Yenisei River in the context of "Irkutsk"

The Sayan Mountains (Mongolian: Соёны нуруу, Soyonii nuruu; Old Turkic: 𐰚𐰇𐰏𐰢𐰤, romanized: Kögmen) are a mountain range in southern Siberia spanning southeastern Russia (Buryatia, Irkutsk Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Tuva and Khakassia) and northern Mongolia. Before the rapid expansion of the Tsardom of Russia, the mountain range served as the border between Mongolian and Russian cultures and cultural influences.

The Sayan Mountains' towering peaks and cool lakes southwest of Tuva give rise to the tributaries that merge to become one of Siberia's major rivers, the Yenisei River, which flows north over 3,400 kilometres (2000 mi) to the Arctic Ocean. This is a protected and isolated area, having been kept closed by the Soviet Union since 1944.

The Yenisei Kyrgyz (Old Turkic: 𐰶𐰃𐰺𐰴𐰕:𐰉𐰆𐰑𐰣, romanized: Qyrqyz bodun) were an ancient Turkic people who dwelled along the upper Yenisei River in the southern portion of the Minusinsk Hollow from the 3rd century BCE to the 13th century CE. The heart of their homeland was the forested Tannu-Ola mountain range (known in ancient times as the Lao or Kogmen mountains), in modern-day Tuva, just north of Mongolia. The Sayan Mountains were also included in their territory at different times.

The Andronovo culture is a collection of similar local Late Bronze Age cultures that flourished c. 2000–1150 BC, spanning from the southern Urals to the upper Yenisei River in central Siberia and western Xinjiang in the east. In the south, the Andronovo sites reached Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is agreed among scholars that the Andronovo culture was Indo-Iranian. Some researchers have preferred to term it an archaeological complex or archaeological horizon.

Andronovo culture's first stage may have started as early as the waning years of the 3rd millennium BC, with a focus on cattle grazing in the vast grasslands of the region. The slightly older Sintashta culture (c. 2200–1900 BC), formerly included within the Andronovo culture, is now thought to be distinct from Early Andronovo cultures. Allentoft et al. (2015) concluded from their genetic studies that the Andronovo culture and the preceding Sintashta culture were derived from an eastern migration of the Corded Ware culture, given the higher proportion of ancestry matching the earlier farmers of Europe, similar to the admixture found in the genomes of the Corded Ware population.

The Yeniseian people refers either to the modern or ancient Siberian populations speaking Yeniseian languages. Despite evidence pointing to the historical presence of Yeniseian populations throughout Central Siberia and Northern Mongolia, only the Ket and Yugh people survive today. The modern Yeniseians live along the eastern middle stretch of the Yenisei River in Northern Siberia. According to the 2021 census, there were 1,088 Kets and 7 Yugs in Russia.

Based on hydronymic data, the Yeniseians originated from the area around the Sayan Mountains and the southern tip of Lake Baikal. The known historical distribution of the Yeniseians is likely to represent a northward migration, with the modern-day Kets representing the very northernmost expansion of the language family. This migration possibly occurred as a result of the fall of the Xiongnu confederation, which, according to Alexander Vovin, is likely to have had a Yeniseian-speaking component among its ruling elite. The Jie people, a branch of the Xiongnu who established the Later Zhao state in China, are likely to have spoken a variant of Yeniseian close to Pumpokol.

The Ket (/ˈkɛt/ KET) language, or more specifically Imbak and formerly known as Yenisei Ostyak (/ˈɒstiæk/ OSS-tee-ak), is a Siberian language long thought to be an isolate, the sole surviving language of a Yeniseian language family. It is spoken along the middle Yenisei basin by the Ket people.

The language is threatened with extinction—the number of ethnic Kets that are native speakers of the language dropped from 1,225 in 1926 to 537 in 1989. According to the latest reports from linguists, this number has since fallen to less than 30. A 2005 census reported 485 native speakers, but this number is suspected to be inflated. According to a local news source, the number of remaining Ket speakers is around 10 to 20. Another Yeniseian language, Yugh, became extinct in the 1970s.

The Yeniseian languages (/ˌjɛnɪˈseɪən/ YEN-ih-SAY-ən; sometimes known as Yeniseic, Yeniseyan, or Yenisei-Ostyak; occasionally spelled with -ss-) are a family of languages that are spoken by the Yeniseian people in the Yenisei River region of central Siberia. As part of the proposed Dene–Yeniseian language family, the Yeniseian languages have been argued to be part of "the first demonstration of a genealogical link between Old World and New World language families that meets the standards of traditional comparative-historical linguistics". The only surviving language of the group today is Ket.

From hydronymic and genetic data, it is suggested that the Yeniseian languages were spoken in a much greater area in ancient times, including parts of northern China and Mongolia. It has been further proposed that the recorded distribution of Yeniseian languages from the 17th century onward represents a relatively recent northward migration, and that the Yeniseian urheimat lies to the south of Lake Baikal.

Yugh (/ˈjuːɡ/ YOOG; Yug) is a Yeniseian language, closely related to Ket, formerly spoken by the Yugh people, one of the southern groups along the Yenisei River in central Siberia. It went extinct by 1972. It was once regarded as a dialect of the Ket language, which was considered to be a language isolate, and was therefore called Sym Ket or Southern Ket; however, the Ket considered it to be a distinct language. By the early 1990s there were only two or three nonfluent speakers remaining, and the language was virtually extinct. The 2002 census recorded 19 ethnic Yugh in all of Russia. In the 2010 census, only one ethnic Yugh was counted, also stating their proficiency in Yugh, while in the 2020 census, 7 ethnic Yugh were counted, 2 of them stating that they were speakers of Yugh.

The Gyda Peninsula (Russian: Гыда́нский полуо́стров, romanized: Gydansky poluostrov) is a geographical feature of the Siberian coast in the Kara Sea. It takes its name from the river Gyda, that flows on the peninsula. It is roughly 400 km long and 360 km wide. This wide peninsula lies between the estuaries of the Ob (Gulf of Ob) and Yenisei Rivers (Yenisei Gulf). The southwestern corner of the peninsula is limited by the Taz Estuary, and across the river lies the Yamal Peninsula. The climate in the whole area is arctic and harsh.

The Tagar culture was a Bronze Age Saka archeological culture which flourished between the 8th and 1st centuries BC in South Siberia (Republic of Khakassia, southern part of Krasnoyarsk Territory, eastern part of Kemerovo Province). The culture was named after an island in the Yenisei River opposite Minusinsk. The civilization was one of the largest centres of bronze-smelting in ancient Eurasia.