Weird west vs Strange Siberia

So, first things first.
Initial stage of expansion went somewhat like this:
Some group of Cossacks (note: here ethic part may be discarded an then can be pretty much summed up as (semi)free borderland folk, adventurers, robbers and killers, explorers, gutter trash and flotsam. Quite the charmers, all things considered) moved further into Siberia, either driven by possible profits, or running away from their crimes
Usually they chose a place and set up a fort there (wooden one, of course). They then went around and "put yasak" on folks, while taking hostages. What does yasak meant: a tithe in furs. From their part, they didn't offer much, being independent as they are
Sometimes folks were pissed off, and tried to get them - but usually guns, organisation and a fort allowed cossacks to hold out.
In any case, after some time a missive was sent back to the state that they genuflect and bring such-and-such under the hand of the White Czar. Usually that resulted in amnesty for whatever crimes they have committed, officials and clergymen were sent to their fort, and a governance was established. Not too much of it, but some kind of enforced peace between the tribes, trade, some arbitrage, etc

Native Siberians had some pretty cool wargear

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Several things must be noted here.
First, much of Siberia is covered by taiga. One cannot go through it, so those explorers were moving east at the south of it, essentially at the northern part of the steppes, where origins of great siberian rivers lay. They then sailed up north by them. Even now many if not all big siberian cities are on rivers
Now, local administration was pretty much independent. Of course i do not mean separatism here, but it took so long to send a missibe to Moscow (or, later, St Petersbourg) that de facto they were the top of administrative chain and could abuse their positions a lot.
It must be noted, that in Russia only the head of the state could sanction death penalty. However, little stopped people from, for example, proscribing beatings then allowing to die to the lack of medical help. Or making people rot chained in the earth jails
It was possible to send a complaint to the top, and actions were taken for them - but it was not a simple and quick affair, nor was it done often.
As cossacks went on, they have also recruited locals for manpower as well.
Cossacks were also adept at building boats, and so they usually made one when a river or, later, ocean was reached

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Expansion was essentially unopposed until Amur was reached, where founding of Albasin city led to the conflict with Chinese - or, rather, with Manchu, who has just conquered them
Manchu saw that as infringing on their sphere of influence and so they went to war.
There were 2 sieges. One ended in the city (or, rather, fort) surrendering, and majority becoming prisoners whose descendants would live on in China until the beginning of 20th century
As command of the firt were riding back in somewhat of a disgrace (their loss was excusable, and they did a fair account of themselves), they met with reinforcements that were sent by their earlier request. It was decided tht second time is the charm, and so they went and rebuilt the fort, and even managed to stock on grain and such during the season. Naturally another Manchu army was sent
This time the fort did not surrender. A diplomatic mission was sent from both sides (they met not at Albasin, but in another place), and an accord was reached in how the border should go. Fort was evacuated and scrapped. That was at the beginning of the Romanov dinasty.
Only other notable conflict was with natives of Chukotka. It must be noted that a military subjugation of Chukotka people was never achieved, instead local fort was eventually evacuated as well, and they were joined by the way of trade. It must be also said that chukchi were a nasty bunch who terorised, or rather, were getting rid of everybody else around them, and that was the reason for the russian military involvement

>chukchi were a nasty bunch who terorised, or rather, were getting rid of everybody else around them
They were also huge nazis. They only considered themselves (and, eventually, Russians) as real humans, and all the other folks as humanoid animals. Their native name even means "true humans".

Now, some random tidbits
As administration was establishec, people started to trikle into Siberia from russia
Peasants who went for free land. And the land was indeed free as natives did not cultivate it for the most part - until they learned it from settlers
Priests, officers, soldiers, administrators - and scientists, such as they were in tha age (age of enlightment that is).
Priests tended to missianary work. As is usual in orthodoxy, for local languages they tried to translate scriptures, sometimes inventing an alphabet for them (basing it on cyrillic). Total conversion was never achieved, forced was not the rule or widespread. One of important reasons for that is that was that full Citizenship with all the rights and obligations it entailed was for the Orthodox only - the rest had their rights and obligations in what was essentially a case by cases basis. As such, natives by the most part only had to pay yasak while, for example, settlers were expected to provide recruits and had other duties. That's why sometimes they had reregistered themselves into natives (correct term here is inorodzi, which can be badly translated as 'alien-born'). Inter-marriage was permitted with usual religious restrictions (christians marry other christians, papists and protestants not included, for all exceptions a permission from the state power (as in: from the holy sinod/the emperor) is needed). Usually that was not the issue
And priests established abbeys, sometimes in relatively remote/wild places, as dictated by the restrictions of monastic life

Now, traders, of the adventurous kind, also went there. Mainly they were interested in furs and mamont bones (or other animal bones).. Later on, when Russian-American company was established, trade became much more interesting, but for the setting of adventure we must note that traders were also there.
A little on the system. There was a grading system for traders/enterpreaters. The better their grade was (iirc, 1 was highest, but 3rd was lowest), the more rights and priviledges they had, includin what and how much are they permitted to trade, who with etc. However, one needed to qualiy for them, so fear of losing, let's say license for simplicity, was real
With that out of the way, onto the military. What were cossacks: a separate estate, armed and self-governing (well, eventually all cossack hosts had their chief appointed from above), tasked by guarding the borderland. They did not pay taxes as the peasantry, and were also not subject to recruit drives (which meant thay did get to return from wars, as they did not have 25-years military terms) etc. Usually they settled on rivers and their hosts were named for them. As times went on, it became harder to join them - in earlier times, they were the usual destination of runaway serfs, as they did not and did not have to give them back to their landowners. Cossacks were both forefront and rearguard of explorers, so to say - after lands were brought after governance, they were organised and settled. They were also resettled from old frontiers which were no longer such (and given a choice of resettling as cossacks or remaining as peasants)
But there were also soldiers. Dispatched by state authority and directly subordinate to voevodas (city managers), later (after army reforms) to the officers and governors. It must be noted, that as always in the army, there were different grades of soldiers. Soldiers were there essentially for life, and they were not usually dismissed. more later

So, as Siberia was somewhat peaceful, it recieved garrisons of cripples. Well, maybe not all of them were actual cripples but that's what they were called, at least.
Now, officers were usually from nobles. That means, and this is probably not that much known, that they were of mixed nationalities. After Peter the Great there was a huge influx of german nobles from conquered baltic land into the system of russian state - and so it is nothing unusual to have a german, austrian, pole , danishman, irishman, englishman or scotsman etc as an officer in Siberia.

Now, Siberia also served as a place of exile. It had distinct advantage of "there is nowhere really to run away to" (there were, of course, exceptions). For example, swedish prisoners of Poltava were eventually sent there - later after the peace was reached eventually, they were returned. There was one curious incident, when one swerish artillerist went on and started to serve Uigurs, and his knowledge enchanced their army to dangerus levels. Eventually, he was offered "ok, how about we let you return to your home country right now to your family instead of being a chief of artillery" and he accepted.

Also must be noted: serfdom was unknown in Siberia

Hope that helped at least a little

On the 'toothed people'
On the north of siberia there were tales of the toothed people, who came by the ice. Why 'toothed' - well, they had a cute habit of sticking walrus' tusks through their upper lips. They probably has other bone armor and weapons.
Those toothed people were aleuts from America - it was not only possible to cross by foot, but it was actually done many times (they say that's how man got to america).
For an adventure hook - what if these raiders, that come under the cover of the polar night, silently over the sno and frozen ocean are not from America at all? But from other, much darker and much more ancient place?

1d4chan.org/wiki/Campaign:End-World

First Native Americans got to America by land back when Beringia hadn't yet been submerged.

You'll need native Siberian folklore instead of Slavic for that. Of course, you'll need to know Russian culture of that era too, so that's a lot of research.

I'd rather translate жyть as horror.

>You want zombies? BAM
>You want ghosts? BAM
>You want elder God fish people? BAM
>You want plain gunplay in the old tech? BAM

Don't forget what the G in GURPS stands for; GENERIC

So remember OP, if you want a setting with a system that feels generic, life-less and like its lacking any special nuance to identify itself with, then you're playing GURPS!

I recommend Deadlands.

Fair point
Also, there seems to be a notable absense of actual horror

>the soviet bloc had their own versions of Westerns, called Osterns (easterns)

White Sun of the Desert is a pretty neat one

Tunguska. You can't have Strange Siberia without it.

Wow, this is amazing, thank you so much, it's a goldmine.
Do you have any more?

Thank you based russian historian

Interesting fact: K'Daai is a fire demon from Siberian mythology.