is also found in the forest zone of East Europe, the Caucasus, West Siberia, North-East Kazakhstan, East Siberia, and Mongolia stretching until Transbaikalia in the East.
The fort of Nerchinsk dates from 1654 and the town was founded four years later by Afanasy Pashkov, who in that year opened direct communication between the Russian settlements in Transbaikalia and those on the Amur River which had been founded by Cossacks and fur-traders coming from the Yakutsk region.
Nerchinsk katorga (Russian: Нерчинская каторга, Nerchinskaya katorga) was a katorga system of the Russian Empire in the Nerchinsk okrug of Transbaikalia (today's Chita Oblast), between rivers Shilka and Argun, near the border to Mongolia, in the 18th to 20th centuries.