People began to explore Western Siberia about 15-20 thousand years ago. Western Siberia was inhabited by the tribes of the Khanty and Mansi (Voguls), Nenets (Samoyed), Selkups (Ostyaks-Samoyeds). At the end of the first millennium AD, the Turkic tribes inhabited the south of the present Tyumen region; later, they formed into an ethnic community of the Siberian Tatars.

The Cossack ataman Yermak Timofeyevich annexed the Tyumen area, originally part of the Siberia Khanate, to the Tsardom of Russia in 1585. Both capitals of Siberia Khanate, Sibir and Tyumen (the capital in the 15th century), were completely destroyed. Sibir was never restored, while it gave its name to all concurrent and future lands, annexed in the Northern Asia by Moscow state, but town Tyumen was later founded again. On July 29, 1586, Tsar Feodor I ordered two regional commanders, to construct a fortress on the site of the former Siberian Tatar town known as Tyumen, from the Turkish and Mongol word for "ten thousand". Founded in 1586 to support Russia's eastward expansion, the city has remained one of the most important industrial and economic centers east of the Ural Mountains.

Tyumen was the first Russian settlement in Siberia. Tyumen stood on the part of the historical trade route between Central Asia and the Volga region. Various South Siberian nomads had continuously contested control of the portage in the preceding centuries. Located at the junction of several important trade routes and with easy access to navigable waterways, Tyumen rapidly developed from a small military settlement to a large commercial and industrial city. The central part of Old Tyumen retains many historic buildings from throughout the city's history.

By the beginning of the 18th century Tyumen had developed into an important center of trade between Siberia and China in the east and Central Russia in the west. Tyumen had also become an important industrial center, known for leather-goods makers, blacksmiths, and other craftsmen.

In the 19th century the town's development continued. In 1836, the first steam boat in Siberia was built in Tyumen. In 1862, the telegraph came to the town, and in 1864 the first water mains were laid. Further prosperity came to Tyumen after the construction, in 1885, of the Trans-Siberian Railway.

Tyumen gradually eclipsed the former regional capital. The growth of Tyumen culminated on August 14, 1944 when the city finally became the administrative center of the extensive Tyumen Oblast.

By the onset of World War II, the city had several well-established industries, including shipbuilding, furniture manufacture, and the manufacture of fur and leather goods.

World War II saw rapid growth and development in the city. In the winter of 1941, twenty-two major industrial enterprises evacuated to Tyumen from the European part of the Soviet Union. Additionally, war-time Tyumen became a "hospital city", where thousands of wounded soldiers were treated.

Despite the actively constructed new buildings, Tyumen maintains its distinctive image of a provincial city of the 18th-19th centuries, and exterior design of residential houses made in wood carving technique is included into the heritage of world art.

The town was affected by the discovery of rich oil- and gas-fields in the Tyumen Oblast in the 1960s. While most of these lay hundreds of kilometers away, near the towns of Surgut and Nizhnevartovsk, Tyumen was the nearest railway junction and so the city became their supply base while the railway was extended northwards.

The modern city of Tyumen represents a big industrial center, city of science, culture and sports; it is a hard-working city. For the past years, the city has dramatically transformed. They constructed new housing complexes, roads, and bridges and enlarged the streets.

In 1996, they set out the new borders of Tyumen and approved the first city charter.

In 2008, the Eastern administrative district of Tyumen was established.

Text vocabulary:

annex - присоединять

Siberia khanate – Сибирское ханство

Tsardom of Russia – Русское царство

nomad - кочевник

water main – водопроводная сеть

supply base – база производственного обеспечения