Ducher

The Duchers (Russian: дючеры or дучеры) was the Russian name of the people populating the shores of the middle course of the Amur River, approximately from the mouth of the Zeya down to the mouth of the Ussury, and possibly even somewhat further downstream. Their ethnic identity is not known with certainty, but it is usually assumed that they were a Tungusic people, related to the Jurchens and/or the Nanais.

The name of this ethnic group is sometimes also written in English as "Jucher".

The total number of Duchers (including other related Manchu groups, but not the Daurs or Evenks) of the Amur Valley at the time of the appearance of the Russian explorers in the region ca. 1650 has been estimated by modern scholars at 14,000.

According to the Russian explorers of the time, the Duchers, as well as the related groups, the Goguls, and their north-western neighbors, the Daurs, were agriculturalists. They grew rye, wheat, barley, millet, oats, peas, and hemp, as well as a number of vegetables. The Duchers had horses and cattle; pigs were a particularly important source of meat. They did some hunting and fishing as well.

According to the 17th-century Cossacks' reports, the Duchers lived in fortified villages (Russian: городок) with 60 and more houses in each.

The predecessor of the Qing fortress Aigun (which was originally located on the left - now Russian - bank of the Amur, opposite to its later location) was a Ducher town, currently known to the archaeologists as the Grodekovo site (Гродековское городище), after the nearby village of Grodekovo. It is located south of the city of Blagoveshchensk and the fall of the Zeya into the Amur. Yerofey Khabarov reported the existence of this town (which he called Aytyun (Айтюн)) to the Yakutsk voivode D. Frantsbekov in 1652. According to the archaeologists, this fortress was first built around the end of the first or beginning of the second millennium CE.

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