For the feudal lords of Anatolia, see Derebey.

For the Tamil film currently under production, see Ayan (film).

Ayan (Russian: ???) is a village on the shore of a well-protected bay of the Sea of Okhotsk, located 1,447 km (899 mi) from Khabarovsk and 631 km (392 mi) by sea from Nikolayevsk-on-Amur. It is the administrative centre of the Ayano-Maysky District of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia and is served by Munuk Airport. Population: 1,325 (2002).

The settlement was founded by the Russian-American Company in 1843 in hopes of establishing a port serving the Amga-Ayan Highway. This was the shortest route from Yakutsk to the Pacific Ocean and was used for shipping furs from the heartland of Yakutia.

At the behest of Vasily Zavoyko, the government decided to move the entire port of Okhotsk to Ayan, because the village was advantageously sited inside the finest harbour of the Sea of Okhotsk. In the 1850s Ayan was visited by countless people of science, teaching and medical profession.

After the sale of the Russian North American territories, life was brought to a standstill. By 1867 the Russian-American Company was no longer in business. Many leading experts of diverse profession joined the exodus of merchants that had discontinued commercial traffic resulting from the trade in the region.

In the last decades of the 19th century and in the beginning of the 20th century assistance amounted to a few steamships a year dispatched from Vladivostok that brought flour, sugar, and household supplies. The remoteness of Ayan resulted in its steady depopulation.

In 1922, Ayan was one of the centres of the Yakut Revolt against Lenin's government. The Red Army besieged Anatoly Pepelyayev's forces in Ayan in June 1923. The fall of Ayan on June 16 marked the end of the Russian Civil War. The townlet served as the centre of the Okhotsk-Evenki National District until 1934.

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