12.07.2013 2281
Merchants
The uniqueness and originality of Yelets is explained by the special place that merchants occupied in it. The famous Yelets merchant class began to emerge in early XVII century. IN Time of Troubles many rich and experienced traders abandoned their homes in the central counties, devastated by the war, and moved to cities that were calmer and more profitable in terms of trade. Thus, in Yelets, visiting traders and the local population, not engaged in service, founded settlements. The first settlement of traders and artisans was the Black Settlement, which soon turned out to be the richest in the city, and over time other trade and craft settlements appeared around it.
The first traders in the 17th century bought goods from local artisans or produced goods themselves, and then transported them to neighboring cities or to the Don to the Cossacks. Trade in those days was a dangerous and risky business; it required enterprise, perseverance and courage.
The heyday of the Yelets merchants begins in early XVIII century, and by the end of the century Yelets can already be safely called a merchant city. However, before talking about the Yelets merchants, let’s try to understand what the merchant class was in general.
In the 17th century, everyone was engaged in trade as best they could. In the book about Yelets XVI-XVII centuries we saw that enterprising Yelets residents traveled with goods to neighboring cities, but more often traded in Yelets. There was no specialization or stability in trade. A Sagittarius, free from service, could become a merchant for some time, and a townsman, a merchant, could enroll in the Streltsy, easily parting with his previous occupation. In relation to trade, the state had one goal - to levy a tax on everything that was sold. Rivers, lakes, mills, baths, taverns were given to every enterprising person.
Since the 18th century, the state began to pay great attention to the trading activities of the population, supporting and highlighting the trading class. Fairs became more active and trading yards were built. Such patronage of entrepreneurship, to the detriment of foreign traders, had an obvious practical meaning, because the more an entrepreneur earns, the more he will pay to the treasury. Foreign traders were unreliable and cunning, foreign merchants formed guilds, acted corporately, according to the principle of all for one and one for all. It was dangerous for the Russian government to deal with them. Therefore, Peter I went to encourage his trading layer, which was more accommodating and dependent on the authorities. As a result, the development of Russian trade became a profitable state matter. As part of supporting the trading activities of the population, in the early 20s of the 18th century, a city magistrate appeared in the cities, which included the president, burgomasters and ratmans. The members of the magistrate were the wealthiest citizens of the city, their task was to promote the development of crafts, trade and the city in general. The Yelets magistrate initiated many important measures aimed at the development of the merchant class.
However, until 1775, the merchants did not represent a single class. The word “merchant” was still applied in the old way to any trading person, someone who bought something. Sometimes all townspeople were called merchants in documents. The lists of Yelets “merchants” compiled in 1720 include 186 people. Only persons engaged in trade are mentioned here - the basis of the future merchant class. In 1727, the Yelets magistrate compiled lists of Yelets “merchants”, which mentioned almost all the townspeople who came to the market to sell their goods. There were already 1,389 people on these lists. However, this figure does not mean that half of the city's population were merchants. It is possible to talk about the merchants as a single group only after the formation of the merchant class.
An important step towards the development of the merchant class was in 1755, when a customs charter appeared, according to which internal customs between counties were abolished. Now customs houses in cities are a thing of the past. In addition, trade to persons not included in the merchant class was only possible with products of their own production. Thus, the government gradually turned merchants into a separate closed group. The “Charter of Grant to the Cities” of 1785 from Catherine II defined the class rights and privileges of the merchants, who were exempt from the poll tax and corporal punishment. The class status of the merchant was determined by the property qualification, and from the end of the 18th century the merchants were divided into three guilds, depending on the amount of capital.
But let's return to the Yelets merchants. So, in the first quarter of the 18th century, the town's townspeople actively became involved in trading activities. Most people limited themselves to trading food products at the local market. Let's take a look at the Yelets market of the first half of the 18th century and take a closer look at the Yelets merchants.
The market, or as they called it “bargaining” back then, was located near the old fortress wall, in the area of the Vvedenskaya Church. There were wooden benches here, among which people walked a large number of people, and trade had been going on since the morning. Among the crowds of people we see peasants from Yeletsk district and visiting residents of other districts. Most merchants laid out their goods on benches or directly on the ground. The sellers, mostly men, are the most ordinary residents of local villages. They sold food - fish, honey, nuts, lard, bread, fish, buckwheat, oats, rye, as well as bast shoes, chiriki, cats (types of shoes), dog hats, linen shirts, and other goods. The trade was carried out intermixedly, each product was adjacent to each other.
Further, towards the center of the market, there were large wooden shops of wealthy merchants. But the merchants themselves, the owners of these shops, rarely appeared here, and their trusted people traded in the shops. The range of goods was varied: bread, livestock, salt, honey, fish, caviar, iron goods. Here you could buy meat - pork or beef carcass, although meat in general was rare on the market of that time. Here is a shop where they sell headdresses: hats, caps, caps, tinsel cuffs (like scarves), kokoshniks. There were more than 15 types of hats in the shop alone: sheepskin, beaver, hare, marten, rag, Polish, Hungarian, Swedish, German, Turkmen and others. The best hats were brought here from Voronezh. At the same time, they also traded footwear here: boots, shoes, slippers.
The shop owners, despite their absence from the market, were busy with important trading matters. The merchant Rostovtsev sent carts with iron to Voronezh, at the same time hired security, gave his man instructions on how to behave with the customs officer. An experienced trader, Kholin, was planning to go to the market in the village of Ranenburg for a large fair, where he planned to sell barrels of salt and honey. The son of the merchant Chernikin was traveling to the mill, which is located on one of the many small rivers in the vicinity of Yelets. Yelets merchants rarely followed the capital's fashion; they wore beards and dressed more practically, in sheepskin coats and high boots.
In the first half of the 18th century, merchants still did not dare to trade in one type of goods. While Rostovtsev’s carts with iron were heading to Voronezh to start trading there the next morning, his shop in Yelets with fabrics and decorations served as a center of attraction for Yelets women. Beads, rings, earrings, bone combs, and semi-precious stones were sold here. Ornamented shiny copper or tin buttons were especially popular. Those who could not afford to buy expensive jewelry went to the aisles with cheaper goods, where they could buy, for example, tinsel to decorate an outer dress or sundress.
It was in this central part of the Yelets trade that the Yelets merchants arose. These were all enterprising, active, risk-taking people. The merchant of the 18th century considered trade to be an honest occupation and looked at his profits, received from interest, without torment of conscience. If the moral norms of the 17th century restrained entrepreneurial activity, now trade was perceived positively. This was partly facilitated by both state policy and the secularization of Russian culture.
The war between Russia and Sweden in 1700-1721 brought direct benefits to the merchants, since the country needed iron. Iron production became industrial. In the 1st quarter of the 18th century, the Krivorotov brothers founded an iron foundry, bell and mechanical factories in Yelets. In the 50s, the merchant Rostovtsev started the same production. The working capital of these enterprises was approximately 200 thousand rubles.
In the middle of the 18th century, in Yeletsk district there were at least 6 ironworks, which were serviced by hired workers. Coal and ore were bought from peasants, who mined it by hand “in small quantities.” A significant part of the smelted iron was taken for processing to Yelets, where it was made into boilers, openers and other products sold at fairs. Thanks to the development of trade, Yelets turned into a major center of blacksmithing. In 1780, there were 222 blacksmiths in Yelets.
There were many merchants in Yelets, but only some of them earned good money. They lived in Chernaya Sloboda across the Yelets River. Here, until the middle of the 18th century, their wooden houses with large basements and cellars stood crowded together. Each such house was surrounded by a large fence with oak gates. The house of the Yelets merchant was cramped, since the spaces of the settlement did not allow expansion. The merchants lived in much the same way as before; in their houses there were benches and chests near large stoves. Although the new way of life increasingly penetrated into their mansions. Wallpaper, engravings and paintings in the Baroque style appeared on the walls. The merchants were distinguished by great piety, and the Vladimir Church in their settlement quickly became one of the richest in the city.
But in 1769, another fire destroyed the city center; alas, such fires were a common occurrence in all Russian cities. The government of Catherine II, as the main measure to combat fires, began replacing wooden buildings with stone ones in the central areas of cities.
As part of government policy, the Yelets magistrate invited the merchants living in Chernaya Sloboda to move to the city center, building stone buildings at their own expense. The Black Settlement was populated by townspeople and single-dvorians who came from the district. True, the resettled merchants retained the lands and pastures for livestock.
Now the center of economic life in Yelets has been moved to the city center. Merchants built beautiful, white-stone buildings according to the new general plan, decorated them with carvings and paved the streets with stone. Many merchants hung shutters on their windows in the old way and set up benches near their houses to relax. But their houses were already different: the rooms had more space, some brought new furniture, installed beautiful tiled stoves and fireplaces in the corners of the rooms. Wallpaper was glued to the walls and carpets were hung. Although Yelets merchants still read the Psalter, did not like guests and ate sugar on holidays, a new generation of Yelets merchants grew up in these two-story houses in the city center, whose representatives would read French novels and set up luxurious salons.
In the second half of the 18th century, trade in Yelets took on a more orderly appearance. Let's return again to the Yelets market. Now there are much fewer people here. The population traded various kinds of goods in separate places, and there was very little open shop trade left. Trading places had awnings, special facades and their own goods. The magistrate in the 80s of the 18th century allowed trading in the city squares.
In 1777, in Yelets there were 149 shops in several shopping arcades: Krasny, Moskatelny (threads, scissors, buttons, jewelry, perfumes), Ovsyanaya, Fish and Meat. In 1787, the market was located on Khlebnaya Square. There were 202 benches and 25 shelves (counters). Bread brought more and more income to the Yelets merchants; now rye and wheat were in great demand and were more profitable than iron boilers. The city was turning into the grain capital of the Black Earth Region; it was no coincidence that one of the main squares of the city was called “Khlebnaya”.
The Yelets merchants, which had become stronger by the end of the 18th century, decided to move the market to a new location and make it a stone one. This reasonable measure was supposed to prevent the city from fires and promote the development of trade. The new place for Yelets trading was the central part of the city opposite the old Resurrection Cathedral. Using funds collected from Yelets merchants, the construction of Gostiny Dvor began in 1792, which later received the name “Red Rows,” probably because of the beauty of the new stone chambers, since the word “red” then still meant “beautiful.” Construction was controlled by the City Duma, which entrusted the supervision of this process to the merchant Grigory Khrennikov.
The Red Rows were built according to a clear plan and were completed in 1794. They became a magnificent decoration of merchant Yelets. The rows were carved stone one-story chambers with iron roofs, the entire area around them was paved with stone, and lanterns appeared here for the first time in the city. The red rows gave the name to the square, which now also began to be called “Red”.
From the documents we see that great power in the city already at the end of the 18th century belonged to the merchant class. Yelets merchants sat in the magistrate and in the city duma. All the most important issues were resolved at merchant meetings and, no less important, with merchant money.
Largely thanks to the efforts of Yelets merchants, in the last quarter of the 18th century a small public school was opened in the city, which had two classes of 10-15 students and two teachers. Funding for the school was provided by the local budget. Yelets merchants understood the importance of education, therefore, from the end of the 18th century, a special educational environment was being formed in the city, which, after several generations, would make Yelets the main supplier of educational personnel to Moscow University from the provinces.
Thus, largely thanks to the merchant class that formed in the 18th century, the city became one of the most prominent in its region. In 1800, approximately 12 thousand people lived in Yelets.
Notes:
40. Lyapin D.A. History of Yeletsk district at the end of the 16th-17th centuries. Tula, 2011, pp. 172-177.
41. Chekomazova V.I. From the history of Yelets merchants. Yelets, 2007, p.16.
42. Ibid.
43. See: Mizis Yu.A. Formation of the market of the Central Black Earth Region in the second half of the 17th - first half of the 18th centuries. Tambov, 2006.
44. See: Chekomazova V.I. From the history of the Yelets merchants... p.17, 18.
45. Chekomazova V.I. From the history of Yelets merchants... p.18.
46. Vazhinsky V.M. Decree op... p.15.
The article was prepared based on materials from the book by D.A. Lyapin “History of Yeletsk district in the 18th - early 20th centuries”, published in 2012. The article reproduces all images used by the author in his work. The author's punctuation and style have been preserved.
Seminar No. 5.
Merchants and industrialists of the 18th century.
Development of economic science.
Question 1. Social role and functions of the merchant class - p. 182-.
Features of the development of the merchant class.
In the 18th century, the concept of “merchants” did not represent a specific category of the population. It characterized the type of commercial and industrial activity. Since the 40s of the 18th century, the concept of merchants has embraced the entire townspeople population of a certain wealth. Access to this state was widely open to peasants. Since the 1750s, the "merchants" - the trading part of the posad - demanded a monopoly on trade and received it in 1755. In the 1760s. this monopoly was confirmed. Until 1755, an entrepreneur could engage in trade only if he was a merchant. 1775 - 85 - time of final registration of merchants. In the 18th century, the merchant class, as noted, generally developed, but groups (compositions) of the merchant class were replaced three times in Russia. In the 18th century main role the guests and the living room hundred played. At the beginning of the 18th century, there was a sharp reduction in the number of guests, as they were replaced by merchant guilds. Guests began to gradually become impoverished even after the Moscow ruin of 1649. At the beginning of the 18th century, their entrepreneurial activity moved from the active sphere of commercial and industrial interests to the use of previously acquired property by renting it out.
The reasons for the ruin of the guests were reasons characteristic of a military-ethical state:
1) state monopoly under Peter I on the most profitable goods - furs and salt;
2) taxes increased during the Northern War; 3) the well-being of the guests was based on benefits that the head of the family was able to obtain in various ways; with his death, everything fell into decay, benefits were canceled, and the heirs, as a rule, did not show any entrepreneurial spirit.
The living room hundred survived further, since North War its trade (domestic, mainly) was less affected. But they were ruined by taxes. In 1713, they took a tenth of money, “half a piece of money,” and also a tenth of money “for the dead.” Peter ruined the merchants no longer by forcibly taking away their fortunes from the treasury, as in previous centuries, but by strangling them with taxes, and the richest suffered first of all. Many moved into the bourgeoisie and lower classes.
Guild merchants under Peter I.
In the economic life of the country at the beginning of the 18th century, guild merchants began to play a leading role, who were divided into first-class, average and third-class - depending on their capital. Before Peter's reform (1705), merchants were subordinated to the community (posad), the tsar resubordinated them to the crown, but did not give them self-government, so dependence on the visible "world" was replaced by a more soulless and invisible, but omnipresent - on officials. True, these merchants grew rich at the expense of the state. The most durable families in the 18th century were represented by the owners of factories and factories. But those who used the resources of the treasury stood out (for example, the Evreinovs). They were given contracts, privileges, interest-free loans, which saved them from ruin given the poor development of the Russian market. This was again the artificial capital of feudal-type enterprises. The situation of the merchants was worsened by the adoption by the Chief Magistrate in 1721 of the unviable principle of dividing merchants according to professional criteria, which did not correspond to prosperity. Merchants were still divided in fact according to capital, but this increased the difficulties of adaptation and increased deception. The merchant himself declared the capital and paid 1% from it to the treasury. The income had to be read in front of everyone, and this order stimulated denunciation among merchants. 16% of the merchants of the first guild left the settlement, 21.1% were peasants, 16.0% were commoners, 38.7% moved from other cities; solid merchants sought to move to Moscow, closer to privileges. Throughout the 18th century, the state limited the transition from peasants to merchants - property qualifications, bureaucratic obstacles, double salary for the transition. Apparently, they were strangling the most active layer of the people, since, despite the obstacles, the Bogomolovs, Sungurovs, Grachevs and others entered the first guild of serfs, and in total they made up a fifth of the merchants.
1.3. The position of the merchants under Catherine II.
The weakening of government control over trade and industry in the 60s, as well as urban reforms in the same direction in 1775 - 1785. led to the gradual replacement of the first guild merchants of the “Petrine model” by more enterprising merchants of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd guilds of Catherine’s time. Merchants still had to declare their wealth themselves: the third guild - capital up to 500 rubles and trade around the city; second guild - up to 1 thousand rubles, domestic wholesale and retail; first guild - up to 10 thousand rubles, international trade; she was exempt from corporal punishment.
This reform finally brought the status of merchants into line with their occupation. Moving from one guild to another was encouraged by privileges and also increased responsibilities. For example, merchants of the first guild could ride three horses or in a train, while others could ride in pairs, in a carriage or carriage. But only merchants of the 1st and 2nd guilds were chosen for onerous positions. The division into guilds remained until 1863. Catherine's reform also divided the merchants and the burghers (city citizens), while the top of the merchants merged with the ruling class, and the lower part - with the people, which did not allow the third estate to form General requirements. Independence from the authorities, which was envisaged by the reforms of Catherine II (the choice of the headman, burgomaster), was limited, as before, by the government; even “merchant societies” had no real powers.
At the end of the 18th century, a third change in the composition of merchants took place, which demonstrated their weakness as entrepreneurs without the support of an absolutist state. Those merchants who reached the top after the reforms of 1775 -1785 were forced out. New groups of bourgeois-type merchants are appearing, growing through competition from the depths of small-scale commodity production. The overwhelming majority of the former first guild members 19th century was forced to leave the first guild, falling one or two steps lower in the merchant hierarchy. The fall was not only massive, but also irrevocable, no less profound in its nature and significance than the disappearance of the guests and “Petrine” merchants. They went bankrupt due to competition in the production and sale of consumer goods, where small entrepreneurs with better connections to consumers won. In addition, the abolition of privileges for merchants in the second half of the 18th century ruined precisely those who were associated with capitalist production; those who managed to maintain privileges survived. They went bankrupt due to the fragmentation of capital among the heirs and their inability to maintain their fortune, as well as due to the transition of merchants to the nobility at any opportunity.
Along with the connection of large merchants with absolutism and feudalism, capitalist relations at the end of the 18th century were at a level that did not ensure sustainability from entrepreneurship alone and did not bring moral satisfaction from belonging to one’s class. The dream of nobility was a typical feature of the Russian merchants. The condition of the merchants was less stable than that of the nobles, since belonging to the nobility did not depend on personal qualities, and among merchants personal qualities were decisive. Although society actively develops only when the trend is exactly the opposite. At the end of the 18th century, the position of the merchants was determined by both feudalism and capitalism. Some could live only in connection with absolutism and the benefits it provided; their position was already unstable. The new merchants cannot take advantage of the still shaky capitalist relations; their position is still unstable. Commercial entrepreneurship entered the 19th century with this contradiction.
House of the Agapov merchants (XVIII century)
Address: Suzdal, st. Tolstogo, 7.
In the old days in Rus' they said: “Don’t take too much, don’t pick your pocket, don’t ruin your soul,” because they considered wealth, not poverty, to be God’s punishment. The commandments of non-covetousness were unquestionably followed by the Russian merchants. For merchants, money was not a path to pleasure, but a means of serving people and the Motherland. An example of this is the famous philanthropists Tretyakov and Mamontov, Stroganov and Demidov... However, provincial merchants - simple people with calloused hands and kind eyes - remained in their shadow for a long time. Quiet as daily work, they did good deeds and, as Gorky wrote about them, “for centuries they carried Russia on their shoulders.”
The merchants constituted a significant and important stratum of the population of Suzdal. At the end of the 18th century, there were more than 1,500 representatives of the merchant class. The merchants were especially active in the 17th-18th centuries, when the city was a well-known center of transit trade in the Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod directions. At the end of the 18th century, there were more than 1,000 representatives of the merchant class in Suzdal.
Construction at the end of the 18th century of the highway, and then in the second half of the 19th century of the Moscow - Nizhny Novgorod left Suzdal away from the main routes, which forced the most enterprising merchants to look for more promising places for residence and trade. Many of them left for Moscow, Ivanovo-Voznesensk, St. Petersburg and other cities. The meaning of Suzdal shopping center the number of Suzdal merchants fell and decreased.
At the beginning of the 19th century, about 400 merchants and members of their families lived here, trading not only in Suzdal, but also beyond its borders.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Suzdal merchants built a large stone one, which had more than 100 shops. But during the 19th century. Trade activity in Suzdal is on the decline due to the development of communication routes that bypassed Suzdal.
K con. XIX century only 140 merchants remained in Suzdal, and many of them did not buy guild certificates (permission to trade) every year. Merchants began to engage primarily in retail trade, small textile, leather and bell foundries, maintaining inns and taverns, as well as gardening. Nevertheless, the importance of Suzdal merchants in the development of the city was very noticeable: they were often elected to various elected positions, as deputies to the City Duma, more often than others they held the position of City Mayor, director of the Public Bank, city pawnshop, and were Chairmen and members of the Board of Trustees educational institutions, hospitals and social institutions, church wardens. They were engaged in charitable activities.
From the Suzdal City General Duma this ticket was given to the Suzdal merchant Vasily Ivanov, son Shishkin, in that by virtue of what was done last September on the 29th, from the owners of merchants and townspeople building stone shops in the city of Suzdal in Gostiny Dvor, the public verdict went to you by lot in that Gostiny Dvor in in the front line of the scrupulous row at No. 39 there is a shop in the adjacency of the Suzdal shops of the 2nd guild of the merchant Gerasim Afanasyev, son of Birkin, and on the other, the young merchant son of Alexei Belin, which shop, chosen by their owners, was priced at 485 rubles and in addition to those put together for the building of one of ten verdicts of 450 rubles, the amount is 35 rubles, which money from you was contributed to the local city council and is then distributed to other owners who received the prices that were valued below the sum of the ten verdicts. In this regard, for the proper and indisputable ownership of that shop, this ticket was given to you by the merchant Shishkin:
City Head Luka Ermolin
Vowel Andrey Pakhomov
Vowel Kozma Ulyanov
Vocalist Yakov Meshkov
This Ticket of the Vladimir province
Suzdal City General Duma seal
October 4 days 1811.
Tannery of the Kashins merchants. XVIII century Photo from the early postcard. XX century
As throughout Russia, the Suzdal merchants played an important role in the development of charity. Such merchant families as the Zhinkins, Zhilins, Belovs, Vikhrevs, Dubynins, Agapovs, Kholopovs and others did a lot in this regard. Major benefactors were Moscow merchants V.M., who came from Suzdal. Blokhin, I.V. Shishkin and Kharkov merchant I.G. Vikhrev. In the 19th century With their funds, 2 orphanages and 3 almshouses were opened in the city.
As members of the boards of trustees of the zemstvo hospital, educational and social institutions, many merchants made significant contributions to their development. Merchants, often elected church elders, allocated their own funds for the repair and decoration of numerous churches in Suzdal. In the tradition of Suzdal merchants, before major Orthodox holidays, financial assistance poor sections of the population.
A native of Suzdal, Moscow merchant of the 1st guild Ivan Vasilyevich Shishkin in 1888 bequeathed capital of 100 thousand rubles for the construction and maintenance of a “house of charity for the poor” in Suzdal.
The construction work was supervised by a Suzdal merchant. In 1891, the almshouse was opened and consecrated. was under the jurisdiction of the Suzdal City Duma, was designed for 60-100 people, those in need were kept free of charge.
“...Since 1888, the selfless, selfless and energetic activity of I.F. began. Belova. Being himself not a particularly rich merchant, he worked tirelessly for more than two years to fulfill his bequeathed task, and worked not only without any remuneration, but even to the detriment of his trading activities... Everything in the house is arranged expediently, solidly, cleanly, beautifully, and even, perhaps say, luxurious for ordinary people of our city..." (Vladimir Diocesan Gazette. 1891).
The blessing of God is announced from His Grace Theognost, Bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal.
Suzdal merchant Efim Vasilievich Golovashkin - for donating 20 arshins of silver colored brocade to the sacristy of Suzdal for 70 rubles;
Suzdal merchant Fyodor Dmitrievich Dubynin - for donating to the Epiphany Church priestly velvet vestments (felonion, epitrachelion, loincloth, belt and cuffs) and velvet airs embroidered with gold in the amount of 120 rubles;
Suzdal merchant Ivan Yakovlevich Agapov - for donating a State 4% bank note of 115 rubles. In favor of the brethren of the Suzdal Vasilyevsky Monastery.
Vladimir Diocesan Gazette. 1880, 1881, 1882
“... In the continuation of his service, Kholopov made up for all the deficiencies in church utensils in the sacristy, brought the church into the best splendid appearance, and all this was done, despite his limited fortune, mostly from his own funds... wouldn’t it be nice... for diligent and useful service by the position of church warden, the merchant Kholopov is to be honored ... with a petition to reward him, who already has a silver medal on the Stanislavsky ribbon (in 1874), a gold medal on the Anninsky ribbon...”
From the description of the headman of the cemetery All Saints Church, merchant of the 2nd guild Grigory Kholopov, given by the dean of the Suzdal Cathedral, Archpriest A. Krotov. 1876
Typical representatives of the middle-income Suzdal merchant class were the Agapov merchants.
Merchant Agapov built himself a two-story house on the second floor. XVIII century on the side of the river on Shchupachikha, where the carts of visiting traders were “felt” (checked), hence the name of the street.
A philistine book from 1806 says about the owner of the house: “Ivan Yakovlev, son of Agapov, is an old-timer, 59 years old, married to a merchant’s daughter Ananya Yakovleva, 57 years old, they have grandchildren Yakov - 10 years old, Akulina - 13 years old, has a house on the Borisovaya side in the big street and under it there is a stone forge near the houses on one side of the merchant widow Irina Nazarova and on the other side of the merchant Karp Kapitonov, (a house) built by him, and according to the data, the land is hereditary and with it a vegetable garden under No. 846; (consists) of blacksmith work; was a kisser at the sale of salt, then a conscientious one” (a kisser is a salt seller who was elected for a certain term, gave obligations to work honestly, kissed the cross - hence the name kisser, conscientious - a witness, an assistant in assessing property, collecting taxes, etc.).
The house is a common example of merchant development at that time with a stone service ground floor and a wooden residential second floor. Such merchant houses largely determined the appearance of the civil architecture of the historical part of Suzdal.
K ser. In the 19th century, there were probably several branches of Agapov merchants in Suzdal. The Agapovs kept forges by the river behind the Kremlin, had shops and trading places in Gostiny Dvor, so the owners of the house on Stepachevskaya Street (in the second half of the 19th century the name of Shchupachikha Street was transformed into Stepachevskaya) at various times traded in textiles, shoes, books, and colonial goods (tea, coffee, spices), vegetables and berries. In the end XIX century Ivan Yakovlevich Agapov had 4 stone shops in the Gostiny Dvor and a capital of 2500 rubles. He had three sons - Yakov, Fedor and Kapiton. The Agapov merchants were no strangers to social and charitable activities - they were elected several times to the city Duma, made donations to the church, for their services and donations to the spiritual department in 1901, the blessing of the Holy Synod was given, among others, to the Suzdal merchants Yakov, Kapiton and Fyodor Agapov, what the Vladimir Diocesan Gazette published.
Yakov Ivanovich had sons: Vasily, Ivan, Alexander, Gury, and he was the last owner of the house in which he no longer lived.
There was still a blacksmith shop on the ground floor; there was a beekeeper and a large orchard next to the house, which also occupied part of the current territory of the Museum of Wooden Architecture. The garden is frozen in last war and was cut down for firewood.
In 1912, the Agapovs opened an oil-powered flour mill in the house. The large family of Yakov Ivanovich (he had 5 sons and 6 daughters) lived in two houses on Ivangorskaya Street (now Pushkarskaya).
At home Ya.I. Agapova on the street. Ivangorskaya. On right . Photo beginning XX century.
Events of the first half. XX century changed the habitual way of life of the Agapov family. During the First World War, Yakov's sons Ivan and Alexander died. After the revolution, Yakov Ivanovich himself and his brother Fyodor Ivanovich, as “former large merchants,” fell into the category of “disenfranchised”; their property (houses, trading shops in Gostiny Dvor, garden lands) was confiscated. In the 1930s Vasily Yakovlevich (1884-1957, agronomist) and Guriy Yakovlevich (born in 1894, surveyor) were repressed. Their younger brother Rafail Yakovlevich (1904-1996) lived in Vladimir from 1930, participated in the Great Patriotic War, and was awarded. His descendants still live in Vladimir.
Old residents of the city still remember that in Soviet time up to the 60s. it had a diesel mill for one station. Then the house was put under restoration (the author of the restoration project was N. Nemtsov) and transferred to the museum-reserve. In the early 80s. the exhibition “Suzdal and the district during the revolution of 1905” was opened there (the author of the thematic and exhibition plan was a researcher at the museum-reserve N.M. Kurganova), it was on the ground floor of this house in the forge that an underground printing house operated for a short time in 1905 .and a typographic font was found. The exhibition aroused interest among visitors; it presented interesting documentary materials, fragments of the interiors of a forge and the rooms of the Suzdal intelligentsia of the early 19th century. XX century And at that time, the exhibition fulfilled its objectives - to illustrate the class struggle in Suzdal at the turn of the century.
Exhibition “Suzdal merchants. Portrait in the interior"
Suzdal merchants - who “nobly served” for the glory hometown, undeservedly forgotten donors and patriots - the Vladimir-Suzdal Museum-Reserve dedicates this exhibition.
Exhibition “Suzdal merchants. Portrait in the interior” in the house of the Agapov merchants began working in the beginning. 2012
In the exhibition you can get acquainted with the life and everyday life of Suzdal residents. XIX - XX centuries, see original interior items and documents of that era, feel the aroma of measured provincial life, learn about the social and charitable activities of the Suzdal merchants. The exhibits presented are the second half. XIX century complemented by modern stylized furniture on which you can sit, look at ancient documents and photographs, feel the atmosphere of past centuries, and think about the transience of time.
In the Agapovs' house there is furniture, decorations, photographs on the walls... - everything from the past, way of life, merchant nature, the multicolored Russian world, the essence of which was a wise, responsive Orthodox soul.
Exhibition on the ground floor
Description of the presentation by individual slides:
1 slide
Slide description:
The life of peasants and merchants in Siberia in the 17th - 18th centuries. Kotova Natalia Arkadyevna. History and social studies teacher, MBOU Kholmogory Secondary School
2 slide
Slide description:
3 slide
Slide description:
The penetration of Russian fishermen into Eastern Siberia began in the 17th century. Traditionally, the colonization of Siberia is classified in two directions: government and free people. The goal of the government's resettlement policy was to provide the serving population with grain allowances through the use of natural resources annexed territories. In the 18th century, it was planned to create an agricultural region in Siberia, which would not only meet the needs of the region, but also cover the growing needs of the center for bread. Those wishing to move to Siberia “to the sovereign’s arable land” were given benefits for two, three years or more, assistance and loans of various sizes. The farmers of Siberia in the 17th century were arable and quit-rent peasants. At first, peasants sent to Siberia received assistance in their old place. The government made sure that peasants moved to Siberia with a full farm.
4 slide
Slide description:
The newcomer population borrowed a lot from the natives' hunting and fishing tools, and the natives, in turn, began to widely use agricultural tools. Borrowing from both sides in varying degrees manifested themselves in constructed dwellings, outbuildings, household items and clothing. For example, in the lower reaches of the Irtysh and Ob, Russian residents borrowed malitsas, parkas, shoes made of reindeer fur, and much more from the Nenets and Khanty. The Yakuts willingly lent their kayaks to the Cossacks.
5 slide
Slide description:
The buildings in Western and Eastern Siberia, in the northern and southern regions. On the outskirts of Siberia, on Far East and especially in the lower reaches of the Kolyma, the temporary dwellings of the Russians on the settlements were not much different from the huts of the aborigines. In the early years, in the forest-steppe and steppe zones, where there was a shortage of building materials, new peasants built only huts. Over time, the share of buildings of the two-part type reached 48%. Houses with a three-part layout in the steppe and forest-steppe regions accounted for 19 - 65%.
6 slide
Slide description:
The assigned peasants preferred the “hut - canopy - cage” option. The local administration contributed to its preservation. Multi-chamber buildings, including several living quarters and a canopy, in all areas Western Siberia there was very little - up to 3%. They were owned by families with a complex generational structure, trading peasants, rural priests and townspeople.
7 slide
Slide description:
8 slide
Slide description:
The main food products were grains: rye, wheat and oats. Oats were ground into oatmeal, which was used to make jelly, kvass and beer. Everyday bread was baked from rye flour; on holidays, bread and pies were baked from white wheat flour. Vegetables from the garden, which were looked after and looked after by women, were a great help for the table. The peasants learned to preserve cabbage, carrots, turnips, radishes and cucumbers until the next harvest. Cabbage and cucumbers were salted in large quantities. For the holidays they prepared meat soup from sauerkraut. Fish appeared on the peasant's table more often than meat. The kids went into the forest in droves to collect mushrooms, berries and nuts, which were essential additions to the table.
Slide 9
Slide description:
10 slide
Slide description:
Russian service people who lived in fortified towns of Western Siberia, enterprising merchants and industrialists, on their own initiative, penetrated into new lands. They were often followed by military detachments. On the banks of the rivers, new small fortifications appeared - forts, from which the cities of Eastern Siberia later grew - Yeniseisk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, Nerchinsk and others. Service people and merchant-industrialists collected tribute (yasak) here for the Russian Tsar, seized rich booty for themselves, took local elders and princes hostage, and annexed new lands to the Russian state.
11 slide
Slide description:
In Siberia, the merchant class began to form at the turn of the 17th–18th centuries, but the term “merchant” came into use much later. At first, merchants from among the townspeople were called townspeople, only in the 1730s. The word “merchant” began to be used, becoming widespread in the 1740s–1760s.
12 slide
Slide description:
Women's clothing among merchants was very diverse. The most common female costume for merchants was a long-sleeved dress made of wool, silk, or muslin, over which a short jacket without a collar, brocade or silk, was worn. Pearls were a widespread decoration. Merchants wore pearl threads around their necks and pearl earrings. In winter they wore coats, fur coats and coats with hare, fox, and marten furs. Women's fur coats were very diverse; they differed in cut and could be covered with cloth, damask, napkin, corduroy, or velvet.
Slide 13
Slide description:
Russian merchants were engaged in trade. They hired caravans and transported their goods from one city to another. Sometimes hostile merchants ran into the caravans of their enemies and robbed them. But they lived better than the peasants, they dressed in the best shops in the city. Merchants wore richly decorated camisoles, which were made of taffeta, brocade, and satin. They were decorated with gilding and sphincters (large gold buttons.
Slide 14
Slide description:
Merchants' home. The building had a narrow facade facing the street, the house itself extended deep into the plot, in the courtyard there were outbuildings (stables, barn, brewery) and servants' quarters. The first room in the merchant's house is a spacious foyer with a small kitchen, behind which there are living quarters. Goods were stored in the basement and on the upper floors.
The Swedish diplomat Johann Philipp Kielburger, who visited Moscow during the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Romanov, wrote in his book “Brief news about Russian trade, how it was carried out across all of Russia in 1674” that all Muscovites “from the most noble to The merchants love the simplest things, which is the reason that the city of Moscow has more trading shops than in Amsterdam or at least another entire principality.” This is how Kielburger saw Moscow. But it should be said that in the XVII -XVIII centuries the concept of “merchants” did not yet represent a specific category of the population. It characterized the type of commercial and industrial activity. Since the 40s of the 18th century, the concept of merchants covered the entire townspeople population of a certain wealth. Access to this state was widely open to peasants. This led to the fact that the number of merchants was constantly increasing, and from the 1750s the “merchants” demanded a monopoly on trade for themselves, and received it in 1755.
The history of the Moscow merchants proper began in the 17th century, when the merchant class from the category of taxed people became a special group of urban or townspeople, which in turn began to be divided into guests, the living room and the cloth shop and settlements. The highest and most honorable place in this trade hierarchy belonged to the guests (there were no more than 30 of them in the 17th century). Merchants received this title personally from the tsar, and only the largest entrepreneurs were awarded it, with a trade turnover of at least 20 thousand per year, which was a huge amount at that time. The guests were close to the king, were exempt from paying duties paid by merchants of lower rank, occupied the highest financial positions, and also had the right to buy estates for their own possession. If we talk about the members of the drawing room and cloth hundreds, then in the 17th century there were about 400 people. They also enjoyed great privileges, occupied a prominent place in the financial hierarchy, but were inferior to the guests in “honor.” The living rooms and cloth hundreds had self-government, their common affairs were carried out by elected heads and elders. Finally, the lowest rank of Moscow merchants was represented by the inhabitants of the Black Hundreds and settlements. These were predominantly self-governing craft organizations that produced goods themselves, which they then sold themselves. This category of merchants provided strong competition to professional merchants of the highest ranks, since the “Black Hundreds” traded in their own products and, therefore, could sell them cheaper. In addition, the townspeople who had the right to trade were divided into the best, average and young.
The activities of the Moscow merchants were regulated by the New Trade Charter, adopted in 1667. The charter prescribed a clear taxation system for merchants: instead of tamga1, a shelf tax (from trading activities) and a tax (from fishing) were introduced. The Moscow merchant class of the 17th-18th centuries was characterized by the absence of a specific specialization in the trade of any one product. Even large merchants simultaneously traded a wide variety of goods, and other transactions were added to this. For example, extracts from customs books collected in 1648 about the goods brought by the guest merchant Vasily Shorin indicate that in 1645 he brought through the Arkhangelsk customs 7 1/2 halves of cloth, 200 arshins of satin, 25 arshins of red velvet , gold spun into tinsel, but also thin copper, red board copper and 100 thousand needles, and on another board there were 16 copper bells weighing 256 pounds and 860 feet of writing paper. From the same books it follows that in another year they were brought groceries. Among the export items, Shorin's clerks brought rendered lard, glue, butter, fish, caviar, but also yuft and oars. So the same merchant traded in cloth and velvet, copper, needles, paper, oil, fish and other various goods. Trade in XVII-XVIII centuries in Moscow it was carried out directly on the street or in special shops located within the Gostiny Dvor, which was founded in the middle of the 16th century under Ivan the Terrible. Then, by order of the Emperor, merchants from all over Moscow were resettled in Kitai-Gorod. At first the rows of shops were wooden, but in 1595 after a fire they were replaced with stone ones. About the old Gostiny Dvor, the envoy to the court of Ivan the Terrible, Baron Sigismund Herberstein, wrote in his “Notes on Muscovy”: “Not far from the Grand Duke’s castle there is a huge stone building called Gostiny Dvor, in which merchants live and display their goods.”
By the way, not all Moscow merchants had the right to trade in Gostiny Dvor. The fact is that in the 17th century, shopping areas in Moscow were divided into ordinary shopping arcades and rows of the Gostiny Dvor. According to the Code of 1649, retail trade was to be carried out in the rows, and wholesale trade was to be carried out in the living rooms - “no goods should be sold separately at the gostiny dvors.”
A typical shop of a Moscow merchant, either in the shopping arcade or in Gostiny Dvor, was a room 2 fathoms wide, 2 1/2 deep. Such a shop was called complete. Along with full shops there were so-called half-shops, quarter-shops and even eighths of shops. In 1726, in Moscow Kitay-Gorod, out of 827 total trading estates, there were only 307 owners of full shops, while in 76 cases they occupied less than a whole shop, and in 328 cases the trading place was only half a shop.
But there were other cases. For example, some Moscow merchants connected several shops, but this was a very rare phenomenon: there were only 32 cases of owning 1 1/2 shops and 15 cases of more than 2 1/2 shops, of which only one was when the merchant occupied 3 3/4 shops . In 1701, 189 people owned one shop, while 242 occupied only half a shop, and 77 people occupied 3/4 shops.
More were added to the shops great amount trading places, which were only temporary, portable premises. There were 680 such places in Kitai-Gorod, for example, in 1626, of which 47 huts, 267 benches and so-called “bench places”, and here, too, the merchant often occupied half a hut or part of a bench place.
So, large trade in Moscow existed next to small trade. Of course, large merchants had a clear advantage. For example, in choosing a place for trading, which, moreover, cost a lot. Thus, the Moscow gardener Kondraty Hvastlivy, the largest distiller in Moscow in the first quarter of the 18th century, bought a shop in Kitay-gorod in the Smolensk cloth row for 1000 rubles, and V. Shchegolin, one of the first “cloth” manufacturers under Peter, bought a stone shop for 500 rubles . The price of such a shop was equal to the cost of a large yard with good buildings. Its location in a busy place was also appreciated. Shopkeepers paid a substantial income to the treasury, which was a benefit for all parties involved: the buyer (more goods - lower prices), the merchant himself and the treasury.
The main trading place in Moscow was, of course, considered Kitay-Gorod. There were more than a hundred shopping arcades here: almost 20 clothing stalls, a needle stall, a knife stall and others in which they sold metal products; jewelry rows, distinguished by the cleanliness and politeness of the sellers; the quietest row of icons; a bleaching row where Streltsy wives and widows traded. The apple, melon and cucumber rows stood separately. The grain trade was carried out mainly on the banks of the Moscow River. On the bridge spanning the moat from the Kremlin's Spassky Gate, books and manuscripts were traded. They also traded in other areas, for example, in the squares at the gates of the White and Zemlyanoy cities, but there the trade was much less lively. In their daily activities, large and small Moscow merchants sometimes came into conflict. So, for example, at the end of the 20s. In the 18th century, a group of “companion merchants” took over the entire vodka trade in Moscow. Having paid a lot of money to the treasury for the ransom, they enormously raised the price of vodka in the city. Seeing this, some dissatisfied Moscow small traders began to buy and bring vodka from the suburbs, selling it at a lower price. The “company people” did not put up with this and in 1731 erected a low earthen rampart with a wall of wooden posts driven into the ground around all the significantly populated outskirts of the city. On the main roads, outposts were set up, where all the carts were inspected, checking whether vodka was being brought into the city. However, such a palisade turned out to be no hindrance for small traders. Soon many loopholes formed in it, and then it was completely taken away for firewood. And again, cheap wine began to be sold in large quantities in Moscow.
It is interesting that at the beginning of the 18th century, according to the Decree of 1714, all Moscow merchants and artisans were obliged to settle in suburban settlements. Soon around Zemlyanoy Val(the old border of Moscow) a belt of various suburban settlements quickly began to take shape.
The decision to evict merchants from Kitay-Gorod was made, among other things, due to the fact that the number of Moscow merchants was constantly increasing. In Kitay-Gorod there was not only nowhere to live, but even to trade. Therefore, at the end of the 18th century, Empress Catherine II commissioned the architect Giacomo Quarenghi to draw up a project for a new Gostiny Dvor within the boundaries of Ilyinka and Varvarka streets, since the old Gostiny Dvor, which by that time numbered 760 shops, barns, and tents, could no longer accommodate everyone. And this is not surprising, since by the end of the 18th century more than 12 thousand merchants and members of their families lived in Moscow.
Tamga - since the 13th century in the Russian state, a duty was levied for the transportation of goods on which a special mark was applied - tamga.
