The division of the country into manageable regions has always been one of the foundations of the Russian state structure. Borders within the country change regularly even in the 21st century, subject to administrative reforms. And at the stages of the Moscow Kingdom and the Russian Empire, this happened much more often due to the annexation of new lands, a change in political power or course.

Division of the country in the 15th-17th centuries

At the stage of the Moscow State, the main territorial and administrative unit was the district. They were located within the borders of once independent principalities and were ruled by governors appointed by the king. It is noteworthy that in the European part of the state, large cities (Tver, Vladimir, Rostov, Nizhny Novgorod, etc.) were administratively independent territories and were not part of the district, although they were their capitals. In the 21st century, Moscow found itself in a similar situation, which is the de facto center of its region, but de jure it is a separate region.

Each county, in turn, was divided into volosts - areas, the center of which was a large village or small town with adjacent lands. Also in the northern lands there was a division into camps, graveyards, villages or settlements in a variety of combinations.

Border or recently annexed territories did not have counties. For example, the lands from Lake Onega to the northern part of the Ural Mountains and right up to the shores of the Arctic Ocean were called Pomerania. And which became part of the Moscow kingdom at the end of the 16th century, due to its status as “troubled lands” and the main population (Cossacks), it was divided into regiments - Kiev, Poltava, Chernigov, etc.

In general, the division of the Moscow state was very confusing, but it made it possible to develop the basic principles on which the management of the territories was built in the following centuries. And the most important of them is unity of command.

Division of the country in the 18th century

According to historians, the formation of the administrative division of the country took place in several stages-reforms, the main of which occurred in the 18th century. The provinces of the Russian Empire appeared after 1708, and at first there were only 8 of them - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Smolensk, Arkhangelsk, Kiev, Azov, Kazan and Siberian. A few years later, Rizhskaya was added to them and each of them received not only lands and a governor (governor), but also its own coat of arms.

The educated regions were excessively large and therefore poorly governed. Therefore, the following reforms were aimed at reducing them and dividing them into subordinate units. The main milestones of this process are:

1. The second reform of Peter I in 1719, during which the provinces of the Russian Empire began to be divided into provinces and districts. Subsequently, the latter were replaced by counties.
2. The reform of 1727 continued the process of disaggregation of territories. According to its results, there were 14 provinces and 250 districts in the country.
3. Reform at the beginning of the reign of Catherine I. During 1764-1766, the formation of border and remote territories in the province took place.
4. Catherine's reform of 1775. The “Establishment for the Administration of Provinces” signed by the empress marked the largest administrative and territorial changes in the history of the country, which lasted 10 years.

At the end of the century, the country was divided into 38 governorships, 3 provinces and a region with a special status (Tauride). Within all regions, 483 counties were allocated, which became a secondary territorial unit.

The governorships and provinces of the Russian Empire in the 18th century did not last long within the borders approved by Catherine I. The process of administrative division continued into the next century.

Division of the country in the 19th century

The term "provinces of the Russian Empire" was returned during which he made an unsuccessful attempt to reduce the number of regions from 51 to 42. But most of the transformations he carried out were subsequently canceled.

In the 19th century, the process of administrative-territorial division focused on the formation of regions in the Asian part of the country and in annexed territories. Among the many changes, the following are especially worth highlighting:

• Under Alexander I, the Tomsk and Yenisei provinces appeared in 1803, and the Kamchatka Territory was separated from the Irkutsk lands. During the same period, the Grand Duchy of Finland, the Kingdom of Poland, Ternopil, Bessarabian and Bialystok provinces were formed.
• In 1822, the lands of Siberia were divided into 2 general governorates - Western, with its center in Omsk, and Eastern, which had Irkutsk as its capital.
• Towards the middle of the 19th century, Tiflis, Shemakha (later Baku), Dagestan, Erivan, Terek, Batumi and Kutaisi provinces were created on the annexed lands of the Caucasus. A special region arose in the neighborhood of the lands of modern Dagestan.
• The Primorsky region was formed in 1856 from the landlocked territories of the East Siberian General Government. Soon the Amur Region was separated from it, receiving the left bank of the river of the same name, and in 1884, Sakhalin Island received the status of a special department of Primorye.
• The lands of Central Asia and Kazakhstan were annexed in the 1860-1870s. The resulting territories were organized into regions - Akmola, Semipalatinsk, Ural, Turkestan, Transcaspian, etc.

There were also many changes in the regions of the European part of the country - borders often changed, lands were redistributed, renaming occurred. During the peasant reforms, the districts of the province of the Russian Empire in the 19th century were divided into rural volosts for the convenience of land distribution and accounting.

Division of the country in the 20th century

In the last 17 years of the existence of the Russian Empire, only 2 significant changes occurred in the sphere of administrative-territorial division:

• The Sakhalin region was formed, which included the island of the same name and adjacent small islands and archipelagos.
• On the annexed lands of southern Siberia (the modern Republic of Tuva), the Uriankhai region was created.

The provinces of the Russian Empire retained their borders and names for 6 years after the collapse of this country, that is, until 1923, when the first reforms on the zoning of territories began in the USSR.

At the beginning of the 19th century. in the Oryol province The lack of land began to take its toll. There was a noticeable significant increase in population density, especially if we exclude from the general cadastre the lands that were in the use of the serf-owning nobles. The increase in population density under the corvee economy that existed at that time made serf labor unprofitable for landowners, since under the primitive economic system there was nowhere to put the excess serf labor, and forced labor left no way for improving agricultural production. The surplus serfs in the field farming were included in the household and increased the already huge household.

The most important act of the first years of the reign of Alexander I was the decree of February 20, 1803 on free cultivators. The legislative act allowed landowners to free their serfs alone or in entire villages, but not otherwise than with land plots, without which the release was prohibited.

The government begins to encourage the resettlement of peasants to the outskirts of the state. From the zone of population influx, Oryol province in the 19th century. turned into his exit zone. In the first half of the century, the average annual actual population growth was lower than natural. The movement of people from the province to the south and east, as well as to Moscow and St. Petersburg, is increasing.

If at the very beginning of the 19th century. our fellow countryman, a graduate of the Sevsk Theological Seminary, Professor Evdokim Zyablovsky, characterizing the economy of the Oryol region, emphasized that “the main exercise of the residents is arable farming, which is carried out here with great success, up to a million quarters of grain are exported from here every year,” then in the coming decades in the south of Russia A new grain production center began to form. The peasants of the Central zone, including the Oryol province, not being able to compete with the south in bread production, are increasingly concentrating their activities on the cultivation and processing of flax and hemp. In the “List of populated places in the Oryol province according to information from 1866” it was reported that “in the late 40s and early 50s in the Oryol province, hemp growers occupied up to 85 thousand dessiatines; by the beginning of the 60s, hemp sowing decreased by 7 thousand dessiatines.” Despite the attempts of individual landowners to improve their farming, three-field crop rotation still prevailed. They continued to plow with plows, sow by hand, and thresh with flails. Arable land expanded, although hayfields and pastures had to occupy an area at least twice as large in order to provide conditions for raising working livestock and obtaining a sufficient amount of organic fertilizers.

The main crops of the three-field region remained winter and spring rye, oats, barley, and wheat. The viability of the three-field with this set of crops was due to the fact that all of them were necessary on peasant farms. However, even the three-field area did not provide sufficient harvests. Then, in addition to it, farmers used methods of other systems - slash and fallow. So, in the 19th century. forest fallow (forest-field system), along with three-fields, existed in the forest belt of the Oryol region. In chernozem territories, three-field crop rotation was supplemented with autumn plowing (in autumn - from September to November) to preserve moisture and freeze out the roots of weeds; Winter crops were sown after spring crops in the same field, and the fallow field was sown with spring crops the following spring. This helped winter crops use winter moisture from the soil. To improve the fertility of the fields, buckwheat was grown, which cleared the fields of weeds; after harvesting, the soil was soft and rich. Due to the high demand for some crops, crops were changed: sometimes barley was sown after wheat, after barley - oats, after oats - buckwheat, then - winter rye; when sowing the latter, especially after buckwheat, the arable land was not plowed, they were sown over the stubble. To better clear fields of weeds, there was a whole range of measures: selection of seed material, timely sowing (weediness of seedlings is associated with sowing time), seeding of seeds not with a plow, but with a harrow, loosening and weeding of the soil, cleaning threshed bread from weed seeds, combating plant diseases .

Among the landowners there was a growing hope for the development of non-agricultural industries and for the ever greater entrenchment of the quitrent system. So, in November 1800, a message appeared in the St. Petersburg Gazette that retired brigadier Count S. F. Tolstoy, who lived on his Krom estate, began to develop peat deposits and use peat for heating instead of firewood. Peat was also used as fertilizer. In the Oryol province, potatoes were used in the first quarter of the 19th century. turned from a garden to a field crop and the area it occupied began to expand rapidly. Sugar beets began to be cultivated: previously, sugar was produced from sugar cane and was considered an overseas curiosity in Rus'.

The first beet sugar factory in Russia was built by the landowner Ya.S. Esipov and his companion E.I. Blankenagel in 1802 in the village of Nizhneye Alyabyevo (Chernsky district of the Tula province, now the village of Alyabyevo in the Mtsensk region), on the banks of the small river Studenets at its confluence with the Chern River. At the same time, 20 acres of sugar beets were sown here, the processing of which yielded 160 pounds of raw sugar, which was then transported to Moscow. Having received such a significant result, the landowner Esipov confidently declared that Russia would soon be able to independently provide itself with sugar. He proposed “setting up factories everywhere” in Russia and accepted students from all interested landowners into his factory for free training.

The Alyabyevsky plant, for the construction of which 32 thousand rubles were spent, made losses for the first three years, but already in 1807, after the enterprise switched to the production of refined sugar, the profit amounted to 11,686 rubles. In 1825, the plant burned down and was restored only in 1830. Sugar production in these years was organized in the mill premises. The main reason for the increase in sugar production from beets was the expansion of domestic market demand for these products. In addition, the fact that in the 1830s also played a role. The production of beet sugar has improved significantly. A mechanical beet grater and a hydraulic press for squeezing juice were introduced; The juice was clarified using bone charcoal (instead of the previously used ox blood), and the juice was heated and thickened using steam. As a result, already in the first decades of the 19th century. beet sugar factories appeared in Kursk, Voronezh, Smolensk and other provinces. And after the fire of 1854, the Alyabyevsky plant was no longer restored.

Kaluga landowner D. M. Poltoratsky, captivated by the experience of English agriculture, proposed at the beginning of the 19th century. four-field crop rotation. The first field is potatoes, the second is spring crops with clover sowing, the third is clover and the last is winter crops. The use of clover improved soil fertility, it was possible to keep livestock in large numbers, and this, in turn, solved the problem of fertilizing fields.

An opponent of Poltoratsky’s innovations, which aroused great interest among landowners of the Oryol province, was a native of Liven Count F.V. Rostopchin. He tried to create his own farming system. Rostopchin brought sheep from England, bulls and cows from the north of Russia, and ordered purebred horses from Arabia. The overseas herd became the core of a stud farm in the Liven village of Kozmodemyanovskoye. The breed of horses bred by Rostopchin (it was based on English and Arabian horses) won good fame in Russia. Horses have repeatedly won prizes at prestigious races and races. And soon the breed was nicknamed “Rostopchinskaya”.

Rostopchin was passionate not only about horses: he had crops of Syrian and American wheat, American oats, trying to increase productivity, tried to fertilize fields with silt from the bottom of ponds, added lime and copper sulfate to the soil. Initially, Rostopchin’s hopes for improving field cultivation were associated with the introduction of plows: following the example of Poltoratsky, he purchased several dozen of them at once. Soon the expectation of a miracle gave way to disappointment. Rostopchin began to prove that the Russian agricultural system, supposedly archaic in comparison with Western innovations, is in fact filled with inner meaning and is determined by climatic, soil, and demographic circumstances. Instead of blindly copying German and English techniques, Rostopchin suggested that landowners independently look for ways to increase the efficiency of their farms.

Rostopchin, in his book “The Plow and the Plow” (1806), argued that the promises of English agronomists were simply impossible to fulfill in the Russian climate; it was only necessary to borrow some of the tools necessary for threshing grain and other work. Such patriarchy was in many ways a typical feature of a certain part of the nobility of that time. For example, I. A. Krylov wrote the fable “The Gardener and the Philosopher,” which was consonant with Rostopchin’s ideas, and in 1810, the Tula landowner, a famous figure of Russian culture, Vasily Levshin, presented to the Free Economic Society a description of the agricultural implements that were used in the Kaluga, Tula, and Oryol provinces. Levshin suggested that the society organize descriptions of agricultural implements in other provinces.

Another contemporary of Rostopchin, Franz Christianovich Mayer (1783 - 1860), a German by nationality, largely shared these views. From 1817 to 1860, F. X. Mayer served as manager of the Mokhov estate of Shatilov (now the territory of the Novoderevenkovsky district of the Oryol region). Here he began work on soil conservation afforestation and developed effective methods for fertilizing fields and cultivating them. This is precisely what interested L.N. Tolstoy, who came to Mokhovoye in 1857 to clarify a number of economic and economic issues. Russia owes the science of artificial forest plantations to F. X. Mayer. He was elected a full member of the Free Economic Society, Moscow, Lebedyansky and a number of other agricultural societies.

However, despite a number of private innovations, the crisis of agriculture at the beginning of the 19th century. did not serve as an impetus for the transition to more intensive farming systems, although population density made it possible to do so. Feudal-serf relations continued to dominate. The structure of grain production has not undergone significant changes. And this hindered the development of new, inherently capitalist phenomena. Agriculture still remained backward and unproductive.

The position of many landowners was also extremely difficult. The debt of their estates grew. Due to the continental blockade, enormous military expenditures and material damage from 1812 to 1815. (according to various estimates, they exceeded a billion rubles) in many places, the payment of taxes stopped in 1815. The landowners felt the need to intensify their farming in one way or another. They tried to set up factories on their estates, but most of them did not succeed due to the lack of appropriate experience and financial resources. Income could increase only by increasing the quitrent rate. And “intensification” came down to the merciless exploitation of the peasants.

In the 1840s. Among many landowners of the Oryol province, the idea was created that the abolition of serfdom, if it was possible to retain the land, would be more profitable than serfdom itself. This was expressed in statements that the most developed and intelligent landowners made to the government at that time.

In December 1842, while composing a memo “Notes on the Russian economy and the Russian peasant”, who lived at that time in St. Petersburg I.S. Turgenev highlighted, as he himself put it, “the most important inconveniences of our economy.” Referring to personal observations gleaned in the Oryol province, Turgenev called the main obstacle such circumstances as: the lack of positivity and legality in property itself; lack of legitimacy and positivity in the attitude of landowners towards peasants; unsatisfactory state of agricultural science; lack of balance between trade and agriculture; very weak development of a sense of citizenship and legality among peasants; outdated institutions, bequeathed by the old patriarchal way of life.

In 1847, a decree was issued that allowed peasants to buy out entire villages of land in the event that landowners' estates were sold at auction for debts - for the price that would be given at the auction. However, the persistent and purposeful implementation of measures to resolve the peasant issue and the development of productive forces in agriculture was hampered by a number of crop failures that occurred during the reign of Nicholas I and the strengthening of conservative tendencies in the life of Russia.

The situation of state peasants

In the first half of the 19th century. The government took a number of measures to improve the situation of state peasants. At the same time, the local bureaucracy often viewed these relatively independent residents as a source of their enrichment. For example, in 1828, the provincial criminal court tried a case of extortion of the assessor of the Dmitrov district court, Shishkin, who was accused of beating fellow noblemen into stocks and threatening to turn them into soldiers if they did not pay him 25 rubles. The court did not punish Shishkin in any way, only left him “under suspicion.”

Management of agriculture of state peasants until 1838. was not concentrated in a single body. To improve the situation in this area, the creation of a special department was required. In this regard, according to the project of Count P.D. Kiselev (1788-1872), in December 1837, Nicholas I established the Ministry of State Property. Direct management of agriculture was entrusted to the third department of this ministry. Since 1837, P.D. Kiselev became the head of the ministry.

Volost administrations, as administrative units, supervised the activities of rural institutions that combined administrative and economic functions. The composition of the grassroots institutions of rural administration - peasant societies, according to P. D. Kiselev, “restored in accordance with our original ancient regulations,” included a village foreman, a village headman, a tax collector, a caretaker of a village bread store, a clerk, and tens. The most important institutions of peasant public administration, in addition to rural reprisals, were lay gatherings, in whose activities the functions of land management occupied an important place. The Rules on the arrangement of family plots, approved by Nicholas I, for the first time legislated the conditions for household land ownership, and also indicated the size of the property. For new settlements they were determined by 30 to 60 dessiatines, for settlements - from 15 to 40 dessiatines.

P.D. Kiselev initiated a number of progressive measures aimed at accelerating the development of Russian agriculture. In particular, by decision of P.D. Kiselev, the Oryol state tree nursery was founded, for which a land plot of 15 acres was allocated (now the All-Russian Research Institute for Breeding Fruit Crops). The nursery, the official opening of which took place on April 28, 1845, was created with the aim of developing gardening among state peasants, acclimatization and distribution of useful fruit, berry, ornamental and vegetable crops.

Beginning in 1847, the nursery began to annually accept peasant boys from the Oryol and Kursk provinces for training, who, by performing all agricultural work, received practical skills. This is how a practical school of gardening arose at the nursery. Already in 1849, this institution began to supply seedlings of berry crops, seeds of improved varieties of vegetable crops, and later seedlings of fruit trees to other farms.

Peasant protests in the Oryol region

The main reasons for the peasant uprisings were all kinds of oppression by the authorities and landowners, an increase in the tax burden, and a deterioration in the situation due to crop failures. For example, during the famine of 1840, cases of cannibalism were recorded in the Oryol region, and as a result of the cholera epidemic in the late 1840s. About 70 thousand people died in the province.

From 1816 to 1820, four cases of peasant unrest were noted in the province. The creation of the Ministry of State Property also led to increased tax pressure on state peasants: funds were required to support the officials of this department, as well as volost and rural administrations. Public arable lands were allocated, for which the best lands of the peasants were allocated. There was an order from the ministry to sow potatoes on this land, which was reminiscent of corvée. In the spring of 1842, peasants in the villages of Streletsky and Pushkarny Kromsky district refused to plant potatoes. More than 700 peasants came to the district commander and demanded the cancellation of the order to plant potatoes.

In 1842, the peasants of the Borkovsky volost of Livensky district refused to elect a volost government for the new three-year period. By order of the Oryol vice-governor, Ivan Repin, Afanasy Pikalov, Nikolai and Tikhon Bachurin, Stefan Trubnikov and others were arrested and sent to Livensky prison. And the instigators Kozma Bachurin, Gaidukov and Dvoryadkin, together with their families, were exiled to eternal settlement in Siberia. In 1844, the peasants of the village of Gatishchi opposed the increase in taxes. The peasants of the Livensky village of Mikhailovskoye (now Korotysh), which belonged to the landowner Annenkov, changed their clerk in the cholera year of 1848, killed the village headman, and resisted the local authorities. In the same year, the peasants of the Krom villages of Troitsky and Ladynina rebelled against the local authorities. To pacify the peasants, the governor was forced to send soldiers. In the village of Bogoroditsky, Maloarkhangelsk district, peasants stopped going to corvée and refused to obey local authorities. Only after sending a battalion of soldiers was it possible to suppress this uprising. From 1851 to 1861, 58 mass protests of peasants were noted in the Oryol province.

From the testimony of peasants dated November 6, 1846 and December 4, 1847 about the situation of corvée and courtyard peasants on the estate of the Ovsyannikov landowners in the village. Debt of Livensky district.

Alexey Yakovlev, 57 years old, peasant of Mrs. Pelageya Ivanova Ovsyannikova, I live in the village of Dolgy, I have 6 acres of land. During the year, I work in corvée every day, not excluding Sundays and holidays; on Holy Week and Christmastide there is no work for two days. I barely cultivate my field, and then with the help of others at the request. I don’t have any household benefits from my mistress. I have my own working horses: 3, a cow, and six sheep. Mr. Ovsyannikov punishes us in the house with rods, a whip presented to me, and a whip used to drive a horse. With a whip - while driving around the field at work, he beats him mercilessly, with rods he gives until he bleeds, with a whip and whip - 20-30 blows. Petr Klimov Yakunin, 38 years old, peasant of Pelageya Ovsyannikova, living in the village of Vyshne-Dolgoy, I am the headman of the estate, was not on trial. Field work in winter, the peasants of Ovsyannikov and his mothers work in corvée every day, not excluding holidays, except on Holy Days and Christmastide for two days, and the peasants who are in the arable land do not have time to cultivate the land given to them; These peasants have land worth two tithes and 12 tithes, but have no mowing.

They give two poods per month per adult, one and a half poods for women, half a pood for children, one and a half pounds of salt, I get shoes from the gentleman in basts, but it’s too insufficient, so it’s not enough for a while, mittens for a year, I have my own dress, from four sheep given to me by the master, I do not receive any materials for clothing. Punishment is given to the peasants at home with a whip, a whip, which is used to drive horses, with rods and fists in the teeth, by order of the master they are punished with rods of 100 blows, and with a whip and a rap of 25 blows...

Development of industry and trade in the Oryol province in the first half of the 19th century.

By the beginning of the 19th century. The province ranked third in Russia in the number of tanneries (118 factories out of 1530), second in tallow factories (a sixth of the industry was concentrated here), and fifth in the number of candle factories. The Oryol region ranked fourth in the country in the number of tile factories (production of facing materials), and was among the six provinces where there were “paint factories.” Such factories (“for making the Venice Yari”) were located in Trubchevsk and Sevsk. At the beginning of the century, there were 105 private distilleries in the province, while in Tula - only 66, in Kursk - 77, in Ryazan - 41. The Oryol region was also characterized by specialization in the cultivation and processing of hemp, which was determined not only by favorable soil and climate, but also the proximity of the seas, large rivers (where consumers of ropes and sails were concentrated), the presence of forests (wood ash was required in huge quantities for bleaching).

Professor E. Zyablovsky at the beginning of the 19th century. wrote that hemp constitutes “a product that is not more important for the trade and exercise of the inhabitants of the Russian state.” In particular, he noted that the Oryol province ranks first in the country in the production of hemp oil (and the Oryol residents then shared the championship in poppy oil with the Kursk residents). According to Zyablovsky, at that time there were only 58 rope factories in Russia, most of which were concentrated in five provinces: St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Oryol, Kaluga. The “most notable spinning mills” were located in Orel, Nizhny Novgorod, St. Petersburg, Arkhangelsk, Moscow, Kostroma.

In 1803, through the governor P.I. Yakovlev, a petition was initiated for the construction of locks on the Oka River, for which merchants were ready to pay 2 kopecks per sack of flour (9 poods) from the bread sold from Orel, and hemp from a Berkovets (10 poods) - 5 kopecks. It was not for nothing that the merchants were so determined to make additional expenses: they were worried, first of all, about the prospects for trading. In 1820, the mayor Rusanov reported to Governor B.S. Sokovnin that out-of-town traders annually buy and export from Orel up to 300 thousand pounds of hemp (about 1.8 million rubles), hemp oil up to 140 thousand pounds (for 1.8 million rubles). 5" million rubles). Due to fierce competition, many Oryol merchants went bankrupt and became small profiteers... The strongest blow to the merchant class was the fire in May 1848, when the Gostinye Ryads in Oryol burned down overnight, and with them 80 thousand quarters of bread and 100 thousand pounds of hemp.

Bolkhov merchants bought up to 3!50 thousand pounds of raw hemp annually. After part-time work, up to 35 thousand pounds of tow were made from waste in the city and surrounding villages - all of it went to Moscow, where it was used for packing goods. Through many years of trade and the organization of hemp processing production, the merchant families of the Turkovs and Mertsalovs created substantial capital. Hemp processing has always competed with leather tanning, often taking up vacant space when the products of Bolkhov tanners were not in demand. There was also a linen factory in the district, “where good tablecloths, napkins, linens and kanifas are made from their own works in the Dutch manner.”

Yelets was famous for its two copper smelters: bells and equipment for the distillery industry were made here. According to information from 1809, in Yelets there were 12 tanneries, 19 lard factories, 5 soap factories, 5 breweries, 3 wax factories, 6 candle factories, 2 glue factories, 2 dye factories, 52 brick factories, and 1 vodka factory.

Unfortunately, this picture of the dynamic development of industry in the province soon faded. Already in 1838, local resident N. Azbukin was forced to state: “The factory industry in the Oryol province is very weak. Some cities to this day do not have a single plant, not a single factory, such as Kromy and Trubchevsk (apparently, the “Venice Yari” factory in Trubchevsk no longer existed by that time. Luxury items and refined tastes are not yet prepared and processed here only basic necessities.” According to N. Azbukin, in the Oryol region, industry developed only where it was impossible to grow bread and hemp, concentrating capital on these profitable crops.

So, in 1838, there were 211 plants and factories in the province, including in Yelets - 83, Orel - 38, Bolkhov - 38, Bryansk - 17, Mtsensk - 12, Sevsk - 10, Maloarkhangelsk - 5, Karachev - 4, Dmitrovsk - 3. By specialization: leather - 75, brick - 33, lard - 29, rope - 10, hemp - 10, soap - 9, grain crushing - 8, brewing - 7, tobacco - 8, candle - 6, tile, glue , lime - 2 each, oil press - 2, vodka, bell and cast iron - 1 each, etc.

More developed industry was concentrated in the western districts of the Oryol province. In the first half of the 19th century. The so-called Maltsov factories made a special contribution to the development of the factory industry of the province. These factories occupied a vast area at the junction of three provinces: Oryol (Bryansk district), Kaluga (Zhizdrinsky district) and Smolensk (Roslavl district).

It should be noted that the Maltsevs were one of those who started the production of sugar from sugar beets in Russia. If the first similar plant, which had a relatively low productivity, was built in the Tula province in 1802, then A.I. Maltsov built a second beet sugar plant in 1809 in the village of Verkhi, Bryansk district. At the first All-Russian exhibition of manufactured goods, held in St. Petersburg in May 1829, I. A. Maltsov was awarded a large gold medal, the inscription on which read: “For hard work and art.” This award gave its owner the right to depict the state emblem of Russia on his products and on the signs of the stores where they were sold. At the second exhibition of manufactured goods (Moscow, 1830), Maltsov was again awarded a large gold medal with the inscription “For excellent crystal.” Products from Maltsov factories received the highest reviews at exhibitions in St. Petersburg (1839), Moscow (1845), and Warsaw (1845). At the Moscow exhibition of 1844 it was noted that “the greatest purity of crystal mass, as well as cheapness and variety, belong to the factories of the Maltsevs.”

The most prominent representative of this dynasty in the 19th century. was Sergei Ivanovich Maltsov, who was born in 1810, served in the cavalry, and was aide-de-camp to Prince Peter of Oldenburg. It was he who was destined to stand at the head of the Maltsov business for half a century and expand its scope fourfold. Even during his trips to Europe, he was interested in glass and metal production. Returning to his homeland, in 1841 he organized at the Lyudinovsky plant the production of the first railway rails in Russia - the same ones that were laid on the Nikolaevskaya railway between St. Petersburg and Moscow. Here, steam engines were manufactured for the St. Petersburg Arsenal and the Tula Arms Plant, and the first screw engine for ships in Russia.

By the middle of the century, the Dyatkovo Crystal Factory had become one of the largest enterprises producing glass and crystal - more than 1.2 million products were produced here every year. The construction of the Dnieper flotilla began at the Maltsov factories: in 1846, the first steamship “Maltsov”, manufactured at the Raditsky factory, arrived from Bryansk to Kyiv.

The construction of steamships was not an end in itself for Maltsov. He needed transport to sell his own products. On the Bolva River, which had a route to Kyiv, but became shallow in the summer season, dams and locks were built over a distance of one hundred miles. All enterprises “were connected with each other and through highways (and later railways). Thanks to the ships, the factories' products were sold not only in Russia, but also in Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania. Maltsov understood that it was impossible to ensure a strong place in a rapidly developing market by producing a narrow range of goods. It is no coincidence that he set up the production of bricks, smoking tar, opened carpentry, rope factories, breweries and distilleries, plus six iron factories, a factory where the first enameled dishes in Russia were made. The distinctive features of Maltsev's leadership were the intensive reconstruction of enterprises and the use of the most modern, advanced technologies.

According to the calculations of the famous Russian historian A. A. Kornilov, S. I. Maltsev owned more than two hundred thousand souls of peasants in the Kaluga and Oryol provinces. Kornilov compared Maltsov's possessions to a significant German principality. Maltsov's factories, according to Kornilov, stood out from all others “by their excellent structure using all the latest inventions and improvements of the time.” It was a truly independent economic zone, fully self-sufficient in everything necessary (they only purchased “tea, sugar and textiles”). To supply the population with food, farmsteads with exemplary livestock breeding were organized. The products went to factory shops and stores (they also traded here what was produced at industrial enterprises).

Perhaps for the first time in Russia, an eight-hour working day was introduced at the Maltsov factories (in those industries that were especially harmful to human health). The workers were provided with housing (small stone houses), land for gardening and vegetable gardens, and fuel, paid in installments.

Maltsov’s “capital” was the factory village of Dyatkovo, where his house stood and a magnificent church with a crystal iconostasis was built. In Dyatkovo there was a three-story school and a hospital with 50 beds, where “relatives of workers and employees were used for free.” In general, there was a whole network of small institutions for orphans and the elderly; pensions were paid for elderly workers, widows and orphans. More than one and a half thousand children studied in schools and vocational schools.

The importance of the Maltsov factories for the social development of the region is also evidenced by the official review of those years: “The Maltsov factories arose not in the form of speculation, but because of real needs and for the sake of the well-being of the local population, who, due to the scarcity and poverty of the soil, cannot soak and support themselves exclusively by arable farming.” .

Religion in the life of peasants. Life and everyday life of the rural clergy.

Representing the initial link in the church hierarchy, the Orthodox parish (church community) in administrative and territorial terms did not always correspond to the volost unit of government and was often subject to reorganizations. The legal status and authority of rural clergy, who performed an extremely important cultural mission, remained low. Rural church communities slowly fell into decline, not least because of the poverty of the rural clergy, whose wealth depended on the level of income of the parishioners.

The temple, even in remote villages, represented a synthesis of all types of fine art. At the rural church there was an educational system: parish schools, libraries, sacristies (like a museum of antiquities). He himself was not only an Orthodox shrine, but also a cultural relic, preserving the memory of events in both world and domestic history, as well as family history and organizing the entire area of ​​​​the surrounding area as an architectural center. The temple spiritually and socially organized the life of the entire rural parish, uniting people. Regular visiting of the temple, observance of fasts and rituals were considered a moral norm, a unique characteristic of a peasant. The temple played a leading role in the territorial division into parishes and dioceses. The general rhythm of a peasant's life was determined by the annual cycle of religious holidays. The temple played a leading role in social assistance to peasants. Free hospitals and almshouses for disadvantaged people were set up at monasteries and churches. Temples helped orphans and maintained order in cemeteries.

N. S. Leskov wrote:“As far as I can remember, my father, an Oryol landowner, having bought a new village in Kromsky district, sent peasants to the parish church along the way, under the supervision of the headman. Our other landowner neighbors did the same thing: they dressed up the peasants to go to church on holidays and often themselves checked the confession books with the priests.”

Leskov, rightly showing the life of the Oryol clergy in the middle of the 19th century, treated these people with sympathy: “Thanks to the Oryol Monastery Settlement, I knew that among the suffering and humiliated clergy of the Russian Church, not all are just “penny pickers, altynniks and pancake grabbers”, as many have deduced storytellers."

Noble manor life in the Oryol province in the first half of the 19th century.

Typical for large landowner farms of the 19th century. there were stud farms, greenhouses, distilleries, kennels where hunting dogs were bred, etc. The estate was often a self-sufficient subsistence economy, moreover, known for its unusual breeds of livestock or plant varieties.

The estate - a kind of “state within a state” - lived according to the laws of patrimonial law, aspirations for lofty ideals and everyday problems were closely intertwined here, and the self-expression of the owners was manifested in both creativity and tyranny.

Serfs also played a role in the life of the estates. They were not only nannies of the lord's children, confidants of their masters, and enterprising clerks. In conditions of despotic suppression of human rights, courtiers came into direct conflict (obvious or hidden) with the nobles.

Laid down in 1837, Oryol Bakhtin Cadet Corps December 6, 1843 was open to the training and education of the sons of nobles and officers. By the highest order on May 15, 1843, the company commander of His Majesty's Page Corps, Colonel Tinkov, was appointed to the position of director of the corps. Among the first teachers of the corps were Archpriest Kazarinov and Deacon Gonorsky, literature teacher Vorobyov, Archpriest E. Ostromyslensky, mathematician Mikhailov, A. S. Tarachkov.

A graduate of Moscow University, Alexander Stepanovich Tarachkov (1819-1870) was an economist, statistician, local historian, and teacher. In 1843-1861. he was an educator and teacher of natural history and physics in the Oryol Cadet Corps. In 1862-1870 Tarachkov, having resigned, worked as secretary of the Oryol provincial statistical committee.

Military disciplines were taught to students by officers and company commanders, and class inspectors. One of them was Alexander Petrovich Khrushchev (1806-1875), later an infantry general and adjutant general, a participant in the Crimean War, who distinguished himself during the defense of Sevastopol. In 1866-1874. he served as Governor-General of Western Siberia and commander of the West Siberian Military District.

In 1849, the first graduation from the Oryol Bakhtin Cadet Corps was made in the amount of 35 people, sent to complete their education in the Noble Regiment. Among the first students of the corps who studied here in 1843-47 was Vasily Ivanovich Sergeevich (1833 - 1910) - later a lawyer, legal historian, professor at Moscow University, in 1897-1899. rector of St. Petersburg University.

Publishing activities. Book culture. An important milestone in the cultural life of the city and province was the publication in Orel in 1816 of the magazine “Friend of the Russians.” Its publisher was the titular adviser and teacher of the Oryol gymnasium Ferdinand Orlya-Oshmenets. Orel became the third provincial city in Russia after Kharkov and Astrakhan to have its own magazine. For 1816 - 1817 6 books of the magazine were published, then it was continued under the title “Patriotic monument dedicated to the friendly union of the Russian and Polish peoples” and was published in 1817-1818. in three rooms. The magazine was compiled in Orel and printed at the printing house of Moscow University. Each book of the magazine consisted of 3 sections: “Scholarship”, “News”, “Special News”.

In magazines, Orlya-Oshmenets published his own works, as well as poems, “learned speeches” of other teachers of the Oryol gymnasium, works of various famous authors in an abridged version, local news, including from the life of the Oryol Theater, whose owner, Count S. M. Kamensky, provided financial support to the publication. The first Oryol magazine was subscribed to by residents not only of Oryol and the province, but also of neighboring cities. The publication of the magazine in Orel became possible thanks to the opening of a printing house. In 1812, the Karachev merchant and publisher I. Ya. Sytin moved from the devastated Smolensk to Orel, from whom the Oryol provincial government had recently purchased printing equipment worth 225 rubles. 20 kopecks The emergence of a printing house in Orel in 1812 became a very important event in the life of the city. In 1814, the printing house published a book that local history researchers consider the first in Orel - the essay by I. V. Lopukhin “Something of the day for reflection on prayer and the essence of Christianity.”

The bulk of the printing house's publications were translated fiction: works by Radcliffe, Genlis, Kotzebue, Montallier, Chateaubriand, Lafontaine, Voltaire and others. The plays published by Sytin were often staged on the stage of the theater of Count S. M. Kamensky. In addition, I. Ya. Sytin published reference books, popular textbooks, and books for home leisure. Sytin’s son, Apollon Ivanovich, a graduate of Moscow University, poet, translator, and compiler of a number of Oryol collections, also participated in publishing activities in Oryol. During the period from 1814 to 1830, about 100 titles of books were published in Orel, which represent a very interesting cultural layer. Books were sold in Orel bookstores by Yakovlev, Afanasy Kolotilin, P.I. Polevsky, the first local historian D.I. Basov (1798-1868), whose notes on the history of Orel were published in 1849 in the Northern Review. Oryol publications could be found in private libraries and the gymnasium library, which by the middle of the 19th century. consisted of 3,500 volumes in Russian and 1,300 volumes in foreign languages.

A significant event in the social and cultural life of Orel and the province was the publication in 1838 of the first local newspaper “Oryol Provincial Gazette”, the content of which was regulated by the government Regulations of 1837. “Vedomosti” consisted of 2 parts - official and unofficial, which was called “ Added to the provincial statements." The Oryol vice-governor played a positive role in the formation of the newspaper in 1838-1842. V. N. Semenov, a close friend of A. S. Pushkin.

Over time, the unofficial part of Vedomosti received significant development, publishing materials about the state of industry, agriculture, crafts and trade in the province. The newspaper also published interesting notes characterizing the morals and customs of the region's population.

Libraries and museum. A government circular of 1830 marked the beginning of the development of the library network in Russia, ordering the opening of 50 public libraries in all provincial cities. On October 3, 1834, Oryol civil governor A.V. Kochubey established a public library in Oryol. The created board of trustees, headed by the governor, took several years to prepare premises, equipment, and purchase books. The book fund was formed by receipts from the Department of Public Education, the Academy of Sciences, various societies and from private individuals, including the historian M. P. Pogodin, the children's writer A. O. Ishimova. In this way, 1300 volumes were collected. In addition, 1,200 volumes of books and periodicals were purchased with money from local authorities. Simultaneously with the formation of the book fund, exhibits were being collected for the provincial museum. On December 6, 1838, the grand opening of the library took place in the building of the school for children of clerical workers. The provincial museum is also located here. The library under the leadership of P. A. Azbukin served readers for a very short time - already in 1840 it practically closed due to lack of funds, and in 1850 it was transferred to the private house of an official in the office of the provincial leader of the nobility Gorokhov. The library opened again to the public in 1858.

Theater. On September 26, 1815 in Orel, in a specially built theater building with 500 seats next to the house of the counts Kamensky, not far from the Trinity cemetery, the first performance of the serf troupe for city residents took place. The core of the troupe consisted of courtyard servants who were trained in dramatic art, dancing, and singing at the theater school in the Saburov Fortress. In addition, he spared no expense in buying talented actors from his theater neighbors. The public liked the first performance and caused a wide response, including in the capital's press - the newspapers Severnaya Poshta and Moskovskie Vedomosti. The talented performance of actress Kuzmina was especially noted. The teacher of philosophy and fine sciences at the local gymnasium, S. Bogdanovich, composed the poem “For the opening of the theater in Orel on September 26, 1815.”

The organization and composition of the theater troupe of Count Kamensky, its repertoire are relatively well known from the memoirs and publications of the Oryol magazine “Friend of the Russians”, and the fate of the serf actors was reflected in the stories of A. I. Herzen “The Thieving Magpie” and “The Stupid Artist” by N. S. Leskova. The tragic story of the actress Kuzmina, who died in the disastrous conditions of the fortress stage for her talent, was told to A. I. Herzen by the outstanding Russian actor M. S. Shchepkin.

The S. M. Kamensky Theater existed in Orel for two decades (1815-1835) and was a source of pride for its residents. During the heyday of the theater, i.e. in the first ten years of its activity, the count maintained an opera, ballet, drama troupes, two choirs, an orchestra, a theater school, painters, decorators, and costume designers. Free actors and foreigners were invited to perform along with the serfs. The theater's repertoire was very diverse and approached the capital's. Among the authors of comedies and dramas, operas and ballets staged on its stage were Ya. B. Knyazhnin and A. A. Shakhovskoy, A. P. Sumarokov and D. I. Fonvizin, V. V. Kapnist and M. N. Zagoskin, F. Schiller, Kotzebue, Cherubini, Didelot. Works by local authors were also staged: the drama “Cossacks in Switzerland” by Fyodor Werther, a gymnasium teacher, and the opera “Tyuremkin” by A. A. Pleshcheev. In the first 10 months alone, 82 performances, 18 operas, 15 dramas, 41 comedies, 6 ballets and 2 tragedies were staged on the theater stage. In 1835, S. M. Kamensky died, and with him the theater he created.

N.S. said well about this theater. Leskov:

As a child in the forties, I still remember a huge gray wooden building with false windows painted with soot and ocher, and surrounded by an extremely long dilapidated fence. This was the cursed estate of Count Kamensky; there was also a theater nearby.

N. S. Leskov, “The Stupid Artist”

Scientists and writers native to the Oryol region in the first half of the 19th century.

The general high level of culture was ensured by the creative activity of individual outstanding personalities.

In the first half of the 19th century. The Oryol province gave Russia a whole galaxy of brilliant wordsmiths, scientists, religious figures, folklorists, and artists, through whom the region was included in the all-Russian cultural process. In the university centers of the country, graduates of the Sevsk Theological Seminary did great science: E. F. Zyablovsky (1764-1846) - professor of statistics, history, geography of the St. Petersburg Pedagogical Institute, author of numerous works, including “Statistical description of the Russian Empire with an overview of Europe in statistical form”, “Land descriptions of the Russian Empire for all conditions”, “Course of general geography”, etc.; G. P. Uspensky (1765-1820) - professor of history, geography, statistics at Kharkov University; I. D. Knigin (Bulgakov) (1773_1830) - professor of anatomy and physiology at Moscow and Kharkov universities; G. I. Solntsev (1786-1866) - professor of legal history at Kazan University, its rector in 1819-20; A. I. Galich (Govorov) (1783-1848) - professor at St. Petersburg University and the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum during A. S. Pushkin’s studies there. The beginning of the literary activity of F. I. Tyutchev, A. A. Fet, I. S. Turgenev, P. I. Yakushkin dates back to this time. The life and work of P.V. Kireevsky and T.N. Granovsky fit into the chronological framework of the first half of the century.

Timofey Nikolaevich Granovsky(1813-1855). Granovsky was born in Orel. He spent his childhood and youth in the village, with the exception of a short period of study in one of the private boarding houses in Moscow. At the age of 18, Granovsky was assigned to serve in St. Petersburg. After serious independent preparation, he entered the law faculty of the university in 1832, where he studied history and literature a lot. After his graduation in 1835, Granovsky served for some time as an official in the Hydrographic Department, simultaneously collaborating in various St. Petersburg magazines. The young man’s talent did not go unnoticed, and in 1836 Granovsky was sent to Berlin to prepare to teach at the department of history at Moscow University. The historian spent several years abroad, listening to lectures at the University of Berlin, visiting Vienna and Prague, where he became acquainted with the national culture and history. The center of his scientific interests was the problem of the development of the political system and institutions in medieval Europe. Since 1839, Granovsky, as a professor of world history, gave a course of lectures at Moscow University. A convinced Westerner, he specializes in medieval Western European history. In 1845 his master's thesis “Wolin, Jomsburg and Vineta” was published, in 1849 his doctoral dissertation “Abbot Suger” was published, in 1847 - 48. - review “Historical Literature in France and Germany in 1847.” In the early 50s, Granovsky began working on a textbook on general history. Granovsky gained great popularity among students and the entire educated Moscow society as a historian-educator and public figure. The public lectures he gave twice a week in 1843-44 became an event in Moscow and aroused enthusiastic reviews even among Granovsky’s ideological opponents in the Slavophile camp. Turning to the history of serfdom in Western Europe, he led his listeners to the idea of ​​the inevitability of its fall in Russia.

Pavel Ivanovich Yakushkin(1822-1872). Yakushkin was born in the Saburovo estate, Maloarkhangelsk district, Oryol province. His father is a retired guards officer, his mother is a serf girl. Yakushkin studied at the Oryol gymnasium, and already during this period he made the first recordings of folk songs. In 1840 he became a student at the Faculty of Mathematics at Moscow University. Yakushkin combined his studies at the university with collecting folklore. Acquaintance with P.V. Kireevsky added systematicity to this work. In 1844, Moskvityanin published Yakushkin’s first ethnographic work, “Folk Tales of Treasures, Robbers, Sorcerers and Their Actions,” written on Oryol material. After graduating from university, he went on a trip to record songs for the upcoming publication of the collection of songs by P. V. Kireevsky. On foot, Yakushkin walked around many provinces of Russia, including Oryol, getting acquainted with Russian reality. In fact, he became the first professional collector of folklore and served as the prototype of the literary hero Pavel Veretennikov in N. A. Nekrasov’s poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'.”

Petr Vasilievich Kireevsky(1808-1856). Another outstanding specialist in the field of folklore was P. V. Kireevsky. He was born in the Kaluga province. In 1812, the family moved to the Kireevskaya Slobodka estate near Orel, where Pyotr Vasilyevich’s father, setting up a hospital for the wounded with his own money, died of typhoid infection. Brothers Peter and Ivan were raised by their mother, Avdotya Petrovna, née Klykova, in Elagin’s second marriage. Since 1822, the family lived in Moscow, and their house became one of the literary salons, which was visited by A. S. Pushkin, A. Mitskevich, P. Ya. Chaadaev, T. N. Granovsky and many others. Pyotr Vasilyevich listened to lectures at Moscow University and became close to Pushkin, who fascinated him with the idea of ​​collecting folk songs. The study of folklore becomes the main work of Kireyevsky’s life. He recorded a huge number of folk songs, including in the Oryol province, where he lived almost continuously since 1837. In 1848, Kireyevsky published a volume of song lyrics without commentary. However, the complete publication of P. V. Kireevsky’s songs was carried out after his death.

Fedor Ivanovich Tyutchev(1803-1873). Born in the village. Ovstug of the Bryansk district of the Oryol province in an old noble family, where he spent his childhood. The main literary mentor of the young Tyutchev S.E. Rajic revealed to his student the richness and beauty of ancient Roman poetry. The first poetic experience was the translation of Horace's odes. During his years of study at Moscow University (1818-1821), he belonged to Raich's circle. The first poetic publications appeared in “Galatea” and “Northern Lyre”. In 1822-1844. F. I. Tyutchev was in the diplomatic service in Germany and Italy, but selections of his poems appeared in Pushkin’s Sovremennik (1836-1841). Returning to Russia, Tyutchev lived in St. Petersburg, but almost every summer he came to Ovstug, where he wrote magnificent lyrical poems inspired by road impressions and the nature of his native land: “There is in the original autumn”, “These poor villages” and others.

Semyon Egorovich Raich(1792-1855). Raich was born in the village. Vysokoye Kromsky district in the family of the village priest Amfiteatrov. Having entered the Oryol Seminary, according to the custom of that time among the clergy, he chose a different surname. After graduating from the seminary, Raich became a teacher of Russian literature at the Moscow University boarding school, where among his students was M. Yu. Lermontov. He was engaged in literary activities, mainly translations from Italian literature, wrote his own poems, published in “Northern Lyra”, “Galatea”, “Moscowite”, “Urania”. Raich was well known in Moscow as an expert on European literature, a journalist and an excellent teacher. It was thanks to his reputation that he was invited to the Tyutchev family as a teacher, where he spent seven years and had an extremely great influence on the formation of the personality of his student. Raich's circle of acquaintances and friends was extensive, among them were Pushkin, the Kireevskys, the Venevitinovs, and the Elagins.

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev(1818-1883). Turgenev was born in Orel. He spent his childhood on his mother’s estate, Spassky-Lutovinovo. Turgenev studied in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and the University of Berlin. In the summer he usually came to Spasskoye, and long hunting trips around the province, spending the night in haylofts and in peasant huts and inns became part of his life. Communication with neighboring landowners and peasants was a source of knowledge about peasant Russia. In 1843, the young writer's first publication appeared - the poem "Parasha". In 1847, the publication of the story “Khor and Kalinich” in the first issue of Nekrasov’s Sovremennik marked the beginning of the famous “Notes of a Hunter,” which were based on rich Oryol impressions. The anti-serfdom orientation of the works was the reason for Turgenev’s expulsion to the Spasskoye-Lutovinovo estate, where he lived for 1.5 years. Already in the first half of the 19th century. Turgenev emerged as a talented writer - a singer of his native Oryol nature, a subtle connoisseur of the human soul and an exposer of serfdom.

Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet(1820-1892). Fet was born in the village. Novoselki of Mtsensk district in the family of landowner A. N. Shenshin. Until the age of 14, he bore the surname Shenshin, then his mother’s German surname - Fet. Fet's attraction to poetry awakened in early childhood: he reads Pushkin, translates children's poems from German, and tries to compose himself. Afanasy Afanasyevich graduated from a boarding school in the city of Verreaux and the literature department of Moscow University. During his student years, he published his poems in Moskvityanin and Otechestvennye zapiski; in 1840, the first collection of his poems, Lyrical Pantheon, was published. The 40s saw the heyday of Fet’s work, when he created magnificent examples of landscape and love lyrics: “Sad Birch,” “At Dawn, Don’t Wake Her,” “Bacchante.” After graduating from the university in 1844, he entered military service to receive hereditary nobility.

Oryol, while remaining a typical provincial provincial town, clearly felt the influence of Moscow, not so far from it, with its rich social life, literary salons and circles. The most enlightened representatives of the noble class kept their homes open to educated people of different directions and ways of thinking. Such a unique literary salon in Orel was the hospitable house of the wealthy landowner E. P. Mardovina, located on Kromskaya Street. An intelligent, educated woman, E. P. Mardovina attracted the flower of the Oryol intelligentsia. P. I. Yakushkin, young N. S. Leskov, P. V. Kireevsky, T. N. Granovsky, M. A. Stakhovich visited her. The Oryol period in the life of Marco Vovchok (Maria Alexandrovna Vilinskaya), a later famous Ukrainian writer, is associated with this house.

Marko Vovchok(1833-1907). M.A. Vilinskaya was born in the village. Ekaterininsky, Yelets district, Oryol province, in the family of an army officer. Her mother was a cousin of D.I. Pisarev’s mother. In this family, the girl often lived for a long time in their Znamenskoye estate, where she received her initial literary and musical education. After studying at a private boarding school for women in Kharkov, Maria Alexandrovna lived for several years (1847-1851) with her aunt E. P. Mardovina. Communication with brilliantly educated people had a huge impact on the formation of the personality of the future writer. In her literary pursuits, she was supported by her future husband, a student at Kiev University, historian and ethnographer A.V. Markovich, whom she met at her aunt’s house. The first songs recorded by M. Vovchok in Yelets were included in the collection of P.V. Kireevsky.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Stakhovich(1819-1858). Stakhovich was born in the village. Palna of the Yeletsky district of the Oryol province in the family of landowner Alexander Ivanovich Stakhovich, a participant in the war of 1812, and Nadezhda Mikhailovna, née Pervago. Having received a home education, in 1837 he entered Moscow University at the Faculty of Philology. After graduation, Stakhovich lived on his father’s estate, traveled a lot, studying the culture of Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. On his family estate Palna, Mikhail Alexandrovich became interested in studying the life of peasants and their creativity, which was facilitated by friendship with P.V. Kireevsky and P.I. Yakushkin. He traveled around Oryol and neighboring provinces, recording folk songs directly from the voices of peasants and arranging their melodies for piano and guitar. Stakhovich dedicated his main work, “Collection of Russian Folk Songs” in 4 notebooks, to Kireyevsky. At the same time, Mikhail Alexandrovich tries himself in poetry and drama, publishing in Sovremennik, Russian Conversation, and Moskvityanin. As a rule, the plots of his plays were taken from folk life. One of them, “Night”, with the subtitle “Scenes from People’s Life”, was staged on the capital’s stages. Stakhovich enjoyed great fame in literary circles, among his acquaintances was L.N. Tolstoy, who dedicated it to the memory of “Kholstomer” with a note that this plot was conceived by Stakhovich. The last work of this talented, brilliantly educated person was a small local history book “History, ethnography and statistics of Yeletsk district.”

Nikolay Aleksandrovich Melgunov(1804-1867). Melgunov was born in the village. Petrovsky Livensky district in the family of a wealthy landowner. He spent his childhood in Moscow; from the age of 14 he was a student at the Noble boarding school at the Pedagogical Institute in St. Petersburg. Among Melgunov's teachers was the Decembrist V.K. Kuchelbecker, and among his classmates was M.I. Glinka. In 1824, Melgunov entered the service of the Moscow Archive of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, where he made many acquaintances and friends from literary circles. His first appearance as a fiction writer took place in 1831 in the Telescope magazine, where the story “Who is He?” was published, and in 1834 two volumes of his stories were published. From the mid-30s. Melgunov acted as a literary and music critic. He was also known as a pianist and composer: in 1832, romances by N. A. Melgunov to the words of A. S. Pushkin and A. Delvig were published.

Boris Ivanovich Orlovsky(1797-1837). The Oryol land gave Russia an outstanding sculptor of the 1st half of the 19th century. Orlovsky. He was born into the family of serfs of the Mtsensk landowner N.M. Matsneva. His real name is Smirnov. My childhood was spent on the Shatilov estate in the village. Mokhov. In 1808, the boy was sent to Moscow to study the art of stone cutting. In 1816, the young artist moved to St. Petersburg, where he began working in a sculpture workshop. Only in 1822 he received his freedom and became a free man. Orlovsky studied at the Academy of Arts in Italy, and worked all his life in St. Petersburg. In 1830, the sculptor received the title of academician. His most famous creations are the monuments to M.I. Kutuzov and M.B. Barclay de Tolly in front of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

Advances of Russian culture in the first half of the 19th century. in the Oryol region were very significant. The educational system was basically formed, and the process of forming the Russian literary language was completed. The names of many Russian writers, artists, sculptors, composers - natives of the Oryol region - have acquired European fame. The cultural traditions laid down at this time became the foundation for its further development in the second half of the 19th century.

Model peasant estate

A peasant estate under the conditions of serfdom still in effect... sounds somewhat fantastic and implausible. Is this really possible? Maybe. Moreover, about 250 such estates were created throughout the country.

Looking ahead, I will say that a model peasant estate is not an estate for personal use, although it also happened that the estate was transferred for personal use to a peasant family. The exemplary estate is primarily an educational institution. I see I completely confused you.

Let's start with the fact that such estates were created as part of the peasant reform carried out by Count Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselev, already known to us. The purpose of creating such estates, at first glance, is both useful and noble. The peasants were supposed to be trained not only in the most advanced methods of cultivating the land, but also in managing the estate. But was it really possible that someone trained the serfs to manage the estate? No. Only state peasants had such an opportunity. Here it is worth explaining how state peasants differed from serfs (landowners). State peasants were free. But excuse me, no one has abolished serfdom, you exclaim, where do free peasants come from? Initially, the state peasants consisted of those who lived on non-enslaved lands; later their number was replenished by fugitive landowner peasants, single-lords, and church servants, after the confiscation of their property. Such peasants were allowed to trade, open factories, plants, buy and own “uninhabited” lands as private property. Here you have serfdom! However, one should not think that the life of such peasants was easy and cloudless. No, not in our country. The peasants were obliged to pay taxes to the treasury, in addition, they had heavy duties: building roads, cutting and logging. And then Count Kiselev ordered to plant potatoes everywhere. The idea was good - to insure the peasants against crop failure, but the idea was received with hostility. This largely happened because everything was done by force, the best plots of land were selected for planting, and the peasants, having received orders to plant potatoes, saw in this signs of enslavement and an attack on their communal interests. Rumors arose about a certain decree “on enslavement,” and people also used to say that “small reptiles” hatch from potatoes. Everything is as always, our people do not like reforms, they are afraid of them.

But despite the protests of the lower classes, exemplary estates were created and accepted their few students. The Ministry of Property, headed by Count Kiselev, wanted at all costs to interest the peasants in advanced ideas, both in agriculture and in management. Count Kiselev really did a lot for the Russian village. Schools, hospitals, and veterinary stations were opened.

Who could train on a training farm? Oddly enough, this opportunity was available to both state peasants and landowners. The main condition is age: not younger than 17 and not older than 20 years old, healthy, without visible physical disabilities. The ability to read and write at least mediocrely was welcomed. On the farms, the basics of the Law of God, Russian grammar and reading, penmanship, arithmetic were taught, and the duties of state peasants were studied. Special disciplines include agriculture and field cultivation, cattle breeding, gardening, horticulture, animal medicine, and the study of various crafts. The training period on the farm was divided into two two-year courses. After completing the first course, each student was assigned a plot of land (in the fields of the farm), which he had to cultivate independently. For this he received payment. In the fourth year, the best pupils were placed in model estates on the farm, and the less successful ones took turns learning “complete and correct peasant housekeeping.” The entire training period was four years. Upon completion of this educational institution, the graduate was issued a certificate.

In our city, an exemplary estate was created in Pyatnitskaya Sloboda in 1846. The house and outbuildings there were built according to plans approved by Count P.D. Kiselev. The first manager of the estate was Oryol peasant Evtikhiy Dmitriev. But something went wrong with his management and on December 24, 1853, the estate was transferred to the peasant of the village of Sharychin (Sharykina) of Kromsky district, Avdeev Alexander Epifanovich. As mentioned above, not everyone was allowed to manage the estate. Previously, the pupil had to distinguish himself by special successes and good behavior on the training farm, and only after that, by special order of the Ministry of State Property, was allowed to manage the estate.

But as you know, every owner needs a mistress. How could the ministry let such an important matter take its course?! The local authorities were entrusted with the role of a search engine - a “matchmaker”. However, here too the ministry hedged its bets. Therefore, local officials were obliged to provide the Minister of Appanages with information about the inclination of this future mistress to conduct business. Often, fake profiles were sent in exchange for bribes, and to stop this, schools were created for village girls destined to be wives of exemplary owners. The bureaucratic machine has reached its apogee: we are preparing both exemplary masters and exemplary wives for them.

Manager Avdeev was trained at the Central Tambov training farm, not far from Lipetsk. Avdeev received his certificate on December 19, 1850, having completed a full course of both theoretical and practical training. In almost all disciplines it contains an “excellent” rating. Avdeev was especially successful in studying carpentry.

What privileges did the certificate provide? Avdeev was exempted from conscription duty “as long as he behaves honestly and sets a good example with his management and behavior to other peasants.” However, from now on Avdeev could not leave the model estate and live in other places. He was provided with the best breed of cattle, improved agricultural implements, and selected seeds. The exemplary estate in Pyatnitskaya Sloboda occupied 21.5 acres of land. It had: a garden, a vegetable garden, four fields (vetch, potatoes, spring and fallow), a house, a threshing floor, a barn and a threshing floor. Livestock: two horses, three foals, a cow and ten sheep. Avdeev lived in the house with his family - his wife, three sons and daughter. Only the eldest son helped with the housework, and the rest of the children studied at the district school in Orel. In winter, Avdeev worked as a driver - he took local residents to Orel and back.

For the use of the model estate, A. E. Avdeev had to pay monetary fees, as well as fees at his previous place of residence. Such a double tax was burdensome for the family, and therefore he asked to be included in the peasant society of Pyatnitskaya Sloboda. This is where the problems started! The peasants of the Pyatnitsky society considered the existence of a model estate useless for themselves, decided to exile Avdeev from the land he occupied, and lease the land thus freed to someone else. Already in the spring of 1866, Avdeev was asked “not to do any sowing.” It was recommended to transfer the manor house to a school for the Pyatnitsky rural society. In this regard, Avdeev appealed to the state property management of the Oryol province with a request to release him from managing the model estate, because the peasant society of Pyatnitskaya Sloboda refused to accept him and his family into their membership. However, the Ministry explained to him that peasants do not have the right to dispose of the estate. For hard work and the success achieved both in managing and cultivating the land, on December 28, 1867, the Ministry of State Property ordered the transfer of the estate to Avdeev for lifelong use. June 20, 1868 state peasant A.E. Avdeev was familiarized with this decision, which he confirmed with his own signature.

What about the Ministry, how did it react to the reluctance of the peasants to accept the estate into the peasant community? Conclusions were also made that “the establishment of a model estate did not bring any benefit in spreading the best method of farming among peasants.” Then there was an attempt to hire an assistant from the botanical garden to the estate, plant varietal trees there and create a model garden. But this idea was not crowned with success.

Contemporaries considered Kiselev a classic bureaucrat who believed in the possibility of organizing real life by issuing paper documents (laws, instructions, regulations). He was not aware of the fact that a paper alien to real interests would be thrown away, unnoticed, passed over, misinterpreted. He believed in the power and right of the authorities to organize the life of the country according to the laws and orders they themselves issued. But, to his credit, he was a conscientious bureaucrat and, while preparing the paper, he studied life, spared no effort in collecting information, and developed options for solutions. Nicholas I jokingly called him "chief of staff for the peasant unit."

So why haven't the model estates produced the desired results? After all, many graduates were given money and agricultural implements upon graduation? Because some continued to farm “the old fashioned way” together with their parents, others worked for hire from landowners, some of them got jobs as village clerks, some moved to Oryol and even to Moscow. The problem was that farm graduates turned out to be “strangers among their own.” Rural societies were not ready to accept them into their midst and were in no hurry to adopt their progressive farming methods. For example, another graduate of the Central Tambov educational farm, Efim Abramovich Kotov (graduated from this educational institution in 1858), managed in his parents’ house and believed that he “did not have the opportunity to show himself against society as a learned person.” In 1864, he tried to get a plot of land to create a model estate in the village of Kotova, Bogdanovsky volost, Oryol district, but the meeting of state peasants of this village refused to allocate land, explaining that “he has no free land to allocate”... It also happened that peasants Those not participating in the experiment were forcibly driven to the estate to work, free work. This also did not contribute to either trust or the desire to learn.

What is the result of Count Kiselev’s reform? Ambiguous. The reform intensified the struggle of state peasants against the intensification of their exploitation by the feudal state. Everyone was dissatisfied: both the peasants, for the reasons discussed above, and the landowners, who feared both the flight of the peasants and the abolition of serfdom, for which Count Kiselyov so advocated. The position of the landowner peasants remained completely outside the bureaucratic machine. We don’t like reforms... no, they don’t like them, because we never know where they will lead.

At the beginning of the 19th century. The borders of Russian possessions in North America and northern Europe were officially consolidated. The St. Petersburg Conventions of 1824 determined the boundaries with American () and English possessions. The Americans pledged not to settle north of 54°40" N on the coast, and the Russians - to the south. The border of Russian and British possessions ran along the coast from 54° N to 60° N at a distance of 10 miles from the ocean's edge , taking into account all the bends of the coast.The St. Petersburg Russian-Swedish Convention of 1826 established the Russian-Norwegian border.

Academic expeditions of V. M. Severgin and A. I. Sherer in 1802-1804. to the north-west of Russia, Belarus, the Baltic states and were devoted mainly to mineralogical research.

The period of geographical discoveries in the populated European part of Russia is over. In the 19th century expeditionary research and its scientific synthesis were mainly thematic. Of these, we can name the zoning (mainly agricultural) of European Russia into eight latitudinal stripes, proposed by E. F. Kankrin in 1834; botanical and geographical zoning of European Russia by R. E. Trautfetter (1851); studies of the natural conditions of the Caspian Sea, the state of fishing and other industries there (1851-1857), carried out by K. M. Baer; N.A.’s work (1855) on the fauna of the Voronezh province, in which he showed deep connections between the fauna and physical-geographical conditions, and also established patterns of distribution of forests and steppes in connection with the nature of the relief and soils; classical soil studies of V.V. in the zone, begun in 1877; a special expedition led by V.V. Dokuchaev, organized by the Forestry Department to comprehensively study the nature of the steppes and find ways to combat. In this expedition, a stationary research method was used for the first time.

Caucasus

The annexation of the Caucasus to Russia necessitated the study of new Russian lands, the knowledge of which was poor. In 1829, the Caucasian expedition of the Academy of Sciences, led by A. Ya. Kupfer and E. X. Lenz, explored the Rocky Range in the Greater Caucasus system and determined the exact heights of many mountain peaks of the Caucasus. In 1844-1865 The natural conditions of the Caucasus were studied by G.V. Abikh. He studied in detail the orography and geology of the Greater and Dagestan, the Colchis Lowland, and compiled the first general orographic diagram of the Caucasus.

Ural

Among the works that developed the geographical understanding of the Urals are the description of the Middle and Southern Urals, made in 1825-1836. A. Ya. Kupfer, E. K. Hoffman, G. P. Gelmersen; publication of “Natural History of the Orenburg Region” by E. A. Eversman (1840), which provides a comprehensive description of the nature of this territory with a well-founded natural division; expedition of the Russian Geographical Society to the Northern and Polar Urals (E.K. Goffman, V.G. Bragin), during which the peak of Konstantinov Kamen was discovered, the Pai-Khoi ridge was discovered and explored, an inventory was compiled, which served as the basis for drawing up a map of the explored part of the Urals . A notable event was the journey in 1829 of the outstanding German naturalist A. Humboldt to the Urals, Rudny Altai and the shores of the Caspian Sea.

Siberia

In the 19th century Research continued in Siberia, many areas of which were very poorly studied. In Altai in the 1st half of the century the sources of the river were discovered. Katun, explored (1825-1836, A. A. Bunge, F. V. Gebler), the Chulyshman and Abakan rivers (1840-1845, P. A. Chikhachev). During his travels, P. A. Chikhachev carried out physical, geographical and geological research.

In 1843-1844. A.F. Middendorf collected extensive material on orography, geology, climate, and the organic world of Eastern Siberia and the Far East; for the first time, information was obtained about the nature of Taimyr and the Stanovoy Range. Based on the travel materials, A. F. Middendorf wrote in 1860-1878. published “Journey to the North and East of Siberia” - one of the best examples of systematic reports on the nature of the explored territories. This work provides characteristics of all the main natural components, as well as the population, shows the relief features of Central Siberia, the uniqueness of its climate, presents the results of the first scientific study of permafrost, and gives the zoogeographic division of Siberia.

In 1853-1855. R. K. Maak and A. K. Sondgagen investigated the geology and life of the population of the Central Yakut Plain, the Central Siberian Plateau, the Vilyui Plateau, and surveyed the river.

In 1855-1862. The Siberian expedition of the Russian Geographical Society carried out topographic surveys, astronomical determinations, geological and other studies in the south of Eastern Siberia.

A large amount of research was carried out in the second half of the century in the mountains of southern Eastern Siberia. In 1858, geographical research in the Sayan Mountains was carried out by L. E. Schwartz. During them, topographer Kryzhin carried out a topographic survey. In 1863-1866. research in Eastern Siberia and the Far East was carried out by P. A. Kropotkin, who paid special attention to relief and. He explored the Oka, Amur, Ussuri rivers, ridges, and discovered the Patom Highlands. The Khamar-Daban ridge, coastline, Angara region, Selenga basin, were explored by A. L. Chekanovsky (1869-1875), I. D. Chersky (1872-1882). In addition, A. L. Chekanovsky explored the basins of the Lower Tunguska and Olenyok rivers, and I. D. Chersky explored the upper reaches of the Lower Tunguska. A geographical, geological and botanical survey of the Eastern Sayan was carried out during the Sayan expedition by N.P. Bobyr, L.A. Yachevsky, and Ya.P. Prein. The study of Sayanskaya in 1903 was continued by V.L. Popov. In 1910, he also carried out a geographical study of the border strip between Russia and China from Altai to Kyakhta.

In 1891-1892 During his last expedition, I. D. Chersky explored the Nerskoye Plateau and discovered three high mountain ranges behind the Verkhoyansk Range: Tas-Kystabyt, Ulakhan-Chistai and Tomuskhay.

Far East

Research continued on Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and the adjacent seas. In 1805, I. F. Kruzenshtern explored the eastern and northern shores of Sakhalin and the northern Kuril Islands, and in 1811, V. M. Golovnin made an inventory of the middle and southern parts of the Kuril ridge. In 1849, G.I. Nevelskoy confirmed and proved the navigability of the Amur mouth for large ships. In 1850-1853. G.I. Nevelsky and others continued their research on Sakhalin and adjacent parts of the mainland. In 1860-1867 Sakhalin was explored by F.B., P.P. Glen, G.W. Shebunin. In 1852-1853 N. K Boshnyak explored and described the basins of the Amgun and Tym rivers, lakes Everon and Chukchagirskoe, the Bureinsky ridge, and Khadzhi Bay (Sovetskaya Gavan).

In 1842-1845. A.F. Middendorf and V.V. Vaganov explored the Shantar Islands.

In the 50-60s. XIX century The coastal parts of Primorye were explored: in 1853 -1855. I. S. Unkovsky discovered the bays of Posyet and Olga; in 1860-1867 V. Babkin surveyed the northern shore of the Sea of ​​Japan and Peter the Great Bay. The Lower Amur and the northern part of Sikhote-Alin were explored in 1850-1853. G. I. Nevelsky, N. K. Boshnyak, D. I. Orlov and others; in 1860-1867 - A. Budishchev. In 1858, M. Venyukov explored the Ussuri River. In 1863-1866. and Ussuri were studied by P.A. Kropotkin. In 1867-1869 made a major trip around the Ussuri region. He conducted comprehensive studies of the nature of the Ussuri and Suchan river basins and crossed the Sikhote-Alin ridge.

middle Asia

As individual parts of Central Asia annexed to the Russian Empire, and sometimes even preceding it, Russian geographers, biologists and other scientists explored and studied their nature. In 1820-1836. the organic world of Mugodzhar, General Syrt and the Ustyurt plateau was studied by E. A. Eversman. In 1825-1836 carried out a description of the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, the Mangystau and Bolshoi Balkhan ridges, the Krasnovodsk plateau G. S. Karelin and I. Blaramberg. In 1837-1842. A.I. Shrenk studied Eastern Kazakhstan.

In 1840-1845 The Balkhash-Alakol basin was discovered (A.I. Shrenk, T.F. Nifantiev). From 1852 to 1863 T.F. Nifantiev carried out the first surveys of lakes, Zaysan. In 1848-1849 A.I. Butakov carried out the first survey, a number of islands and Chernyshev Bay were discovered.

Valuable scientific results, especially in the field of biogeography, were brought by the 1857 expedition of I. G. Borschov and N. A. Severtsov to Mugodzhary, the Emba River basin and the Big Barsuki sands. In 1865, I. G. Borshchov continued research on the vegetation and natural conditions of the Aral-Caspian region. He considered steppes and deserts as natural geographical complexes and analyzed the mutual relationships between relief, moisture, soils and vegetation.

Since the 1840s exploration of the highlands of Central Asia began. In 1840-1845 A.A. Leman and Ya.P. Yakovlev discovered the Turkestan and Zeravshan ranges. In 1856-1857 P.P. Semenov laid the foundation for the scientific study of the Tien Shan. The heyday of research in the mountains of Central Asia occurred during the period of the expeditionary leadership of P. P. Semenov (Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky). In 1860-1867 N.A. Severtsov explored the Kirghiz and Karatau ridges, discovered the Karzhantau, Pskem and Kakshaal-Too ridges in 1868-1871. A.P. Fedchenko explored the Tien Shan, Kukhistan, Alai and Trans-Alai ranges. N.A. Severtsov, A.I. Scassi discovered the Rushansky ridge and the Fedchenko glacier (1877-1879). The research carried out made it possible to identify the Pamirs as a separate mountain system.

Research in the desert regions of Central Asia was carried out by N. A. Severtsov (1866-1868) and A. P. Fedchenko in 1868-1871. (Kyzylkum desert), V. A. Obruchev in 1886-1888. (Karakum desert and ancient Uzboy valley).

Comprehensive studies of the Aral Sea in 1899-1902. spent .

North and Arctic

At the beginning of the 19th century. The discovery of the New Siberian Islands ended. In 1800-1806. Y. Sannikov made an inventory of the islands of Stolbovoy, Faddeevsky, and New Siberia. In 1808, Belkov discovered an island, which received the name of its discoverer - Belkovsky. In 1809-1811 visited by the expedition of M. M. Gedenstrom. In 1815, M. Lyakhov discovered the islands of Vasilievsky and Semyonovsky. In 1821-1823 P.F. Anjou and P.I. Ilyin carried out instrumental research, culminating in the compilation of an accurate map of the New Siberian Islands, explored and described the islands of Semenovsky, Vasilyevsky, Stolbovoy, the coast between the mouths of the Indigirka and Olenyok rivers, and discovered the East Siberian polynya.

In 1820-1824. F. P. Wrangel, in very difficult natural conditions, traveled through the north of Siberia and the Arctic Ocean, explored and described the coast from the mouth of the Indigirka to the Kolyuchinskaya Bay (Chukchi Peninsula), and predicted the existence.

Research was carried out in Russian possessions in North America: in 1816, O. E. Kotzebue discovered a large bay in the Chukchi Sea off the western coast of Alaska, named after him. In 1818-1819 The eastern coast of the Bering Sea was explored by P.G. Korsakovsky and P.A. Ustyugov, the Alaska-Yukon delta was discovered. In 1835-1838. The lower and middle reaches of the Yukon were studied by A. Glazunov and V.I. Malakhov, and in 1842-1843. - Russian naval officer L. A. Zagoskin. He also described the interior regions of Alaska. In 1829-1835 The coast of Alaska was explored by F.P. Wrangel and D.F. Zarembo. In 1838 A.F. Kashevarov described the northwestern coast of Alaska, and P.F. Kolmakov discovered the Innoko River and the Kuskokwim (Kuskokwim) ridge. In 1835-1841. D.F. Zarembo and P. Mitkov completed the discovery of the Alexander Archipelago.

The archipelago was intensively explored. In 1821-1824. F.P. Litke on the brig “Novaya Zemlya” explored, described and compiled a map of the western coast of Novaya Zemlya. Attempts to inventory and map the eastern coast of Novaya Zemlya were unsuccessful. In 1832-1833 The first inventory of the entire eastern coast of the South Island of Novaya Zemlya was made by P.K. Pakhtusov. In 1834-1835 P.K. Pakhtusov and in 1837-1838. A.K. Tsivolka and S.A. Moiseev described the eastern coast of the North Island up to 74.5° N. sh., the Matochkin Shar Strait is described in detail, Pakhtusov Island is discovered. A description of the northern part of Novaya Zemlya was made only in 1907-1911. V. A. Rusanov. Expeditions led by I. N. Ivanov in 1826-1829. managed to compile an inventory of the southwestern part of the Kara Sea from Nos to the mouth of the Ob. The research carried out made it possible to begin the study of vegetation, fauna and the geological structure of Novaya Zemlya (K. M. Baer, ​​1837). In 1834-1839, especially during a major expedition in 1837, A.I. Shrenk explored the Czech Bay, the coast of the Kara Sea, the Timan Ridge, the island, the Pai-Khoi ridge, and the polar Urals. Explorations of this area in 1840-1845. continued A.A. Keyserling, who conducted the survey and explored the Timan Ridge and the Pechora Lowland. He conducted comprehensive studies of the nature of the Taimyr Peninsula and the North Siberian Lowland in 1842-1845. A. F. Middendorf. In 1847-1850 The Russian Geographical Society organized an expedition to the Northern and Polar Urals, during which the Pai-Khoi ridge was thoroughly explored.

In 1867, Wrangel Island was discovered, an inventory of the southern coast of which was made by the captain of the American whaling ship T. Long. In 1881, the American researcher R. Berry described the eastern, western and most of the northern coast of the island, and the interior of the island was explored for the first time.

In 1901, the Russian icebreaker “ ”, under the command of S. O. Makarov, visited. In 1913-1914 A Russian expedition led by G. Ya. Sedov wintered on the archipelago. At the same time, a group of participants from G.L. Brusilov’s expedition in distress on the ship “St. Anna”, headed by navigator V.I. Albanov. Despite the difficult conditions, when all energy was aimed at preserving life, V.I. Albanov proved that Petermann Land and King Oscar Land, which appeared on the map of J. Payer, do not exist.

In 1878-1879 During two navigations, a Russian-Swedish expedition led by the Swedish scientist N.A.E. on the small sailing-steam vessel “Vega” was the first to navigate the Northern Sea Route from west to east. This proved the possibility of navigation along the entire Eurasian Arctic coast.

In 1913, the Northern Hydrographic Expedition under the leadership of B. A. Vilkitsky on the icebreaking steamships “Taimyr” and “Vaigach”, exploring the possibilities of passing the route north of Taimyr, encountered solid ice and, following their edge to the north, discovered islands called Zemlya Emperor Nicholas II (now Severnaya Zemlya), approximately mapping its eastern, and next year - southern shores, as well as the island of Tsarevich Alexei (now -). The western and northern shores remained completely unknown.

Russian Geographical Society

The Russian Geographical Society (RGS), founded in 1845, (since 1850 - the Imperial Russian Geographical Society - IRGO) has great merit in the development of domestic cartography.

In 1881, the American polar explorer J. DeLong discovered the islands of Jeannette, Henrietta and Bennett northeast of the island of New Siberia. This group of islands was named after its discoverer. In 1885-1886 A study of the Arctic coast between the Lena and Kolyma rivers and the New Siberian Islands was carried out by A. A. Bunge and E. V. Toll.

Already at the beginning of 1852, it published its first twenty-five-verst (1:1,050,000) map of the Pai-Khoi coastal ridge, compiled based on materials from the Ural Expedition of the Russian Geographical Society of 1847-1850. For the first time, the Pai Khoi coastal ridge was depicted with great accuracy and detail.

The Geographical Society also published 40-verst maps of the river areas of the Amur, the southern part of the Lena and Yenisei and about. Sakhalin on 7 sheets (1891).

Sixteen large expeditions of the IRGO, led by N. M. Przhevalsky, G. N. Potanin, M. V. Pevtsov, G. E. Grumm-Grzhimailo, V. I. Roborovsky, P. K. Kozlov and V. A. Obruchev, made a great contribution to the filming of Central Asia. During these expeditions, 95,473 km were covered and filmed (of which over 30,000 km were accounted for by N. M. Przhevalsky), 363 astronomical points were determined and the altitudes of 3,533 points were measured. The position of the main mountain ranges and river systems, as well as lake basins of Central Asia, was clarified. All this significantly contributed to the creation of a modern physical map of Central Asia.

The heyday of the expeditionary activities of the IRGO occurred in 1873-1914, when the head of the society was Grand Duke Constantine, and P.P. Semyonov-Tyan-Shansky was the vice-chairman. During this period, expeditions were organized to Central Asia and other regions of the country; two polar stations were created. Since the mid-1880s. The expeditionary activities of the society are increasingly specialized in certain fields - glaciology, limnology, geophysics, biogeography, etc.

IRGO made a great contribution to the study of the country's topography. To process the leveling and produce a hypsometric map, the IRGO hypsometric commission was created. In 1874, IRGO carried out, under the leadership of A. A. Tillo, the Aral-Caspian leveling: from Karatamak (on the northwestern shore of the Aral Sea) through Ustyurt to the Dead Kultuk Bay of the Caspian Sea, and in 1875 and 1877. Siberian leveling: from the village of Zverinogolovskaya in the Orenburg region to Lake Baikal. The materials of the hypsometric commission were used by A. A. Tillo to compile the “map of European Russia” on a scale of 60 versts per inch (1: 2,520,000), published by the Ministry of Railways in 1889. More than 50 thousand elevation marks were used to compile it , obtained as a result of leveling. The map revolutionized ideas about the structure of the relief of this territory. It presented in a new way the orography of the European part of the country, which has not changed in its main features to this day; the Central Russian and Volga uplands were depicted for the first time. In 1894, the Forestry Department, under the leadership of A. A. Tillo with the participation of S. N., organized an expedition to study the sources of the main rivers of European Russia, which provided extensive material on relief and hydrography (in particular, on lakes).

The military topographical service carried out, with the active participation of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, a large number of pioneering reconnaissance surveys in the Far East, Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia, during which maps were drawn up of many territories that had previously been “blank spots” on the map.

Mapping the territory in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Topographic and geodetic works

In 1801-1804. “His Majesty’s Own Map Depot” released the first state multi-sheet (107 sheets) map at a scale of 1:840,000, covering almost all of European Russia and called the “Cental-sheet Map”. Its content was based mainly on materials from the General Survey.

In 1798-1804. The Russian General Staff, under the leadership of Major General F. F. Steinhel (Steingel), with the extensive use of Swedish-Finnish topographic officers, carried out a large-scale topographic survey of the so-called Old Finland, i.e., the areas annexed to Russia along the Nystadt (1721) and Abosky (1743) to the world. The survey materials, preserved in the form of a handwritten four-volume atlas, were widely used in the compilation of various maps at the beginning of the 19th century.

After 1809, the topographic services of Russia and Finland were united. At the same time, the Russian army received a ready-made educational institution for training professional topographers - a military school founded in 1779 in the village of Gappaniemi. On the basis of this school, on March 16, 1812, the Gappanyem Topographical Corps was established, which became the first special military topographic and geodetic educational institution in the Russian Empire.

In 1815, the ranks of the Russian army were replenished with topographical officers of the General Quartermaster of the Polish Army.

Since 1819, topographic surveys began in Russia on a scale of 1:21,000, based on triangulation and carried out mainly using scales. In 1844 they were replaced by surveys at a scale of 1:42,000.

On January 28, 1822, the Corps of Military Topographers was established at the General Headquarters of the Russian Army and the Military Topographic Depot. State topographic mapping became one of the main tasks of military topographers. The remarkable Russian surveyor and cartographer F. F. Schubert was appointed the first director of the Corps of Military Topographers.

In 1816-1852. In Russia, the largest triangulation work of that time was carried out, extending 25°20" along the meridian (together with Scandinavian triangulation).

Under the leadership of F. F. Schubert and K. I. Tenner, intensive instrumental and semi-instrumental (route) surveys began, mainly in the western and northwestern provinces of European Russia. Based on materials from these surveys in the 20-30s. XIX century semitopographic (semi-topographic) maps of the provinces were compiled and engraved on a scale of 4-5 versts per inch.

The military topographic depot began in 1821 to compile a survey topographic map of European Russia on a scale of 10 versts per inch (1:420,000), which was extremely necessary not only for the military, but also for all civilian departments. The special ten-verst map of European Russia is known in the literature as the Schubert Map. Work on creating the map continued intermittently until 1839. It was published on 59 sheets and three flaps (or half-sheets).

A large amount of work was carried out by the Corps of Military Topographers in different parts of the country. In 1826-1829 Detailed maps on a scale of 1:210,000 were compiled for the Baku province, the Talysh Khanate, the Karabakh province, the plan of Tiflis, etc.

In 1828-1832. A survey of Wallachia was also carried out, which became a model of work of its time, since it was based on a sufficient number of astronomical points. All maps were compiled into a 1:16,000 atlas. The total survey area reached 100 thousand square meters. verst.

Since the 30s. Geodetic and boundary work began to be carried out on. Geodetic points carried out in 1836-1838. triangulations became the basis for creating accurate topographic maps of Crimea. Geodetic networks developed in Smolensk, Moscow, Mogilev, Tver, Novgorod provinces and other areas.

In 1833, the head of the KVT, General F. F. Schubert, organized an unprecedented chronometric expedition in the Baltic Sea. As a result of the expedition, the longitudes of 18 points were determined, which, together with 22 points related to them trigonometrically, provided a reliable basis for surveying the coast and soundings of the Baltic Sea.

From 1857 to 1862 under the leadership and funds of the IRGO, work was carried out at the Military Topographical Depot to compile and publish on 12 sheets a general map of European Russia and the Caucasus region on a scale of 40 versts per inch (1: 1,680,000) with an explanatory note. On the advice of V. Ya. Struve, the map for the first time in Russia was created in the Gaussian projection, and Pulkovsky was taken as the prime meridian on it. In 1868, the map was published, and later it was reprinted several times.

In subsequent years, a five-verst map on 55 sheets, a twenty-verst map and an orographic forty-verst map of the Caucasus were published.

Among the best cartographic works of the IRGO is the “Map of the Aral Sea and the Khiva Khanate with their surroundings” compiled by Ya. V. Khanykov (1850). The map was published in French by the Paris Geographical Society and, on the proposal of A. Humboldt, was awarded the Prussian Order of the Red Eagle, 2nd degree.

The Caucasian military topographic department, under the leadership of General I. I. Stebnitsky, conducted reconnaissance in Central Asia along the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea.

In 1867, a Cartographic Establishment was opened at the Military Topographical Department of the General Staff. Together with the private cartographic establishment of A. A. Ilyin, opened in 1859, they were the direct predecessors of modern domestic cartographic factories.

A special place among the various products of the Caucasian WTO was occupied by relief maps. The large relief map was completed in 1868, and was exhibited at the Paris Exhibition in 1869. This map is made for horizontal distances on a scale of 1:420,000, and for vertical distances - 1:84,000.

The Caucasian military topographic department under the leadership of I. I. Stebnitsky compiled a 20-verst map of the Trans-Caspian region based on astronomical, geodetic and topographical work.

Work was also carried out on topographic and geodetic preparation of the territories of the Far East. Thus, in 1860, the position of eight points was determined near the western coast of the Sea of ​​Japan, and in 1863, 22 points were determined in Peter the Great Bay.

The expansion of the territory of the Russian Empire was reflected in many maps and atlases published at this time. Such in particular is the “General Map of the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Finland annexed to it” from the “Geographical Atlas of the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Finland” by V. P. Pyadyshev (St. Petersburg, 1834).

Since 1845, one of the main tasks of the Russian military topographical service has been the creation of a Military Topographical Map of Western Russia on a scale of 3 versts per inch. By 1863, 435 sheets of military topographical maps had been published, and by 1917 - 517 sheets. On this map, the relief was conveyed by strokes.

In 1848-1866. under the leadership of Lieutenant General A.I. Mende, surveys were carried out aimed at creating topographic boundary maps, atlases and descriptions for all provinces of European Russia. During this period, work was carried out on an area of ​​about 345,000 square meters. verst. Tver, Ryazan, Tambov and Vladimir provinces were mapped on a scale of one verst per inch (1:42,000), Yaroslavl - two versts per inch (1:84,000), Simbirsk and Nizhny Novgorod - three versts per inch (1:126,000) and Penza province - on a scale of eight versts per inch (1:336,000). Based on the results of the surveys, IRGO published multicolor topographic boundary atlases of the Tver and Ryazan provinces (1853-1860) on a scale of 2 versts per inch (1:84,000) and a map of the Tver province on a scale of 8 versts per inch (1:336,000).

The Mende filming had an undoubted influence on the further improvement of state mapping methods. In 1872, the Military Topographical Department of the General Staff began work on updating the three-verst map, which actually led to the creation of a new standard Russian topographic map on a scale of 2 versts in an inch (1:84,000), which was a most detailed source of information about the area, used in troops and the national economy until the 30s. XX century A two-verst military topographic map was published for the Kingdom of Poland, parts of the Crimea and the Caucasus, as well as the Baltic states and areas around Moscow and. This was one of the first Russian topographic maps on which the relief was depicted as contour lines.

In 1869-1885. A detailed topographic survey of Finland was carried out, which was the beginning of the creation of a state topographic map on a scale of one mile per inch - the highest achievement of pre-revolutionary military topography in Russia. Single-versus maps covered the territory of Poland, the Baltic states, southern Finland, Crimea, the Caucasus and parts of southern Russia north of Novocherkassk.

By the 60s. XIX century The Special Map of European Russia by F. F. Schubert on a scale of 10 versts per inch is very outdated. In 1865, the editorial commission appointed captain of the General Staff I. A. Strelbitsky as the responsible executor of the project for drawing up a Special Map of European Russia and its editor, under whose leadership the final development of all instructional documents was carried out, which determined the methods of compilation, preparation for publication and publication of the new cartographic works. In 1872, the compilation of all 152 sheets of the map was completed. The ten verstka was reprinted many times and partially supplemented; in 1903 it consisted of 167 sheets. This map was widely used not only for military purposes, but also for scientific, practical and cultural purposes.

By the end of the century, the work of the Corps of Military Topographers continued to create new maps for sparsely populated areas, including the Far East and Manchuria. During this time, several reconnaissance detachments covered more than 12 thousand miles, performing route and visual surveys. Based on their results, topographic maps were later compiled on a scale of 2, 3, 5 and 20 versts per inch.

In 1907, a special commission was created at the General Staff to develop a plan for future topographic and geodetic work in European and Asian Russia, chaired by the head of the KVT, General N. D. Artamonov. It was decided to develop the new 1st class triangulation according to a specific program proposed by General I. I. Pomerantsev. KVT began implementing the program in 1910. By 1914, the bulk of the work was completed.

By the beginning of the First World War, a large volume of large-scale topographic surveys had been completed in the entire territory of Poland, in the south of Russia (triangle Chisinau, Galati, Odessa), in the Petrograd and Vyborg provinces partially; on a verst scale in Livonia, Petrograd, Minsk provinces, and partly in Transcaucasia, on the northeastern coast of the Black Sea and in Crimea; on a two-verst scale - in the north-west of Russia, east of the survey sites on the half- and verst-scale.

The results of topographic surveys of previous and pre-war years made it possible to compile and publish a large volume of topographic and special military maps: half-verst map of the Western border area (1:21,000); verst map of the Western border space, Crimea and Transcaucasia (1:42,000); military topographic two-verst map (1:84,000), three-verst map (1:126,000) with relief expressed by strokes; semi-topographic 10-verst map of European Russia (1:420,000); military road 25-verst map of European Russia (1:1,050,000); 40-verst Strategic Map (1:1,680,000); maps of the Caucasus and neighboring foreign countries.

In addition to the listed maps, the Military Topographical Department of the Main Directorate of the General Staff (GUGSH) prepared maps of Turkestan, Central Asia and adjacent states, Western Siberia, the Far East, as well as maps of all of Asian Russia.

Over the 96 years of its existence (1822-1918), the corps of military topographers completed an enormous amount of astronomical, geodetic and cartographic work: identified geodetic points - 63,736; astronomical points (by latitude and longitude) - 3900; 46 thousand km of leveling passages were laid; Instrumental topographic surveys were carried out on a geodetic basis on various scales over an area of ​​7,425,319 km2, and semi-instrumental and visual surveys were carried out over an area of ​​506,247 km2. In 1917, the Russian Army supplied 6,739 types of maps of different scales.

In general, by 1917, a huge amount of field survey material had been obtained, a number of remarkable cartographic works had been created, but the coverage of the territory of Russia with topographic survey was uneven, and a significant part of the territory remained unexplored in topographic terms.

Exploration and mapping of seas and oceans

Russia's achievements in studying the World Ocean were significant. One of the important incentives for these studies in the 19th century, as before, was the need to ensure the functioning of Russian overseas possessions in Alaska. To supply these colonies, round-the-world expeditions were regularly equipped, which, starting from the first voyage in 1803-1806. on the ships “Nadezhda” and “Neva” under the leadership of Yu. V. Lisyansky, they made many remarkable geographical discoveries and significantly increased the cartographic knowledge of the World Ocean.

In addition to the hydrographic work carried out almost annually off the coast of Russian America by officers of the Russian Navy, participants in round-the-world expeditions, employees of the Russian-American Company, among whom were such brilliant hydrographers and scientists as F. P. Wrangel, A. K. Etolin and M D. Tebenkov, continuously expanded knowledge about the North Pacific Ocean and improved navigation maps of these areas. Particularly great was the contribution of M.D. Tebenkov, who compiled the most detailed “Atlas of the Northwestern coast of America from Cape Corrientes and the Aleutian Islands with the addition of some places on the Northeastern coast of Asia,” published by the St. Petersburg Maritime Academy in 1852.

In parallel with the study of the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, Russian hydrographers actively explored the coasts of the Arctic Ocean, thus contributing to the finalization of geographical ideas about the polar regions of Eurasia and laying the foundations for the subsequent development of the Northern Sea Route. Thus, most of the coasts and islands of the Barents and Kara Seas were described and mapped in the 20-30s. XIX century expeditions of F.P. Litke, P.K. Pakhtusov, K.M. Baer and A.K. Tsivolka, who laid the foundations for the physical-geographical study of these seas and the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. To solve the problem of developing transport links between European Pomerania, expeditions were equipped for a hydrographic inventory of the coast from Kanin Nos to the mouth of the Ob River, the most effective of which were the Pechora expedition of I. N. Ivanov (1824) and the inventory of I. N. Ivanov and I. A. Berezhnykh (1826-1828). The maps they compiled had a solid astronomical and geodetic basis. Research of sea coasts and islands in northern Siberia at the beginning of the 19th century. were largely stimulated by the discoveries by Russian industrialists of islands in the Novosibirsk archipelago, as well as the search for mysterious northern lands (“Sannikov Land”), islands north of the mouth of the Kolyma (“Andreev Land”), etc. In 1808-1810. During the expedition led by M. M. Gedenshtrom and P. Pshenitsyn, which explored the islands of New Siberia, Faddeevsky, Kotelny and the strait between the latter, a map of the Novosibirsk archipelago as a whole, as well as the mainland sea coasts between the mouths of the Yana and Kolyma rivers, was created for the first time. For the first time, a detailed geographical description of the islands has been completed. In the 20s the Yanskaya (1820-1824) expedition under the leadership of P.F. Anzhu and the Kolyma expedition (1821-1824) under the leadership of F.P. Wrangel were sent to the same areas. These expeditions carried out the work program of M. M. Gedenstrom’s expedition on an expanded scale. They were supposed to survey the coastline from the Lena River to the Bering Strait. The main merit of the expedition was the compilation of a more accurate map of the entire continental coast of the Arctic Ocean from the Olenyok River to Kolyuchinskaya Bay, as well as maps of the group of Novosibirsk, Lyakhovsky and Bear Islands. In the eastern part of the Wrangel map, according to local residents, an island was marked with the inscription “Mountains can be seen from Cape Yakan in the summer.” This island was also depicted on maps in the atlases of I. F. Krusenstern (1826) and G. A. Sarychev (1826). In 1867 it was discovered by the American navigator T. Long and in commemoration of the merits of the remarkable Russian polar explorer was named after Wrangel. The results of the expeditions of P. F. Anjou and F. P. Wrangel were summarized in 26 handwritten maps and plans, as well as in scientific reports and works.

The research carried out in the middle of the 19th century had not only scientific, but also enormous geopolitical significance for Russia. G.I. Nevelsky and his followers intensive marine expeditionary research in Okhotsk and. Although the island position of Sakhalin was known to Russian cartographers from the very beginning of the 18th century, which was reflected in their works, the problem of accessibility of the Amur mouth for sea vessels from the south and north was finally and positively resolved only by G. I. Nevelsky. This discovery decisively changed the attitude of the Russian authorities towards the Amur and Primorye regions, showing the enormous potential capabilities of these rich areas, provided, as the research of G.I. Nevelskoy proved, with end-to-end water communications leading to the Pacific Ocean. These studies themselves were carried out by travelers, sometimes at their own peril and risk, in confrontation with official government circles. The remarkable expeditions of G.I. Nevelsky paved the way for the return of the Amur region to Russia under the terms of the Aigun Treaty with China (signed on May 28, 1858) and the annexation of Primorye to the Empire (under the terms of the Beijing Treaty between Russia and China, concluded on November 2 (14), 1860 .). The results of geographical research in the Amur and Primorye, as well as changes in borders in the Far East in accordance with the treaties between Russia and China, were cartographically declared on maps of the Amur and Primorye compiled and published as soon as possible.

Russian hydrographers in the 19th century. continued active work in the European seas. After the annexation of Crimea (1783) and the creation of the Russian navy in the Black Sea, detailed hydrographic surveys of the Azov and Black Seas began. Already in 1799, a navigational atlas was compiled by I.N. Billings to the northern coast, in 1807 - I.M. Budishchev’s atlas to the western part of the Black Sea, and in 1817 - “General map of the Black and Azov Seas”. In 1825-1836 under the leadership of E.P. Manganari, based on triangulation, a topographic survey of the entire northern and western sea was carried out, which made it possible to publish the “Atlas of the Black Sea” in 1841.

In the 19th century Intensified study of the Caspian Sea continued. In 1826, based on the materials of detailed hydrographic work of 1809-1817, carried out by the expedition of the Admiralty Boards under the leadership of A.E. Kolodkin, the “Complete Atlas of the Caspian Sea” was published, which fully met the requirements of shipping of that time.

In subsequent years, the atlas maps were refined by the expeditions of G. G. Basargin (1823-1825) on the west coast, N. N. Muravyov-Karsky (1819-1821), G. S. Karelin (1832, 1834, 1836) and others - on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. In 1847, I.I. Zherebtsov described the bay. In 1856, a new hydrographic expedition was sent to the Caspian Sea under the leadership of N.A. Ivashintsova, who carried out systematic surveying and description for 15 years, drawing up several plans and 26 maps that covered almost the entire coast of the Caspian Sea.

In the 19th century Intensive work continued to improve maps of the Baltic and White Seas. An outstanding achievement of Russian hydrography was the “Atlas of the Whole Baltic Sea...” compiled by G. A. Sarychev (1812). In 1834-1854. Based on the materials of the chronometric expedition of F. F. Schubert, maps were compiled and published for the entire Russian coast of the Baltic Sea.

Significant changes to the maps of the White Sea and the northern coast of the Kola Peninsula were made by the hydrographic works of F. P. Litke (1821-1824) and M. F. Reinecke (1826-1833). Based on the materials of the work of the Reinecke expedition, the “Atlas of the White Sea...” was published in 1833, the maps of which were used by sailors until the beginning of the 20th century, and the “Hydrographic Description of the Northern Coast of Russia,” which supplemented this atlas, can be considered as an example of a geographical description of the coasts. The Imperial Academy of Sciences awarded this work to M. F. Reinecke in 1851 with the full Demidov Prize.

Thematic mapping

Active development of basic (topographic and hydrographic) cartography in the 19th century. created the basis necessary for the development of special (thematic) mapping. Its intensive development dates back to the 19th and early 20th centuries.

In 1832, the Main Directorate of Communications published the Hydrographic Atlas of the Russian Empire. It included general maps at scales of 20 and 10 versts per inch, detailed maps at a scale of 2 versts per inch and plans at a scale of 100 fathoms per inch and larger. Hundreds of plans and maps were compiled, which contributed to increasing the cartographic knowledge of the territories along the routes of the corresponding roads.

Significant cartographic works in the 19th and early 20th centuries. carried out by the Ministry of State Property formed in 1837, in which in 1838 the Corps of Civil Topographers was established, which carried out mapping of poorly studied and unexplored lands.

An important achievement of Russian cartography was the “Marx Great World Desk Atlas” published in 1905 (2nd edition, 1909), which contained over 200 maps and an index of 130 thousand geographical names.

Mapping nature

Geological mapping

In the 19th century Intensive cartographic study of Russia's mineral resources and their exploitation continued, and special geognostic (geological) mapping was being developed. At the beginning of the 19th century. Many maps of mountain districts, plans of factories, salt and oil fields, gold mines, quarries, and mineral springs were created. The history of exploration and development of mineral resources in the Altai and Nerchinsk mountain districts is reflected in particular detail in the maps.

Numerous maps of mineral deposits, plans of land plots and forest holdings, factories, mines and mines were compiled. An example of a collection of valuable handwritten geological maps is the atlas “Map of Salt Mines”, compiled in the Mining Department. The collection's maps date mainly from the 20s and 30s. XIX century Many of the maps in this atlas are much broader in content than ordinary maps of salt mines, and are, in fact, early examples of geological (petrographic) maps. Thus, among the maps of G. Vansovich of 1825 there is a Petrographic map of the Bialystok region, Grodno and part of the Vilna province. The “Map of Pskov and part of the Novgorod province: with indications of rock-stone and salt springs discovered in 1824...” also has rich geological content.

An extremely rare example of an early map is the “Topographic Map of the Crimean Peninsula...” indicating the depth and quality of water in villages, compiled by A. N. Kozlovsky in 1842 on a cartographic basis of 1817. In addition, the map provides information about the areas of territories having different water supplies, as well as a table of the number of villages by county that need watering.

In 1840-1843. English geologist R. I. Murchison, together with A. A. Keyserling and N. I. Koksharov, conducted research that for the first time gave a scientific picture of the geological structure of European Russia.

In the 50s XIX century The first geological maps begin to be published in Russia. One of the earliest is “Geognostic map of the St. Petersburg province” (S. S. Kutorga, 1852). The results of intensive geological research were expressed in the “Geological Map of European Russia” (A.P. Karpinsky, 1893).

The main task of the Geological Committee was to create a 10-verst (1:420,000) geological map of European Russia, in connection with which a systematic study of the relief and geological structure of the territory began, in which such prominent geologists as I.V. Mushketov, A. P. Pavlov and others. By 1917, only 20 sheets of this map were published out of the planned 170. Since the 1870s. Geological mapping of some areas of Asian Russia began.

In 1895, the “Atlas of Terrestrial Magnetism” was published, compiled by A. A. Tillo.

Forest mapping

One of the earliest handwritten maps of forests is “Map for viewing the state of forests and the timber industry in [European] Russia,” compiled in 1840-1841, as established, by M. A. Tsvetkov. The Ministry of State Property carried out major work on mapping state forests, the forest industry and forest-consuming industries, as well as improving forest accounting and forest cartography. Materials for it were collected through requests through local departments of state property, as well as other departments. Two maps were drawn up in their final form in 1842; the first of them is a map of forests, the other was one of the early examples of soil-climatic maps, which indicated climatic bands and dominant soils in European Russia. A soil-climate map has not yet been discovered.

Work to compile a map of forests in European Russia revealed the unsatisfactory state of organization and mapping and prompted the Scientific Committee of the Ministry of State Property to create a special commission to improve forest mapping and forest accounting. As a result of the work of this commission, detailed instructions and symbols for drawing up forest plans and maps were created, approved by Tsar Nicholas I. The Ministry of State Property paid special attention to the organization of work on the study and mapping of state-owned lands in Siberia, which acquired a particularly wide scope after the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861, one of the consequences of which was the intensive development of the resettlement movement.

Soil mapping

In 1838, a systematic study of soils began in Russia. A large number of handwritten soil maps were compiled primarily from inquiries. A prominent economic geographer and climatologist, Academician K. S. Veselovsky, compiled and published the first consolidated “Soil Map of European Russia” in 1855, which shows eight soil types: chernozem, clay, sand, loam and sandy loam, silt, solonetzes, tundra , swamps. The works of K. S. Veselovsky on climatology and soils of Russia were the starting point for the works on soil cartography of the famous Russian geographer and soil scientist V. V. Dokuchaev, who proposed a truly scientific classification for soils based on the genetic principle, and introduced their comprehensive study taking into account factors soil formation. His book “Cartography of Russian Soils,” published by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Industry in 1879 as an explanatory text for the “Soil Map of European Russia,” laid the foundations of modern soil science and soil cartography. Since 1882, V.V. Dokuchaev and his followers (N.M. Sibirtsev, K.D. Glinka, S.S. Neustruev, L.I. Prasolov, etc.) conducted soil, and in fact complex physiographic studies in more than 20 provinces. One of the results of these works were soil maps of the provinces (on a 10-verst scale) and more detailed maps of individual counties. Under the leadership of V.V. Dokuchaev, N.M. Sibirtsev, G.I. Tanfilyev and A.R. Ferkhmin compiled and published the “Soil Map of European Russia” at a scale of 1:2,520,000 in 1901.

Socio-economic mapping

Farm mapping

The development of capitalism in industry and agriculture necessitated a more in-depth study of the national economy. For this purpose, in the middle of the 19th century. overview economic maps and atlases begin to be published. The first economic maps of individual provinces (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Yaroslavl, etc.) are being created. The first economic map published in Russia was “Map of the industry of European Russia showing factories, factories and industries, administrative places for the manufacturing part, the main fairs, water and land communications, ports, lighthouses, customs houses, the main piers, quarantines, etc., 1842” .

A significant cartographic work is the “Economic-statistical atlas of European Russia from 16 maps,” compiled and published in 1851 by the Ministry of State Property, which went through four editions - 1851, 1852, 1857 and 1869. This was the first economic atlas in our country dedicated to agriculture. It included the first thematic maps (soil, climate, agricultural). The atlas and its text part make an attempt to summarize the main features and directions of development of agriculture in Russia in the 50s. XIX century

Of undoubted interest is the handwritten “Statistical Atlas” compiled by the Ministry of Internal Affairs under the leadership of N.A. Milyutin in 1850. The Atlas consists of 35 maps and cartograms reflecting a wide variety of socio-economic parameters. It was apparently compiled in parallel with the “Economic Statistical Atlas” of 1851 and provides a lot of new information in comparison with it.

A major achievement of domestic cartography was the publication in 1872 of the “Map of the most important sectors of productivity of European Russia” compiled by the Central Statistical Committee (about 1:2,500,000). The publication of this work was facilitated by the improvement in the organization of statistics in Russia, associated with the formation in 1863 of the Central Statistical Committee, headed by the famous Russian geographer, vice-chairman of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society P. P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky. Materials collected over the eight years of the existence of the Central Statistical Committee, as well as various sources from other departments, made it possible to create a map that comprehensively and reliably characterizes the economy of post-reform Russia. The map was an excellent reference tool and valuable material for scientific research. Distinguished by the completeness of its content, expressiveness and originality of mapping methods, it is a remarkable monument to the history of Russian cartography and a historical source that has not lost its significance to the present day.

The first capital atlas of industry was “Statistical Atlas of the Main Sectors of the Factory Industry of European Russia” by D. A. Timiryazev (1869-1873). At the same time, maps of the mining industry (Ural, Nerchinsk district, etc.), maps of the location of the sugar industry, agriculture, etc., transport and economic maps of cargo flows along railways and waterways were published.

One of the best works of Russian socio-economic cartography of the early 20th century. is the “Commercial and Industrial Map of European Russia” by V.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shan scale 1:1 680 000 (1911). This map presented a synthesis of the economic characteristics of many centers and regions.

It is worth mentioning one more outstanding cartographic work created by the Department of Agriculture of the Main Directorate of Agriculture and Land Management before the First World War. This is an atlas album “Agricultural Industry in Russia” (1914), representing a collection of statistical maps of agriculture. This album is interesting as an experience of a kind of “cartographic propaganda” of the potential opportunities of agriculture in Russia to attract new capital investments from abroad.

Population mapping

P.I. Keppen organized the systematic collection of statistical data on the number and ethnographic characteristics of the population of Russia. The result of P. I. Keppen’s work was the “Ethnographic Map of European Russia” on a scale of 75 versts per inch (1:3,150,000), which went through three editions (1851, 1853 and 1855). In 1875, a new large ethnographic map of European Russia was published on a scale of 60 versts per inch (1:2,520,000), compiled by the famous Russian ethnographer, Lieutenant General A.F. Rittikh. At the Paris International Geographical Exhibition the map received a 1st class medal. Ethnographic maps of the Caucasus region on a scale of 1:1,080,000 (A.F. Rittich, 1875), Asian Russia (M.I. Venyukov), the Kingdom of Poland (1871), Transcaucasia (1895), etc. were published.

Among other thematic cartographic works, one should name the first map of European Russia compiled by N. A. Milyutin (1851), “General Map of the Entire Russian Empire with the Degree of Population” by A. Rakint on a scale of 1:21,000,000 (1866), which included Alaska.

Comprehensive research and mapping

In 1850-1853. The police department released atlases of St. Petersburg (compiled by N.I. Tsylov) and Moscow (compiled by A. Khotev).

In 1897, G.I. Tanfilyev, a student of V.V. Dokuchaev, published a zoning of European Russia, which was first called physiographic. Tanfilyev’s scheme clearly reflected zonality, and also outlined some significant intrazonal differences in natural conditions.

In 1899, the world's first National Atlas of Finland, which was part of the Russian Empire, but had the status of an autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, was published. In 1910, the second edition of this atlas appeared.

The highest achievement of pre-revolutionary thematic cartography was the major “Atlas of Asian Russia”, published in 1914 by the Resettlement Administration, accompanied by an extensive and richly illustrated text in three volumes. The atlas reflects the economic situation and conditions for agricultural development of the territory for the needs of the Resettlement Administration. It is interesting to note that this publication for the first time included a detailed overview of the history of cartography in Asian Russia, written by a young naval officer, later a famous historian of cartography, L. S. Bagrov. The contents of the maps and the accompanying text of the atlas reflect the results of the great work of various organizations and individual Russian scientists. For the first time, the Atlas provides an extensive set of economic maps for Asian Russia. Its central section consists of maps on which, with backgrounds of different colors, the general picture of land ownership and land use is shown, which displays the results of ten years of activity of the Resettlement Administration in settling the resettled people.

There is a special map dedicated to the distribution of the population of Asian Russia by religion. Three maps are dedicated to cities, which show their population, budget growth and debt. Cartograms for agriculture show the share of different crops in field cultivation and the relative number of the main types of livestock. Mineral deposits are marked on a separate map. Special maps of the atlas are dedicated to communication routes, postal institutions and telegraph lines, which, of course, were of extreme importance for sparsely populated Asian Russia.

So, at the beginning of the First World War, Russia came with cartography that provided the needs of defense, national economy, science and education of the country, at a level that fully corresponded to its role as a great Eurasian power of its time. At the beginning of the First World War, the Russian Empire possessed vast territories, displayed, in particular, on the general map of the state published by the cartographic establishment of A. A. Ilyin in 1915.

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The main processes of changing the ATD network include an increase or decrease in the number of administrative units, consolidation (merging small units into larger ones) and disaggregation of the units themselves. These changes occur as a result of ATD reforms, the implementation of which is dictated by the current political needs of the state (changes in the political principles of managing the territory and its parts). For Russia, with its vast territory, the ATD grid and the principle of the ATD itself are one of the main foundations of its statehood.

This work analyzes the evolution of the ATD network of Russia in the period from 1708 (the first reforms of Peter I) to the present day at the level of a unit of the highest (first) level of the hierarchy (province, region, territory, republic). The period before 1917 is considered within the borders of the Russian Empire, and after - within the borders of the RSFSR.

The process of evolution of the administrative-territorial division (ATD) of Russia is divided into 13 stages. The material is illustrated with tables that, if possible, provide information about the size and population, and the dates of formation of each ATD unit.

First Peter's reform

Before it was carried out, the territory of Russia was divided into counties (former princely lands, appanages, orders, ranks, honors). Their number, according to V. Snegirev, in the 17th century. was 166, not counting many volosts - some of them were actually close in size to counties.

By decree of Peter I of December 18, 1708, the territory of the Russian Empire was divided into 8 huge provinces. Moscow included the territory of the present Moscow region, significant parts of the Vladimir, Ryazan, Tula, Kaluga, Ivanovo, and Kostroma regions. Ingermanland - the current regions of Leningrad, Novgorod, Pskov, Tver, the southern parts of Arkhangelsk, the west of the Vologda and Yaroslavl regions, part of what is now Karelia (this province was renamed St. Petersburg in 1710). Arkhangelsk - the current Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Murmansk regions, part of the Kostroma region, Karelia and Komi. The Kiev region included Little Russia, Sevsky and Belgorod categories, parts of the current Bryansk, Belgorod, Oryol, Kursk, Kaluga, and Tula regions. Smolensk covered the current Smolensk region, parts of the Bryansk, Kaluga, Tver, and Tula regions. Kazan - the entire Volga region, present-day Bashkiria, Volga-Vyatka, parts of the present-day Perm, Tambov, Penza, Kostroma, Ivanovo regions, as well as the north of Dagestan and Kalmykia. The Azov province included the eastern parts of the current Tula, Ryazan, Oryol, Kursk, Belgorod regions, the entire Voronezh, Tambov, Rostov regions, as well as parts of the Kharkov, Donetsk, Lugansk, Penza regions (the center was the city of Azov). The Siberian province (with its center in Tobolsk) covered all of Siberia, almost the entire Urals, parts of the present Kirov region. and the Komi Republic. The size of these provinces was enormous (Table 1).

Table 1 Provinces of the Russian Empire in 1708
Provinces	Area, thousand km 2	Number of households, 1710
Azovskaya
Arkhangelogorodskaya
Ingria
Kazanskaya
Kyiv
Moscow
Siberian
Smolenskaya
Total area of ​​the empire
Sources: Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron (1899, vol. 54, pp. 211-213); Miliukov (1905, p. 198).

The provinces were not divided into districts, but were made up of cities and adjacent lands, as well as ranks and orders. In 1710-1713 they were divided into shares (administrative-fiscal units), which were governed by the Landrats.

In 1713, the Riga Governorate was formed from the newly annexed lands in the north-west. In this regard, the Smolensk province was abolished, and its territory was divided between the Riga and Moscow provinces. In January 1714, a new Nizhny Novgorod province was separated from the northwestern parts of the huge Kazan province, and in 1717, a new Astrakhan province was formed from the southern part of the Kazan province (it included Simbirsk, Samara, Saratov, Tsaritsyn, Guryev, Terek region. ). As of 1714, the empire was divided into 9 provinces (Table 2). In the same 1717, the Nizhny Novgorod province was abolished, and its territory again became part of the Kazan province.

table 2 Provinces of the Russian Empire in 1714
Provinces	Number of taxable souls	Number of yards
Azovskaya
Arkhangelogorodskaya
Kazanskaya
Kyiv
Moscow
Nizhny Novgorod
St. Petersburg
Siberian
Total for the empire
Source: Milyukov (1905, p. 205).

Second Peter's reform

The second Peter's reform began to be implemented by decree of May 29, 1719. In accordance with it, shares were abolished, the provinces were divided into provinces, and the provinces into districts. The Nizhny Novgorod province was restored, and the Revel province was formed on the newly annexed lands in the Baltic states. Only two provinces (Astrakhan, Revel) were not divided into provinces. In the remaining 9 provinces, 47 provinces were established (Table 3).

Table 3 Provinces of the Russian Empire in 1719
Provinces	Number of provinces	Number of cities	Provinces
Azovskaya			Voronezh, Tambov, Shatsk,
			Yeletskaya, Bakhmutskaya
Arkhangelogorodskaya			Arkhangelskaya, Vologda,
			Ustyugskaya, Galitskaya
Astrakhan
Kazanskaya			Kazan, Sviyazhskaya, Penza,
			Ufa
Kyiv			Kyiv, Belgorodskaya, Sevskaya,
			Orlovskaya
Moscow			Moscow, Pereyaslav-Ryazan,
			Pereslav-Zalesskaya, Kaluzhskaya,
			Tula, Vladimirskaya,
			Yuryevo-Polskaya, Suzdal,
			Kostromskaya
Nizhny Novgorod			Nizhny Novgorod, Arzamas,
			Alatyrskaya
Revelskaya
			Rizhskaya, Smolenskaya
St. Petersburg			Petersburg, Vyborg, Narvskaya,
			Velikolutskaya, Novgorodskaya,
			Pskovskaya, Tverskaya, Yaroslavlskaya,
			Uglitskaya, Poshekhonskaya, Belozerskaya
Siberian			Vyatskaya, Sol-Kama, Tobolsk,
			Yenisei, Irkutsk
Total for the empire
Sources: Dehn (1902); Miliukov (1905).

In 1725, the Azov province was renamed Voronezh, and in 1726, the Smolensk province was again separated from the Riga and Moscow provinces.

Reform of 1727

Districts were eliminated, and the provinces themselves began to be divided not only into provinces, but also into counties. A total of 166 counties were restored. At the same time, new provinces were formed. From the Kyiv province, the Belgorod province was separated, which included the provinces of Belgorod, Oryol, Sevsk, as well as part of the Ukrainian line and 5 regiments of Sloboda Cossacks of the Kiev province (10 Little Russian regiments remained in the Kiev province itself). From the St. Petersburg province in 1727, the Novgorod province was separated from its 5 former provinces (). At the same time, part of the Yaroslavl and Uglitsky provinces of the St. Petersburg province went to the Moscow province. The St. Petersburg province itself was significantly reduced and now consisted of only 2 provinces (Petersburg, Vyborg), and the Narva province went to Estland.

In the same 1727, the Vyatka and Solikamsk provinces of the Siberian province were transferred to the Kazan province (in return, the Ufa province in 1728 was transferred to the Siberian province), and the Olonets lands were assigned to the Novgorod province.

At the end of 1727, the ATD of the Russian Empire had the following form (Table 4).

Table 4 Provinces of the Russian Empire in 1727
Provinces	Provinces
Arkhangelogorodskaya
Astrakhan	1 province
Belgorodskaya	Belgorodskaya, Sevskaya, Orlovskaya
Voronezh	Voronezhskaya, Yeletskaya, Tambovskaya, Shatskaya, Bakhmutskaya
Kazanskaya	Kazan, Vyatka, Solikamsk, Sviyazhsk, Penza, Ufa
Kyiv	1 province (12 regiments of Little Russia)
Moscow
Nizhny Novgorod
Novgorodskaya	Novgorodskaya, Pskovskaya, Velikolutskaya, Tverskaya, Belozerskaya
Revelskaya	1 province (Estonia)
	1 province (Livonia)
St. Petersburg	Petersburg, Vyborg
Smolenskaya	1 province
Siberian
Source: Gautier (1913, pp. 108-110).

In total, after the reform of 1727, there were 14 provinces and about 250 districts in the empire. After the reform, there was a long period when the ATD was relatively stable. Minor changes during this period include the following.

In 1737, the Simbirsk province was formed as part of the Kazan province. In 1744, the Vyborg Governorate was created from the Vyborg and Kexholm provinces of the St. Petersburg province and the newly annexed parts of Finland. In the same year, a new Orenburg province was formed (it included the Iset and Ufa provinces of the Siberian province and the Orenburg Commission * of the Astrakhan province). In 1745, there were 16 provinces in the empire (Table 5). At the same time, the Baltic provinces were divided into districts instead of provinces and districts.

Table 5 Provinces of the Russian Empire in 1745
Provinces	Provinces
Arkhangelogorodskaya	Arkhangelskaya, Vologda, Ustyug, Galitskaya
Astrakhan	1 province
Belgorodskaya	Belgorodskaya, Sevskaya, Oryol and the cities of Kharkov, Sumy, Akhtyrka, Izyum
Voronezh	Voronezh, Yeletsk, Tambov, Shatsk, Bakhmut and lands of the Don Cossacks
Vyborgskaya	From 3 counties
Kazanskaya	Kazan, Vyatka, Kungur, Sviyazhsk, Penza, Simbirsk
Kyiv
Moscow	Moscow, Yaroslavl, Uglitskaya, Kostroma, Suzdal, Yuryevskaya,
	Pereslav-Zalesskaya, Vladimirskaya, Pereyaslav-Ryazanskaya, Tula, Kaluga
Nizhny Novgorod	Nizhny Novgorod, Arzamas, Alatyr
Novgorodskaya	Novgorodskaya, Pskovskaya, Velikolutskaya, Tverskaya, Belozerskaya
Orenburgskaya	Orenburg, Stavropol, Ufa
Revelskaya	Districts of Harriensky, Viksky, Ervensky, Virlyandsky
	Districts of Riga, Wenden, Dorpat, Pernov and Ezel province
St. Petersburg	Districts of St. Petersburg, Shlisselburg, Koporsky, Yamburg
Siberian	Tobolsk, Yenisei, Irkutsk
Smolenskaya	1 province
Source: Arsenyev (1848, pp. 83-88).

With the coming to power of Catherine II, some changes in the ATD were made in the country, which mainly included the formation of new provinces on the newly annexed lands. In 1764, the Irkutsk province of the Siberian province was separated as an independent Irkutsk province. In October 1764, counties in many provinces were united. In the south, from the Novoserbsk settlement, the Novorossiysk province (center - Kremenchug) was established, and in the Left Bank Ukraine - Little Russia. And in 1765, from the southern part of the Belgorod and Voronezh provinces (regions of Slobozhanshchina), a new Sloboda-Ukrainian province was formed with its center in Kharkov. Thus, in 1764-1766. 4 new provinces appeared, and there were 20 of them. Information about their size and population is provided by K.I. Arsenyev (Table 6).

Table 6 Provinces of the Russian Empire in 1766
Provinces	Number of provinces	Population, thousand people	Dimensions in length, km	Dimensions in width, km
Arkhangelogorodskaya
Astrakhan
Belgorodskaya
Voronezh
Vyborgskaya
Irkutsk
Kazanskaya
Kyiv
Little Russian
Moscow
Nizhny Novgorod
Novgorodskaya
Novorossiysk
Orenburgskaya
Revelskaya
St. Petersburg
Siberian
Slobodsko-Ukrainian
Smolenskaya
Source: Arsenyev (1848, pp. 93-102).

After the first partition of Poland in 1772, 2 new provinces were created from the newly annexed lands in the Russian Empire - Mogilev and Pskov. The second included 2 old provinces of the Novgorod province (Pskov and Velikolutsk), as well as two new ones - Dvinsk (Polish Livonia) and Polotsk from the lands of the former Vitebsk Voivodeship. At the end of the same year, the Vitebsk province of the Mogilev province was annexed to the new Pskov province. Until 1776, the center of the new province was the city of Opochka.

In 1775, the Irkutsk province was divided into 3 provinces (Irkutsk, Udinsk, Yakutsk), and due to new lands acquired in the south according to the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi world, a new Azov province was formed, which included, in addition to the lands between the Dnieper and the Bug , Slavyanoserbia (Bakhmut province), Azov province (the cities of Azov and Taganrog) and the lands of the Don Army (military civil law was established on these latter). In the same year, the Zaporozhye Sich was liquidated, and its lands were annexed to the Novorossiysk province. Before the start of the next ATD reform in 1775, the Russian Empire was divided into the following provinces (Table 7).

Table 7 Provinces of the Russian Empire in October 1775
Provinces	Date of formation	Number of provinces	Provinces	Number of counties
Azovskaya	14.02.1775 (18.12.1708)		Azovskaya, Bakhmutskaya
Arkhangelogorodskaya			Arkhangelogorodskaya,
			Vologda, Ustyug,
			Galitskaya
Astrakhan
Belgorodskaya			Belgorodskaya, Sevskaya,
			Orlovskaya
Voronezh	1725 (18.12.1708)		Voronezhskaya, Yeletskaya,
			Tambovskaya, Shatskaya
Vyborgskaya			Kyumenegorskaya,
			Vyborgskaya,
			Kexholmskaya
Irkutsk			Irkutsk, Udinsk,
			Yakutskaya
Kazanskaya			Kazan, Vyatskaya,
			Permskaya, Sviyazhskaya,
			Penza, Simbirsk
Kyiv
Little Russian
Mogilevskaya			Mogilevskaya,
			Mstislavskaya,
			Orshanskaya, Rogachevskaya
Moscow			Moscow, Yaroslavl,
			Uglitskaya, Yuryevskaya,
			Kostromskaya,
			Pereslav-Zalesskaya,
			Vladimirskaya,
			Suzdal, Tula,
			Kaluzhskaya,
			Pereyaslav-Ryazanskaya
Nizhny Novgorod	01. 1714-1717, 29.05.1719		Nizhegorodskaya,
			Alatyrskaya, Arzamasskaya
Novgorodskaya			Novgorodskaya, Tverskaya,
			Belozerskaya, Olonetskaya
Novorossiysk			Kremenchugskaya,
			Ekaterininskaya,
			Elisavetgradskaya
Orenburgskaya			Orenburg, Ufa,
			Isetskaya
Pskovskaya			Pskovskaya, Velikolutskaya,
			Dvinskaya, Polotsk,
			Vitebsk
Revelskaya
			Rizhskaya, Ezelskaya
St. Petersburg
Siberian			Tobolsk, Yenisei
Slobodsko-Ukrainian
Smolenskaya	18.12.1708-1713,1726

Thus, the territory of the empire was divided into 23 provinces, 62 provinces and 276 districts, excluding the Novorossiysk province, the number of districts in which is unknown.

Catherine's reform
(disaggregation of administrative-territorial division cells)

On November 7, 1775, Catherine II signed the law “Institutions for the management of provinces,” according to which the size of provinces was reduced, their number was doubled, provinces were eliminated (in a number of provinces regions were allocated within them) and the division of counties was changed. On average, 300-400 thousand people lived in the province, 20-30 thousand people lived in the district. The process of replacing old provinces with new ones, which began to be called “vicerarchates,” lasted for 10 years (1775-1785). During this period, 40 provinces and 2 regions were formed with the rights of a province, and 483 districts were allocated to them. The dynamics of the transformation and disaggregation of old provinces into new ones was uneven: in 1780 and 1781. 7 provinces appeared, in other years - from 1 to 5.

The process of forming new provinces began (within the modern borders of Russia) with two central ones - Smolensk and Tver. The new Smolensk governorship in 1775 included the old Smolensk province, the western parts of the Moscow province and the Bryansk district of the Belgorod province, and the Tver governorate was made up of the Tver province and the Vyshnevolotsk district of the Novgorod province, Bezhetsky and Kashin districts of the Moscow province.

In 1776, the Pskov province (from the Pskov and Velikolutsk provinces of the old Pskov province and the Porkhov and Gdov districts of the Novgorod province), the Novgorod governorship (from parts of the old Novgorod province, it was divided into 2 regions - Novgorod and Olonetsk), and the Kaluga governorship ( from the southwestern districts of the Moscow province and the Bryansk district of the Belgorod province).

In 1777, Polotsk (from parts of the old Pskov province), Mogilev, Yaroslavl (separated from the Moscow province and parts of Novgorod, divided into two regions - Yaroslavl and Uglitsk), and Tula governorates (from parts of the Moscow province) were established.

In 1778, the governorships of Ryazan (from parts of the old Moscow province), Volodimir (Vladimir province; from parts of the Moscow province), Kostroma (from parts of the Moscow, Arkhangelsk, Nizhny Novgorod provinces; was divided into Kostroma and Unzhenskaya regions), Oryol (from parts Voronezh and Belgorod provinces).

In 1779, the Kursk province, Nizhny Novgorod, Tambov and Voronezh governorships and the Kolyvan region were established. At the same time, the old Belgorod province was liquidated, which was divided between the Kursk province and the Voronezh governorship. The Kursk province included the districts of the liquidated Belgorod province and the districts of the Sloboda-Ukrainian and Voronezh provinces. The neighboring Voronezh governorship was made up of the old Voronezh province and parts of the liquidated Belgorod province, as well as the Ostrogozh province of the Sloboda-Ukrainian province. The Tambov governorship was established at the expense of the southern parts of the Ryazan (mainly Elatom district) and the northern parts of the Voronezh governorship. The Nizhny Novgorod governorship included the old Nizhny Novgorod province, as well as parts of the Ryazan and Volodymyr (Vladimir) governorships, and part of the Kazan province. From the southern regions of the Siberian province (Kuznetsk and Tomsk districts) an independent Kolyvan region was separated with its center in the Berdsk fort (since 1783 - the city of Kolyvan).

In 1780, 7 new governorships and provinces were organized. In January of this year, the old St. Petersburg province was reorganized, which remained a province with 7 districts. From the old Arkhangelsk province, a new Vologda governorate was established, to which the Kargopol district of the Novgorod governorship and part of the Kologrivsky district of the Kostroma governorship were annexed. This new governorship was divided into two regions - Vologda and Arkhangelsk. In the spring of 1780, the old Sloboda-Ukrainian province was transformed into the Kharkov governorate, and parts of the abolished Belgorod province were included in its composition. Following this, a new Vyatka governorate was allocated from the northern parts of the Kazan and Orenburg provinces (its center, the city of Khlynov, was renamed Vyatka in this regard). And from the southern districts of the Kazan province new Simbirsk and Penza governorships were allocated. A new Saratov governorship was formed from the northern part of the Astrakhan province.

In 1781, an independent Perm governorate was allocated from the Tyumen province of the Siberian province with the division of its territory into 2 regions - Perm and Yekaterinburg. In the fall of 1781, the Little Russian province was abolished, which was divided into the Novgorod-Seversk and Chernigov governorships, and part of it merged with the old Kyiv governorate into the Kiev governorship. At the same time, the remnants of the old Kazan province (minus the Simbirsk, Penza and Vyatka governorships) were transformed into the new Kazan governorship. In 1781, the Olonets region and Novoladozhsky district were transferred from the Novgorod governorship to the St. Petersburg province, and the Gdov and Luga districts were transferred from the Pskov governorship. The St. Petersburg province was divided into two regions - St. Petersburg and Olonets. In October 1781, a new Moscow province was established from the fragments of the former Moscow province. At the very end of the year, the Orenburg province was transformed into the Ufa governorship with the addition of the Chelyabinsk district of the Perm governorship. This new governorship (with its center in Ufa) was divided into 2 regions - Ufa and Orenburg.

In 1782, the Siberian province was abolished, in its place a new Tobolsk governorship was established with two regions - Tobolsk and Tomsk. At the end of the same year, Kolyvan region. was transformed into the Kolyvan governorship. The following year, 1783, in Siberia, instead of the former Irkutsk province, the Irkutsk governorship was organized with the division of its territory into 4 regions (Irkutsk, Nerchinsk, Okhotsk, Yakutsk).

At the beginning of 1783, two southern provinces (Azov and Novorossiysk) were abolished, from which the new Ekaterinoslav governorate (with its center in Kremenchug) was formed. In the summer of the same year, the Revel Governorate was transformed into the Revel Governorate, the Riga Governorate - into the Riga Governorate, and the Vyborg Governorate - into the Vyborg Governorate (without changing the territory). In February 1784, from the southern lands newly annexed in 1783 (Crimea, Taman, Kuban side), the Tauride region was formed with the rights of governorship. In March 1784, the Vologda governorship was divided into two independent governorships - Arkhangelsk and the smaller Vologda region (it was divided into 2 regions - Vologda and Veliky Ustyug). In May of the same year, on the basis of the Olonets province of the St. Petersburg province, the Olonets governorship with its center in Petrozavodsk was allocated as an independent one.

Finally, the last step of the Catherine’s reform of the ATD was the transformation in 1785 of the Astrakhan province into the Caucasian governorship with the transfer of its center from Astrakhan to the newly created center of Ekaterinograd at the confluence of the Malka and the Terek (in 1790, due to its lack of infrastructure, the center had to be returned back to Astrakhan ). The Kuban side was included in the Caucasian governorship, and its territory was divided into two regions - Astrakhan and Caucasus.

The new division of the territory of the empire (Catherine's reform of 1775-1785) was completed, and it began to be divided into 38 governorships, 3 provinces (St. Petersburg, Moscow and Pskov) and 1 region with the rights of governorship (Tauride). According to Arsenyev, the Russian Empire at the end of 1785 had the following provinces (Table 8).

Table 8 Provinces of the Russian Empire in 1785
Viceroyalties, provinces, regions	Date of formation	Population, souls
Arkhangelskoe
Vladimirskoye
Vologda
Voronezhskoe
Vyborgskoye
Ekaterinoslavskoe
Irkutsk
Caucasian
Kazanskoe
Kaluzhskoe
Kyiv
Kolyvanskoe
Kostromskoe
Mogilevskoe
Moscow province
Nizhny Novgorod
Novgorodskoe
Novgorod-Severskoye
Olonetsky
Orlovskoe
Penza
Perm
Polotsk
Pskov province
Revelskoe
Ryazanskoe
St. Petersburg province
Saratovskoe
Simbirskoe
Smolensk
Tauride region
Tambovskoe
Tverskoye
Tobolsk
Tula
Ufa
Kharkovskoe
Chernigovskoe
Yaroslavskoe
Dwellings of the Don Cossacks
Source: Arsenyev (1848, pp. 117-129), with corrections by the author.

The size and boundaries of most governorships in European Russia, formed in 1775-1785, practically did not change until the 20s of the 20th century, except for the short period of reforms of the ATD under Paul I.

With Russia's acquisition of new lands in the south and west in the early 90s of the 18th century. new governorships were formed: in 1793 - Minsk, Izyaslav (Volyn), Bratslav (Podolia); in 1795 - Voznesensk (southwest of New Russia) and Courland, and the Izyaslav governorate was divided into two new ones - Volyn and Podolsk; in 1796 - Vilna and Slonim.

As a result, by the end of the reign of Catherine II, Russia was divided into 50 governorships and provinces and 1 region (total - 51 top-level ATD units).

Pavlovsk reform (enlargement)

With the accession of Paul I to the throne, a temporary consolidation of the previously created governorships was carried out, which were officially renamed into provinces. At the same time, by decree of December 12, 1796, the provinces of Olonetsk, Kolyvan, Bratslav, Chernigov, Novgorod-Seversk, Voznesensk, Ekaterinoslav, Tauride region, Saratov, Polotsk, Mogilev, Vilna and Slonim regions were abolished (that is, 13 provinces). In addition, a new division of provinces into districts was established, the number of districts was reduced, and some district towns were transferred to provincial ones.

Olonets province was divided between Arkhangelsk and Novgorod, Kolyvan - between Tobolsk and Irkutsk, Saratov - between Penza and Astrakhan, Bratslav - between Podolsk and Kyiv.

Abolished Voznesensk, Ekaterinoslav provinces and Tauride region. were united into the huge Novorossiysk province (its center Yekaterinoslav was renamed Novorossiysk).

The abolished Chernigov and Novgorod-Seversk provinces were united into one Little Russian province, the former Polotsk and Mogilev provinces into one Belarusian province (center - Vitebsk), Vilna and Slonim into one Lithuanian province (center - Vilna).

Several provinces were renamed and enlarged: Kharkov began to be called Slobodsko-Ukrainian (restored to the borders of 1780), Caucasian - again Astrakhan, Ufa - Orenburg (the center was transferred from Ufa to Orenburg). The Riga province began to be called Livland, Revel - Estland.

In March 1797, the Penza province was renamed Saratov, and its center was transferred from Penza to Saratov. In October of the same year, most of the former Penza province was divided between the neighboring Tambov, Simbirsk, and Nizhny Novgorod provinces. In July 1797, the Kyiv province was enlarged. Paul I canceled all the changes made by Potemkin to the management of the Don army.

During the Pavlovian reform, the number of provinces decreased from 51 to 42, and counties were also enlarged. The main idea of ​​the reform of Paul I was the consolidation of provinces (Table 9).

Restoration of Catherine's provinces and the formation of new provinces in the 19th century.

Table 9 Provinces of the Russian Empire in 1800
Provinces	Date of formation
Arkhangelskaya
Astrakhan
Belarusian
Vladimirskaya
Vologda
Volynskaya
Voronezh
Vyborgskaya
Irkutsk
Kazanskaya
Kaluzhskaya
Kyiv
Kostromskaya
Kurlyandskaya
Lithuanian
Livlyandskaya
Little Russian
Moscow
Nizhny Novgorod
Novgorodskaya
Novorossiysk
Orenburgskaya
Orlovskaya
Perm
Podolskaya
Pskovskaya
Ryazan
St. Petersburg
Saratovskaya
Simbirskaya
Slobodsko-Ukrainian
Smolenskaya
Tambovskaya
Tverskaya
Tobolskaya
Tula
Estonian
Yaroslavskaya
Dwellings of the Don Cossacks

With the accession of Alexander I to the throne in 1801, the previous grid of provinces was restored, but a number of new Pavlovsk provinces remained. By decree of September 9, 1801, 5 provinces abolished by Paul were restored within the old borders before 1796, including Olonetsk and Penza; The Lithuanian province was abolished and divided into Vilna and Grodno (formerly Slonim). Included in the empire, Georgia received the status of a province.

In January 1802, the Little Russian province created by Paul was abolished, which was divided into the former Chernigov and new Poltava (coinciding in many ways with the Novgorod-Seversk province liquidated in 1796). In March 1802, the Belarusian province was liquidated, which split into the Mogilev and Vitebsk provinces. At the same time, the center of the Orenburg province from Orenburg was transferred again to Ufa. In October 1802, another Pavlovsk province, Novorossiysk, was cashed out. Its territory was divided between three provinces - Nikolaev (in 1803 its center from Nikolaev was transferred to Kherson and the name of the province changed to Kherson), Ekaterinoslav and Tauride. At the end of 1802, the Vyborg province was renamed Finland.

Thus, by the end of 1802, of Pavlov’s innovations of 1796, only the Sloboda-Ukrainian province remained “alive,” but only nominally, since 3 of its Slobozhansky districts (Bogucharsky, Ostrogozhsky, Starobelsky) were returned to the previous owner - the Voronezh province. True, the Kolyvan province was not restored. In fact, thanks to the reform of Alexander I, all of Paul's consolidation measures were reduced to zero. In addition, the number of counties was increased, that is, their average size was reduced.

In 1803, the Astrakhan province was divided into two independent ones - the Caucasus (center - Georgievsk) and Astrakhan. In 1822, the Caucasian province was transformed into the Caucasus region, and its center was transferred to Stavropol.

In 1803-1805 There have been minor changes in Siberia as well. From the Irkutsk province in 1803, the Kamchatka region was separated into an independent one (however, already in 1822 it was deprived of independence and again subordinated to Irkutsk under the name of the Kamchatka coastal administration), in 1805 - an independent Yakut region. In February 1804, instead of the Kolyvan province abolished by Pavel, a new Tomsk province was organized within approximately the same borders (separated from the Tobolsk province).

In 1808, the Bialystok region was formed from the annexed lands, in 1809 Finland was annexed with its ATD, in 1810 - the Tarnopol region (returned to Austria in 1815), in 1810 - the Imereti region, in 1811. The Finnish (formerly Vyborg) province was included in the Principality of Finland. In 1812, Bessarabia was annexed to Russia (in 1818 the Bessarabia region was organized here, transformed in 1873 into the Bessarabia province), in 1815, by the Congress of Vienna - the Kingdom of Poland (Kongressuvka).

In January 1822, according to the reform of M.M. Speransky, the entire territory of Siberia was divided into 2 governor generals - West Siberian (center - Omsk) and East Siberian (center - Irkutsk). The first of them included the provinces of Tobolsk and Tomsk, as well as the newly allocated Omsk region, and the second included the newly organized Yenisei (center - Krasnoyarsk) and the former Irkutsk provinces, as well as the Yakutsk region, the coastal departments of Okhotsk and Kamchatka, the border with China of Trinity Sava management. Speransky enacted the “Decree on the Siberian Kirghiz”, which introduced special management of the Kyrgyz-Kaisaks (Kazakhs) in the territory of what is now northern Kazakhstan with 2 districts subordinate to Omsk.

In 1825, Russia had 49 provinces (32 Russian, 13 special and 4 Siberian) and 7 regions (Bessarabian, Caucasian, Don troops, Bialystok, Imereti, Omsk and Yakutsk; the “special” provinces included 3 Baltic (Baltic) provinces , 8 western (Belarus and western Ukraine) and 2 Little Russian.

In 1835, the lands of the Don Army were divided into 7 civil districts. In the same year, the Sloboda-Ukrainian province was returned to its old Catherine name - Kharkov.

In 1838, the Omsk region was abolished, part of which, including Omsk and Petropavlovsk, was assigned to the Tobolsk province, and the rest, including Semipalatinsk and Ust-Kamenogorsk, to the Tomsk province. At the same time, Omsk became the center of border and military control of the Governor-General of Western Siberia.

In 1840, the Georgian-Imeretian province was created in the western part of Transcaucasia (center - Tiflis), and in the eastern part - the Caspian region (center - Shemakha; Azerbaijan and Dagestan). The latter included all of Dagestan, which was incorporated into Russia in parts in 1806-1813. In 1844, Dzharo-Belokan region. and the Ilisu Sultanate in Transcaucasia were united into the Dzharo-Belokansky district, which in 1859 was renamed Zagatala. In December 1846, Transcaucasia was divided into 4 new provinces: the Georgian-Imeretian province into Tiflis and Kutais, and the Caspian region. - to the Shemakha and Derbent provinces.

In 1842, a new Kovno province was separated from the northern parts of the Vilna province, and in 1843 the Bialystok region was liquidated, the territory of which was included in the Grodno province.

In May 1847, Caucasus region. was renamed the Stavropol province.

As of 1847, there were 55 provinces and 3 regions in the Russian Empire (Table 10).

Table 10 Provinces of the Russian Empire in 1846-1847.
Provinces, regions	Date of formation	Population, souls	Area, km2
Arkhangelskaya
Astrakhan
Bessarabian region
Vilenskaya
Vitebsk
Vladimirskaya
Vologda
Volynskaya
Voronezh
Grodno
Derbentskaya
Ekaterinoslavskaya
Yeniseiskaya
Irkutsk
Kazanskaya
Kaluzhskaya
Kyiv
Kovenskaya
Kostromskaya
Kurlyandskaya
Kutaisi
Livlyandskaya
Mogilevskaya
Moscow
Nizhny Novgorod
Novgorodskaya
Olonetskaya
Orenburgskaya
Orlovskaya
Penza
Perm
Podolskaya
Poltavskaya
Pskovskaya
Ryazan
St. Petersburg
Saratovskaya
Simbirskaya
Smolenskaya
Stavropolskaya
Tauride
Tambovskaya
Tverskaya
Tiflis
Tobolskaya
Tula
Kharkovskaya	1780 (1796, 1835)
Kherson	1803 (1795, 1802)
Chernigovskaya
Shemakha
Estonian
Yakut region
Yaroslavskaya
Land of the Don Army

We publish an excerpt from the textbook “History of Bashkortostan in the 20th century” (Ufa: BSPU Publishing House, 2007).

1. Territory and population of the region

At the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. the main part of the territory of the modern Republic of Bashkortostan was part of the Ufa province, the western, northern and northeastern borders of the Republic of Belarus almost exactly correspond to the pre-revolutionary administrative territorial division. South-eastern Bashkortostan was located within the Orenburg province.

Each province included several counties - Birsky, Belebeevsky, Zlatoustovsky, Menzelinsky, Ufa and Sterlitamaksky in Ufa, Orenburg, Orsky, Verkhneuralsky, Troitsky, Chelyabinsky in Orenburg. The lowest territorial unit, uniting several neighboring villages, was the volost, the number of which was constantly increasing. Thus, at the request of local peasants, in 1901 the Fedorovskaya volost was formed from 20 villages of the Nadezhdinskaya and Duvaneyskaya volosts of the Ufa district.

The authorities tried to ensure that the volosts included approximately the same number of residents (about 10 thousand people) and consisted of a single-ethnic population for the sake of convenience in administration. Thus, from the Bashkir Belokatayskaya volost of the Zlatoust district, the Novo-Petropavlovskaya volost emerged, which included two Russian villages. In total, by the autumn of 1917, there were 222 volosts in the Ufa province.

If the structures of the state apparatus (officials, courts, etc.) operated at the provincial and district levels, then the administration of the volost was built on an elective basis.

Almost the entire peasantry of the region belonged to rural societies (land communities), uniting families of one or several villages. For example, the population of the village. Zaitovo, Ermekeevskaya volost, Belebeevsky district, was part of two communities - the Bashkir patrimonial estates (180 households) and the Teptyar followers (100 households).

At the village (community) gathering, where only heads of families - householders could participate, a village headman, who led the entire life of the village, a clerk, a tax collector and other officials were elected for three years.

Representatives of all communities (one person from 10 or more households) gathered at a volost meeting, where they also elected a volost elder for three years (with a possible extension). For example, in 1904, seven representatives from Maloyaz and Idilbaevo, six from Arkaul, five from Murzalar-Mechetlino, etc. arrived at the meeting of the Murzalar volost of the Zlatoust district.

The peasants themselves established small secular (rural and volost) taxes, from which they paid the salaries of elders and clerks. All decisions at meetings were made by a majority of 2/3 votes. The state apparatus, represented by the zemstvo chief, who controlled several volosts, approved the decisions of the assemblies, in some cases interfering in peasant elections. Although at the meeting of the Chetyrmanovskaya volost of the Sterlitamak district on April 18, 1911, Kuzma Mamontov won with a majority of 120 votes, the Bashkir Gilman Gabitov was confirmed as the volost foreman (74 votes for him), since Mamontov was a member of the Molokans religious sect.

The peasantry had its own legal proceedings. The community itself kept order, for minor complaints it could punish (fine, send to prison for several days, and even completely send the hooligan to Siberia for settlement), complex cases were transferred to the volost court, which was elected at the volost assembly for three years. The Upper Kiginsky Volost Court (chairman A. Khabibullin, judges Z. Nasibullin, S. Gabaidullin and Y. Gallyamov) in 1912 made decisions on 97 criminal and 363 civil claims. At the community and volost levels, office work was carried out in national languages, documents sent to higher authorities were translated into Russian.

It remained a relatively sparsely populated region of the Russian Empire. According to the 1897 census, 1.6 million people lived in the Orenburg province, 2.1 million in the Ufa province. However, high natural growth and the influx of immigrants from the central provinces led to a very rapid increase in the population.

If in 1871 1.4 million people lived in the Ufa province, in the 1890s. the milestone of 2 million was passed, and by 1912 the number of inhabitants had already reached 3 million.

On January 1, 1916, there were 3.3 million people in the Ufa province. Approximately every 20 years there was an increase of one million, which led to a sharp increase in the density of the rural population. From 1897 to 1913 in Belebeevsky district the number of residents increased from 22 to 31 people per square mile, in Birsky from 23 to 30, Sterlitamak from 17 to 24. In total, in the Ufa province from 1870 to 1912. land area per person decreased from 7.2 to 3.5 dess.

This rapid pace was based on very high natural population growth, despite the enormous infant mortality rate (35–37% of children died before the age of five due to poor household hygiene, lack of medical care and difficult living conditions).

Average birth rate in the Ufa province in 1897–1911. remained at 50–53 per 1000 people, almost double the European figure.

Encouraged by all religions, having many children, the negative attitude of the people towards celibacy, the absence of divorces, and criminal prosecution of abortion led to frequent childbirth (information from the Ufa doctor S. Pashkevich: E. M., 32 years old, gave birth 7 times, K. M., 39 years old, gave birth 13 times, etc.) and a significant number of children in the family. According to the census of 1912–1913. in Belebeevsky district, the average Russian (rural) family included 6.3 people, S. 10: Ukrainian - 6.4, Bashkir - 5.4, Teptyar - 5.3, Chuvash - 5.9, Mordovian - 6.8 people.

Economic factors influenced the high population growth.

The abundance of children provided the peasant farm with the necessary workers, guaranteed the old age of the parents; the more boys there were in the family, the more land the farm in the community could lay claim to. European traditions of small children, birth control and planning were just beginning to take hold in cities (in Ufa the average increase for 1897–1911 was 11 people, in rural areas - 21 per 1000 people), as well as among peasant entrepreneurs who owned land as a private property. For example, in the village Saratovka (near Sterlitamak) number of inhabitants for 1896–1912. remained unchanged (800 and 799 people).

Agrarian overpopulation was rapidly growing in the region. By 1911, the average increase reached 20–23 people per 1000 inhabitants (in Sweden, Great Britain, Germany it was 11–14, in France about 2 people per 1000). The peasantry of the western districts complained about the lack of land due to the increased population density: “we are all burdened with families”, “having large families we are in dire need”, “we have a new generation of males growing up every year, but there is not enough land.”

At the same time, in the southern and eastern parts of Bashkortostan there were still significant areas of “free” land, where the flow of immigrants was directed. After the abolition of serfdom, a significant number of peasants from the southern Russian, Volga, Ukrainian and Belarusian provinces, as well as the Baltic states, arrived in the Southern Urals. Only in the second half of the 19th century. About 190 thousand people moved into the Ufa province, 125 thousand into the Orenburg province.

The settlers settled especially densely in the areas around the Samara-Zlatoust railway and the southern part of Sterlitamak district. To the north of Ufa, in the interfluve of the Ufa and Belaya rivers, immigrants from the Vyatka province settled, and the development of forest foothill volosts (Iglinskaya, Arkhangelskaya, etc.) began. By 1912, post-reform settlers made up 26% of the total rural population in Sterlitamak district, 24% in Ufa district, 13.5% in Belebeevsky district, and there were few of them in the west and north of the region. In general, migration was of secondary importance in demographic processes. According to the 1912–1913 census. immigrants made up about 13% of the rural residents of the Ufa province.

At the beginning of the twentieth century. Due to the rapid rise in land prices in the region, it was mainly wealthy new settlers who could buy plots.

On the other hand, the local land-poor peasantry began to move to Siberia. For 1896–1914 About 45 thousand people arrived in the Ufa province, and over 50 thousand went beyond the Urals. The vast majority of residents of Bashkortostan still lived in rural areas, the share of the agricultural population in the northwestern districts exceeded 90% of the total.

In the east, directly in the Ural mountains, there was an industrial area (the volosts of Zlatoust and Ufa districts, now the Chelyabinsk region), where about 140 thousand people lived in 1917, another 37 thousand lived in the city of Zlatoust (in 1916). There were mining districts (factories, mines, railway stations and other enterprises), and individual villages reached the size of small towns (Satka - 15.5 thousand people, Kusa - 14 thousand, Katav-Ivanovsk - 10 thousand, etc.) .

The center of the region was Ufa, which found itself at the intersection of the main transport routes - river and railway to Siberia; it grew rapidly. If in 1897 49 thousand people lived here, then in 1916 there were already 110 thousand. At the beginning of the twentieth century. The city was intensively built up, a continuous area of ​​high-rise brick buildings developed around Verkhne-Torgovaya Square, many “profitable” two-story wooden houses were being built, although private estates with gardens and services still predominated.

By the 1910s Almost the entire urban area was occupied by housing, and a system of Ufa suburbs was taking shape.

At the beginning of modern October Avenue, the Eastern Settlement appears (about 2 thousand people in 1917), populated by railway workers and other working people. The villages of Glumilino, Novikovki, the village at the Vidineevsky plant (now UZEMIK), Kirzhatsky Zaton, the Dema junction and others became the outskirts of the city.

The second largest settlement in Ufa district remained the Blagoveshchensk plant (9 thousand people in 1917), whose residents, after the closure of copper smelting, switched to handicrafts. The largest villages were Safarovo (3.4 thousand people), which gradually gave way to the role of the center of the district to neighboring Chishmami (where 2.7 thousand people lived in the village and railway stations), Udelnye Duvanei (3.3 thousand), Krasnaya Gorka (3 ,2 thousand) and Topornino (now Kushnarenkovo, 3 thousand people).

Almost the entire northern part of modern Bashkortostan, from the Kama to Ufimka, was occupied by the largest area, half covered with forests, Birsky district (the north of the Yanaul district of the Republic of Belarus was part of the Perm province). The authorities proposed several times to divide it, highlighting Bakalinsky district in the west, and another district in the east with a center in the village of Abyzovo (near the present Karaideli), which they thought to transform into the city of Suvorov in memory of “Pugachev’s furies.” But the projects remained on paper.

The center of the district was the small merchant-philistine town of Birsk (12.7 thousand inhabitants in 1916). The largest villages in 1917 were Buraevo (5.1 thousand people), Askin (3.5 thousand) and Novo-Troitskoye (3.3 thousand people).

The northeast of Bashkortostan (five districts of the Republic of Belarus) was part of the Zlatoust district, only a small part of the Belokatay district was in the Krasnoufimsky district of the Perm province. Among the numerous villages of the Aya and Yuryuzan valleys, Novo-Muslyumovo (3.1 thousand inhabitants in 1917), Upper Kigi (4.3 thousand), Duvan (6.3 thousand), Emashi (3.5 thousand) stood out. ), Mesyagutovo (3.7 thousand), Meteli (3.1 thousand), Mikhailovka (3.8 thousand), Nizhnye Kigi (3.5 thousand), Korlykhanovo (3.8 thousand), Nogushi ( 3.5 thousand), Old Belokatay (3.5 thousand), Tastuba (3.1 thousand) and Yaroslavka (5.1 thousand people).

The capital of the densely populated Belebey district was the quiet bureaucratic town of Belebey (6.9 thousand inhabitants in 1916), which was gradually pushed into the background by the rapidly developing railway stations Alsheevo (3.4 thousand people in 1917), Raevka (station and two villages, 3.8 thousand) etc. And Davlekanovo, with a population of 7.3 thousand people, uniting two villages and the village of Itkulovo, not only overtook Belebey, but even tried to obtain official city status.

Among the numerous villages and hamlets of Western Bashkortostan, the most populous in 1917 were also Slak (5.6 thousand people), Usen-Ivanovsky plant (4.3 thousand), Truntaishevo (4.2 thousand), Chuyunchi (3, 7 thousand), Ablaevo and Chekmagush (3.2 thousand people each), New Kargaly, Kucherbaevo and Tyuryushevo (all 3.1 thousand inhabitants each), Nigametullino (3 thousand).

Near the largest city of southern Bashkortostan - Sterlitamak (17.9 thousand people in 1916), Meleuz (6.4 thousand inhabitants in 1917) and Zirgan (6 thousand) actively developed, which actually turned into commercial and industrial settlements , serving the rich grain-producing region.

On the right bank of the Belaya, in the foothills of the Urals, there were settlements at former copper smelters: Voskresenskoye (5.6 thousand people), Bogoyavlenskoye (now Krasnousolsk, 4.9 thousand), Verkhotor (4.8 thousand), Arkhangelsk plant (4 thousand .), as well as Tabynsk (4.3 thousand) and Yangiskainovo (3.3 thousand). Of the left bank villages, the largest included Buzovyazy (3.7 thousand people), Karmaskaly (3.6 thousand), Fedorovka (3.5 thousand).

Menzelinsk (8.2 thousand inhabitants in 1916), the center of the district of the same name, found itself away from the trade routes, and took second place after Naberezhnye (the villages of Berezhnye and Mysovye) Chelnov (about 3 thousand people in 1912), one of the largest marinas in the entire Volga-Kama basin. The main villages of the Menzelinsky district were also Russian Aktash (4 thousand people) and Zainsk (3.2 thousand).

The very south of modern Bashkortostan was part of the Orenburg district, where the large village of Mrakovo stood out (4.5 thousand people in 1917); the mountainous regions and Trans-Urals in the southeast were in the Orsk district, the largest settlements: the former factory villages of Kananikolskoye (5.4 thousand people) and Preobrazhensk (now Zilair, 4 thousand inhabitants in 1917, a copper smelter outside S. 13: waters closed in 1909), as well as in the Verkhneuralsky district of the Orenburg province.

Several large factories were located here (Beloretsky - 18 thousand people, Tirlyansky - 9.8 thousand, Verkhny Avzyano-Petrovsky - 8.7 thousand, Uzyansky - 5.4 thousand, Kaginsky - 4.9 thousand, Nizhny Avzyano -Petrovsky - 4 thousand and the village of Lomovka - 3.9 thousand inhabitants in 1917), as well as the large villages of Akhunovo (4 thousand) and Uchaly (3.1 thousand people). The very north of the modern Uchalinsky district of the Republic of Belarus was part of the Troitsky district (the largest village of Voznesenskoye - 3.4 thousand).

The entire population of the Russian Empire was distributed along class lines.

According to the first All-Russian census of 1897, the absolute majority of residents of the Ufa province (95%, 2.1 million people) belonged to the peasant class (“persons of the rural state”), which also included Cossacks, Bashkirs and others. The urban classes (merchants, townspeople, honorary citizens) included 91.5 thousand people, hereditary and personal nobles, as well as officials - non-nobles with families, there were 15,822 people, clergy of all Christian denominations with families - 4,426 people (Muslim The clergy were considered ordinary villagers by class). In addition, 341 foreign nationals (Germany - 164, Austria-Hungary - 46, Belgium - 34, etc.) and others permanently resided in the region.

The estates were subdivided within into smaller groups or ranks.

Thus, the peasantry of Bashkortostan consisted of former landowners, mining workers, state workers, appanages, migrant owners, indigenous owners, henchmen, patrimonial peasants, free cultivators and others. Some class groups in the region were associated with the ethnic factor, such as the Bashkirs and Teptyars, who were often identified as separate classes in this way.

Each class group had certain rights and privileges; land relations of different classes of peasants were regulated by special legislation.

But in real life at the beginning of the twentieth century. class affiliation increasingly lost its role. A villager who had moved to the city long ago and worked at a factory was formally registered in some community; in general, the population of Russian cities largely consisted of yesterday’s peasants. Thus, in 1897, among the residents of Ufa, urban classes made up 40.4%, nobles and officials - 9.1%, clergy - 1.9%, foreign subjects and others - 2.1%, but peasants accounted for 46.5% . Even the “higher” classes (nobility, clergy, honorary citizens) actually retained very small advantages (entry into military service, etc.). The main thing was the financial situation.

Bashkiria was one of the most multinational regions of Russia. According to the census of 1912–1913. in the Ufa province (without cities) lived 806.5 thousand Russians, 56.9 thousand Ukrainians, 7.7 thousand Belarusians, and in total the rural Slavic population covered 32.7%. Turkic ethnic groups included 846.4 thousand Bashkirs, 262.7 thousand Teptyars, 151 thousand Mishars, 210.3 thousand Tatars, 79.3 thousand Chuvash, a total of 58.3%. Also living here were 43.6 thousand Mordovians, 90.5 thousand Mari, 24.6 thousand Udmurts, 4.2 thousand Latvians, 3.9 thousand Germans and other peoples. In the Orenburg province, the Russian population predominated - 59.7% in 1917, Bashkirs accounted for 23.3%, Ukrainians - 6.4%, etc.

Among the Turkic (Muslim) population of the region at the beginning of the twentieth century. There were contradictory interethnic processes caused by the complex class structure of the peasantry, the legacy of past eras, the competition of the Tatar and Bashkir ethnic groups, which had entered the phase of industrial society, for intermediate groups and, on the other hand, the close proximity of language, religion, and culture. The Muslim population of the region was divided into votchinniki and henchmen, who had different security of land.

Bashkirs-patrimonial people (95 thousand households in 1912–1913) owned a very large amount of land; in 1917 they owned 3.2 million dessiatines. (39.4% of all peasant lands, or 29.6% of the territory of the Ufa province).

They belonged to the most land-rich groups of the rural population of European Russia. Unlike all other peoples of the Ural-Volga region, the Bashkirs-patrimonial people were the full owners of their possessions (therefore, for example, the Stolypin decree of 1906 did not apply to them); until 1865, they generally belonged to privileged class groups, were listed in the irregular ( Cossack type) Bashkir-Meshcheryak army, did not pay taxes, but performed military service (could be replaced by duties or fees).

Previously, the Bashkirs were practically not subjected to forced Christianization; their elite received officer positions. The special rights of patrimonial owners and a large amount of land remained until 1917. For example, in the Alsheevskaya volost of the Belebeevsky district, on average, per one family of Bashkir patrimonial owners from the village. Idrisovo accounted for 37.8 dessiatinas, in Nizhne-Abdrakhmanovo - 48, Stary Syapash - 48.3 dessiatines. And the henchmen from the neighboring village. Nizhne-Avryuzovo had 11.6 dessiatinas. to the yard.

Patrimonial law served as the basis for the existence of the Bashkir ethnic group in the 19th – early 20th centuries, clearly separating it from other class groups of the Muslim population, despite frequent mixed marriages and cultural and linguistic proximity. Moreover, the advantages and privileges of the Bashkirs-patrimonial people aroused the desire of the rest of the Turkic-speaking Christians to “enroll” in the Bashkirs. The word “Bashkirs” therefore had a double meaning, ethnic and class.

The population of many Tatar (Mishar, Teptyar) villages of Bashkortostan also often called themselves Bashkirs.

For example, the majority of residents of the Mishar village of Slak (Belebeevsky district) during the 1917 census called themselves Bashkirs, the Mari of the village. Baygildino in 1872 called themselves “new-Bashkirs from Cheremis”, in 1863 the peasants of the village of Batrakovo (Novo-Badrakovo, both Birsk district) said about themselves this way: “the possessions of the former Meshcheryaks and Teptyars (and now Bashkirs)”, there are many similar examples.

The second main group of Muslims in Bashkortostan were the followers (140 thousand households, which owned 14.8% of the territory of the Ufa province), previously divided into military (who were in the Bashkir-Meshcheryak army) and civilians (who did not perform military service). A significant part of the disciples belonged to the Teptyar class group, which included Tatars, Mari, Udmurts and other peoples.

Prisoners were characterized by instability of self-names; very often, in different censuses, residents of the same village were called differently. For example, village Bolshoye Kazaklarovo (modern Dyurtyulinsky district) was founded in 1713 by service Tatars, in 1866 the villagers called themselves “Bashkirs from the Meshcheryaks”, in 1870 they were Meshcheryaks, in 1890 - Bashkirs, in 1897 - “Bashkirs ( Meshcheryaks) - henchmen", in 1917 - almost all Mishars.

The closest to the Bashkirs-patrimonial people were the Mishars, who previously were also in the position of an irregular semi-Cossack military class.

Ufa local historian and statistician N.A. Gurvich noted “that the merging of the Meshcheryaks with the Bashkirs into one ethnographic element, or perhaps even a tribe... is an ethnographically accomplished fact, against which any administrative or fiscal motives for separation are powerless.” The very widespread existence of the ethnonym “Bashkir” among the entire Turkic-speaking Muslim population of the Ufa province was reflected by the 1897 census, during which information about nationality was not collected, but when asked about their native language, 899,910 people named Bashkir (78.4% of all Muslims), 184,817 Tatar (16.1%), 39,955 Teptyar, 20,957 Meshcheryak, as well as 2,070 Turkmen and 521 Turkish (that is, Turkic) languages.

At the beginning of the twentieth century. interethnic processes among the Turkic-Muslims of Bashkortostan acquired a different direction. After the liquidation of the Bashkir army and the transfer of servicemen to general civilian status, by 1900 there followed the demarcation (establishment of legally precise borders) of lands between the villages of Bashkir patrimonial people and followers. All villages received a fixed allotment; the desire to be in the Bashkir class lost all meaning.

New generations of henchmen forgot about the times of military service. At the same time, there is a rapid formation of a bourgeois (industrial) society among the Tatars, whose elite entered into active competition for intermediate, mixed groups of the population under the slogan of a single Turkic-Muslim nation.

An era of growing national self-awareness is coming, an ethnic middle class is emerging (intelligentsia, entrepreneurs, clergy), great strides are taking place in public education, literacy is spreading, a stream of newspapers and books has poured into the village, the Tatar language is preserved as the main means of communication in the non-Russian environment.

As a result, the followers cease to identify themselves with the Bashkirs, which was reflected in the censuses of the early twentieth century. If in 1897 in the Ufa province 899.9 thousand people named their native language Bashkir, during the provincial census of 1912–1913. There were 846.4 thousand Bashkirs, then according to the 1917 census - approximately 764 thousand.

A comparison of the last two censuses shows a massive rejection of the ethnonym “Bashkir” in the northwestern part of Bashkortostan. In 1917, the residents of the village “crossed” from the Bashkirs to the Teptyars. Aybulyak, Staro-Kudashevo, Urakaevo and other Baiguzinskaya volosts, Tugaevo and Utyaganovo Buraevskaya, Novo-Yantuzovo, Staro-Karmanovo and other Moscow volosts (all Birsky district).

The Bashkir ethnic group, which did not have its own urban center, developed primarily as an agrarian one and had worse opportunities to influence its adherents, although there were also facts of the latter’s perception of the Bashkir self-name.

In the westernmost regions of Bashkortostan, where, due to population growth and scarcity of land, the real difference in land ownership and economic status of patrimonial and henchmen was erased, the processes of merging all groups of the Turkic peasantry occurred especially quickly. And vice versa, in the land-rich eastern Bashkortostan (Zlatoust, Sterlitamak districts of Ufa, the entire Orenburg province), the number of Bashkirs was stable.

No less complex phenomena were observed among the henchmen, who mainly consisted of the Turkic-speaking peasantry. The process of consolidation of the Tatar ethnic group was still far from complete. The efforts of the intelligentsia (Sh. Mardzhani and others) to introduce the ethnonym “Tatars” in the outback of Bashkortostan have so far yielded weak results. According to the 1917 census, the number of Tatars decreased in Birsky (from 17.3 to 13.1 thousand people) and Belebeevsky (47.4 and 36.7) districts. For example, in the Staro-Baltachevskaya volost, residents of the villages of Staro-Yanbaevo and Sultangulovo “switched” from the Tatars to the self-name Mishari.

Descendants of Tatar settlers at the beginning of the twentieth century. adhered to the previous “tribal” names.

A significant part of the Turkic-speaking followers used the class self-name “Teptyar” (the Mari and Udmurts almost stopped using it), the Mishar-Meshcheryaks returned to S. 17: their own name, although some of them remembered smaller, local ethnonyms - Tyumen, Alator (by city, from where they moved in ancient times, Temnikov and Alatyr), the neutral term “Muslims / Mohammedans” was also used.

The 1917 census recorded numerous cases of double or triple self-names, such as Teptyar-Tatars, Bashkir-Teptyar-Mohammedan, etc. Thus, in Birsk district in 1917 there were 208.6 thousand Bashkirs, 12.5 thousand Tatars, 14 ,8 thousand Muslims, 81.8 thousand Teptyars, 0.6 thousand Teptyar-Tatars, 63.9 thousand Mishars, a few newly baptized, Mishar-Teptyars and Mishar-Bashkirs. Complex interethnic processes among the Turkic-speaking population of the Southern Urals remained unfinished until the revolution, and the total number of the entire Bashkir people in 1917 can be determined at 1.2 million people.

The Russian population predominated in the center and northeast of Bashkiria (in the Ufa district according to the 1912–1913 census there were 51.2%, in Zlatoust - 61.1%), as well as in the Orenburg province and in all cities of the region. Around Ufa and in the mining district, an area of ​​continuous Russian settlement developed; in other parts they lived mixed with other peoples, or formed small purely Russian “enclaves” near county towns, in the Kama region, etc.

At the beginning of the twentieth century. The resettlement of people from the Vyatka and Perm provinces (north and center of Bashkortostan) continued to the region; natives of the central black earth and Volga provinces arrived by rail. However, due to the rapid rise in land prices, the influx of immigrants gradually decreased.

Ukrainians settled widely in the southern steppe part of Bashkiria, and new Belarusians settled in the foothill forest areas. The last large wave of Slavic resettlement to Bashkortostan took place in 1914–1916, during the First World War, when refugees from the front-line Kholm, Grodno and other provinces were resettled by the administration in the cities and villages of the region (in the Ufa province there were about 60 thousand of them. people, in Orenburg - 80 thousand, not counting prisoners of war). Among the refugees, Ukrainians and Belarusians predominated, many called themselves Russians, and a significant part of them remained to live in Bashkiria.

By the beginning of the twentieth century. The process of forming a Russian-speaking population has begun, the Russian language is becoming a means of interethnic communication, especially in industrial centers (cities, factories, etc.). Active acculturation and assimilation with the Russians was observed among the Slavic (Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles), Mordovian and Jewish populations; strong Russian influence affected the baptized Tatars, part of the Mari, and Baltic settlers. A significant number of male Muslim peasants could communicate in Russian at the minimum conversational level.

Groups of peoples of the Volga region (Chuvash, Mari, Udmurts), who have long lived in Bashkiria, maintained a stable pattern of settlement. The collapse of the Teptyar multi-ethnic class led, in particular, among the Mari of the Kama region to the approval of an ethnic self-name in the form of “Mari, Mari”, and not “Cheremis”.

The emerging intelligentsia, wealthy layers of peasants, the Orthodox national clergy (and paganism) acted as defenders of national identity, which led to a gradual decrease in the influence of Islam and the assimilation of these ethnic groups into the Tatar (Muslim) environment.

The center of the German diaspora in the region became the village of Davlekanovo, where various German enterprises were concentrated, and their farms and villages spread around.

In general, despite the relatively small number of inhabitants, German, Estonian, Latvian settlers (as well as Poles and Jews) constituted fairly cohesive, economically very developed groups.

Bashkortostan was distinguished by a complex religious composition of the population. According to the 1897 census, there were 1.1 million Muslims, or 49.9% of all residents of the Ufa province. In 1903, 400.1 thousand Mohammedans (22.8%) lived in the Orenburg province. The ratio of Muslim and Christian populations in the Southern Urals at the beginning of the twentieth century. remained practically unchanged, the proportion of Tatars and Bashkirs among urban residents gradually increased.

The largest Muslim communities were in Ufa (18.2% of the total in 1911), Sterlitamak (26.2), Belebey (13.3), Orenburg (26.9% in 1903), Orsk (32 ,4), Troitsk (37.3%). After freedom of religion was declared in 1905 in Belebeevsky, Menzelinsky and Sterlitamak districts, over 4.5 thousand people converted to Islam from among the former baptized Tatars.

At the head of the entire Muslim clergy of the region was the Orenburg Mohammedan Spiritual Assembly, located in Ufa.

Its activities were led by the mufti (life chairman) and qadis (assessors). At the beginning of the twentieth century. The post of mufti was held by Mukhamedyar Sultanov (1886–1915), who enjoyed great authority, and the St. Petersburg Akhun Muhammad-Safa Bayazitov (1915–1917), who was removed from his post by the Islamic community immediately after the February Revolution. The spiritual assembly resolved disputes among Muslims, authorized the construction of mosques, took examinations of applicants for religious and teaching positions, and actually controlled the appointment of imams.

All Muslims united in religious communities at mosques (parish, mahalla). In large villages there could be several parishes, for example in Karmaskaly (Sterlitamak district) in 1913 there were five mosques. In total, in the Ufa province in 1914 there were 2,311 mosques S. 19: (17 stone), in the Orenburg province in 1903 there were 531 wooden and 46 stone. Six mosques operated in Troitsk, seven in Orenburg, five in Ufa (one with two minaret).

Each Islamic parish (mahalla) elected a mullah (imam, khatib), who was at the same time a spiritual mentor, a judge, a teacher, and even a government official (imams filled out birth registers and kept primary civil records of the population). The rural community used its own funds to build mosques and support the clergy, most often providing them with plots of land. The staff of the Spiritual Assembly received government salaries.

The position of the “ruling” religion in the Russian Empire was maintained by the Orthodox Church, which had a strict hierarchical structure. The absolute majority of Russians, Mordvins, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Chuvash, part of the Tatars and other peoples adhered to Orthodoxy.

Each province had its own diocese, headed by a bishop.

At the beginning of the twentieth century. In the post of Bishop of Ufa and Menzelinsky were: Anthony (1900–1902), Clement (1902–1903), Christopher (1903–1908), Nathanael (1908–1912), Micah (1912–1913) and Andrey (1913–1920). In Ufa there was a governing body - a spiritual consistory, educational institutions where priests were trained.

At the head of a rural or urban church parish was a priest appointed by the bishop. The Orthodox clergy was a special class, receiving a government salary, as well as income from the flock for the performance of rituals. Each village temple was allocated land. The clergy performed state duties and kept primary records of the population (parish registers where births, marriages, and deaths of parishioners were recorded).

In total, in the Ufa province by 1914 there were 173 stone and 330 wooden Orthodox churches and cathedrals, not counting 26 house churches, 28 monastery churches and 265 chapels.

Local cults of the miraculous icons of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker took shape in Nikolo-Berezovka, the Mother of God of Tabynskaya and Bogorodskaya (near Ufa), religious processions were held (from Tabynsk to Orenburg, from Nikolo-Berezovka to Ufa, etc.). There were several small monasteries (in Ufa, the Assumption Monastery and the Blagoveshchensky Women's Monastery). The vast majority of Orthodox churches were built at the expense of parishioners or benefactors.

In addition to the “official” Orthodoxy, in the Southern Urals there were many Old Believer communities (Pomeranian, Belokrinitsky, Fedoseevsky consent, etc.), as well as a small number of co-religionists.

In 1912, there were about 40 thousand Old Believers in the Ufa province, and up to 35 thousand in the Orenburg province in 1909. There were eight Old Believer communities in Ufa. Many Orenburg and Ural Cossacks adhered to the precepts of the “old faith.” After 1905, Old Believers openly created communities, elected spiritual mentors, and built houses of prayer.

With the resettlement of Germans, Poles and other peoples to Bashkortostan, followers of the Roman Catholic Church appeared (1,288 people in the Ufa province according to the 1897 census; at the beginning of the 20th century, Ufa had its own church). Among the German colonists, the majority were supporters of Protestant teachings (4,482 Lutherans, 308 Mennonites in 1897, as well as Baptists, Reformed, etc.). In 1910, an Evangelical Lutheran kirk was opened in Ufa, and in 1912 a Christian Baptist prayer house was opened. Gradually, the influence of Protestant churches spreads to the Russian and Ukrainian populations.

Supporters of Judaism lived in the cities and villages of Bashkortostan (722 people in the Ufa province according to the 1897 census, the synagogue operated in Ufa since the end of the 19th century), and isolated followers of the Armenian-Gregorian and other Christian churches. In the north of Bashkortostan, a large Mari and Udmurt peasantry remained committed to traditional pagan cults.

At the beginning of the twentieth century. religion continued to play a decisive role in the life of the people.

Systems of religious holidays, fasts, and traditions were compulsorily followed by Christians, Muslims, and pagans. A contemporary testified about a rural holiday (Tabynsk, 1910): “The church is so packed with people that you can’t raise your hands; it is difficult to even get into the fence - the church is surrounded by such a dense ring of people. The stuffiness in it is fainting. And in this stuffiness, with the glow of candles, continuous prayer services are sung.”

Although many pagan remnants remained in the peasant culture. During the cholera epidemic, residents of Tabynsk (Sterlitamak district) plowed the village at night and drew a line enchanted for cholera around it.
On the other hand, in cities and industrial areas there was a certain decline in religiosity. Anti-church sentiments were recorded (robberies of churches, insults of priests), and drunkenness flourished. The formation of industrial society was accompanied by the spread of irreligious, atheistic views.

In general, interethnic and interfaith relations in Bashkiria at the beginning of the twentieth century. were distinguished by a high level of tolerance, respectful, good-neighborly perception of the customs and culture of other peoples. There is no information about any significant conflicts in the region on ethnic grounds.

On the contrary, every summer thousands of vacationers and patients from all over Russia came to be treated with kumis, settling in Bashkir (Tatar, etc.) villages along the railway. For example, in 1911, in the Bashkir village of Karayakupovo, Ufa district, kumysniks from Kazan, Moscow, Astrakhan, Irkutsk, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, Kharkov, Perm, Vyatka, Krasnoyarsk, St. Petersburg, Yalta, Riga and other places stayed. The residence of people of other faiths in Muslim villages did not cause any controversy and was perceived completely calmly. Often Russian kumysniks were allowed to billet by the Islamic clergy.

During the visit to the Bashkir Kama region in July 1910 of Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna (sister of the wife of Nicholas II, later canonized), Her Highness decided to inspect the surrounding villages. Along the way, in the Mari villages, the royal guest was greeted by peasants in national costumes. Moreover, Elizaveta Feodorovna visited the sacred grove of the pagans. The Mari peasants who were waiting for her “asked to have tea in the tent that had been set up and thereby honor their “ancient, clean Cheremis place.”

The participation of pagans in the solemn program of the meeting did not cause any surprise to contemporaries and was perceived as a normal phenomenon.

The basis of interethnic harmony was the closeness and uniformity of the socio-economic development of the peoples of the region, the existence of “ethnic” structures in the administrative division (community, volost) and economy (the same community, entrepreneurship), the full functioning of non-Russian languages ​​(up to the clerical work at the volost level) , basically free religious life, the development of national cultures (press, etc.), therefore, competition between the ethnic groups of Bashkiria at the beginning of the twentieth century. did not have.

In areas where a market economy is actively developing, a multi-ethnic character of settlement is emerging. So, in Davlekanovo in 1917 there lived 2810 Russians, 1352 Bashkirs, 1043 Germans, 390 Ukrainians, 386 Poles, 231 Tatars, 140 Jews, 113 Mordvins, 71 Chuvash, 57 Gypsies, 53 Belarusians, 42 Teptyars, 28 Latvians, 26 Stonians , 24 Czechs, 11 Swiss, 6 Dutch and five Mishars.

2. Socio-economic development

At the beginning of the twentieth century. The Southern Urals was one of the most economically developed regions of the Russian Empire. A large mining area was located here (metallurgical enterprises, gold mining, logging), a significant amount of commercial agricultural products were produced, and strategically important communication routes passed through.

The regional economy was based on the intersection of railway and river transport flows. The main highway, the Samara-Zlatoust Railway, ran through Ufa and Zlatoust, from which the great journey to Siberia began. At the beginning of the twentieth century. A number of new roads pass through the territory of Bashkortostan: Bakal - Berdyaush - Lysva in 1916, a branch from the Northern Western Railway to Katav-Ivanovsk (1906) and then the narrow-gauge railway Zaprudovka - Beloretsk (1914), along which ore and finished products were transported Vogau factories.

In 1914, traffic began to the Chishmy station along the Volga-Bugulminskaya railway (from Simbirsk), which opened a second exit to the center of the country through the Volga. Construction began along the very border of the Perm and Ufa provinces of a railway route from Kazan to Yekaterinburg via Sarapul (1912) - Yanaul - Krasnoufimsk, the roads Orenburg - Ufa - Kungur, Beloretsk - Magnitnaya were designed.

Railways played a revolutionary role in the economy, literally turning life upside down, stations turned into economic centers of the district. Horse-drawn transport, however, remained of great importance for local markets, transporting goods to railways and wharves. The main roads (highway type) were under the jurisdiction of local government (zemstvo).

Regular cargo and passenger steamship traffic was carried out along the Kama, Belaya and Ufa rivers. If the railways belonged to the treasury, then river transport was owned by relatively small companies. Upstream the river. Belaya ships sailed to Sterlitamak only during spring floods. Timber rafting was carried out on a significant scale. In total, before the First World War, up to 83 million poods were exported from the Ufa province. various cargoes (bread accounted for 25%, ores, metal - 34%, timber and forest products - 25%).

The main occupation of the absolute majority of the population of Bashkiria at the beginning of the twentieth century. Agriculture remained. The agrarian question was the most pressing problem for contemporaries. In 1917, out of the entire land fund of the Ufa province of 10.9 million dessiatines. peasants owned 75.3%, nobles - 6.3%, merchants and townspeople - 3.8%, the state - 7.9%, banks - 2.2%, companies - 2.8%, etc.

In the southeast of Bashkiria, the vast majority of land was also owned by peasants (Bashkirs). In total, in 1915, out of the total area of ​​the Orenburg province of 14.6 million dessiatines. allotment peasant lands occupied 5.5 million dessiatines. (38%), the Orenburg Cossack army owned 6.3 million (44%), there were 2.1 million dessiatines of privately owned lands (noble, peasant deeds of sale, etc.). (14.5%), the rest was kept by the Peasant Bank, treasury, appanage, etc.

Privileged, landowner-noble land ownership was steadily declining. If in 1905 13% of the territory of the Ufa province was concentrated in the hands of the nobility, then in 1917 - 6.3%. At a slower pace, but also merchant properties were being sold. In the western, purely agricultural districts (Belebeevsky, Birsky, Menzelinsky) the share of noble lands in 1917 was only 3–5%.

In many regions of Bashkiria, for example, in the northeast (agricultural zone of Zlatoust district), there have never been landowners at all.

In the mountains of the Southern Urals, where agriculture was not practiced, there were huge estates of mining owners. The largest landowners of the region were Prince K.E. Beloselsky-Belozersky (Katav-Yuryuzan district, about 241 thousand dessiatines) and the Pashkov family (103 thousand dessiatines in 1917 in the Sterlitamak district). Miner S.P. von Derviz owned 58.3 thousand dessiatines in the Verkhneuralsky district.

Despite the support of the state, the nobility had difficulty adapting to market relations, could not withstand competition, and mortgaged their estates (only in the Noble Bank, by January 1, 1916, about 1/3 of the entire noble land of the Ufa province was mortgaged). On many estates there was no farming at all, all the land was rented out, and in total, in medium and large estates (more than 100 dessiatines), about 60% of the landowners' crops were cultivated with their own draft animals and implements. There were few noble entrepreneurs.

Land was actively acquired by merchants and industrial companies.

Many bought forest plots in the foothills of the Urals. Simbirsk merchant V.A. Aratskov in Birsky district (modern Karaidelsky district) owned two forest estates of 53 thousand dessiatines, merchant I.A. Chizheva and her sons owned 6 estates (26 thousand dessiatines, also mostly forests).

In the south and west of the region, merchants created profitable agricultural enterprises where grain was grown, processed and sent to the market. In the Menzelinsky district, the Stakheev family owned 18 estates with a total area of ​​26 thousand dessiatines; in the Belebeevsky district, large “agricultural firms” were owned by the Samara merchants-flour millers Shikhobalovs and others.

In general, landownership did not play a significant role for Bashkortostan.

In Menzelinsky district, all groups of peasants owned 80% of the area, Birsky - 85%, Belebeevsky - 81%, etc. The extensive possessions of mining owners in the east had little influence on peasant farming.

Legally, all peasant lands were divided into allotment lands, which from time immemorial belonged to the villagers and were finally transferred to them after the abolition of serfdom, including the possessions of patrimonial lands and patrimonial lands, and deeds of sale (private property). In 1917, in the Ufa province, peasant allotment land ownership amounted to 5.87 million dessiatines, deeds of sale - 2.3 million, or 72 and 28%.

There were few merchantable lands in Orenburg Bashkiria. Since the most land-rich group of the population - the Bashkirs-patrimonial owners - had the right to sell their land to other peasants (directly or through the Peasant Bank), the share of privately owned lands at the beginning of the twentieth century. was constantly increasing. Only for 1912–1917. the Bashkirs of the Ufa province sold 97 thousand dessiatines.

For some large-land patrimonial communities, trading their lands provided significant profits. The Bashkirs of the village of Staro-Babichevo, Bishkain volost, Sterlitamak district, ceded 595 dessiatines to the Peasant Bank in March 1899. for 10,600.2 rubles, and one of the villagers, Ya. Tanchurin, received, for example, 210 rubles. 60 kopecks (a pound of wheat flour cost about a ruble).

Allotment lands were the property of the entire community; an individual family received arable land and hayfields for lifelong hereditary ownership without the right to sell. The land was divided on an egalitarian basis (according to revisionists or male souls), the community could partially or completely redistribute the land, although in almost 1/3 of the communities of the Ufa province (without the Menzelinsky district) redistributions were no longer carried out.

Each householder received land in several places, scattered in stripes.

For example, F.I. Lobov, a resident of the village of Novo-Timoshkino, Birsky district, got 39 stripes in three fields, and R. Gabdulgalimov from the village. Karatyaki Ufa district in 1909 had 16 plots in four fields. Arable land was mainly divided over 12 years, and hayfields were often divided annually. Each plot corresponded to a certain amount of taxes.

The peasants of Bashkiria, immigrants and old-timers, bought the missing land. The predominant purchase was either by the entire community or by a group of villagers forming a partnership. This land was distributed according to the amount of money contributed. Individual purchases were made less frequently. During the years of the Stolypin reform (since 1906), community members received the right to strengthen their plots as personal property, which was mainly used by residents of the southern steppe regions. In Sterlitamak district by 1917, 23% of owners with allotment land had strengthened the land, in Ufa - 17%, Belebeevsky - 16%, in the north of Bashkiria - 4-6%. The promoted farmsteads received little distribution.

The provision of land to the peasantry varied greatly among individual villages (communities) and families. Renting became widespread (from landowners, neighbors, and other villages). The bulk of the land was leased by Bashkirs-patrimonial owners (in 1912–1913, 443 thousand dessiatines out of 711 thousand of all lands leased by peasants), or approximately twice as much as the landowners, the treasury, the Peasant Bank, etc. combined .

Rental income also played a significant role for the Bashkirs (in Zlatoust district they rented out 16% of all their properties, Belebeevsky - 14%, Ufa - 13%). In the mountainous and forested part of Bashkiria, huge areas were rented by industrial companies. For example, in Orsky district, the South Ural Autonomous Okrug leased 110 thousand dessiatines from the Bashkirs. forests.

The level of agriculture in Bashkiria varied. Three-field crop rotation generally prevailed in the north-west of the region (Menzelinsky, Birsky, western Belebeevsky, Ufa districts), traditional crops predominated here: winter rye (41–48% of crops in 1917), oats (22–30) and buckwheat ( 8–12%). To the south, the area of ​​fallow land increased, unsystematic extensive arable farming (variegated fields) played a major role, and a highly commercial economy developed there.

Along the Samara-Zlatoust railway, the Sredne-Dyomsky district stood out (modern Alsheevsky, Davlekanovsky, etc.) with a predominance of commercial crops of spring wheat (57.5%), in the northeast the Mesyagutovsky district was formed (wheat - 36%, oats - 35, rye - 25%), supplying the surrounding mining factories with bread and fodder. In the foothill volosts of Zlatoust district, oats were mainly grown (49%). The southern and eastern trans-Ural steppe and forest-steppe “outskirts” of Bashkortostan was also a zone of commercial grain production (wheat - 48%, oats - 27, rye - 12%). Livestock farming was everywhere of a consumer nature.

Around Ufa, the peasantry gradually switched to suburban vegetable growing and pig farming, supplying products to city markets.

In addition to traditional grains (rye - 47%, oats - 22, buckwheat - 16%), potatoes (5-8% of crops) and clover were grown a lot. And the most “cultured” in Bashkortostan was considered the Simsko-Inzersky region (modern Iglinsky, Arkhangelsky, Ufa), where grass sowing (18%), potatoes (8%), advanced crop rotations, and dairy farming were used. Advanced agriculture was introduced by Latvian, Belarusian and other settlers.

“Indeed,” said a contemporary, “everyone who has visited this happy corner of the Ufa province is amazed at the contentment and prosperity of the Latvians.” From the railway stations east of Ufa (Chernikovka, Shaksha, Iglino, Tavtimanovo) in 1912, 140 thousand pounds of onions were sent, more than S. 26: 150 thousand pounds. cucumbers, 170 thousand poods. potatoes. From the Austrum colony, Parisian, Holstein and simple butter, pressed sour cream and cottage cheese were sold.

In the mountainous and forested part of Bashkiria (Nurimanovsky, Beloretsky districts of the Republic of Belarus and further to the south), small-scale livestock farming predominated. Semi-nomadic Bashkir cattle breeding has been preserved - the Upper Sakmara, Tamyano-Tangaurovsky, Kryazhevoy South Ural (upper reaches of the Inzer, etc.) regions. In the western foothills of the Urals (Aznaevskaya, Ilchik-Temirovskaya volosts of Sterlitamak district, modern Gafuriysky and neighboring regions of the Republic of Belarus) until 1917, there were traditions of ancient Bashkir arable farming with a predominance of millet crops (23.7% of the total area), as well as oats (23 .5%) and buckwheat (14.6%).

Average yields remained low, on average at the beginning of the twentieth century. In the Ufa province they collected 48 poods of rye, 44 poods of oats, and 39 poods of wheat per tithe.

Droughts were frequent, especially severe in 1901, 1906, 1911. The bulk of the peasants farmed in the old-fashioned way; even little fertilizer was used. A traveler in the spring of 1910 noted near Tabynsk: “The only thing that is in abundance is manure: it is not carried to the fields here, but dumped directly into the river, so that all the banks of the Belaya River near the villages are plumbs of manure.”

At the same time, at the beginning of the twentieth century. the village was intensively saturated with all kinds of factory equipment, which the local peasantry bought for 2 million rubles annually before the First World War. At the zemstvo warehouse in Ufa, for example, 13 types of plows, multi-row, disc, and broadcast seeders, three modifications of sheaf binders, two types of reapers, threshers, separators and much more were sold. From 1903 to 1908 the volume of sales of inventory in the zemstvo warehouses of Duvan and Mesyagutovo increased three times in cash and 13 times on credit.

At the beginning of the twentieth century. Bashkiria has become one of the largest grain-producing regions in Russia.

Crop area in 1912–1913 in the Ufa province amounted to 2.7 million dessiatines. peasants and 104.7 thousand dess. privately owned (landowners). Gross collections in 1913 from peasants reached 163.9 million poods, from landowners - 8.8 million. In the pre-war years, on average, up to 35 million poods were exported from the Ufa province. grain cargo. Compared to the end of the 19th century. in 1910–1912 the export of wheat flour increased by 148 times, millet by 56 times, buckwheat by 13, rye by 9, and wheat by six times. In total, rye and rye flour dominated in grain exports - 46%, oats - 18%, wheat and wheat flour - 17%, buckwheat and cereals - 11%, peas - 4%.

Grain and flour were sent by river transport (85% of oats, 74% of peas and rye flour, 50% of rye) and by railroad (87% of wheat exports, 92% of wheat flour, over 80% of millet and millet). Mainly S. 27: bread was shipped from the stations Davlekanovo (for 1911–1913, 8.1 million poods, or 30% of the total railway supply of grain), Raevka (3.7 million, 14%), Belebey-Aksakovo (2.8 million, 10.5%), Shingakul (2.2 million), over 1 million were sent from Aksenovo, Shafranovo, Chishmov, Ufa, Sulei.

The largest Belsk piers were considered Toporninskaya (3.5 million poods for 1908–1913, or 15% of all river output), Dyurtyuli (2.1 million), Birsk (2 million), Ufa (1.95 million .), on the Kama Nikolo-Beryozovka (3 million).

A special place was occupied by the Mysovo-Chelninskaya wharf, where grain from the surrounding provinces (Vyatskaya, Ufa, etc.) was accumulated, sending 6–8 million poods or more annually. At the same time, the mining region consumed large quantities of imported bread. On average, Zlatoust received up to 700 thousand poods by rail.

Along the rivers, almost all the grain from Bashkiria was sent to Rybinsk, the main distribution point, from where the goods arrived in St. Petersburg and the ports of the Baltic Sea (Revel, Riga, Libau, etc.). Immediately by rail from the Ufa province 3.8 million poods. grain cargoes were sent annually to Germany, mainly to Königsberg (2.9 million poods of Ufa grain for 1894–1912) and Danzig (0.8 million). In total, the share of grain exports reached 15 million poods; bran (133 thousand poods), meat (205 thousand), eggs and other products were also exported.

Horse-drawn transportation of grain remained of considerable importance (to factories from villages in the north-east of Bashkortostan, to the stations of the Tashkent railway in the Orenburg province).
The bulk of marketable (out-of-village) grain in Bashkiria was supplied by wealthy and kulak farms (49%), medium and small sowers (up to 10 dessiatines) supplied 43%. Landowners accounted for only about 8%.

The multi-structured nature of the economy influenced the social structure of the peasantry of Bashkortostan. In the north-west of the region, the villages were dominated by patriarchal, semi-subsistence farms, loosely connected with the market. Thus, in Birsky district, the patriarchal strata (2–10 dessiatines) were covered according to the 1912–1913 census. 62% of the rural population. The main task for them was to provide food for the family, connection with the market was largely forced (for the sake of paying taxes), almost everything necessary was produced within the household. The community and the support of the collective remained a prerequisite for existence.

The wealthy elite, the layer of rural entrepreneurs, was small (9.7% in Birsky district, less in many volosts) and its proportion at the beginning of the twentieth century. gradually declined. In the conditions of impending land shortage, deforestation, plowing of hayfields (in some communities, over 80% of the entire territory was arable land) due to rapid agrarian overpopulation, entrepreneurial elements were forced into the trade and usurious sphere.

On the other hand, the crisis of the traditional peasantry, in the absence of migration to the cities, led to the formation of a large group of paupers-semi-proletarians (farms that had up to 2 dessiatines of crops, in the Birsk district there were 22% of them, as well as 6% of households without crops), which already They couldn’t live on tiny plots of land, they made do with odd jobs, and became beggars. To intensify the economy, introduce machines and advanced agricultural technology, the communal village did not have the funds and the necessary cultural level, and social tension accumulated among the peasantry. The masses saw a way out in expanding land ownership at the expense of landowners, the state, etc.

In the south and northeast of Bashkiria at the beginning of the twentieth century. completely different processes were observed. In conditions of comparative abundance of land and developed commodity relations, an entrepreneurial, farmer-kulak economy quickly developed among both immigrants and the old-timer population. In the southern volosts of the Ufa province, the layer of entrepreneurial households covered up to 30%; they owned more than half of all sown areas, the bulk of the economic potential. There were many villages and even entire volosts, the population of which consisted almost entirely of farmers. The average business enterprise in Bashkiria was equipped with advanced technology; in the largest, individual rural work (sowing, harvesting, etc.) was almost completely mechanized.

The farming stratum developed primarily among Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Mordovians, but also within the Bashkir and Tatar populations.

In the south of the Ufa province alone in 1917, there were 11,024 farms with more than 15 dessiatinas of crops, including 4,580 Russian, 1,757 Ukrainian, 1,552 Bashkir, 836 Chuvash, 800 Mordovian, 471 Mishar, 381 Teptyar, 250 German, etc. Existence in the Southern Urals at the beginning of the twentieth century. numerous Muslim farming (about 19 thousand families according to the 1917 census, of which almost 10 thousand were Bashkirs) was a unique feature of Bashkortostan.

Some entrepreneurs created highly profitable large farms with hundreds of acres of crops, steam mills, and an abundance of machinery. The same successful agricultural firms belonged to merchants and individual nobles. Not far from Karmaskaly lay the estate of the Kharitonov nobles, where grass sowing was practiced, fodder root crops were grown, a lot of thoroughbred livestock were kept (Ardennes horses, Swiss cows, Yorkshire pigs), there was a 25-horsepower tractor, 14 seeders, two reapers, a steam thresher, etc., in Ufa was sent butter, two varieties of S. 29: cheese, milk, sour cream.

Ural at the beginning of the twentieth century. remained a major center of metallurgy.

The state-owned Zlatoust district included three defense enterprises, at the arms and steel foundry factories of Zlatoust, in Satka and Kus, shells, shrapnel, grenades and other military products were produced, the number of employees was over 12.2 thousand. The enterprises of the Simsk joint-stock company had a stable economic situation ( since 1913) of the Mining Plants Society, which included the Simsky (1.1 million poods) and (2.1 million poods) iron smelting plants, as well as the Minyarsky plant, where steel was smelted (1.3 million poods in 1913). ), produced finished products (1.9 million poods), with 5,070 employees.

Katav-Yuryuzan district of Prince K.E. Beloselsky-Belozersky was in a deplorable state. The Katav-Ivanovsky and Yuryuzansky plants have not operated since 1908; the Ust-Katavsky Carriage Plant (850 workers) was sold back in 1898 to the South Ural Metallurgical Society (controlled by Belgian capital; in 1916, 1973 freight cars and platforms, 84 passenger). It was only in connection with preparations for World War II that production was resumed at other factories. In this district there was a rich deposit of iron ore, where raw materials were mined for many enterprises.

Near the Bashkir village. Asylguzhino in the 1910s. The Porogi electro-metallurgical plant, advanced at that time, is being built.

In the mining zone of the Ufa province there were small enterprises (Zlokazov’s Nikolsky iron smelting plant, in 1913 it received 120 thousand poods, 168 workers), Tsyganov’s nail factory in Ust-Katav (60 people), etc., as well as charcoal burners’ furnaces (supplying wood coal), etc.

In 1913 (when 7.5 thousand poods of copper were smelted, 598 workers were employed), the last of the ancient copper smelters of the Ufa province, the Verkhotorsk heirs of the Pashkovs in the Sterlitamak district, closed.

At the factories of the Beloretsk district (Orenburg province) at the beginning of the twentieth century. switched to steel production (Beloretsky and Tirlyansky), the Uzyansky plant temporarily stopped working, and the Kaginsky plant was finally stopped after the fire of 1911. All factories in the Beloretsk district produced 1.2 million poods. cast iron In 1916, the owner of these enterprises, the trading house “Wogau and Co.,” sold shares to the International and other Russian banks.

The Komarovsky Iron Ore Deposits Society (mainly French capital) closed the small Lemezinsky iron smelting plant in 1903, production continued only at the Verkhny Avzyano-Petrovsky plant (in 1908, 439 thousand poods of pig iron were produced), then the S. 30: tannovlen, work was resumed in 1916. On the basis of the Zigazinsky-Komarovsky iron ore deposit in the Verkhneuralsky district, a small Zigazinsky plant operated by merchant M.V. Aseev (in 1915 - 677 thousand poods of cast iron). Nearby were the Inzersky and Lapyshtinsky plants (in the 1910s, 1–1.4 million poods of cast iron were smelted), which belonged to the Inzerovo JSC (main owner S.P. von Derviz).

In Trans-Ural Bashkiria, gold mining reached significant proportions.

Thus, the Rameev merchants rented almost the entire Tamyano-Tangaurovskaya Bashkir volost (Ismakaevsky, Kagarmanovsky, Rameevsky mines, etc.), large-scale development of placer and ore gold was carried out near Uchalov and Baymak, in the valley of the river. Zilair (JSC South Ural Mining, Komarovsky iron ore deposits, Teptyarsk gold mining company, etc.). Non-ferrous metallurgy begins to develop here. In 1914, experimental smelting took place at the Tanalyk (Baymak) copper smelter (15.7 thousand poods of copper were obtained); since 1915, a cyanogen plant has been operating.

In the agricultural zone, the industry for processing agricultural raw materials is most widespread. In 1913, in the Ufa province there were 155 flour mills, grain mills and dryers, 34 distilleries and breweries, and there were flour mills in many sawmills.

The largest grit mills in the region were A.V. Kuznetsov in Sterlitamak (97 people working) and, located nearby, the Averyanovs in the village. Levashevo (110 people), mill of merchants P.I. Kosterina and S.A. Chernikov in Ufa on the Sofronovskaya pier (85 people), as well as a confectionery establishment, a soap factory and a wheel ointment factory of the heirs of D.P. Bershtein (Ufa, Pushkinskaya st., 114 workers).

Distillery production played a special role in the economy.

In 1911, 25 private distilleries operated in the Ufa province, which supplied the treasury with 1.011 million (40º) buckets of raw alcohol worth 672 thousand rubles. Rectification (purification) of alcohol was carried out at 8 private factories and the Ufa state warehouse. Then the alcohol was supplied to 371 state-owned wine shops and 19 private establishments (a state-owned monopoly was in effect), of which 1.2 million buckets were sold for 9.7 million rubles. The main volume of vodka sales occurred in the winter months (from December to February - 31.5%). In addition, 9 breweries operated, supplying 726 thousand buckets of beer to 548 drinking establishments and 233 establishments exclusively for takeaway.

The importance of the state trade in alcohol for the budget was enormous. In 1908, the net treasury income from the wine operation amounted to 7.34 million rubles, and the entire peasantry of the Ufa province annually acquired rural equipment worth 2 million rubles. In addition, a lot of wines and cognacs were imported into the region, and shin-making flourished in the villages - the secret sale of vodka, inexpensive state-owned products replaced moonshine, up to 90% of villagers “almost give up making mash.”

The largest in the region in terms of the number of workers were the Averyanov distillery and brewery in the village. Levashevo near Sterlitamak (94 people) and the brewery A.G. Volmut in Ufa (52 people, where the “Vitamin” plant is now).

The third most important sector of the economy of Bashkortostan was logging.

In 1911, there were 19 sawmills in the Ufa province, the largest were located in Ufa - the Ufa Timber Industry Partnership (245 employees), the Komarovsky Society (89 people) and M.K. Nekrasova (134 people), where rafts from the upper reaches of the Belaya, Ufimka and their tributaries accumulated.

At the beginning of the twentieth century. According to incomplete data, an average of 13.3 million poods arrived in Ufa annually by rafting. forests, including 65% construction material, 27% ornamental material and 8% fuel. Then the timber was sent in large rafts or barges mainly down the Volga to Tsaritsyn and Astrakhan.

In the Ufa province there were a lot of small enterprises producing bricks, tanneries, printing houses, etc.

The Nizhne-Troitskaya cloth factory of the Alafuzov Society (Kazan) in the Belebeevsky district with the number of employees 391 people, the Bely Klyuch wrapping paper factory, owned by Samara entrepreneurs (173 people) - modern. village Krasny Klyuch, Bogoyavlensko-Alexandrovsky glass factory of the Pashkovs (479 employees) in modern times. regional center Krasnousolsky, match factory I.P. Dudorov in Nizhny Novgorod (Ufa, 95 people). Ufa was a fairly large center of publishing. There were several printing houses here, where more than 50 people worked (N.K. Blokhina, “Print”, etc.).

A complex infrastructure existed on the railways. Ufa workshops and depots were the largest enterprises in the city. By 1905, 2,000 workers were employed in the railway workshops, and 600 people were employed in the depot.

The needs of the rural population for many goods and services were satisfied by artisans (in 1913 in the Ufa province there were 1,573 blacksmiths, 534 tailors, 435 shoemakers, 418 people engaged in fulling, etc.).

Some artisans, especially those processing forest products, worked to order and produced goods for the buyer for the market. In forest areas, the matting-kulet weaving industry (865 farms) developed, supplying packaging material, bast (734), wheel (714), etc. Small artisans produced a variety of products, including the manufacture of harmonicas.

Along the Samara-Zlatoust Railway, koumiss practices became widespread.

Every summer, thousands of tuberculosis patients and simply vacationers came to Bashkir kumiss. The kumys-therapeutic sanatoriums that emerged in the Shafranovo-Belebey area (the largest is Nagibina, with up to 300 beds) could only accommodate about 1/5 of the kumysniks. Most settled in the surrounding villages. In 1910, 500 people stayed at the Usen-Ivanovo plant, 480 at Davlekanovo/Itkulovo, 380 at Churakaevo, 600 at Yabalakly, 350 at Karayakupovo. On average, the Ufa province annually received up to 5 thousand kumysniks, who paid for lodging, kumiss, and food , traveling. Earnings for the local population annually amounted to more than 400 thousand rubles.

A financial system was emerging that served industry and the agricultural sector. In Ufa, in addition to the branch of the State Bank and the Treasury, the zemstvo opened two small loan offices (provincial and district), where small loans were issued, and there was a city public pawnshop. Local entrepreneurs created their own credit institutions: the City Public Bank and the Ufa Mutual Credit Society. Branches of large Russian banks are opening: Siberian Commercial, Volzhsko-Kama Commercial, Russian for Foreign Trade.

The wide scope of land transactions in the region (mortgage, purchase) attracted private mortgage banks, which established land agencies in Ufa - the Don and Nizhny Novgorod-Samara banks. The peasantry obtained loans for the purchase of land mainly in the Ufa branch of the Peasant Land Bank, the nobles mortgaged estates in the Samara branch of the Noble Land Bank.

In county towns, local entrepreneurs also created their own credit institutions that provided small loans secured by goods and personal guarantees. In Belebey and Birsk there were city public banks, in Sterlitamak and Davlekanovo there were mutual credit societies. A branch of the Siberian Trade Bank opened in Birsk. Since 1905, a commodity exchange operated in Ufa, brokers made transactions in the trade of grain, timber, fuel oil, rental and sale of ships, etc.

The urgent need of the population for short-term small cheap credit caused rapid growth at the beginning of the twentieth century. cooperative movement. In addition to the zemstvo cash offices for small loans, which were available in all county towns, in 1912 in the Ufa province there were 219 credit and savings and loan partnerships, 24 consumer societies, 19 butter-making artels. The masses of the peasantry were involved in the cooperative movement.

In Ufa, a modern public utility system is beginning to be created, a city water supply system, and a V.N. power station were in operation. Konshina illuminated the city center, the asphalting of streets was underway (in Ufa in 1914 there were about 20 cars, there were a few cars and motorcycles in the districts). In 1913, 40 postal and telegraph offices and branches operated, the length of telephone wires exceeded 1215 miles, correspondence was also regularly received at post offices, railways, and volost administrations.

The traditional system of fairs and bazaars continued to function in rural areas, and modern stationary retail trade was emerging in cities.

In total, in the Ufa province in 1913 there were over 12 thousand shops and stores (7153 grocery, 621 manufacturing, 688 grain, 212 haberdashery, 200 iron and hardware, 54 pharmacies, etc.). In Ufa, the universal shopping center was Gostiny Dvor, where almost everything was sold, from potatoes to cars. A wide variety of consumer goods were imported into the region. For example, in Davlekanovo in 1911–1913. Over 55 thousand poods arrived by rail. fruits (including 7 thousand oranges and lemons, 1.8 thousand grapes), as well as 52.2 thousand poods. watermelons and melons, 615 poods of mineral water, 4.3 thousand poods. grape wines, 7.5 thousand tobacco and tobacco products, 66.1 thousand kerosene, 3.2 thousand poods. various paper, cardboard and book products.

The wholesale markets were dominated by large exporters who sent goods (bread, eggs) directly abroad, to Rybinsk, capitals, etc. For example, grain and flour were exported from Bashkortostan by the largest Parisian grain trading company Louis Dreyfus and Co., St. Petersburg firms A .N. Gluckberg and V.M. Davidova, local merchants V.A. Petunin, S.N. Nazirov, D.S. Gerasimov, partnership M.K. Bashkirova (Nizhny Novgorod), T.D. Gribushin (Perm), etc.

Trade and industry provided a significant portion of taxation.

In 1913, in the Ufa province, 7.22 million rubles were collected in all excise taxes (on wine, beer, yeast, tobacco, patent fees, etc.), and also arrears from previous years of 424 thousand rubles. At the same time, a small (due to benefits for the nobility) state land tax gave only 165 thousand rubles, a tax on real estate in cities and towns - 135 thousand rubles, a state apartment tax - 34 thousand, balances on redemption payments - 2.6 thousand rubles.

The main sums were collected from the peasant population by the zemstvo (local government). In 1913, zemstvo fees in the Ufa province amounted to 4.73 million rubles, but zemstvo expenses also reached 4.67 million rubles. City revenues - 1.32 million rubles, expenses - 1.29 million. It was from local budgets that education, healthcare, etc. were financed. Two additional small taxes were collected from Bashkir patrimonial lands - a private zemstvo tax for the delimitation of Bashkir lands (in 1913 received 25.6 thousand rubles) and a forest tax for managing Bashkir forests (16.6 thousand rubles).

The level of economic development of Bashkiria determined the social structure of the population.

The industrial working class, almost exclusively Russian by nationality, was concentrated in mining villages, where there was a large group of highly skilled craftsmen who received good wages, although in general industry then needed a large number of unskilled labor.

In the cities, the share of the proletariat was small and it was mainly concentrated in small semi-handicraft enterprises.

There was a significant layer of artisans, small traders, just ordinary people - bourgeois, government and zemstvo officials, military personnel, the technical and humanitarian intelligentsia was also predominantly Russian-speaking. The clergy were of great importance. A layer of local merchants and entrepreneurs was formed, in which the Tatar bourgeoisie occupied a significant share, and a multinational middle class took shape.

There was a relatively small group of very rich families who made large fortunes - the merchants Chizhevs, Laptevs, Sofronovs, Kosterins, Usmanovs, Shamigulovs and others.

At the same time, a marginal population accumulated in the cities, thrown out by the countryside, who did not have skilled professions and survived on casual incomes. On the outskirts of Ufa, settlements grew up, almost entirely populated by the lumpen proletariat. The rather amorphous social structure of the population of Bashkiria at the beginning of the twentieth century. corresponded to the transitional stage from traditional to industrial society. Even the educated “classes” largely retained the mentality and value systems of traditional communal consciousness. Bourgeois morality, the ethics of the entrepreneur, focused on achieving personal success, prosperity, enrichment, with its individualism, was rejected by a significant part of the intelligentsia, who converted communal collectivism into serving the people.

To a large extent, patriarchal Russian society corresponded to a paternalistic state. It was distinguished by the comparative weakness and small number of officials (according to the 1897 census, the staff of officials in the Ufa province exceeded 3.4 thousand), the transfer of state functions to society, for example, the peasants themselves kept order in the villages, and the entire local economy was entrusted to the zemstvo.

The coercive apparatus remained rather weak; power rested on the patriarchal, unquestioning subordination of the people to the highest authorities, sanctified by the traditional authority of religions.

At the head of the entire state apparatus in the province was the governor, who was personally appointed by the tsar. At the beginning of the twentieth century. The Ufa province was headed by N.M. Bogdanovich (1896–1903), I.N. Sokolovsky (1903–1905), B.P. Tsekhanovetsky (1905), A.S. Klyucharyov (1905–1911), P.P. Bashilov (1911–1917). During their absence, power in the province was transferred to the vice-governor. The administrative staff, which was part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, included the office, provincial government and presence; the “power” structures were subordinate to the governor, and he exercised control over the activities of local self-government (zemstvo).

A number of central departments had their own apparatus in the region: the ministries of justice (district court, city and county courts, investigators, prosecutorial supervision, notaries, etc.), finance (treasury chamber, tax offices, state bank, excise department), and the state control chamber also operated , the Department of Agriculture and State Property (Forest Conservation Committee, Land Management Commission), the structures of the Ministries of Public Education, Railways, etc., the Ministry of the Imperial Court and Appanages owned several estates in the Ufa province.

The “security” departments were represented by the provincial gendarmerie department (dealing with political and especially serious criminal offenses, counterintelligence), control over transport was carried out by a separate Samara gendarme police department of railways. Public order and the fight against criminal crime were ensured by city and county police departments.

Ufa was divided into five police stations headed by bailiffs, to whom police officers were subordinate, there was a detective department, and the general leadership in the city was the police chief. In the districts, the police were headed by the police officer; local law enforcement was carried out by the police officer with the help of a small number of ordinary guards, as well as tens, elected from the communities.

On the territory of Bashkiria there were military formations: in Ufa (in 1913) the 190th Ochakovsky Infantry Regiment, an infirmary, a convoy team, in Zlatoust - the 196th Insarsky Infantry Regiment. In case of war, there was a mobilization apparatus for collecting conscripts and horses.
In the general system of power, the important role of the noble class was preserved, electing a Noble Deputy Assembly in each province. The provincial leader of the nobility was one of the first officials and was a member of many government agencies.

A special place was occupied by local self-government, zemstvo and city, elected by the wealthiest segments of the population. The Ufa zemstvo (there was no zemstvo in the Orenburg province until 1915) was under the strict control of the governor, who had the right to repeal adopted resolutions. But, on the other hand, enormous financial resources were concentrated in the hands of the zemstvo; it managed the collection of taxes, for which all property was assessed through regular statistical studies, road affairs (bridges, ferries, etc.), public education, healthcare, veterinary medicine, and provided agronomic assistance to the peasantry, supported cooperation, provided fire insurance, etc.

The provincial zemstvo assembly, elected by the population, determined the composition of the executive body - the provincial zemstvo council, which included 3-5 people.

The entire work was supervised by the chairman of the board - S.P. Balakhontsev (1901–1903), I.G. Zhukovsky (1904), P.F. Koropachinsky (1904–1917). In cities, councils headed by city mayors acted on similar principles.

At the county level there were also bodies of zemstvo and city self-government, structures of central departments (finance, police, etc.), but here a very important role was played by the county leaders of the nobility, who controlled the work of zemstvo chiefs (each district included several volosts). For example, Belebeevsky district was divided into 13 sections. The zemstvo chief, most often appointed from the local nobility, officials, and retired military officers, already directly supervised the peasant volosts and communities, and the ordinary life of the population.

Public organizations were quite widely represented in Ufa.

Some were class-based (merchant administration, petty-bourgeois administration), others existed under state structures (the local administration of the Red Cross Society, headed by the governor himself, or the Alexandrinsky community of sisters of mercy, whose trustee was his wife), there were also various private ones, uniting people by profession or interests (Ufa Muslim ladies' society, legal, doctors, veterinary, folk universities, family education, hunting enthusiasts, photography and even encouraging the use of dogs for police and guard service).

Beginning of the 20th century was a time of violent political upheaval. The transition from a traditional society to an industrial (capitalist) society was accompanied in Russia by inevitable crisis phenomena, the destruction of old social structures, the abandonment of many previous ethical principles, and the deterioration of the situation of the broad masses who were unable to adapt to the new life. A big role was played by the conservatism of the state apparatus, which lagged behind the requirements of the time.

Among the local intelligentsia, students, and educated workers, oppositional sentiments became widespread, which was facilitated by the continued exile of political criminals to the Southern Urals.

So, in 1900–1901. N.K. served her term of exile in Ufa. Krupskaya, who was visited twice by her husband, V.I. Ulyanov (Lenin), leader of the emerging Bolshevik movement in the RSDLP. Little S. 37: circles of the Ufa revolutionary-minded intelligentsia in 1901 joined the “Ural Union of Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries” and were engaged in propaganda. In 1903, the Social Democrats separated, creating their own committee.

Metallurgical industry of the region in 1900–1903. severely affected by the global economic crisis. The decline in production and layoffs caused an increase in the strike movement; people went on strike at Beloretsky, Tirlyansky, Yuryuzansky and other enterprises. A particularly large strike broke out at the state-owned Zlatoust plant in March 1903. The city found itself in the hands of the workers, and local authorities were paralyzed.

The Ufa governor who arrived failed to take control of the situation; persuasion ended with an attempt by workers to seize the house of the mining chief, where the authorities were hiding, and the shooting of the crowd. According to official information, 28 people were killed, 17 died from wounds, and 83 were wounded.

In response, a small circle of Ufa Socialist Revolutionaries organized the first terrorist attempt in the region; on May 6, 1903, Governor N.M. was shot in Ushakovsky Park in Ufa. Bogdanovich.

The tragic events of January 9, 1905, which marked the beginning of the first Russian revolution, immediately evoked responses in Bashkiria, where rallies took place, money was collected to help the victims, revolutionary leaflets were distributed, anti-government sentiments swept the public, in the winter - spring of 1905 there were isolated strikes in the mountainous factories On May 1, the police in Ufa dispersed a revolutionary rally. And on the evening of May 3, 1905, in the summer theater during intermission, a terrorist Socialist Revolutionary shot at Governor I.N. Sokolovsky, who was wounded in the neck. In the summer, short-term strikes took place in the region - railway workers in Ufa in early July, at gold mines in August, forest felling was observed in individual landowners' estates, and a numerical increase in the revolutionary underground was observed.

In the fall of 1905, Bashkortostan was gripped by an acute political crisis.

At the beginning of October, workers and employees of the Samara-Zlatoust Railway joined the all-Russian political strike, then telegraph operators, Ufa zemstvo employees, students, etc. began to strike. Ordinary life was almost paralyzed. After news of the Tsar's manifesto on October 17, which granted civil liberties, was received in Ufa, general rejoicing reigned. The demonstration led by the mayor is welcomed by the governor himself, and a rally is held in Ushakovsky Park.

In response, on October 23, a demonstration took place in Ufa under the slogans of defending the monarchy, during which demonstrators beat three people to death. Stratification begins among the railway workers, a “patriotic society of workers” is created, Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries organize fighting squads.

In November, a new wave of the revolutionary movement rises. Railway workers go on strike repeatedly, an 8-hour working day is introduced, a strike committee is created, rallies are held, students go on strike. At the same time, the ensuing chaos led to the departure of the intelligentsia, entrepreneurs, and simply “ordinary people” from the revolution. The government, which had accumulated experience in the struggle in the revolutionary movement, also became stronger.

On December 7, 1905, simultaneously with Moscow, a political strike began in the Ufa railway workshops; it was joined by depots, other enterprises, educational institutions of the city, and strikes at mining factories. On the basis of the strike committee, a Council of Workers' Deputies is created, headed by I.S. Yakutov.

The council also appears in Zlatoust. On December 9, a meeting was held in the assembly shop of the railway workshops, where the issue of an armed uprising was discussed. The revolutionaries took hostages (the head of the Ufa station and two officers), prepared to defend themselves against the approaching soldiers and Cossacks, then threw bombs. The troops opened fire, the meeting and the council were dispersed, and several people were wounded. Then the dismissal of revolutionaries begins and, although work in the depot resumed only on December 17, and in the workshops on December 30, the situation in Ufa and the province is already completely under the control of the administration.

The revolution is on the decline. Major strikes took place in the fall of 1906 in Tirlyan, Beloretsk, and an armed clash in Sima. Sporadic unrest was observed in the countryside: deforestation, resistance to land demarcation, etc., aggravated by the poor harvest of 1906. A sharp decrease in mass protests, a reduction in voluntary donations from the middle classes, and the strengthening of law enforcement agencies forced the revolutionary underground that had developed in the region to change its activities.

The Southern Urals turned into one of the centers of terrorism.

In 1906–1907 In the Ufa province, up to 14 terrorist attacks were committed annually, the Socialist Revolutionaries attempted to assassinate Vice-Governor Kelepovsky, committed a number of murders, and repeatedly planted explosive devices. A group of anarchist-communists was engaged in extortion; many Ufa merchants paid tribute to the revolutionaries.

The militant organization of the Social Democrats carried out two major expropriations in August–September 1906. The robbery of trains carrying money at the Dema station and the Voronki junction brought the Bolsheviks about 180 thousand rubles, which were used to hold the V Congress of the RSDLP and finance other party-wide events. In total, the Social Democrats organized up to 20 exes (seizure of weapons, dynamite, money, type), and underground bomb-making laboratories operated.

Subsequently, combat organizations increasingly move away from party committees, turning into independent closed structures.

In 1908–1909 In the Ufa province, more than 20 terrorist attacks were recorded (including the murder of the head of the Ufa station depot by anarchists in June 1908) and several large expropriations. In Miass, the Ufa Bolsheviks seized the post office on October 1, 1908, stealing 40 thousand rubles, and on September 2, 1909, the railway station there was robbed, the raiders got about 60 thousand rubles. and five gold bars. Active police actions led in the fall of 1909 to the complete elimination of terrorism in the region.

At the same time, the party committees in Ufa of the Socialist Revolutionaries (late 1908) and Social Democrats (summer 1909) were destroyed. Individual attempts to revive the revolutionary underground were suppressed by the police, and until 1917, party structures did not exist in the cities and factories of Bashkortostan (except for Minyar). Despite occasional labor conflicts at mining factories, especially in 1910–1914, the political situation in the region was calm.

The evolution of Russia towards a constitutional monarchy and the establishment of parliament led to the regular holding of election campaigns to the State Duma in Bashkortostan. The first deputies from the Ufa province in 1906 were the cadets A.A. Akhtyamov, S.P. Balakhontsev, S.D. Maksyutov, Sh.Sh. Syrtlanov, K.-M.B. Tevkelev, Count P.P. Tolstoy, Y.Kh. Khuramshin, as well as S.-G.S. Dzhantyurin, G.V. Gutop and Trudovik I.D. Bychkov.

People of different national and social status were elected: from landowners and lawyers to mullahs, peasants and workers.

In the last III and IV Dumas, 8 deputies were elected from the Ufa province. The Ufa provincial zemstvo assembly also elected one member of the State Council (since 1912, Count A.P. Tolstoy). Individual Muslim deputies were elected from the Orenburg province (M.-Z. Rameev, Z. Bayburin).

The First World War, which began in 1914, led to profound changes in the entire socio-economic life of Bashkortostan. By 1917, 323.2 thousand people, or 45% of the total number of male workers, were mobilized from the Ufa province, 160.3 thousand (49.6%) from the Orenburg province. For the needs of the front, working horses were requisitioned, during the war years the number of which among the peasants of the Ufa province decreased from 848.5 thousand in 1912–1913. up to 781.7 thousand in 1917

If the mining industry of the region completely switches to the production of military products (in Beloretsk they produced barbed wire, at the Simsk factories - shell steel, cannon blanks, carts, etc., in Zlatoust in 1914 438.8 thousand shrapnel, shells, bombs were produced, in 1916 - 835.3 thousand units), then civil industries are in decline.

From mid-1916, the region was gripped by an economic crisis and rapid inflation began. If in January 1916 rye flour in the Ufa province cost 1.15 rubles. per pood, then in January 1917 it was sold for 2.2–2.6 rubles, a commodity famine set in, there was not enough flour, salt, matches, and soap on sale. P. 40: During 1916, a rationing system was introduced (in Orenburg, a pound of flour was allowed per person). Speculation reaches large proportions.

The peasant economy of Bashkortostan is also gradually reducing production. If in 1912–1913 the area of ​​peasant crops in the Ufa province was 2707 thousand dessiatines, then in 1915 - 2398 thousand, in 1916 - 2359 thousand, in 1917 - 2549 thousand dessiatines. By 1917, the number of cattle and sheep decreased, only the number of pigs increased. A particularly strong drop in production occurs on landowner farms, where during the war years the area under crops decreased by 32%.

There remained considerable reserves of grain in the countryside, but the destruction of the market led to the rapid naturalization of the economy, the growth of direct trade; the wealthy upper classes of the village and the middle peasants, holders of the bulk of the grain, stopped selling grain.
The government increased purchasing prices; at the end of 1916, grain requisitioning was introduced; the peasantry was obliged to hand over grain at fixed prices; in case of refusal, it was requisitioned. In total, the Ufa province prepared for the campaign of 1914–1915. 10 million poods. bread, in 1915–1916 – 18.5 million, in 1916–1917. – 24 million poods. (with a supply plan of 43.1 million poods). In general, the Southern Urals remained one of the most prosperous regions of Russia in terms of supplies.

The economic crisis and the failures of the Russian armies at the fronts gave rise to an acute political crisis in the country, which also reached Bashkortostan. The strike movement at the mining factories grew, anti-monarchist sentiments and conviction of the tsarina’s betrayal became widespread among the ordinary population and educated society, rumors about Rasputin circulated everywhere, and the authority of the supreme power fell.

2013-10-12T21:09:11+06:00 lesovoz_69 Bashkiria History and local historyEconomics and financehistory, local history, Ufa province, economics, ethnographyUfa province at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries We publish an excerpt from the textbook “History of Bashkortostan in the 20th century” (Ufa: BSPU Publishing House, 2007). 1. Territory and population of the region At the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. the main part of the territory of the modern Republic of Bashkortostan was part of the Ufa province, the western, northern and northeastern borders of the Republic of Belarus almost exactly correspond...lesovoz_69 lesovoz_69 lesovoz [email protected] Author In the Middle of Russia