Indigenous peoples of Siberia. Indigenous peoples of Western Siberia

From the end of the 16th century the systematic settlement of the Trans-Urals by the Russian people began and the development of its inexhaustible natural resources together with the peoples of Siberia. Behind the "stone", i.e. beyond the Urals, lay a huge territory with an area of ​​​​more than 10 million square meters. km. In the expanses of Siberia, according to the estimates of B. O. Dolgikh, approximately 236 thousand people of the non-Russian population lived. 1 Each of them accounted for an average of more than 40 sq. m. km of area with fluctuations from b to 300 sq. km. km. Considering that during the hunting economy for each eater in temperate zone only 10 sq. km of land, and with the most primitive animal husbandry, pastoral tribes have only 1 sq. km, it will become clear that indigenous people Siberia by the 17th century. was still far from the development of the entire area of ​​this region, even with the previous level of management. Enormous opportunities opened up before the Russian people and the indigenous population in the development of areas that had not yet been used, both through the expansion of the former forms of economy, and, to an even greater extent, through its intensification.

The higher production skills of the Russian population, which had been engaged in arable farming, stall animal husbandry for many centuries and came close to the creation of manufactory production, allowed it to make a significant contribution to the economic development of the natural resources of Siberia.

One of the most remarkable pages in the history of the development of Siberia by the Russian population in the 17th century. was the creation of the foundations of Siberian plow agriculture, which later turned the region into one of the main breadbaskets of Russia. The Russians, having crossed the Urals, gradually got acquainted with the great natural wealth of the new region: full-flowing and fish rivers, forests rich in fur-bearing animals, good lands suitable for arable farming (“fertile wilds”). However, they did not find here the cultivated fields they were accustomed to. Indications of the lack of bread, of the hunger experienced by Russian newcomers (“we eat grass and roots”) are full of the first Russian descriptions of even those areas where fat fields will later be sown. 2

1 For this calculation, the maximum figure of the indigenous population is used, calculated by B. O. Dolgikh (B. O. Dolgikh. Tribal and tribal composition of the peoples of Siberia in the 17th century, p. 617). In a study by V. M. Kabuzan and S. M. Troitsky, a much lower figure is given (72 thousand male souls - see pages 55, 183 of this volume).

2 Siberian Chronicles, St. Petersburg, 1907, pp. 59, 60, 109, 110, 177, 178, 242.

These first impressions were not misleading, despite the undeniable evidence that part of the local population had agricultural skills that had developed long before the arrival of the Russians. Pre-Russian agriculture in Siberia can be noted only in a few places in the predominantly southern part of Siberia (the Minusinsk basin, the river valleys of the Altai, Dauro-Dyuchersk agriculture on the Amur). Once reached relatively high level, due to a number of historical reasons, it experienced a sharp decline and was actually destroyed long before the arrival of Russian settlers. In other places (the lower reaches of the Tavda, the lower reaches of the Tom, the middle reaches of the Yenisei, the upper reaches of the Lena), agriculture was of a primitive nature. It was hoe (with the exception of the agriculture of the Tobolsk Tatars), was distinguished by a small composition of crops (kyrlyk, millet, barley and less often wheat), very small crops and equally insignificant collections. Therefore, agriculture was everywhere replenished by collecting wild-growing edible plants (sarana, wild onion, peony, pine nut). But, replenished by gathering, it has always been only an auxiliary occupation, giving way to the leading sectors of the economy - cattle breeding, fishing, hunting. Areas of primitive agriculture were interspersed with areas whose population did not know agriculture at all. Huge tracts of land have never been touched by a pickaxe or a hoe. Naturally, such farming could not become a source of food supplies for the arriving Russian population. 3

The Russian farmer, with his knowledge of the plow and harrow, the three-field crop rotation, and the use of fertilizer, had, using his labor skills, to establish in these places an essentially new arable farming and develop it in an unfamiliar geographical environment, surrounded by an unknown non-agricultural population, under conditions of heavy class oppression. The Russian peasant had to accomplish a heroic feat of great historical significance.

The distribution of the Russian population in Siberia in the first century was determined by phenomena that had little to do with the interests of development Agriculture. The search for precious furs, which was one of the most serious incentives for the early advance of the Russians into Siberia, inevitably led to the regions of taiga, forest-tundra and tundra. The desire of the government to secure the local population as a supplier of furs led to the construction of cities and prisons in the nodal points of their settlement. Hydro-geographical conditions also contributed to this. The most convenient river route, linking the West and the East, went along the places where the Pechora and Kama river systems converged with the Ob, and then the Yenisei with the Lena, and ran in the same settlement zone. The political situation in the south of Siberia made it difficult to move in this direction. Thus, in initial period Russians appeared in a zone either completely inaccessible to agriculture, or of little use for it, and only in the southern part of their settlement (forest-steppe) did they find favorable conditions. It is in these areas that the first centers of Siberian agriculture are created. The first mention of plowing dates back to the 16th century. (arable lands of the Tyumen and Verkhoturye Russian villages along the Tura River). Arriving in Siberia with other goals, the Russians turned to agriculture in the very first years of their advance to the east, since the food problem in Siberia immediately became very acute. Initially, they tried to resolve it by importing bread from European Rus'. Bread was brought with them by government detachments, commercial and industrial people, and individual settlers. But this did not solve the issue of nutrition for the permanent Russian population of Siberia. They didn't allow it and

3 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia (XVII century). M., 1956, p. 34. 35.

annual deliveries of bread to Siberia. The obligation to supply "sowing stocks" was imposed on the northern Russian cities with their counties (Cherdyn, Vym-Yarenskaya, Sol-Vychegodskaya, Ustyug, Vyatka, etc.). In addition, government purchases of bread in European Russia were additionally organized. Such an organization of the grain supply of the distant outskirts suffered from a major drawback, since the supply of supplies to Siberia was extraordinarily expensive and took long time: the transportation of bread from Ustyug to the shores of the Pacific Ocean lasted 5 years.4 At the same time, the cost of bread increased tenfold, and part of the food perished along the way. The desire of the state to shift these costs onto the shoulders of the population increased feudal obligations and provoked resistance. Such an organization of supplies could not fully satisfy the demand for bread. The population constantly complained about the lack of bread and hunger. In addition, the government needed bread to provide for service people, to whom it issued "bread salaries."

Orders to the Siberian governors throughout the 17th century. filled with instructions on the need to establish state arable land. At the same time, the population plowed up the land on their own initiative. This was facilitated by the composition of the population arriving in Siberia. To a large extent, this was the working peasantry, who fled the center from feudal oppression and dreamed of doing their usual thing. Thus, the feudal state, on the one hand, and the population itself, on the other, acted as the initial organizers of Siberian agriculture.

The state sought to establish in Siberia the so-called sovereign tithe arable land. Having declared the entire Siberian land to be sovereign, the government provided it to the direct producer of material goods for use on the condition that the sovereign's tithe was processed for this. In the most pure form the sovereign's tithe arable land was allocated a special field cultivated by the sovereign's peasants, who received land for this "sobina" arable land at the rate of 4 tithes per 1 tithe of state plowing. 5 The sovereign's field was cultivated by peasants under the direct supervision of clerks. In other cases, the sovereign's tithe was directly attached to the "sobin" plots. And although at the same time there was no territorial division of corvee and peasant fields, the clerk supervised the processing of only the sovereign's tithe (usually the most productive) and the collection of bread from it. There were few cases in Siberia when only the sovereign's field was cultivated by a peasant to obtain a "month" (food bread). 6 But already in the XVII century. there were cases of replacing the processing of the sovereign's arable land (corvée) with the introduction of grain quitrent (rent in kind). However, corvee labor for the Siberian peasant during the entire 17th century. was dominant.

A specific feature of Siberia was the fact that the feudal state, in its desire to establish a corvée economy, was faced with the absence of a peasant population. It could not use the local population as feudally obligated cultivators due to the lack of appropriate production skills among the natives. Separate attempts in this direction, undertaken at the beginning of the XVII century. in Western Siberia, were not successful and were quickly abandoned. On the other hand, the state, interested in obtaining furs, sought to preserve the hunting nature of the economy of the local population. The latter was supposed to extract furs, and the production of bread fell on the Russian settlers. But the small number of Russians became the main obstacle in resolving grain difficulties.

At first, the government tried to overcome this difficulty by forcibly resettling peasants from European Russia "by decree" and "by the device", thereby creating one of the early groups of the Siberian peasantry - "transferrs". So, in 1590, 30 families from Solvychegodsk district were sent to Siberia as arable peasants, in 1592 - peasants from Perm and Vyatka, in 1600 - Kazan, Laishev and Tetyushites. 7 This measure was not effective enough, and besides, it weakened the solvency of the old districts, was costly to the peasant worlds and therefore provoked protests.

Another source of labor for the sovereign's arable land was exile. Siberia already in the 16th century. served as a place of exile to the settlement. Some of the exiles went to the arable land. This measure was in effect throughout the 17th century and passed into the 18th century. The number of exiles was especially significant during periods of exacerbation of the class struggle in central Rus'. But this method of providing agriculture with labor did not give the expected effect. The exiles partly died during the incredibly difficult journey. The mark "died on the road" is a common occurrence in the painting of exiles. Some went to the settlements and garrisons, the other part of the people forcibly planted on arable land, often without sufficient skills, strength and means, “wandered between the courtyards” or fled in search of freedom and a better life further east, and sometimes back to Rus'.

The most effective was the attraction to the sovereign's arable land of persons who arrived in Siberia at their own peril and risk.

In some contradiction with the general structure of the feudal state, which attached the peasant to the place, the government already in the 16th century. invited the Siberian administration to call to Siberia "eager people from father to son and from brother to brother and from neighbors of neighbors." 8 In this way, they tried at the same time to keep the tax in place and to transfer surplus labor to Siberia. At the same time, the eviction area was limited to the Pomor counties, free from landownership. The government did not dare to touch the interests of the landlords. True, at the same time, the government is somewhat expanding its program, proposing to call on the plowed peasants "from walking and all sorts of willing free people."9 Emigrants not from the Pomeranian districts, but fugitives from the areas of landownership could fall into this category of persons. Unauthorized resettlement to Siberia of the taxed and dependent population could not fail to attract the attention of the government and landowners. From the beginning of the 17th century cases are underway about the investigation of those who fled to Siberia, initiated by the petitions of the landowners. The government was forced to take a number of restrictive measures, including investigations and the return of fugitives.

In this matter, government policy throughout the 17th century. retains a dual character. By assigning the peasants to the landowner and tax in central regions, the government was also interested in attaching the peasants to the developed tax in Siberia. That is why, despite a number of prohibitive decrees and high-profile detective cases, the Siberian voivodship administration turned a blind eye to the arrival of new settlers from Rus'. Considering them "free", "walking" people, she willingly cast them into the sovereign's plowed peasants. This influx of fugitives into Siberia, fleeing from the growing feudal oppression in the center, replenished the Siberian villages and determined the nature of their population.

4 Ibid., p. 314.

5 Ibid., p. 417.

6 TsGADA, SP, book. 2, l. 426; V. I. Sh u n k o v. Essays on the history of the colonization of Siberia in the 17th-early 18th centuries. M., 1946, pp. 174, 175.

7 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of the colonization of Siberia..., pp. 13, 14.

8 TsGADA, SP, book. 2, ll. 96, 97.

9 Ibid., f, Verkhotursky Uyezd Court, col. 42.

The overall result of the resettlement of peasants in Siberia by the end of the 17th century. turned out to be quite significant. According to the salary book of Siberia in 1697, there were over 11,400 peasant households with a population of more than 27 thousand males. ten

Having left their homes, often secretly, having traveled a long and difficult journey, most of the fugitives came to Siberia "in body and soul" and were unable to start a peasant economy on their own. The voivodship administration, wishing to organize the sovereign's plowing, was forced to come to their aid to some extent. This assistance was expressed in the issuance of assistance and loans. Help was irrevocable assistance, monetary or in kind, for the peasant to set up his own farm. A loan, also in cash or in kind, had the same purpose, but was subject to mandatory repayment. Therefore, when issuing a loan, a borrowed bondage was drawn up.

The exact amount of support and loans is difficult to establish; they varied by time and place. The more acute was the need for workers, the higher were the help and loans; the greater was the influx of immigrants, the less was the help and loan; sometimes no loans were made at all. In the 1930s, in Verkhotursk Uyezd, they gave 10 rubles for help (“what could a peasant do with a settler’s palace, plow arable land and start any kind of factory”). in money per person, and in addition, 5 quarters of rye, 1 quarter of barley, 4 quarters of oats, and a pood of salt. Sometimes in the same county, horses, cows, small livestock were given out to help. On the Lena in the 40s, assistance reached 20 and 30 rubles. money and 1 horse per person." The loan issued along with assistance was usually less, and sometimes equal to it.

Along with assistance and loans, the new settler was granted a privilege - exemption from feudal obligations for one or another period. Government instructions gave the local administration a wide opportunity to change the amount of assistance, loans and benefits: “... and give them a loan and help and benefits depending on the local business and on people and families with bail and trying on previous years.” Their sizes, obviously, were also put in connection with the size of the sovereign's tithe arable land imposed on the new settler, and the latter depended on the size and prosperity of the family. In the 17th century there is a tendency to a gradual decrease in assistance and loans, with the desire, under favorable conditions, to do without them altogether. This does not at all indicate the large amount of assistance provided at the beginning. The presence of numerous peasant petitions about the difficulty of returning a loan, a large number of cases about its collection and the fact of a significant shortfall in loan money by the order huts speak rather about the opposite. The fact is that the prices for the peasant "factory" (draft cattle, mine workers, etc.) were very high. In any case, help and loans made it possible for the newcomers to start organizing, first, a "sobin" economy, and then, after the expiration of grace years, to cultivate the sovereign's tithe field. 12

This is how sovereign villages arose in Siberia, inhabited by sovereign plowed peasants.

At the same time, the arrangement of peasant settlements proceeded in other ways. Siberian monasteries played a well-known role in this direction.

10 Ibid., joint venture, book. 1354, ll. 218-406; V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 44, 70, 86, 109, 199, 201, 218.

11 P. N. Butsinsky. The settlement of Siberia and the life of its first inhabitants. Kharkov, 1889, p. 71.

12 TsGADA, joint venture, st. 344, part I, l. 187&e.; V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of the colonization of Siberia.., pp. 22-29.

During the 17th century more than three dozen monasteries arose in Siberia. Despite the fact that they arose under conditions of a very restrained attitude of the government towards the growth of monastic land ownership, they all received land grants, land contributions from private individuals, in addition, monasteries bought land, and sometimes simply seized it. The most significant landowner of this type was the Tobolsk Sophia house, which began to receive land already in 1628. It was followed by thirty-five monasteries that arose throughout Siberia from Verkhoturye and Irbitskaya Sloboda to Yakutsk and Albazin. Unlike the Central Russian monasteries, they received uninhabited lands in their possession, “about with the right“ to call on peasants not from tax and not from arable land and not serfs. Taking advantage of this right, they launched activities to settle the newly arrived population on the monastic lands on conditions similar to those that were practiced during the arrangement of the sovereign's tithe arable land. As well as there, the monasteries gave help and loans and provided benefits. According to orderly records, the newcomer was obliged for this to “not leave the monastery land” and cultivate the monastery’s arable land or bring quitrent to the monastery and carry out other monastery “products”. Essentially, it was about self-selling people into the monastery "fortress". Thus, the fugitive from Rus' and Siberia on the monastic lands fell into the same conditions from which he left his former places. The results of the activities of Siberian monasteries in enslaving the alien population should be recognized as significant. By the beginning of the XVIII century. Siberian monasteries had 1082 peasant households. 13

Along with these two paths, the self-organization of the newcomer population on earth also went. Part of the settlers wandered around Siberia in search of work, subsisting on temporary work for hire. A certain number of people arrived in Siberia to work on the extraction of furs in the crafts organized by the Russian rich. Subsequently, we find them among the sovereign's peasants. This transition to arable farming took place either through the official adoption of the peasantry and the allotment by the voivodeship administration of a plot of land for "sobina" arable land with the determination of the amount of duties (the sovereign's tithe arable land or dues), or by seizing the land and arbitrarily cultivating it. In the latter case, during the next check, such a plowman still fell into the number of sovereign peasants and began to pay the corresponding feudal rent.

Thus, the main core of Siberian farmers was created. But the peasants were not alone in their agricultural pursuits. Acute shortage of bread in Siberia in the 17th century. encouraged other segments of the population to turn to arable farming. Along with the peasants, the land was plowed by servicemen and townspeople.

The Siberian serviceman, unlike the servicemen of European Russia, as a rule, did not receive land dachas. And this is quite understandable. Uninhabited and uncultivated land could not provide the service man with the existence and performance of his service. Therefore, here a service person was made up with a monetary and grain salary. Depending on his official position, he received an average of 10 to 40 quarters of grain supplies per year. Approximately half of this number was given out in oats with the expectation of feeding horses. If we consider the average composition of a family of 4 people, then (with a quarter of 4 pounds), one person had from 5 to 20 pounds of rye per year. Moreover, the main part of the service people - the rank and file, who received the lowest salaries - received 5 poods per 1 eater per year. Even with the careful issuance of grain wages, the size of approx.

13 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 46, 47, 368-374.

lada poorly provided for the family's needs for bread. In practice, the issuance of grain salaries was carried out with significant delays and shortfalls. That is why a serviceman in Siberia often began to plow himself and, instead of a grain salary, preferred to receive a plot of land.

According to the Tobolsk category, by 1700, 22% of service people served not for a salary, but from arable land; in Tomsk Uyezd at that time 40% of the service people had arable land, etc. 14 Naturally, the conversion of service people to agriculture was restrained both by their main occupation and the place of service. A significant part served their service in areas unsuitable for agriculture. According to the list of Siberian cities at the beginning of the 18th century. 20% of every rank of paid people had their own plowing.

The townspeople were also engaged in agriculture, if the places of their concentration were in the zone accessible for this. So, even in Tobolsk, the area of ​​​​which in the XVII century. was considered unsuitable for agriculture, in 1624 44.4% of the townspeople had arable land. In Tomsk by the beginning of the 18th century. almost the entire townspeople were engaged in agriculture, and in the Yenisei region, 30% of the townspeople had arable land. The townspeople, like the servicemen, raised arable land with their own means. fifteen

Thus, a significant part of the Russian population of Siberia in the XVII century. engaged in agriculture, and this made it possible even then to lay its solid foundations in Siberia. The activities of the settlers took place in harsh and new natural conditions for the Russian farmer and required a gigantic effort. Pushing back the Russian population in the 17th century. to the northern regions made these conditions even more difficult. The habitual ideas brought to Siberia collided with harsh reality, and often the newcomer suffered defeat in the struggle with nature. Dry notes of voivodship and clerk’s replies or peasant petitions, full of indications that “the bread was cold”, “there was a drought”, “the bread is cold from frost and stone”, “the earth does not grow sand and grass”, “the bread was washed with water” , 16 speak of tragedies, of the cruel blows inflicted by nature on the still fragile, just emerging economy. On this difficult path, the farmer showed great perseverance, sharpness, and ultimately emerged victorious.

The first step was the selection of places for arable land. With great care, the Russian plowman determined the soil, climatic, and other conditions. By the power of the voivodship huts, clerks and the peasants themselves - people who are “malicious” for such deeds - “good” lands were chosen, “the mother will look forward to bread.” And vice versa, unsuitable lands were rejected, “do not look for grain arable land, the land does not melt even in the middle of summer.” 17 Identified suitable lands were made inventories, and sometimes drawings. Already in the XVII century. the beginning of the description of territories suitable for agriculture was laid and the first attempts were made to map agricultural land. eighteen

If the "inspection" was carried out by the voivodship administration, then on its initiative the sovereign and "sobina" arable land was organized. The peasants themselves, having “inspected” the good land, turned to the voivodship huts with a request to allocate the identified suitable plots to them.

14 Ibid., pp. 50, 78.

15 Ibid., pp. 51, 76, 131. (Data on Tobolsk Posad agriculture provided by ON Vilkov).

16 Ibid., p. 264; V. N. Sherstoboev. Ilim arable land, vol. I. Irkutsk, 1949, pp. 338-341.

17 TsGADA, SP. stlb. 113, ll. 86-93.

18 Ibid., book. 1351, l. 68.

In addition to suitability for agriculture, the site had to have another condition - to be free. Russian aliens came to the territory, which has long been inhabited by the indigenous population. After the annexation of Siberia to Russia, the Russian government, declaring all the land sovereign, recognized the right of the local population to use this land. Interested in receiving yasak, it sought to preserve the aboriginal economy and the solvency of this economy. Therefore, the government pursued a policy of preserving their land for yasaks. The Russian people were ordered to settle "in empty places, and not to take away land from the yasak people." During the allotment of land, investigations were usually carried out, "whether that place is later and whether people are tributary." In most cases, the local yasak population - "local people" - was involved in such a "search". 19

Under Siberian conditions, this requirement for a combination of land interests of the Russian and local population turned out to be generally feasible. Placement on the territory of more than 10 million square meters. km, in addition to 236 thousand people of the local population, an additional 11,400 peasant households could not cause serious difficulties. Undoubtedly, with a weak organization of land management, and sometimes in the complete absence of any organization of it, clashes of interests between the Russian and the indigenous population could occur, as they also occurred among the Russian population itself. However, these collisions did not define the overall picture. In general, land management was carried out at the expense of free land.

Such lands were usually searched for near rivers, streams, so that "it is possible to arrange ... mills," but also with the condition that "it does not drown with water." 20 Due to the fact that Siberian agriculture developed in the XVII century. in the forest or less often in the forest-steppe zone, they looked for clearings (elani) free from forest thickets in order to free themselves or at least reduce the need for laborious clearing of the forest for arable land. Small in composition in the 17th century. Siberian peasant families strove to avoid clearing forest areas, resorting to it only in exceptional cases.

After choosing a site, perhaps the most difficult period of its development began. At the first steps, there was often no knowledge and no confidence not only in the most profitable methods of farming, but also in its very possibility. Trial crops "for experience" were widely used. Both the voivodship administration and the peasants were engaged in this. Thus, in 1640, in the Ket uyezd, they sowed "a little for the experience." The experience turned out to be successful, the rye grew “good”. On this basis, they came to the conclusion: "... the arable land in the Ketsky prison can be large" 21 . The conclusion was overly optimistic. It was not possible to organize a large arable land in the Ket district, but the possibility of agriculture was proved. A successful experience served as an impetus for the development of agriculture in the area. So, the son of one of these "experimenters" said: ". . . my father, having arrived from Ilimsk, made an experiment in the Nerchinsk grain plowing and sowed bread. . . And according to that experience, bread was born in Nerchinsk, and in spite of that, the local inhabitants taught to plant arable land and sow bread. . . And before that, there was no bread in Nerchinsk and there was no plowing. 22 Sometimes experience gave negative results. So, experimental crops near the Yakut prison in the 40s of the XVII century. led to the conclusion that “in the spring the rain does not live for a long time and the rye gives out by the wind”,

19 RIB, vol. II. SPb., 1875, doc. No. 47, DAI, vol. VIII, No. 51, IV; V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of the colonization of Siberia .... p. 64.

20 TsGADA, joint venture, st. 91, ll. 80, 81, column. 113, l. 386.

21 Ibid., column. 113, l. 386.

22 Ibid., book. 1372. ll. 146-149.

and in autumn there are early frosts and the bread "frost hits". 23 The unsuccessful experience organized by the governor led to the refusal to establish the sovereign tithe arable land in this place; the unsuccessful experience of a peasant could end in his complete ruin. Meager notes - "... the peasants did not reap those chilled breads in their sobin fields, because there is no kernel at all" - concealed behind them the catastrophic situation of the peasant economy in the new place.

In the same experimental way, the question of the preferential suitability of one or another agricultural crop for a given area was resolved. Russian man naturally sought to transfer to new areas all the cultures he knew. In the 17th century winter and spring rye, oats, barley, wheat, peas, buckwheat, millet, and hemp appeared on Siberian fields. Cabbage, carrots, turnips, onions, garlic, cucumbers were grown from vegetable crops in vegetable gardens. At the same time, their distribution over the territory of Siberia and the ratio of sown areas occupied by different crops were determined. This placement did not take place immediately. It was the result of conscious and unconscious searches that the Russian population of Siberia was engaged in during the entire period under consideration. However, the placement was not final. Subsequent time has made significant adjustments to it. By the end of the XVII century. Siberia has become predominantly a rye country. Rye, oats and, in some places, barley were sown on the sovereign's fields in the western districts. Rye became the leading crop in both the Yenisei and Ilimsk districts, where, along with it, oats were sown in significant quantities and barley in insignificant quantities. In the Irkutsk, Udinsky and Nerchinsk counties, rye also took a monopoly position, and on the Lena it coexisted with oats and barley. On the "sobin" fields, in addition to rye, oats and barley, other crops were sown. 24

Together with the composition of crops, the Russian farmer brought to Siberia the methods of their cultivation. In the central regions of the country at that time, the fallow system of agriculture in the form of a three-field system dominated, while the shifting and slashing systems were preserved in some places. Slashing system in Siberia in the 17th century. has not been widely adopted. The fallow land was widely used, “and the Siberian arable people are throwing arable poor lands, and they will occupy new lands for arable land, where someone will search.” 25 With a wide distribution, the fall is still for the 17th century. was not the only system of agriculture. The gradual reduction in the area of ​​free elan places and the difficulties of clearing led to a shortening of the fallow and the establishment of a fallow system, initially in the form of a two-field system. On Ilim and Lena in the taiga-mountain zone Eastern Siberia, as V. N. Sherstoboev well showed, 26 a two-field system is established. Gradually, however, as complaints testify, as a result of the fact that most of the arable land was plowed up, there were no free “pleasant” places near the settlements, which stimulated the transition to a steam system in the form of a three-field. Undoubtedly, the economic tradition brought from Rus' also acted in the same direction. On the sovereign and monastic fields of Western and Central Siberia for the 17th century. the presence of a three-field sometimes with manure of the earth is noted. It can also be noted for peasant fields. At the same time, the three-field system did not become the dominant system of agriculture. That is why, obviously, a Moscow man of the 17th century, observing Siberian agriculture, stated that in Siberia they plow "not against Russian custom." However, the desire to use this custom in Siberian conditions is also undoubted. 27

Along with field farming, backyard farming arose. In the estate "behind the yards" there were kitchen gardens, orchards and hemp growers. Kitchen gardens are mentioned not only in villages, but also in cities.

For cultivating the land, they used a plow with iron coulters. A wooden harrow was used for harrowing. From other agricultural implements, sickles, pink salmon scythes, and axes are constantly mentioned. A large part of this inventory was issued in order to help the newly appointed peasants or bought by them in the Siberian markets, where he came from Rus' through Tobolsk. Long-distance delivery made this inventory expensive, which the Siberian population constantly complained about: “... in Tomsk and Yenisei, and in Kuznetsk, and in Krasnoyarsk prisons, one coulter will buy 40 altyns, and a scythe 20 altyns.”28 These difficulties were resolved. with the development of Russian crafts in Siberia.

The presence of working cattle was an indispensable condition for the existence of a peasant household. The issuance of assistance and loans included the issuance of funds for the purchase of horses, if they were not issued in kind. The supply of draft power to Russian agriculture was quite easy in those areas where it could rely on the horse breeding of the local population. They bought horses from the local population or from southern nomads who brought cattle for sale. The situation was more complicated in those regions where such conditions did not exist. In these cases, cattle were driven from afar and were expensive. In Yeniseisk, where horses were brought from Tomsk or Krasnoyarsk, the price of a horse reached in the 30s and 40s of the 17th century. up to 20 and 30 rubles. 29 Over time, a farmed horse began to cost the same as in European Russia, that is, in the same Yeniseisk at the end of the century, a horse was bought for 2 rubles. and cheaper. 30 Along with horses, cows and small livestock are mentioned. It is difficult to determine the saturation of the peasant household with cattle in the 17th century. But already in the middle of the century, one-horse peasants were considered "young" peasants, that is, poor. Peasants who had at least 4 horses were referred to as "groovy", "subsistence". 31 Plots for mowing were assigned or seized. If arable land and mowing were assigned, as a rule, to the peasant household, then areas for pastures were usually assigned to the village as a whole. In the presence of large free land areas, arable fields and mowing were fenced, while livestock grazed freely.

Siberian villages varied in size. In the Verkhotursko-Tobolsk region, where the main arrays of tithe arable lands were concentrated and where peasant settlements arose earlier than in other regions, already in the 17th century. there are villages with a significant number of households. Some of them turned into agricultural centers (settlements). They were inhabited by shop assistants who watched the work of the peasants in the sovereign's fields, and there were sovereign barns for grain storage. Around them were located small-yard villages that gravitated towards them. The number of such villages was large, especially in the more eastern and later settled areas. In the Yenisei district in the late 80s of the XVII century. almost 30% of all villages were odnodvorki, and in the Ilimsk district in 1700 there were almost 40%. Two- and three-door villages were in Yeni-

23 Ibid., column. 274, ll. 188-191; V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 271-274.

24 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 274, 282.

25 TsGADA, joint venture, st. 1873.

26 V. N. Sherstoboev. Ilim arable land, vol. I, pp. 307-309.

27 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 289-294.

28 TsGADA, joint venture, st. 1673, l. 21 et seq.; V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, p. 296.

29 TsGADA, joint venture, st. 112, l. 59.

30 Ibid., book. 103, l. 375 et seq.; l.407 et seq.

31 Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, p. 298.

seisky uyezd - 37%, and in Ilimsky uyezd - 39%. 32 And although in the course of the century there has been a tendency for the Siberian village to grow, which will later manifest itself in the appearance of large villages, it is being carried out slowly. It was difficult to wrest large areas of suitable land from the harsh nature in the wooded and mountain taiga zone. Therefore, one-door and two-door villages scattered over small spruces. The same circumstance gave rise to the so-called "farming fields". The newly found convenient plots of land were sometimes located far from the peasant household, where they only “ran over” for field work. Over the course of a century, the average size of the land cultivated by the peasant household showed a downward trend: at the beginning of the century they reached 5-7 acres, and by its end in different counties they fluctuated from 1.5 to 3 acres per field. 33 This fall must be connected with the weight of the feudal oppression that fell on the shoulders of the Siberian peasant. Having successfully coped with the harsh nature during the years of benefits, assistance and loans, he then retreated before the burden of working tithe arable land and other duties.

Concrete results of the agricultural labor of the Russian population in the 17th-early 18th centuries. affected in a number of ways.

Cultivated arable land appeared almost throughout Siberia from west to east. If at the end of the XVI century. the Russian peasant began to plow in the very west of Siberia (the western tributaries of the Ob River), then in the middle of the 17th century. and its second half, Russian arable land was on the Lena and Amur, and at the beginning of the 18th century. - in Kamchatka. In one century, the Russian plow plowed a furrow from the Urals to Kamchatka. Naturally, this furrow ran along the main path of Russian advancement from west to east along the famous waterway that connected the great Siberian rivers: the Ob, Yenisei, Lena, Amur (along the Tura, Tobol, Ob, Keti, Yenisei with branches along the Ilim to the Lena and south to the Amur). It was on this path that the main agricultural centers of Siberia in the 17th century were formed.

The most significant of them and the oldest was the Verkhotursko-Tobolsk region, in which the bulk of the agricultural population settled. Within 4 districts of this region (Verkhotursky, Tyumen, Turin and Tobolsk) at the beginning of the 18th century. there were 75% of all Siberian peasant householders living in 80 settlements and hundreds of villages. 34 In this area, perhaps earlier than anywhere else, we are witnessing the departure of the peasant population from the main transport line in an effort to settle in "pleasing plowed places." By the beginning of the XVIII century. agricultural settlements that stretched earlier along the river. Ture (the waterway that connected Verkhoturye through Tobol with Tobolsk), go south. Already in the first decades of the XVII century. begin to plow along the river. Nice, then along the rivers Pyshma, Iset, Mias. Villages spread to the south along Tobol, Vagay, Ishim. This movement is going on despite the unstable situation on the southern borders. The raids of "military people", theft of cattle, the burning of bread cannot stop the advance of arable land to the south and only force the farmer to attach weapons to the plow and spit. This clearly shows the tendency to transform agriculture from a phenomenon that accompanies the movement of the population into an independent stimulus for migration.

At the end of the century, 5,742 peasant households were cultivating about 15 thousand acres in one field in the Verkhotursko-Tobolsk region (of which more than 12,600 acres of "sobina" plowing and more than 2,300 acres of the sovereign's dessiatin arable land). The total plowing in the region (peasants, townspeople and service people) was about 27,000 acres in one field.

32 Ibid., pp. 103-105; V. N. Sherstoboev. Ilim arable land, vol. I, p. 36.

33 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 413-415.

34 Ibid., p. 36.

It is very difficult, even approximately, to determine the amount of bread coming from these tithes. Poor knowledge about the productivity of Siberian fields in the 17th century. (by the way, very hesitant) deprive us of the opportunity to make accurate calculations. One can only assume that the gross harvest in the region exceeded 300 thousand four-pood quarters. 35 This amount was enough to meet the needs of the entire population of the region in bread and allocate the surplus to supply other territories. It is no coincidence that a foreign traveler passing through this area at the end of the century noted with surprise both the large number of inhabitants, and the fertile, well-cultivated soils, and the presence of a large amount of bread. 36 And the local resident had the right to say that here "the land is grain-growing, vegetables and cattle." 37

The second time of formation was the Tomsk-Kuznetsk agricultural region. The first arable lands appeared immediately after the foundation of the city of Tomsk in 1604. The area was located south of the waterway that went along the Ob and Keti to the Yenisei, so the main flow of the population went by. This, obviously, explains the rather modest growth of the agricultural population and arable land here. A few agricultural settlements are located along the river. Tom and partly Ob, not retreating far from the city of Tomsk. Only a small group of villages was formed in the upper reaches of the Tom, in the region of the city of Kuznetsk. In total, at the beginning of the XVIII century. in the region (Tomsk and Kuznetsk districts) there were 644 peasant families. The total plowing at that time reached 4,600 acres in one field, and the total grain harvest was hardly more than 51,000 four-pood quarters. Nevertheless, Tomsk district by the end of the 17th century. made do with his own bread; Kuznetsky remained the consuming county. The shift of agriculture to the south, to Kuznetsk, here did not mean a desire to cultivate fertile lands, but only accompanied the advancement of the military service population, without providing for its grain needs.

Significantly greater were the successes of agriculture in the Yenisei agricultural region. Located on the main Siberian highway, it quickly turned into the second most important area for arable farming. The bulk of the settlements arose along the Yenisei from Yeniseisk to Krasnoyarsk and along the Upper Tunguska, Angara and Ilim. By the beginning of the XVIII century. there were 1918 peasant households with a population of approximately 5730 male souls. The total peasant and townsman plowing in the region was at least 7,500 acres in one field. The gross grain harvest was more than 90,000 four-pood quarters. 38 This made it possible to feed the population and allocate part of the bread for shipment outside the region. In grainless or small-grain counties - Mangazeya, Yakutsk, Nerchinsk - along with the bread of the "riding" Siberian cities (Verkhoturye, Turinsk, Tyumen, Tobolsk), Yenisei bread also went. Nikolai Spafariy wrote at the end of the century: “The Yenisei country is very good. . . And God gave all kinds of abundance, much and cheap bread, and all sorts of other crowds. 39

In the 17th century the foundation was laid for the creation of the two most eastern agricultural regions of Siberia: Lensky and Amur. By the 30-40s of the XVII century. include the first attempts to start arable land in the "sable land" - the Lena basin. Agricultural villages are located along the Lena from the upper reaches (Birulskaya and Banzyurskaya settlements) and to Yakutsk; most of they were located south of the Kirensky prison. It was this region that became the grain base of the huge Yakutsk Voivodeship. Izbrand Ides reported: “Neighbourhood. . . where is the Lena river. . . originates, and the country, irrigated by the small river Kirenga, abounds in grain. The entire Yakutsk province feeds on it every year.” 40 There is an element of exaggeration in this statement. There is no doubt that bread from the upper reaches of the Lena came to Yakutsk and further north, but this bread did not satisfy the needs of the population. Throughout the 17th century, as well as later, bread was imported to the Yakutsk Voivodeship from the Yenisei and Verkhotursko-Tobolsk regions. But the significance of the creation of the Lena agricultural region is by no means determined by the size of the arable land and the size of the grain harvest. Plowed fields appeared in the region, which had not known agriculture even in its primary forms before. Neither the Yakut nor the Evenk population was engaged in agriculture. The Russian people for the first time raised the land here and made a revolution in the use of the natural resources of the region. 40-50 years after the appearance of the first Russian arable land in distant Western Siberia on the river. Ture cornfields on the Lena. The Russians sowed not only in the more favorable conditions of the upper reaches of the Lena, but also in the Yakutsk region and in the middle reaches of the Amga. Here, as in the area of ​​Zavarukhinskaya and Dubchesskaya settlements on the Yenisei, as on the Ob in the region of Narym, Tobolsk, Pelym, the foundations of agriculture were laid, north of 60 ° north latitude.

Russian farmers came to the Amur after the collapse of pre-Russian Dauro-Ducher agriculture. Farming was to be revived here. Already in the XVII century. its first centers were created. The movement of agriculture here went from Yeniseisk through Baikal, Transbaikalia and to the Amur. Arable lands arose near the prisons on the way Irkutsk - the upper reaches of the Amur. Perhaps the most striking moment was the success of Russian agriculture associated with Albazin. Having arisen not by government decree, Albazin contributed to the development of Russian agriculture in the form of "sob" plows. The "sob" arable land was followed by the organization of the sovereign's acres. From Albazin, agriculture moved further east, reaching the area where the Zeya flows into the Amur. Agricultural settlements were by no means limited to arable land under the walls of prisons. Small "towns", villages and settlements were scattered along the rivers, sometimes at a very distant distance from the walls of fortified places. Such are the settlements of Arunginskaya, Udinskaya, Kuenskaya and Amurskaya, as well as the villages of Panova, Andryushkina, Ignashina, Ozernaya, Pogadaeva, Pokrovskaya, Ilyinskaya, Shingalova along the Amur, etc. Thus, in the second half of the 17th century. the beginning of a strong tradition of Russian agriculture on the Amur was laid, linking the work on the development of this territory in the 17th century. with Amur agriculture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The resettlement wave reached this remote region, having already significantly weakened, so the quantitative results of agriculture in comparison with the Verkhotursko-Tobolsk and Yenisei regions were small. Nevertheless, the idea that there are "a lot of plowed places" in the given region, that these places are "similar to the best Russian lands", fills all descriptions of the region.

The desire to develop more fully and wider these places, where the land is "black hundred in the human belt", in addition to remoteness from the vital centers of the country, was also hampered by the complexity of the political situation. Both the Russian farmer and the native inhabitant of the Amur suffered from this difficulty. Alien military people "from Russian people and from yasash foreigners and sack sables are taken out and meat and beef lard and flour are taken away from the storehouses, and their de Russian people and yasash foreigners are beaten." The resistance of the small population of villages and zaimok to alien military people could not be significant, although the farmer was stubborn in his attachment to the arable land he cultivated. More than once after the next attack, when “everyone was ruined without a trace, and the houses and the peasant factory were robbed and every structure was burned”, when people “ran away through the forests only in body and soul”, 41 the population again returned to their burnt and trampled fields, again plowed land and sowed grain in it. And yet these events could not but delay the agricultural development of the region. The terms of the Nerchinsk Treaty did not destroy Russian agriculture of the entire region as a whole, and even of its most eastern part (the Amurskaya Sloboda was preserved), nevertheless they delayed for a long time the development that began in the 17th century. land clearing process. 42

Thus, Russian agriculture in the XVII century. took over a huge area. Its northern border ran north of the Pelym (Garinskaya settlement), crossed the Irtysh below the confluence of the Tobol (Bronnikovsky churchyard), passed through the Ob in the Narym region and then retreated to the north, crossing the Yenisei at the confluence of the Podkamennaya Tunguska (Zavarukhinsky village), left to the upper reaches of the Lower Tunguska (Chechuy villages), went along the Lena to Yakutsk and ended on the river. Amge (Amga villages). In the first half of the XVIII century. this northern border of Russian agriculture went to Kamchatka. The southern border began on the middle reaches of the river. Mias (settlement Chumlyatskaya), crossed the Tobol south of the modern Kurgan (settlement Utyatskaya), through the upper reaches of the Vagay (settlement Ust-Laminskaya) went to the Irtysh near the city of Tara, crossed the Ob south of Tom and went to upstream Tom (Kuznetsk villages). The southern border of the Yenisei crossed in the region of Krasnoyarsk, and then went to the upper reaches of the river. Oka and Baikal. Beyond Baikal, at Selenginsk, she crossed the Selenga, went to. Udu and then to the Amur until the Zeya flows into it.

And although within these limits there were only five rather scattered agricultural centers, within which small-yard or one-door villages were located at considerable distances from each other, the main task of grain supply was resolved. Siberia began to make do with its own grain, refusing to import it from European Russia. In 1685, the obligation to supply sosh stocks to Siberia was removed from the Pomeranian cities. All that remained was the task of redistributing grain within Siberia between producing and consuming regions.

Siberian bread becomes a subject of consumption for the local population, though in the 17th century. still in small quantities. This circumstance, together with the first still isolated attempts to turn to agriculture according to Russian custom, testified to the beginning of major changes that were outlined in the life of the indigenous peoples of Siberia under the influence of the labor activity of Russian settlers. It is important to note that the appeal to the agricultural activities of the aboriginal population went through the creation of their own farms of the peasant type. We do not observe the involvement of indigenous people in the cultivation of fields in Russian farms. Siberia did not know agricultural plantations with forced labor of the indigenous population. On the sovereign's tithe arable lands and large plowlands of Siberian monasteries, he acted as a forced laborer

35 Ibid., pp. 45, 54, 56.

36 Relation du voyage de Mr. I. Isbrand. . . par le Sieur Adam Brand. Ui. Ill, IV. Amsterdam, MDCXCIX.

37 PO GPB, Hermitage Collection, No. 237, fol. 12.

38 3. Ya. Boyarshinova. The population of the Tomsk district in the first half of the 11th century. Tr. Tomsk, state univ., v. 112, ser. historical-philological, p. 135; V. I. Sh u n k o v. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 73, 81, 86, 88, 109, 145, 152, 158.

39 N Spafariy Travel through Siberia from Tobolsk to Nerchinsk and the borders of China by the Russian envoy Nikolai Spafariy in 1675. Zap. Russian Geographical Society, dep. ethnogr., vol. X, no. 1, St. Petersburg, 1882, p. 186.

40 M. P. Alekseev. Siberia in the news of Western European travelers and writers. XIII-XVII centuries 2nd ed., Irkutsk, 1941, p. 530.

41 TsGADA, joint venture, st. 974, part II, l. 129.

42 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 203-206.

the same Russian immigrant. It was his hands, his labor, and then Siberia turned into a grain-growing region.

Along with the occupation of agriculture, the Russian population invested their labor in the development of the fur and fisheries that existed in Siberia from time immemorial. Chronologically, these occupations in all likelihood preceded agricultural occupations and dated back to the times when Russian industrialists occasionally appeared on the territory of Siberia before it was annexed to the Russian state. After the accession, when the feudal state itself organized the removal of furs from Siberia by collecting yasak, and the Russian merchants received furs by buying them up, the direct extraction of furs and fish by the Russian population also unfolded. In agricultural areas, this activity was subsidiary. In the northern regions, in the strip of taiga, forest-tundra and tundra, special enterprises were created for the extraction of furs. The development of Russian crafts became a matter of private initiative of various segments of the population, since the feudal state took a restrained position on this issue for fear of weakening the tax capacity of the local hunting population.

Real wealth and legendary stories about the abundance of Siberian forests with high-quality fur-bearing animals (“the wool of a living sable drags along the ground”) attracted the hunting population of the already “industrialized” largely European north to new areas. Initially, the entire forest Siberia was such an area. Then, due to the settlement of the Russian population in the area accessible for agriculture, the number of fur-bearing animals in these parts decreased. The development of agricultural settlements and fur trades did not get along well, since "every beast runs out from a knock and from fire and smoke." Therefore, over time, the commercial population moved to the northern non-agricultural zone. In the first half of the XVII century. Hundreds of fishermen annually went to the lower reaches of the Ob and Yenisei, later they began to go to the lower reaches of the Lena and further to the east. Some of them lingered in these areas for many years, some remained in Siberia forever, sometimes continuing their crafts, sometimes changing them to other jobs. This population usually settled temporarily in the northern Siberian prisons, turning them periodically into fairly crowded fishing centers. The most striking example was the "gold-boiling" Mangazeya, in which in the middle of the 17th century. more than one thousand Russian people accumulated: "... there were many commercial and industrial people in Mangazeya, 1000 people and two or more." 43 A large number of fishermen also passed through Yakutsk. So, in 1642, the Yakut customs hut released 839 people to sable trades. V. A. Alexandrov 44 has in the 30-40s of the XVII century. in one Mangazeya county there were up to 700 people of the adult male permanent population, who were mainly engaged in crafts.

The fishing population went to Siberia from Pomorye, with which these areas were connected by an ancient waterway from Rus' to the Trans-Urals, known as the Pechora, or through the stone, route: from Ustyug to Pechora, from Pechora to the Ob and then along the Ob and Taz Bays to Taz and further east. It brought with it its fishing skills. Sable hunting was carried out according to the "Russian custom" - with the help of sacks (traps) or dogs and nets (nets). The indigenous population hunted with a bow. V. D. Poyarkov speaks about this, describing the hunting of the indigenous population of the Amur: “. . . are mined. . . de those dogs as well as other Siberian and

43 S. V. Bakhrushin. Mangazeya lay community in the 17th century. Scientific works, vol. III, part 1, M., 1955, p. 298.

44 V. A. Alexandrov. Russian population of Siberia in the 17th-early 18th centuries. M., 1946. p. 218.

Lena foreigners shoot from bows, but they don’t get sables from other fishing, as the Russian people do, from the fence and with the culm-picker. 45 Kulem hunting was considered the most productive.

Even S. V. Bakhrushin noted that the social composition of the newcomer and Siberian fishing population was divided into 2 groups. 46 Its main mass was formed from fishermen, over whom there were a few, but economically stronger merchants. Both of them went to Siberia on their own initiative in the hope of finding success in fishing, the first - through personal labor, the second - by investing capital in fishing enterprises. Some chose to fish at their own peril and risk alone. Despite all the riskiness of this method, some people found luck and remained a lone fisherman for a long time. These, obviously, should include the Russian man P. Koptyakov, who hunted on the Lozva River, acquired his own "ways" and eventually turned into yasak people. The numerically small category of Russian yasak people, noted by documents of the 17th century, was obviously formed from such lone fishers.

More often, crafts were organized on an artel basis. Several fishermen were united (“folded”) into one artel on a common basis, followed by a division of the booty. S. V. Bakhrushin described in detail the fishing enterprises organized by the capitalists, Russian merchants, who invested significant funds in them and hired unsecured ordinary fishers. The entrepreneur supplied the hired person (poruchik) with food, clothing and footwear, hunting equipment ("industrial plant"), vehicles. In return, the bounty hunter, who “twisted” for a certain period, was obliged to give the entrepreneur a large part of the production (usually 2 / z), to perform all the necessary work. For a while, the swindler became a bonded person. He did not have the right to leave the owner before the expiration of the rotation period and was obliged to fulfill all the instructions of the owner or his clerk - what “the owners are told to do and he de listens to them.” According to the testimony of the pokuruchikov themselves, "their de business is involuntary." 47 The gangs of swindlers, depending on the funds of the entrepreneur, were quite significant. Groups of 15, 20, 30 and 40 people are known.

Unfortunately, according to the state of the sources, it is not possible to find out the total number of fishermen operating in Siberia in a particular year of the 17th century. In any case, the number of fishermen was significantly less than the number of other categories of the Russian population, primarily service people, peasants and townspeople. The predominance of the number of fishers over the number of service people, noted for Mangazeya, was an exceptional phenomenon and did not reflect general position in Siberia as a whole.

V. A. Alexandrov, on the basis of careful comparisons, comes to a reasonable conclusion that the yasak collection in the heyday of the fur trade was many times inferior to the total booty of Russian hunters. According to him, in the Mangazeya district in 1640-1641. 1028 magpies of sables were revealed by fishermen, 282 magpies came to the treasury. Moreover, of the latter, only 119 forty came from yasak, and 163 forty - as a tithe duty taken from fishermen in the order of fishing.

45 AIM, vol. III, no. 12, pp. 50-57; TsGADA, f. Yakut order hut, column. 43, ll. 355-362.

46 S. V. Bakhrushin. Mangazeya lay community in the 17th century, p. 300.

47 S. V. Bakhrushin. Pokrut in the sable trades of the 17th century. Scientific works, vol. III, part 1, M., 1955, pp. 198-212.

left tax and taxation of the sale of furs. Thus, during these years, yasak amounted to no more than 10% of the total export of furs from the county. Similar figures are given for 1641-1642, 1639-1640 and other years. The situation changed somewhat in the second half of the century due to the decline of the fisheries. 48

The main organizers of the fishing enterprises were the largest Russian merchants - guests, members of the living hundred. On the basis of these enterprises grew the largest for the XVII century. capitals (the Revyakins, the Bosykhs, the Fedotovs, the Guselnikovs, and others). The owners of these capitals remained in European Russia. In Siberia itself, small fishing people lingered. Even in successful years, the main part of the production went into the hands of the organizers of the fisheries, while only an insignificant part fell into the hands of individual swindlers. In the “bad” years, in the years of fishing failures, the sleuth, who did not have reserves and worked from a small share, fell into a difficult, sometimes tragic situation. Unable to either return back to European Russia or live before organizing a new gang, he wandered “between the yards” and lived “for hire” on seasonal agricultural work, eventually falling into the ranks of Siberian peasants or townspeople and service people.

Another consequence of the activity of Russian fishing entrepreneurs was the sharp "industry" of one fishing area after another. Already in the first half of the XVII century. sable began to disappear in Western Siberia, by the 70s there was a sharp drop in sable trades on the Yenisei, later the same phenomenon was observed on the Lena. The sharp drop in sable stocks took on such a threatening character that the government already in the 17th century. began to take measures to limit the hunting of him. In 1684, a decree was issued prohibiting sable hunting in the counties of the Yenisei category and Yakutia. In Siberia, a picture was clearly manifested, typical of a number of other countries. The accumulation of capital in one place led to the depletion of natural resources in another, due to the predatory exploitation of the wealth of which this accumulation took place. It should only be noted that in the fur trade, as in agriculture, the exploited by the direct hunter was not a native, but the same Russian alien - a swindler. However, hunting ground The indigenous population of these places certainly suffered from a decrease in sable stocks. The situation was mitigated by the fact that other types of fur-bearing animals, less valuable from the point of view of the Russian people and the demands of the European market, were not exterminated. The ratio of the territory of fishing grounds and the size of the fishing population (indigenous and Russian) was still such that it provided prey for both. This, obviously, must be seen as the reason for the fact that both in the area of ​​the fishing activity of the Russian population and in the areas of agricultural centers, there is, as a rule, an increase in the number of the indigenous population, with the exception of fluctuations caused by extraordinary phenomena (epidemics, migrations, etc.). ). In this regard, the calculations of B. O. Dolgikh, in particular, for the Mangazeya district, are interesting. 49

The fishing industry was somewhat different. The length of large and small Siberian rivers is grandiose. The richness of these rivers in fish was noted by the Russian people at the first acquaintance with Siberia. Fishing existed before, being the main branch of the economy for a part of the indigenous population. It was also widely distributed on the immediate approaches to Siberia. At the beginning of the northern Pechora

48 V. A. Alexandrov. Russian population of Siberia in the 17th-early 18th centuries, pp. 217-241.

49 B. O. Dolgikh. Tribal and tribal composition of the peoples of Siberia in the 17th century, pp. 119-182.

There were "fish traps" along the way. Here the gangs that went beyond the Urals stocked up with dried and salted fish. The inhabitants of the European north, who were engaged in fishing in their homeland, went through these places and carried with them not only fish stocks, but also labor skills. The absence of grain in Siberia in the first years of its development, and the presence of vast regions without grain later, made fish an important food product. Fishing developed throughout Siberia, but especially in grainless areas. The presence of ton, ezovishch and stabs is noted everywhere. They were owned by peasants, townspeople and service people, monasteries. True, they are rarely found in acts formalizing the right of ownership. Sometimes they are meant by other terms. So, in donations to Siberian monasteries, lakes, rivers, and lands are mentioned - undoubted places for fishing. Occasionally there are also direct instructions. For example, in the office work of the Verkhoturskaya Prikaznaya Hut for the period from 1668 to 1701, a number of land transactions were noted, covering 31 objects. Among them, along with arable land, hay meadows, animal lands, fishing is also mentioned. The paucity of such references obviously indicates that the assignment of fishing places to individuals in the 17th century. has not received distribution. In all likelihood, those fishing places were assigned to individuals or villages where human labor was invested (ezovishcha, slaughter).

Fish were caught "for their own use" and for sale. In the first case, always, and often in the second case, fishing for a Russian person was an additional occupation. Sometimes, due to specific conditions, it became the main or only means of subsistence. This was due to the high demand for fish. The accumulation of a significant number of industrial people going to fisheries sharply increased the demand for dried and salted fish, which was an important source of food for the industrialists themselves and the only food for their dogs. For this reason, there was a large catch of fish near Tobolsk, in the lower reaches of the Yenisei, in the middle reaches of the Yenisei and in other places. According to V.A. Alexandrov, in 1631, 3,200 pounds of salted fish and 871 yukola pregnancies were found in the Mangazeya customs; in the same year, more than 5,000 poods of fish and 1,106 yukola pregnancies were registered in the Turukhansk winter hut. Fishing was done by peasants, townspeople and industrial people. Some part of industrial people steadily from year to year flew in fisheries. fifty

The organization of the fish industry resembled that of the hunting industry, with the difference, however, that in the fish industry loners were more frequent. Sometimes fishermen united in small groups on shares, acquiring karbas and nets together. Sources also note significant fishing expeditions organized by capitalist people who hired pranksters. As in the sable trades, the twist in the fishery turned the hired person into a dependent person, obliged to his master "to disobey nothing."

The fishing gear was a seine (“seine saddles”, “nonsense”), sometimes of very large sizes - up to 100 or more fathoms, nets and pushers. The mention of the existence of special firewoods of local origin indicates that usually fishing gear was made "according to Russian custom."

Thus, the development of the Russian fishery has given a serious additional food base, which has a special importance in the northern dry regions. Unlike fur trade, fishing

50 V. A. Alexandrov. Russian population of Siberia in the 17th-early 18th centuries, p. 222.

fishing did not lead to the XVII century. to the depletion of fish stocks. Complaints about the disappearance of fish have not reached us. Russian fishing did not pose a threat to the long-standing fisheries of the local population. Like hunting, he brought to Siberia some elements of the new, previously unknown to the indigenous population. The main labor force in it was also a forced Russian man.

The Khanty are an indigenous Ugric people living in the north of Western Siberia, mainly in the territories of the Khanty-Mansiysk and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrugs of the Tyumen Region, as well as in the north of the Tomsk Region.

The Khanty (the outdated name "Ostyaks") are also known as Yugras, but the more accurate self-name "Khanty" (from the Khanty "Kantakh" - a person, people) in Soviet time was made official.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, the Russians called the Khanty Ostyaks (possibly from "as-yah" - "the people of the big river"), even earlier (until the 14th century) - Yugra, Yugrichs. The Komi-Zyryans called the Khanty Egra, the Nenets - Khabi, the Tatars - ushtek (ashtek, expired).

The Khanty are close to the Mansi, with whom they unite under common name Ob Ugry.

There are three ethnographic groups among the Khanty: northern, southern and eastern. They differ in dialects, self-name, features in the economy and culture. Also, among the Khanty, territorial groups stand out - Vasyugan, Salym, Kazym Khanty.

The northern neighbors of the Khanty were the Nenets, the southern neighbors were the Siberian Tatars and the Tomsk-Narym Selkups, the eastern neighbors were the Kets, Selkups, and also nomadic Evenks. The vast territory of settlement and, accordingly, the different cultures of neighboring peoples contributed to the formation of three quite different ethnographic groups within one people.

Population

According to the 2010 census, the number of Khanty in the Russian Federation is 30,943 people). Of these, 61.6% live in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, 30.7% - in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, 2.3% - in the Tyumen region without Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and YNAO, 2.3% - in the Tomsk region.

The main habitat is limited mainly by the lower reaches of the Ob, Irtysh rivers and their tributaries.

Language and writing

The Khanty language, together with Mansi and Hungarian, forms the Ob-Ugric group of the Ural family of languages. The Khanty language is known for its extraordinary dialect fragmentation. The western group stands out - the Obdorsky, Ob and Irtysh dialects and the eastern group - the Surgut and Vakh-Vasyugan dialects, which in turn are divided into 13 dialects.

Dialectal fragmentation made it difficult to create a written language. In 1879, N. Grigorovsky published a primer in one of the dialects of the Khanty language. Subsequently, the priest I. Egorov created a primer of the Khanty language in the Obdorsky dialect, which was then translated into the Vakh-Vasyugan dialect.

In the 1930s, the Kazym dialect served as the basis of the Khanty alphabet, and since 1940, the Sredneob dialect was taken as the basis of the literary language. At this time, writing was originally created on the basis of the Latin alphabet, and since 1937 it has been based on the Killillic alphabet. Currently, writing exists on the basis of five dialects of the Khanty language: Kazym, Surgut, Vakh, Surgut, Sredneobok.

In modern Russia, 38.5% of the Khanty consider Russian as their native language. Some of the northern Khanty also speak Nenets and Komi languages.

Anthropological type

The anthropological features of the Khanty make it possible to attribute them to the Ural contact race, which is internally heterogeneous in the territorial correlation of Mongoloid and Caucasoid features. The Khanty, along with the Selkups and Nenets, are part of the West Siberian group of populations, which is characterized by an increase in the proportion of Mongoloidity, compared with other representatives of the Ural race. Moreover, women are more Mongolian than men.

According to their disposition, the Khanty are of average or even below average height (156-160 cm). They usually have straight black or brown hair, which, as a rule, is long and worn either loose or braided, the complexion is swarthy, the eyes are dark.

Thanks to a flattened face with somewhat protruding cheekbones, thick (but not full) lips, and a short nose that is depressed at the root and wide, turned up at the end, the Khanty type outwardly resembles the Mongolian. But, unlike typical Mongoloids, they have correctly cut eyes, more often a narrow and long skull (dolicho- or subdolichocephalic). All this gives the Khanty a special imprint, which is why some researchers tend to see in them the remnants of a special ancient race that once inhabited part of Europe.

ethnic history

In historical chronicles, the first written references to the Khanty people are found in Russian and Arabic sources of the 10th century, but it is known for certain that the ancestors of the Khanty lived in the Urals and Western Siberia already 6-5 thousand years BC, subsequently they were displaced by nomads in lands of Northern Siberia.

The ethnogenesis of the Northern Khanty based on the mixing of aboriginal and newcomer Ugric tribes, archaeologists associate with the Ust-Polui culture (end of the 1st millennium BC - beginning of the 1st millennium AD), localized in the Ob River basin from the mouth of the Irtysh to the Gulf of Ob. Many traditions of this northern, taiga fishing culture are inherited by modern northern Khanty. From the middle of the II millennium AD. the Northern Khanty were strongly influenced by the Nenets reindeer herding culture. In the zone of direct territorial contacts, the Khanty were partially assimilated by the Tundra Nenets (the so-called "seven Nenets clans of Khanty origin").

The southern Khanty settled up from the mouth of the Irtysh. This is the territory of the southern taiga, forest-steppe and steppe, and culturally it gravitates more towards the south. In their formation and subsequent ethno-cultural development, a significant role was played by the southern forest-steppe population, layered on the general Khanty basis. The Turks, and later the Russians, had a significant influence on the southern Khanty.
The Eastern Khanty are settled in the Middle Ob region and along the tributaries of the Salym, Pim, Trom'egan, Agan, Vakh, Yugan, Vasyugan. This group, to a greater extent than others, retains the North Siberian features of culture dating back to the Ural traditions - draft dog breeding, dugout boats, the predominance of swing clothes, birch bark utensils, and a fishing economy. Another significant component of the culture of the Eastern Khanty is the Sayan-Altai component, which dates back to the time of the formation of the southwestern Siberian fishing tradition. The influence of the Sayan-Altai Turks on the culture of the Eastern Khanty can also be traced at a later time. Within the limits of the modern habitat, the Eastern Khanty quite actively interacted with the Kets and Selkups, which was facilitated by belonging to the same economic and cultural type.
Thus, if there is common features cultures characteristic of the Khanty ethnos, which is associated with the early stages of their ethnogenesis and the formation of the Ural community, which, along with the mornings, included the ancestors of the Kets and Samoyedic peoples. The subsequent cultural "divergence", the formation of ethnographic groups, was largely determined by the processes of ethnocultural interaction with neighboring peoples.

Thus, the culture of the people, their language and the spiritual world are not homogeneous. This is explained by the fact that the Khanty settled quite widely, and in different climatic conditions different cultures have developed.

Life and economy

The main occupations of the northern Khanty were reindeer herding and hunting, less often fishing. The deer cult can be traced in all spheres of life of the Northern Khanty. The deer, without exaggeration, was the basis of life: it was also a transport, the skins were used in the construction of dwellings and tailoring. It is no coincidence that many norms of social life (ownership of deer and their inheritance), worldviews (in the funeral rite) are also associated with the deer.

The southern Khanty were mainly engaged in fishing, but they were also known for agriculture and cattle breeding.

Based on the fact that the economy affects the nature of the settlement, and the type of settlement affects the design of the dwelling, the Khanty have five types of settlement with the corresponding features of the settlements:

The Khanty, who were engaged in hunting and fishing, had 3-4 dwellings in different seasonal settlements, which changed depending on the season. Such dwellings were made of logs and placed directly on the ground, sometimes dugouts and semi-dugouts were built with a wooden pole frame, which was covered with poles, branches, turf and earth from above.

Khanty-reindeer herders lived in portable dwellings, in tents, consisting of poles placed in a circle, fastened in the center, covered on top with birch bark (in summer) or skins (in winter).

Religion and beliefs

Since ancient times, the Khanty have revered the elements of nature: the sun, the moon, fire, water, and wind. The Khanty also had totemic patrons, family deities and ancestral patrons. Each clan had its own totem animal, it was revered, considering it one of the distant relatives. This animal could not be killed and eaten.

The bear was revered everywhere, he was considered a protector, he helped hunters, protected from diseases, and resolved disputes. At the same time, the bear, unlike other totem animals, could be hunted. In order to reconcile the spirit of the bear and the hunter who killed him, the Khanty held a bear festival. The frog was revered as the guardian of family happiness and an assistant to women in childbirth. There were also sacred places, the place where the patron lives. Hunting and fishing were forbidden in such places, since the patron himself protects the animals.

To this day, traditional rituals and holidays have come down in a modified form, they have been adapted to modern views and timed to coincide with certain events. So, for example, a bear festival is held before the issuance of licenses for shooting a bear.

After the Russians came to Siberia, the Khanty were converted to Christianity. However, this process was uneven and affected, first of all, those groups of Khanty who experienced the versatile influence of Russian settlers, these are, first of all, the southern Khanty. Among other groups, the presence of religious syncretism is noted, expressed in the adaptation of a number of Christian dogmas, with the predominance of the cultural function of the traditional worldview system.

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Indigenous peoples of Siberia in the modern world. Municipal budgetary educational institution "Gymnasium No. 17", Kemerovo Compiled by: teacher of history and social studies Kapustyanskaya T.N.

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The largest peoples before Russian colonization include the following peoples: Itelmens (indigenous inhabitants of Kamchatka), Yukaghirs (inhabited the main territory of the tundra), Nivkhs (inhabitants of Sakhalin), Tuvans (the indigenous population of the Republic of Tuva), Siberian Tatars (located on the territory of Southern Siberia from Ural to the Yenisei) and the Selkups (inhabitants of Western Siberia).

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The Yakuts are the most numerous of the Siberian peoples. According to the latest data, the number of Yakuts is 478,100 people. In modern Russia, the Yakuts are one of the few nationalities that have their own republic, and its area is comparable to the area of ​​the average European state. The Republic of Yakutia (Sakha) is territorially located in the Far Eastern Federal District, but the ethnic group "Yakuts" has always been considered an indigenous Siberian people. The Yakuts have an interesting culture and traditions. This is one of the few peoples of Siberia that has its own epic.

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The Buryats are another Siberian people with their own republic. The capital of Buryatia is the city of Ulan-Ude, located to the east of Lake Baikal. The number of Buryats is 461,389 people. In Siberia, Buryat cuisine is widely known, rightfully considered one of the best among ethnic ones. The history of this people, its legends and traditions is quite interesting. By the way, the Republic of Buryatia is one of the main centers of Buddhism in Russia.

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Tuvans. According to the latest census, 263,934 identified themselves as representatives of the Tuvan people. The Tyva Republic is one of the four ethnic republics of the Siberian Federal District. Its capital is the city of Kyzyl with a population of 110 thousand people. The total population of the republic is approaching 300 thousand. Buddhism also flourishes here, and the traditions of the Tuvans also speak of shamanism.

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The Khakass are one of the indigenous peoples of Siberia, numbering 72,959 people. Today they have their own republic as part of the Siberian Federal District and with the capital in the city of Abakan. This ancient people has long lived on the lands to the west of the Great Lake (Baikal). It has never been numerous, which did not prevent it from carrying its identity, culture and traditions through the centuries.

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Altaians. Their place of residence is quite compact - this is the Altai mountain system. Today Altaians live in two constituent entities of the Russian Federation - the Republic of Altai and the Altai Territory. The number of the ethnos "Altaians" is about 71 thousand people, which allows us to talk about them as a fairly large people. Religion - Shamanism and Buddhism. The Altaians have their own epic and a pronounced national identity, which does not allow them to be confused with other Siberian peoples. This mountain people has a long history and interesting legends.

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The Nenets are one of the small Siberian peoples living compactly in the area of ​​the Kola Peninsula. Its number of 44,640 people makes it possible to attribute it to small nations, whose traditions and culture are protected by the state. The Nenets are nomadic reindeer herders. They belong to the so-called Samoyed folk group. Over the years of the 20th century, the number of Nenets has approximately doubled, which indicates the effectiveness of state policy in the field of preserving the small peoples of the North. The Nenets have their own language and oral epic.

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Evenks are a people predominantly living on the territory of the Republic of Sakha. The number of this people in Russia is 38,396 people, some of whom live in areas adjacent to Yakutia. It is worth saying that this is about half of the total ethnic group - about the same number of Evenks live in China and Mongolia. Evenks are the people of the Manchu group, which do not have their own language and epic. Tungus is considered the native language of the Evenks. Evenks are born hunters and trackers.

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The Khanty are the indigenous people of Siberia, belonging to the Ugric group. Most of the Khanty live in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, which is part of the Ural Federal District of Russia. Total population Khanty is 30,943 people. About 35% of the Khanty live on the territory of the Siberian Federal District, and their lion's share falls on the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The traditional occupations of the Khanty are fishing, hunting and reindeer herding. The religion of their ancestors is shamanism, but recently more and more Khanty consider themselves Orthodox Christians.

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The Evens are a people related to the Evenks. According to one version, they represent an Evenk group, which was cut off from the main halo of residence by the Yakuts moving south. For a long time away from the main ethnic group, the Evens made a separate people. Today their number is 21,830 people. The language is Tungus. Places of residence - Kamchatka, Magadan region, Republic of Sakha.

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The Chukchi are a nomadic Siberian people who are mainly engaged in reindeer herding and live on the territory of the Chukchi Peninsula. Their number is about 16 thousand people. The Chukchi belong to the Mongoloid race and, according to many anthropologists, are the indigenous aborigines of the Far North. The main religion is animism. Indigenous trades are hunting and reindeer herding.

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The Shors are a Turkic-speaking people living in the southeastern part of Western Siberia, mainly in the south of the Kemerovo region (in the Tashtagol, Novokuznetsk, Mezhdurechensk, Myskovsky, Osinnikovsky and other regions). Their number is about 13 thousand people. The main religion is shamanism. The Shor epic is of scientific interest primarily for its originality and antiquity. The history of the people dates back to the VI century. Today, the traditions of the Shors have been preserved only in Sheregesh, since most of the ethnic group moved to the cities and largely assimilated.

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Mansi. This people has been known to Russians since the foundation of Siberia. Even Ivan the Terrible sent an army against the Mansi, which suggests that they were quite numerous and strong. The self-name of this people is Voguls. They have their own language, a fairly developed epic. Today, their place of residence is the territory of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. According to the latest census, 12,269 people identified themselves as belonging to the Mansi ethnic group.

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Nanais are a small people living along the banks of the Amur River in the Far East of Russia. Relating to the Baikal ethnotype, the Nanais are rightfully considered one of the most ancient indigenous peoples of Siberia and Far East. To date, the number of Nanais in Russia is 12,160 people. The Nanais have their own language, rooted in Tungus. Writing exists only among the Russian Nanais and is based on the Cyrillic alphabet.

The history of the Siberian peoples goes back thousands of years. Since ancient times, great people lived here, keeping the traditions of their ancestors, respecting nature and its gifts. And just as the lands of Siberia are vast, so are the peoples of the indigenous Siberians.

Altaians

According to the results of the 2010 census, the number of Altaians is about 70,000 people, which makes them the largest ethnic group in Siberia. They live mainly in the Altai Territory and the Altai Republic.

The nationality is divided into 2 ethnic groups - the Southern and Northern Altaians, which differ both in their way of life and in the peculiarities of the language.

Religion: Buddhism, Shamanism, Burkhanism.

Teleuts

Most often, the Teleuts are considered an ethnic group associated with the Altaians. But some distinguish them as a separate nationality.

They live in the Kemerovo region. The population is about 2 thousand people. Language, culture, faith, traditions are inherent in the Altaians.

Sayots

Sayots live on the territory of the Republic of Buryatia. The population is about 4000 people.

Being the descendants of the inhabitants of the Eastern Sayan - the Sayan Samoyeds. Sayots have preserved their culture and traditions since ancient times and to this day remain reindeer herders and hunters.

Dolgans

The main settlements of Dolgans are located on the territory of the Krasnoyarsk Territory - the Dolgano-Nenets municipal district. The number is about 8000 people.

Religion - Orthodoxy. The Dolgans are the northernmost Turkic-speaking people in the world.

Shors

Adherents of shamanism - Shors live mainly on the territory of the Kemerovo region. The people are distinguished by their original ancient culture. The first mention of the Shors goes back to the 6th century AD.

The nationality is usually divided into mountain-taiga and southern Shors. The total number is about 14,000 people.

Evenki

The Evenks speak the Tungus language and have been hunting for centuries.

Nationality, there are about 40,000 people settled in the Republic of Sakha-Yakutia, China and Mongolia.

Nenets

Small nationality of Siberia, live near the Kola Peninsula. The Nenets are a nomadic people, they are engaged in reindeer herding.

Their number is about 45,000 people.

Khanty

More than 30,000 Khanty live in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. They are engaged in hunting, reindeer herding, and fishing.

Many of the modern Khanty consider themselves Orthodox, but in some families they still profess shamanism.

Mansi

One of the oldest indigenous Siberian peoples is the Mansi.

Even Ivan the Terrible sent whole ratis to battle with Mansi during the development of Siberia.

Today they number about 12,000 people. They live mainly on the territory of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug.

Nanais

Historians call the Nanais the most ancient people of Siberia. The number is about 12,000 people.

They mainly live in the Far East and along the banks of the Amur in China. Nanai is translated as a man of the earth.

For many centuries the peoples of Siberia lived in small settlements. In each individual locality lived his family. The inhabitants of Siberia were friends with each other, led a joint household, were often relatives to each other and led active image life. But due to the vast territory of the Siberian region, these villages were far from each other. So, for example, the inhabitants of one village were already leading their own way of life and spoke an incomprehensible language for their neighbors. Over time, some settlements disappeared, and some became larger and actively developed.

History of population in Siberia.

The Samoyed tribes are considered to be the first indigenous inhabitants of Siberia. They inhabited the northern part. Their main occupation is reindeer herding and fishing. To the south lived the Mansi tribes, who lived by hunting. Their main trade was the extraction of furs, with which they paid for their future wives and bought goods necessary for life.

The upper reaches of the Ob were inhabited by Turkic tribes. Their main occupation was nomadic cattle breeding and blacksmithing. To the west of Lake Baikal lived the Buryats, who became famous for their ironworking craft.

The largest territory from the Yenisei to the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bOkhotsk was inhabited by Tungus tribes. Among them were many hunters, fishermen, reindeer herders, some were engaged in crafts.

Along the coast of the Chukchi Sea, the Eskimos (about 4 thousand people) settled down. Compared to other peoples of that time, the Eskimos had the slowest social development. The tool was made of stone or wood. The main economic activities include gathering and hunting.

The main way of survival of the first settlers of the Siberian region was hunting, reindeer herding and fur extraction, which was the currency of that time.

By the end of the 17th century, the most developed peoples of Siberia were the Buryats and Yakuts. The Tatars were the only people who, before the arrival of the Russians, managed to organize state power.

The largest peoples before Russian colonization include the following peoples: Itelmens (indigenous inhabitants of Kamchatka), Yukaghirs (inhabited the main territory of the tundra), Nivkhs (inhabitants of Sakhalin), Tuvans (the indigenous population of the Republic of Tuva), Siberian Tatars (located on the territory of Southern Siberia from Ural to the Yenisei) and the Selkups (inhabitants of Western Siberia).

Indigenous peoples of Siberia in the modern world.

According to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, every people of Russia received the right to national self-determination and identification. Since the collapse of the USSR, Russia has officially become a multinational state and the preservation of the culture of small and disappearing nationalities has become one of the state priorities. The Siberian indigenous peoples were also not ignored here: some of them received the right to self-government in autonomous regions, while others formed their own republics as part of the new Russia. Very small and disappearing nationalities enjoy the full support of the state, and the efforts of many people are aimed at preserving their culture and traditions.

In this review, we will brief description to every Siberian people whose population is greater than or close to 7,000 people. Smaller peoples are difficult to characterize, so we will limit ourselves to their name and number. So, let's begin.

1. Yakuts- the most numerous of the Siberian peoples. According to the latest data, the number of Yakuts is 478,100 people. In modern Russia, the Yakuts are one of the few nationalities that have their own republic, and its area is comparable to the area of ​​an average European state. The Republic of Yakutia (Sakha) is territorially located in the Far Eastern Federal District, but the ethnic group "Yakuts" has always been considered an indigenous Siberian people. The Yakuts have an interesting culture and traditions. This is one of the few peoples of Siberia that has its own epic.
2. 
   
3. Buryats- this is another Siberian people with its own republic. The capital of Buryatia is the city of Ulan-Ude, located to the east of Lake Baikal. The number of Buryats is 461,389 people. In Siberia, Buryat cuisine is widely known, rightfully considered one of the best among ethnic ones. The history of this people, its legends and traditions is quite interesting. By the way, the Republic of Buryatia is one of the main centers of Buddhism in Russia.
4. 
   
5. Tuvans. According to the latest census, 263,934 identified themselves as representatives of the Tuvan people. The Tyva Republic is one of the four ethnic republics of the Siberian Federal District. Its capital is the city of Kyzyl with a population of 110 thousand people. The total population of the republic is approaching 300 thousand. Buddhism also flourishes here, and the traditions of the Tuvans also speak of shamanism.
6. 
   
7. Khakasses- one of the indigenous peoples of Siberia, numbering 72,959 people. Today they have their own republic as part of the Siberian Federal District and with the capital in the city of Abakan. This ancient people has long lived on the lands to the west of the Great Lake (Baikal). It has never been numerous, which did not prevent it from carrying its identity, culture and traditions through the centuries.
8. 
   
9. Altaians. Their place of residence is quite compact - this is the Altai mountain system. Today Altaians live in two constituent entities of the Russian Federation - the Republic of Altai and the Altai Territory. The number of the ethnos "Altaians" is about 71 thousand people, which allows us to talk about them as a fairly large people. Religion - Shamanism and Buddhism. The Altaians have their own epic and a pronounced national identity, which does not allow them to be confused with other Siberian peoples. This mountain people has a long history and interesting legends.
10. 
    
11. Nenets- one of the small Siberian peoples living compactly in the area of ​​the Kola Peninsula. Its number of 44,640 people makes it possible to attribute it to small nations, whose traditions and culture are protected by the state. The Nenets are nomadic reindeer herders. They belong to the so-called Samoyedic folk group. Over the years of the 20th century, the number of Nenets has approximately doubled, which indicates the effectiveness of state policy in the field of preserving the small peoples of the North. The Nenets have their own language and oral epic.
12. 
    
13. Evenki- the people predominantly living on the territory of the Republic of Sakha. The number of this people in Russia is 38,396 people, some of whom live in areas adjacent to Yakutia. It is worth saying that this is about half of the total ethnic group - about the same number of Evenks live in China and Mongolia. The Evenks are the people of the Manchu group, who do not have their own language and epic. Tungus is considered the native language of the Evenks. Evenks are born hunters and trackers.
14. 
    
15. Khanty- the indigenous people of Siberia, belonging to the Ugric group. Most of the Khanty live in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, which is part of the Ural Federal District of Russia. The total number of Khanty is 30,943 people. About 35% of the Khanty live on the territory of the Siberian Federal District, and their lion's share falls on the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The traditional occupations of the Khanty are fishing, hunting and reindeer herding. The religion of their ancestors is shamanism, but recently more and more Khanty consider themselves Orthodox Christians.
16. 
    
17. Evens- a people related to the Evenks. According to one version, they represent an Evenk group, which was cut off from the main halo of residence by the Yakuts moving south. For a long time away from the main ethnic group, the Evens made a separate people. Today their number is 21,830 people. The language is Tungus. Places of residence - Kamchatka, Magadan region, Republic of Sakha.
18. 
    
19. Chukchi- a nomadic Siberian people who are mainly engaged in reindeer herding and live on the territory of the Chukchi Peninsula. Their number is about 16 thousand people. The Chukchi belong to the Mongoloid race and, according to many anthropologists, are the indigenous aborigines of the Far North. The main religion is animism. Indigenous crafts are hunting and reindeer herding.
20. 
    
21. Shors- Turkic-speaking people living in the southeastern part of Western Siberia, mainly in the south of the Kemerovo region (in Tashtagol, Novokuznetsk, Mezhdurechensk, Myskovsky, Osinnikovsky and other areas). Their number is about 13 thousand people. The main religion is shamanism. The Shor epic is of scientific interest primarily for its originality and antiquity. The history of the people dates back to the VI century. Today, the traditions of the Shors have been preserved only in Sheregesh, since most of the ethnic group moved to the cities and largely assimilated.
22. 
    
23. Mansi. This people has been known to Russians since the foundation of Siberia. Even Ivan the Terrible sent an army against the Mansi, which suggests that they were quite numerous and strong. The self-name of this people is the Voguls. They have their own language, a fairly developed epic. Today, their place of residence is the territory of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. According to the latest census, 12,269 people identified themselves as belonging to the Mansi ethnic group.
24. 
    
25. Nanais- a small people living along the banks of the Amur River in the Far East of Russia. Relating to the Baikal ethnotype, the Nanais are rightfully considered one of the most ancient indigenous peoples of Siberia and the Far East. To date, the number of Nanais in Russia is 12,160 people. The Nanais have their own language, rooted in Tungus. Writing exists only among the Russian Nanais and is based on the Cyrillic alphabet.
26. 
    
27. Koryaks- the indigenous people of the Kamchatka Territory. There are coastal and tundra Koryaks. The Koryaks are mainly reindeer herders and fishermen. The religion of this ethnic group is shamanism. Number - 8 743 people.
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29. Dolgans- nationality living in the Dolgan-Nenets municipal district Krasnoyarsk Territory. Number - 7 885 people.
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31. Siberian Tatars- perhaps the most famous, but today a few Siberian people. According to the latest population census, 6,779 people identified themselves as Siberian Tatars. However, scientists say that in fact their number is much larger - according to some estimates, up to 100,000 people.
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33. soyots- the indigenous people of Siberia, which is a descendant of the Sayan Samoyeds. Compactly lives on the territory of modern Buryatia. The number of Soyots is 5,579 people.
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35. Nivkhs- the indigenous people of Sakhalin Island. Now they also live on the continental part at the mouth of the Amur River. In 2010, the number of Nivkhs is 5,162 people.
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37. Selkups live in the northern parts of the Tyumen, Tomsk regions and in the territory of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The number of this ethnic group is about 4 thousand people.
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39. Itelmens- This is another indigenous people of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Today, almost all representatives of the ethnic group live in the west of Kamchatka and in the Magadan Region. The number of Itelmens is 3,180 people.
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41. Teleuts- Turkic-speaking small Siberian people living in the south of the Kemerovo Region. The ethnos is very closely connected with the Altaians. Its number is approaching 2 and a half thousand.
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43. Among other small peoples of Siberia, such ethnic groups as the Kets, Chuvans, Nganasans, Tofalgars, Orochi, Negidals, Aleuts, Chulyms, Oroks, Tazy, "Enets", "Alyutors" and "Kereks". It is worth saying that the number of each of them is less than 1 thousand people, so their culture and traditions have practically not been preserved.