 Omsk serves as the episcopal see of the bishop of Omsk and Tara, as well as the administrative seat of the Imam of Siberia.The mayor is 
Oksana Fadina.The wooden fort of Omsk was built in 1716 by a cossack unit led by Ivan Buchholz to protect the expanding Russian frontier along the Ishim and the Irtysh rivers against the Kyrgyz and Dzungar nomads of the Steppes.