Chita is a city in Russia, the administrative center of Chita Oblast in eastern Siberia. It stands at the confluence of the Chita and Ingoda rivers and on the Trans-Siberian Railway, 500 miles east of Irkutsk. The population is about  305,000 (2005 est.). It is the headquarters of the Siberian Military District. It is served by Chita Kadala Airport and the Chita Northwest air base.

The settlement of Chita is known since 1653, but it had been overshadowed by Nerchinsk until the twentieth century. Chita was incorporated as a town in 1851. By 1885 the population had reached 5,728, in 1897: 11,480.

After 1825 several of the Decembrists suffered exile to Chita, and thus, Chita is on occasion called the “City of Exiles”. Many of the Decembrists were intellectuals and members of the middle class, and consequently their arrival had a positive effect. The well-educated exiles made an effort to educate the citizens of Chita and pursue trade. Through these efforts, the City became a major trading portal in Siberia, particularly since the natural resources of the area included timber, gold and uranium.

Perhaps due in part to the influence of the early revolutionary exiles, Chita was a center for worker unrest in the early years of the 20th century. After Father Gapon and his workers were massacred in St. Petersburg in January of 1905, Chita became a center for worker demonstrations, which led to armed revolutionaries taking control of the city and declaring the "Chita Republic". Troops sent by the Tsar quickly crushed the new government and its leaders were severely punished on the slope of Titovskaya hill.

From 1920 to 1922 Chita served as the capital of the Far East Republic. From the 1930s through the end of communism, Chita was a closed city. During this period, foreigners were prohibited from travelling to Chita as were many Russians. The basis for the closing of the city was apparently its proximity to China and military installations. During World War II, a significant number of Japanese soldiers were taken by the Russians as prisoners of war. Through whatever machinations present at that time, they were put to work in the construction industry. In the centre of Chita you will find buildings with a definite hint of Japanese style. The buildings are not overtly Japanese, but they definitely differ from the other styles present.

Chita is laid out in a grid pattern, which is rare in Russia. Architecturally, Chita is a clash of styles. Foremost, Chita is populated with five-storey communist concrete buildings. In contrast to these Soviet signatures, Chita is also populated with individual homes made primarily out of wood, the equivalent of those you would see in any mountainous area.

Jews in Chita and its region

The first Jews migrated to the Chita region in the second half of the 19th century due to building of silver plants and mines in Transbaikal, and its closeness to the Russian border with China which helped the newly built townlets enjoy an international trade. There were four allowed ranks of Jewish immigrants in Transbaikal, divided into top traders, specialists or craftsmen; soldiers (former cantonists and their families); and political exiles. As a result, most of the Jewish population which moved to Chita and other townlets were male. It led to establishment of shadchanut, the institution of Jewish matching, allowing the conversion of local non-Jewish women.

In 1836, the Russian Tsar, Nicholas I allowed some of Jews of the Pale of Settlement to sink roots in Siberia and become, unusually in Jewish history, agriculturists. After few years the local authorities tried to prevent the further Jewish penetration into the region.

According to the first census of 1897, the Jewish population in the Transbaikal region was about 8,000 people, and more than 1,200 of them lived in Chita. Chita was home to Jewish political Zionism and Socialist parties during the first decades of the 20th century. Yemelyan Yaroslavsky (Gubelman), one of Bolshevik leaders, was born in Chita.

When the Russian Revolution occurred, most of Jews of Chita were supporters of the White movement, despite its anti-Semitism. By 1919 ataman Semyonov formed a Jewish regiment that took part in many anti-Bolshevik actions. During the time of the Far East Republic, Jewish life in the Republic was able to continue without any of the obstacles like it faced in the rest of the Soviet Union. During this time the Jews played a significant role in the economic development of the region. After the Communists came to power in 1923, most of the Jews of Chita left the city for Chinese cities especially for Harbin, China.

By 1929 the Jewish community had been outlawed and the largest synagogue in Asia was nationalized; it was only in 2004 that it was returned to a tiny Jewish community. Most of the small Jewish population of some one thousand people has immigrated to Israel since 1989. About two hundred Jews currently live in the city. These Jews originated from different parts of the former Soviet Union. Percentage of intermarriages is high because of lack of a real Jewish life and high assimilation.