The territory of Siberia can be called truly multinational. Today its population mostly represented by Russians. Starting in 1897, the population has only been growing to this day. The bulk of the Russian population of Siberia were traders, Cossacks and peasants. The indigenous population is mainly located in Tobolsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Russian population began to settle in the southern part of Siberia - Transbaikalia, Altai and the Minusinsk steppes. At the end of the eighteenth century, a huge number of peasants moved to Siberia. They are located mainly in Primorye, Kazakhstan and Altai. And after construction began railway and the formation of cities, the population began to grow even faster.
The Cossacks and local Yakuts who came to the Siberian lands became very friendly, they began to trust each other. After some time, they no longer divided themselves into locals and natives. International marriages took place, which entailed mixing of blood. The main peoples inhabiting Siberia are:
The Chuvans settled on the territory of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. The national language is Chukchi, which over time was completely replaced by Russian. The first population census at the end of the eighteenth century officially confirmed 275 representatives of the Chuvans who settled in Siberia and 177 who moved from place to place. Now the total number of representatives of this people is about 1300.
The Chuvans were engaged in hunting and fishing, and had sled dogs. And the main occupation of the people was reindeer herding.
— located on the territory of the Khabarovsk Territory. This people had another name - Nani, which was also widely used. The language of the people is Oroch, only the oldest representatives of the people spoke it, and besides, it was unwritten. According to the official first census, the Orochi population was 915 people. The Orochi were primarily engaged in hunting. They caught not only forest inhabitants, but also game. Now there are about 1000 representatives of this people.Entsy
were a fairly small people. Their number in the first census was only 378 people. They roamed in the areas of the Yenisei and Lower Tunguska. The Enets language was similar to Nenets, the difference was in the sound composition. Now there are about 300 representatives left.
settled on the territory of Kamchatka, they were previously called Kamchadals. The native language of the people is Itelmen, which is quite complex and includes four dialects. The number of Itelmens, judging by the first census, was 825 people. The Itelmen were mostly engaged in catching salmon fish; collecting berries, mushrooms and spices was also common. Now (according to the 2010 census) there are slightly more than 3,000 representatives of this nationality. Ket
- became indigenous residents of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Their number at the end of the eighteenth century was 1017 people. The Ket language was isolated from other Asian languages. The Kets practiced agriculture, hunting and fishing. In addition, they became the founders of trade. The main product was furs. According to the 2010 census - 1219 people
— located on the territory of the Kamchatka region and the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. The Koryak language is closest to Chukchi. The main activity of the people is reindeer husbandry. Even the name of the people is translated into Russian as “rich in deer.” The population at the end of the eighteenth century was 7,335 people. Now ~9000.
Of course, there are still many very small nationalities that live on the territory of Siberia and it would take more than one page to describe them, but the tendency towards assimilation over time leads to the complete disappearance of small peoples.
The culture of Siberia is as multi-layered as the number of nationalities living on its territory is huge. From each settlement, the local people accepted something new for themselves. First of all, this affected tools and household supplies. The newly arrived Cossacks began to use reindeer skins, local fishing tools, and malitsa from the everyday life of the Yakuts in everyday life. And they, in turn, looked after the natives’ livestock when they were away from their homes.
Various types of wood were used as construction materials, of which there are plenty in Siberia to this day. As a rule, it was spruce or pine.
The climate in Siberia is sharply continental, which manifests itself in harsh winters and hot summers. In such conditions, local residents grew sugar beets, potatoes, carrots and other vegetables well. In the forest zone it was possible to collect various mushrooms - milk mushrooms, boletus, boletus, and berries - blueberries, honeysuckle or bird cherry. Fruits were also grown in the south of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. As a rule, the obtained meat and caught fish were cooked over a fire, using taiga herbs as additives. At the moment, Siberian cuisine is distinguished by the active use of home canning.
From the end of the 16th century. The systematic settlement of the Trans-Ural region by the Russian people began and they, together with the peoples of Siberia, began to develop its inexhaustible natural resources. Behind the “stone,” that is, beyond the Urals, lay a huge territory with an area of more than 10 million square meters. km. In the vastness of Siberia, according to B. O. Dolgikh’s calculations, approximately 236 thousand people of the non-Russian population lived. 1 Each of them accounted for an average of more than 40 square meters. km area with fluctuations from Ъ to 300 sq. km. Considering that hunting requires only 10 square meters for each eater in the temperate zone. km of land, and with the most primitive livestock farming, pastoral tribes have only 1 sq. km, it will become clear that the indigenous population of Siberia by the 17th century. it was still far from developing the entire area of this region even at the previous level of management. Enormous opportunities opened up for the Russian people and the indigenous population in the development of unused spaces, both through the expansion of previous forms of economy, and, to an even greater extent, through its intensification.
The higher production skills of the Russian population, who had been engaged in arable farming, stalled livestock farming for many centuries and came close to creating manufacturing production, allowed them 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 arable farming, which later turned the region into one of the main breadbaskets of Russia. The Russians, having crossed the Urals, gradually became acquainted with the great natural resources of the new region: deep and fishy rivers, forests rich in fur-bearing animals, good lands suitable for arable farming (“fertile wilds”). At the same time, they did not find the cultivated fields they were accustomed to here. Indications of the lack of bread and the hunger experienced by the Russian newcomers (“we eat grass and roots”) are replete with the first Russian descriptions of even those regions where fat cornfields would later sprout. 2
1 For this calculation, we use the maximum figure of the indigenous population calculated by B. O. Dolgikh (B. O. Dolgikh. Tribal and tribal composition of the peoples of Siberia in the 17th century, p. 617). The study by V. M. Kabuzan and S. M. Troitsky gives a significantly lower figure (72 thousand male souls - see pp. 55, 183 of this volume).
2 Siberian Chronicles, St. Petersburg, 1907, pp. 59, 60, 109, 110, 177, 178, 242.
These first impressions were not deceptive, despite indisputable evidence of the presence of agricultural skills among part of the local population, which had developed long before the arrival of the Russians. Pre-Russian agriculture in Siberia can be noted only for a few places, mainly in the southern part of Siberia (Minusinsk Basin, Altai river valleys, Dauro-Dyucher agriculture on the Amur). Having once reached a 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 primitive. It was hoe-based (with the exception of the agriculture of the Tobolsk Tatars), distinguished by a small composition of crops (kirlyk, millet, barley and less often wheat), very small crops and equally insignificant harvests. Therefore, agriculture everywhere was supplemented by collecting wild edible plants (saran, wild onion, peony, pine nut). But, supplemented by gathering, it was always only an auxiliary occupation, giving way to the leading branches of the economy - cattle breeding, fishing, and 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 either a pick 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, three-field crop rotation, and the use of fertilizer, had to, using his labor skills, establish essentially new arable farming in these places and develop it in an unfamiliar geographical environment, surrounded by an unknown non-agricultural population, under conditions of heavy class oppression. The Russian peasant was about to accomplish a heroic feat of enormous 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 agricultural development. 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 taiga, forest-tundra and tundra regions. The government’s desire to secure the local population as a supplier of furs led to the construction of cities and forts at the key points of its settlement. Hydro-geographical conditions also contributed to this. The most convenient river route connecting 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 zone of settlement. The political situation in southern Siberia made it difficult to move in this direction. Thus, in the initial period, the Russians appeared in a zone either completely inaccessible for agriculture or unsuitable for it, and only in the southern part of their settlement (forest-steppe) did they find favorable conditions. It was in these areas that the first centers of Siberian agriculture were created. The first mention of plowing dates back to the 16th century. (arable lands of Tyumen and Verkhoturye Russian villages along the Ture River). Having come to Siberia with other goals, the Russians turned to agriculture in the very first years of their advance to the east, since the food issue in Siberia immediately became very acute. They initially tried to resolve it by importing bread from European Rus'. Government detachments, commercial and industrial people, and individual settlers brought bread with them. But this did not solve the issue of feeding the permanent Russian population of Siberia. They didn’t allow it either
3 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia (XVII century). M., 1956, pp. 34. 35.
annual supplies of bread to Siberia. Northern Russian cities and their districts (Cherdyn, Vym-Yarenskaya, Sol-Vychegodskaya, Ustyug, Vyatka, etc.) were obligated to supply “large reserves”. In addition, government purchases of bread were additionally organized in European Russia. Such an organization of grain supply to the distant outskirts suffered from a major drawback, since the supply of supplies to Siberia was extremely expensive and took a long time: transporting grain from Ustyug to the shores of the Pacific Ocean lasted 5 years.4 At the same time, the cost of bread increased tens of times, and some of the food along the way was dying. The state's desire to shift these costs onto the shoulders of the population increased feudal duties and caused 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 the service people, to whom it gave “bread salaries.”
Instructions to Siberian governors throughout the 17th century. filled with instructions on the need to establish state arable land. At the same time, the population plowed the land on their own initiative. This was also facilitated by the composition of the population arriving in Siberia. A significant part of this was the working peasantry, who fled from the center from feudal oppression and dreamed of doing their usual job. Thus, the initial organizers of Siberian agriculture were the feudal state, on the one hand, and the population itself, on the other.
The state sought to establish the so-called sovereign tithe arable land in Siberia. Having declared all Siberian land as the sovereign's land, the government provided it to the direct producer of material goods for use on the condition of processing the sovereign's tithe for this. In its purest form, the sovereign's tithe arable land was distinguished as a special field, cultivated by the sovereign's peasants, who received for this land for "sobin" arable land at the rate of 4 dessiatines per 1 dessiatine of government 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 there was no territorial division of the corvee and peasant fields, the clerk supervised the processing of only the sovereign's tithe (usually the most productive) and the collection of grain from it. Cases of a peasant cultivating only the sovereign's field with the receipt of “mesyachina” (food grain) in Siberia were few. 6 But already in the 17th century. There were cases of replacing the cultivation of the sovereign's arable land (corvee labor) with the payment of grain dues (rent in kind). However, corvée labor for the Siberian peasant throughout the entire 17th century. was dominant.
A specific feature of Siberia was the fact that the feudal state, in its desire to establish a corvee economy, was faced with the absence of a peasant population. It was unable to use the local population as feudally obligated cultivators due to the lack of appropriate production skills among the aborigines. Individual attempts in this direction, made at the beginning of the 17th century. V 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 had 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.
Initially, the government tried to overcome this difficulty by forcibly relocating peasants from European Russia “by decree” and “by device”, thereby creating one of the early groups of the Siberian peasantry - the “transfers”. Thus, in 1590, 30 families from the Solvychegodsk district were sent to Siberia as arable peasants, in 1592 - peasants from Perm and Vyatka, in 1600 - Kazan residents, Laishevites and Tetyushites. 7 This measure turned out to be insufficiently effective, and in addition, it weakened the solvency of the old districts, was expensive for the peasant world and therefore caused protests.
Another source of obtaining labor for the sovereign's arable land was exile. Siberia already in the 16th century. served as a place of exile in the settlement. Some of the exiles were sent to the arable land. This measure was in effect throughout the 17th century and continued into the 18th century. The number of exiles was especially significant during periods of intensification of the class struggle in central Rus'. But this method of providing agriculture with labor did not produce the expected effect. The exiles partially died during the incredibly difficult journey. The mark “died on the road” is a common occurrence in paintings of exiles. Some went to posads and garrisons, while another part of the people forcibly put on arable land, often without sufficient skills, strength and means, “wandered between the yards” or fled in search of freedom and a better life further to the east, and sometimes back to Rus'.
The most effective was the attraction to the sovereign's arable land of people who arrived in Siberia at their own peril and risk.
In some contradiction with the general system of the feudal state, which attached the peasant to a place, the government already in the 16th century. proposed to the Siberian administration to call to Siberia “willing people from the father of the son and from the brother of the brother and from the brothers and sisters.” 8 In this way, they tried to simultaneously keep the tax in place and transfer excess labor to Siberia. At the same time, the area of eviction was limited to Pomeranian counties, free from local land ownership. The government did not dare to affect the interests of landowners. True, at the same time, the government is somewhat expanding its program, proposing to recruit arable peasants “from walking and all sorts of willing free people.”9 This category of people could and did include deportees not from Pomeranian districts, but fugitives from areas of landownership. The unauthorized resettlement of the burdened and dependent population to Siberia could not fail to attract the attention of the government and landowners. From the beginning of the 17th century. Cases are underway to search for those who fled to Siberia, initiated by petitions from landowners. The government was forced to take a number of prohibitive measures, including the search and return of the fugitives.
On this issue, government policy throughout the 17th century. retains a dual character. By assigning peasants to the landowner and tax in the central regions, the government was also interested in attaching peasants to the developing tax in Siberia. That is why, despite a number of prohibitory decrees and high-profile detective cases, the Siberian voivodeship administration turned a blind eye to the arrival of new settlers from Rus'. Considering them “free”, “walking” people, she willingly recruited them into the sovereign’s arable peasants. This influx of fugitives into Siberia, fleeing the growing feudal oppression in the center, replenished the Siberian villages and determined the character of their population.
4 Ibid., p. 314.
5 Ibid., p. 417.
6 TsGADA, SP, book. 2, l. 426; V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of the colonization of Siberia in the 17th and early 18th centuries. M., 1946, pp. 174, 175.
7 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of colonization of Siberia..., pp. 13, 14.
8 TsGADA, SP, book. 2, pp. 96, 97.
9 Ibid., f, Verkhoturye district court, stlb. 42.
The overall result of the resettlement of peasants to 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. 10
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 farm on their own. The voivodeship administration, wanting 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. The loan, also in cash or in kind, had the same purpose, but was subject to mandatory repayment. Therefore, when issuing a loan, loan bondage was formalized.
The exact amounts of assistance and loans are difficult to establish; they varied depending on time and place. The more acute the need for labor, the higher the assistance and loans; the greater the influx of settlers, the less assistance and loans were provided; sometimes loans were not issued at all. In the 30s, in the Verkhoturye district, they gave 10 rubles for help (“with what a peasant could use a settler’s palace, plow arable land and start all sorts of factories”). money per person and, in addition, 5 grains of rye, 1 grain of barley, 4 grains of oats and a pound of salt. Sometimes in the same district horses, cows, and small livestock were given out to help. On the Lena in the 40s, help reached 20 and 30 rubles. money and 1 horse per person." The loan issued along with the help was usually less, and sometimes equal to it.
Along with help and a loan, the new settler was given a benefit - exemption from carrying feudal duties for one period or another. Government instructions gave the local administration ample opportunity to change the amount of assistance, loans and benefits: “... and give them loans, assistance and benefits depending on the local business and on people and families with guarantees and trying on previous years.” Their sizes, obviously, were also put in connection with the size of the sovereign's tithe of 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 towards a gradual reduction in assistance and loans with the desire, under favorable conditions, to do without them completely. This does not at all mean that the assistance provided is large at the beginning. The presence of numerous peasant petitions about the difficulty of repaying the loan, the large number of cases of its collection and the fact of a significant shortage of loan money by the administrative huts indicate rather the opposite. The fact is that prices for peasant “factory” (draft animals, herds, etc.) were very high. In any case, help and loans made it possible for the newcomers to begin organizing first a “farm” farm, and then, after the grace years had expired, to cultivate the sovereign’s tithe field. 12
This is how sovereign villages arose in Siberia, populated by the sovereign’s arable peasants.
At the same time, peasant settlements were being established in other ways. Siberian monasteries played a prominent role in this direction.
10 Ibid., SP, book. 1354, pp. 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, SP, stlb. 344, part I, l. 187 et al.; V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of colonization of Siberia..., pp. 22-29.
During the 17th century. More than three dozen monasteries arose in Siberia. Despite the fact that they arose in conditions of a very restrained government attitude towards the growth of monastic land ownership, they all received land grants, land contributions from private individuals, in addition, the monastery bought land, and sometimes simply seized it. The most significant landowner of this type was the Tobolsk Sophia House, which began receiving 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 into their possession, with the right “to recruit peasants not from taxes and not from arable land and not from serfs.” Taking advantage of this right, they launched activities to install the newly arrived population on monastic lands on conditions similar to those that were practiced when establishing the sovereign's tithe arable land. Just like there, the monasteries provided help and loans and provided benefits. According to historical records, the newcomer was obliged to “not leave the monastery land” for this and cultivate the monastery’s arable land or bring rent into the monastery and perform other monastic “products.” Essentially, it was a matter of self-selling people into the monastery “fortress.” Thus, a fugitive from Rus' and in Siberia on monastic lands found himself in the same conditions from which he left his previous places. The results of the activities of the Siberian monasteries in enslaving the newcomer population should be considered significant. By the beginning of the 18th century. there were 1082 peasant households behind the Siberian monasteries. 13
Along with the two indicated paths, the self-organization of the newcomer population to the land also took place. Some of the settlers wandered around Siberia in search of income, eking out temporary jobs for hire. A certain number of people arrived in Siberia to work in fur harvesting in the fields organized by Russian rich people. Subsequently, we find them among the sovereign's peasants. This transition to arable farming took place either through official conversion into peasants and the allocation by the voivodeship administration of a plot of land for “sobin” arable land with the determination of the amount of duties (sovereign tithe arable land or quitrent), or through the seizure of land and unauthorized cultivation of it. In the latter case, during the next inspection, such a farmer still ended up among the sovereign’s peasants and began to pay the corresponding feudal rent.
In this way, the main core of Siberian farmers was created. But the peasants were not alone in their agricultural activities. Acute shortage of bread in Siberia in the 17th century. encouraged other segments of the population to turn to arable farming. Along with peasants, servicemen and townspeople plowed the land.
Siberian servicemen, unlike servicemen in European Russia, as a rule, did not receive land dachas. And this is quite understandable. Unpopulated and uncultivated land could not provide a service person with the existence and performance of his service. Therefore, here the service man made up his salary in money and bread. Depending on his official position, he received on average from 10 to 40 quarters of grain supplies for the year. Approximately half of this amount 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 4 pounds of rye per person) there would be from 5 to 20 pounds of rye per year per person. Moreover, the bulk of service people - privates who received the lowest salaries - received 5 poods per eater per year. Even with the accurate issuance of bread wages, the amounts are approx.
13 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 46, 47, 368-374.
Lada poorly provided the family's needs for bread. In practice, the issuance of grain wages was carried out with significant delays and shortfalls. That is why a service man 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 the Tomsk district at that time, 40% of service people had arable land, etc. 14 Naturally, the turn of service people to agriculture was constrained by both their main occupation and the place of service. A significant part served in areas unsuitable for agriculture. According to the list of Siberian cities of the early 18th century. 20% of every rank of paid people had their own plowing.
Engaged in farming and townspeople population, if the places of its concentration were in the accessible lane. So, even in Tobolsk, the region of which in the 17th 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 population of the townspeople was 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 resources. 15
Thus, a significant part of the Russian population of Siberia in the 17th century. was engaged in agriculture, and this made it possible to lay its strong foundations in Siberia even then. The activities of the settlers took place in harsh and new natural conditions for the Russian farmer and required a gigantic effort. The pushing back of the Russian population in the 17th century. to the northern regions made these conditions even more difficult. The usual ideas brought to Siberia collided with harsh reality, and often the newcomer suffered defeats in the fight against nature. Dry notes from voivodes and clerks or peasant petitions, full of indications that “the bread was cold,” “there was a drought,” “the bread was chilled by the frost and the stones,” “the soil is sand and grass does not grow,” “the bread was washed away with water.” , 16 they talk about tragedies, about cruel blows inflicted by nature on a still fragile, just emerging economy. On this the hard way the farmer showed great persistence and ingenuity and ultimately emerged victorious.
The first step was choosing places for arable land. With great caution, the Russian tiller determined soil, climatic and other conditions. By force of the voivode's huts, clerks and the peasants themselves - people who are "evil" for such things - the "good" lands were chosen, "the mother will long for bread." And vice versa, unsuitable lands were rejected, “there is no desire for arable land, the earth does not even melt in the middle of summer.” 17 Inventories and sometimes drawings were made of identified suitable lands. Already in the 17th century. the beginning of the description of territories suitable for agriculture was laid and the first attempts were made to map agricultural land. 18
If the “inspection” was carried out by the voivodeship administration, then on its initiative the sovereign’s and “sobin’s” arable land was organized. The peasants themselves, having “examined” the good land, turned to the voivodship huts with a request to allocate to them the identified suitable plots.
14 Ibid., pp. 50, 78.
15 Ibid., pp. 51, 76, 131. (Data on Tobolsk Posad agriculture provided by O. N. Vilkov).
16 Ibid., p. 264; V. N. Sherstoboev. Ilimskaya arable land, vol. I. Irkutsk, 1949, pp. 338-341.
17 TsGADA, SP. stlb. 113, pp. 86-93.
18 Ibid., book. 1351, l. 68.
In addition to being suitable for farming, the site had to have another condition - to be free. Russian newcomers entered territory that had long been inhabited by the indigenous population. After the annexation of Siberia to Russia, the Russian government, declaring the entire land sovereign, recognized the local population's right to use this land. Interested in receiving yasak, it sought to preserve the economy of the aborigines and the solvency of this economy. Therefore, the government pursued a policy of preserving their land for the yasaks. Russian people were ordered to settle “in empty places, and land should not be taken away from tribute people.” When allocating land, investigations were usually carried out, “whether that place is old and whether there are tribute people.” In most cases, the local tribute population - the “local people” - were involved in such a “search”. 19
In Siberian conditions, this requirement for a combination of land interests of the Russian and local population turned out to be generally feasible. Accommodation on an area 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. There is no doubt that with the weak organization of land management, and sometimes in the complete absence of any organization, clashes of interests between the Russian and indigenous populations could occur, as they occurred among the Russian population itself. However, these clashes did not define the overall picture. Basically, land development was carried out using vacant land.
Such lands were usually found near rivers and streams, so that “and... mills could be built,” but also with the condition that “they would not drown with water.” 20 Due to the fact that Siberian agriculture developed in the 17th 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 up or at least reduce the need for labor-intensive clearing of the forest for arable land. Small in composition in the 17th century. Siberian peasant families sought 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. During 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” have become widespread. Both the voivodeship administration and the peasants did this. So, in Ketsky district they sowed in 1640 “for the sake of experience a little.” The experiment turned out to be successful, the rye grew “good”. On this basis, they came to the conclusion: “...the arable land in the Ket fortress can be big” 21 . This conclusion was overly optimistic. It was never possible to organize large arable land in Ketsky district, but the possibility of farming was proven. The successful experience served as an impetus for the development of agriculture in this area. Thus, the son of one of these “experimenters” said: “. . . My father, having arrived from Ilimsk, made an experiment in the Nerchinsk grain plowing and sowed grain. . . And from that experience, bread was born in Nerchinsk, and despite this, the local residents taught how to plant arable land and sow grain. . . And before that, no grain was born in Nerchinsk and there was no plowing.” 22 Sometimes the experience gave negative results. Thus, experimental crops near the Yakut fort in the 40s of the 17th century. led to the conclusion that “the rain does not last long in the spring and the rye is blown away by the wind,”
19 RIB, vol. II. St. Petersburg, 1875, document. No. 47, DAI, vol. VIII, No. 51, IV; V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of colonization of Siberia.... p. 64.
20 TsGADA, SP, stlb. 91, pp. 80, 81, column. 113, l. 386.
21 Ibid., st. 113, l. 386.
22 Ibid., book. 1372.ll. 146-149.
and in the fall there are early frosts and the bread “beats the frost.” 23 Bad experience, organized by the governor, led to the refusal to establish the sovereign's tithe arable land in a given place; the peasant's unsuccessful experience could have ended in his complete ruin. The meager notes - “...those cold peasants did not reap the grain in their fields, because there was no kernel at all” - hid behind them the catastrophic situation of the peasant economy in the new place.
The question of the primary suitability of one or another agricultural crop for a given area was resolved experimentally in the same way. Russian people naturally sought to transfer all the cultures familiar to them to new areas. In the 17th century Winter and spring rye, oats, barley, wheat, peas, buckwheat, millet, and hemp appeared on Siberian fields. Vegetable crops grown in the gardens included cabbage, carrots, turnips, onions, garlic, and cucumbers. At the same time, their distribution across the territory of Siberia and the ratio of sown areas occupied by different crops were determined. This placement did not happen right away. It was the result of conscious and unconscious searches that the Russian population of Siberia was engaged in throughout the entire period under review. However, the placement was not final. Subsequent time introduced significant adjustments to it. By the end of the 17th century. Siberia became 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 Ilim districts, where along with it oats were sown in significant quantities and barley in small quantities. In Irkutsk, Udinsk and Nerchinsk districts, rye also took a monopoly position, and on the Lena it coexisted with oats and barley. In addition to rye, oats and barley, other crops were sown in the “sobean” fields. 24
Along with the composition of the crops, the Russian farmer brought the methods of their cultivation to Siberia. In the central regions of the country at that time, the fallow farming system in the form of a three-field system prevailed, while the fallow and swidden systems were preserved in some places. The cutting system in Siberia in the 17th century. has not received widespread use. The fallow land was widely used, “and people in Siberia throw away the arable, thin lands, and occupy new lands for arable land, wherever anyone can search.” 25 Despite its wide distribution, the fallow is still true for the 17th century. did not turn out to be the only farming system. The gradual reduction in the area of free fallow areas and the difficulties of clearing led to a shortening of fallow land and the establishment of a fallow system, initially in the form of a double-field. On Ilim and Lena in the taiga-mountain zone of Eastern Siberia, as V.N. Sherstoboev well showed, 26 a two-field system is established. However, gradually, as complaints indicate, as a result of the fact that most of the arable land was plowed up, there were no free “desirable” places near the settlements, which stimulated the transition to a steam system in the form of a three-field system. Undoubtedly, they acted in the same direction economic tradition, brought from Rus'. On the sovereign and monastic fields of Western and Central Siberia for the 17th century. The presence of three fields is noted, sometimes with manuring of the earth. It can also be noted for peasant fields. At the same time, three-field farming 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, there is undoubtedly a desire to use this custom in Siberian conditions. 27
Along with field farming, homestead farming arose. In the estate “behind the courtyards” there were vegetable gardens, vegetable gardens and hemp fields. Vegetable gardens are mentioned not only in villages, but also in cities.
To cultivate the land they used a plow with iron coulters. A wooden harrow was used for harrowing. Sickles, pink salmon scythes, and axes are constantly mentioned among other agricultural implements. Much of this equipment was given out as a help to newly ordered peasants or was bought by them at Siberian markets, where it arrived from Rus' through Tobolsk. Long-distance delivery made this equipment expensive, which the Siberian population constantly complained about: “... in the Tomsk and Yenisei, and in the Kuznetsk, and in the Krasnoyarsk forts, some openers will be bought for 40 altyn, and a scythe for 20 altyn.”28 These difficulties were resolved as Russian crafts developed in Siberia.
The presence of draft animals 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 provided in kind. Providing draft power to Russian agriculture occurred quite easily in those areas where it could rely on horse breeding of the local population. They bought horses from the local population or from southern nomads who brought livestock for sale. The situation was more complicated in those areas 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 rub. 29 Over time, a plowed horse began to cost the same as in European Russia, i.e. in the same Yeniseisk at the end of the century a horse was already 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 livestock in the 17th century. But already in the middle of the century, one-horse peasants were considered “young” peasants, that is, poor. Peasants who owned at least 4 horses were classified as “groovy” or “subsistence” peasants. 31 Areas for mowing were allocated or captured. If arable land and meadows were assigned, as a rule, to the peasant yard, then areas for pastures were usually allocated to the village as a whole. If there were large free areas of land, arable fields and meadows were fenced off, while livestock grazed freely.
Siberian villages varied in size. In the Verkhoturye-Tobolsk region, where the main tracts of tithe arable land 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 courtyards. Some of them turned into agricultural centers (settlements). Clerks lived in them, supervising the work of the peasants in the sovereign's fields, and there were the sovereign's barns for storing grain. Around them were small 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 17th century. almost 30% of all villages were single-yard dwellings, and in Ilimsky district in 1700 there were almost 40% of them. Two- and three-door villages constituted in Yeni-
23 Ibid., stlb. 274, pp. 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, SP, stlb. 1873.
26 V. N. Sherstoboev. Ilimskaya arable land, vol. I, pp. 307-309.
27 V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, pp. 289-294.
28 TsGADA, SP, stlb. 1673, l. 21 et seq.; V. I. Shunkov. Essays on the history of agriculture in Siberia, p. 296.
29 TsGADA, SP, stlb. 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.
in Seysk district 37%, and in Ilimsk district - 39%. 32 And although over the course of a century there has been a tendency towards the expansion of the Siberian countryside, which will later manifest itself in the emergence of large villages, it is being carried out slowly. It was difficult to wrest large tracts of suitable land from the harsh nature in the forested and mountain taiga zones. That’s why one-door and two-door villages scattered throughout the small Yelans. The same circumstance gave rise to the so-called “invading arable lands.” Newly found convenient plots of land were sometimes located far from the peasant yard, where they only “drove” for field work. Over the course of the century, the average size of land cultivated by a peasant household showed a tendency to fall: at the beginning of the century they reached 5-7 dessiatines, and by the end of the century in different counties they ranged from 1.5 to 3 dessiatines per field. 33 This fall must be put in connection with the weight of 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 cultivating tithes of arable land and other duties.
Specific results of agricultural labor of the Russian population in the 17th and early 18th centuries. affected in a number of phenomena.
Cultivated arable lands appeared almost throughout Siberia from west to east. If at the end of the 16th century. Russian peasant began to plow in the very west of Siberia (western tributaries of the Ob River), then in the middle of the 17th century. and the second half of it there were Russian arable lands 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 route of Russian advance from west to east along the famous water road that connected the great Siberian rivers: 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 along this path that the main agricultural centers of Siberia in the 17th century arose.
The most significant of them and the oldest was the Verkhoturye-Tobolsk region, where the bulk of the agricultural population settled. Within 4 counties of this region (Verkhotursky, Tyumen, Turin and Tobolsk) at the beginning of the 18th century. there were 75% of all Siberian peasants-farmers living in 80 settlements and hundreds of villages. 34 In this area, perhaps earlier than anywhere else, we observe the departure of the peasant population from the main transport line in an effort to settle in “pleasant arable places.” By the beginning of the 18th century. agricultural settlements that previously stretched along the river. Ture (the waterway that connected Verkhoturye through Tobol with Tobolsk), go to the south. Already in the first decades of the 17th century. they begin to plow along the river. Nitsa, then along the rivers Pyshma, Iset, Mias. Villages spread to the south along Tobol, Vagai, Ishim. This movement is taking place despite the unstable situation on the southern borders. The raids of “military people”, theft of livestock, and the burning of grain cannot stop the advance of arable land to the south and only force the farmer to add weapons to the plow and scythe. This clearly demonstrates the tendency to transform agriculture from a phenomenon accompanying population movement into an independent stimulus for migration.
At the end of the century, 5,742 peasant households cultivated about 15 thousand dessiatines in one field in the Verkhoturye-Tobolsk region (of which more than 12,600 dessiatines of “sobin” plowing and more than 2,300 dessiatines of the sovereign’s dessiatine arable land). The total arable land in the region (peasants, townspeople and service people) was about 27,000 acres in one field.
32 Ibid., pp. 103-105; V. N. Sherstoboev. Ilimskaya 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 to determine, at least approximately, the amount of bread that came 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 produce accurate calculations. One can only assume that the gross harvest in the region exceeded 300 thousand four-pound chetets. 35 This quantity was enough to satisfy the bread needs of the entire population of the region and allocate surpluses 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 the large number of inhabitants, the fertile, well-cultivated soils, and the presence of a large amount of grain. 36 And a local resident had the right to say that here “the land is rich in grain, vegetables and livestock.” 37
The second in time of formation was the Tomsk-Kuznetsk agricultural region. The first arable lands appeared immediately after the founding 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 passed 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, without retreating far from Tomsk. Only a small group of villages formed in the upper reaches of the Tom, in the area of the city of Kuznetsk. Just at the beginning of the 18th century. in the region (Tomsk and Kuznetsk counties) there were 644 peasant families. The total plowing at this time reached 4,600 dessiatinas in one field, and the total grain harvest was hardly more than 51 thousand four-pound chetas. Nevertheless, Tomsk district by the end of the 17th century. he was already making do with his own bread; Kuznetsky remained the consuming district. 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 satisfying its grain needs.
The successes of agriculture in the Yenisei agricultural region were significantly greater. Located on the main Siberian highway, it quickly turned into the second most important arable farming region. The bulk of settlements arose along the Yenisei from Yeniseisk to Krasnoyarsk and along the Upper Tunguska, Angara and Ilim. By the beginning of the 18th century. there were 1918 peasant households with a population of approximately 5730 male souls. The total peasant and townspeople's arable land in the region was no less than 7,500 acres in one field. The gross grain harvest was more than 90 thousand four-pounds. 38 This made it possible to feed the population and allocate part of the grain to be sent outside the region. Along with the bread of the “upper” Siberian cities (Verkhoturye, Turinsk, Tyumen, Tobolsk), Yenisei bread also went to the breadless or low-grain districts - Mangazeya, Yakutsk, Nerchinsk. Nikolai Spafariy wrote at the end of the century: “The Yenisei country is good. . . And God gave all kinds of abundance, abundant and cheap bread, and all kinds of other abundance of people.” 39
In the 17th century the beginning was made of the creation of the two easternmost agricultural regions of Siberia: Lensky and Amursky. By the 30-40s of the 17th century. These include the first attempts to establish arable land in the “sable region” - the Lena Basin. Agricultural villages are located along the Lena from the upper reaches (Biryulskaya and Banzyurskaya settlements) to Yakutsk; Most of them were located south of the Cyrene fort. It was this area that became the grain base of the huge Yakutsk voivodeship. Izbrand Eades reported: “The surrounding area. . . where is the Lena River. . . originates, and the country, watered by the small river Kirenga, abounds in grain. The entire Yakut province feeds on it every year.” 40 There is also some exaggeration in this statement. There is no doubt that bread from the upper reaches of the Lena came to Yakutsk and further to the north, but this bread did not satisfy the needs of the population. Throughout the 17th century, as well as later, grain was imported into the Yakutsk voivodeship from the Yenisei and Verkhoturye-Tobolsk regions. But the significance of the creation of the Lensky agricultural region is by no means determined by the size of the arable areas and the amount of grain harvested. Arable fields appeared in a region that had previously not known agriculture even in its primary forms. Neither the Yakut nor the Evenk population was engaged in agriculture. For the first time, Russian people raised the earth 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 lands in distant Western Siberia on the river. Tour, the fields on the Lena began to sprout. The Russians sowed not only in the more favorable conditions of the upper reaches of the Lena, but also in the area of Yakutsk and on the middle reaches of the Amga. Here, as in the area of Zavarukhinskaya and Dubchesskaya settlements on the Yenisei, as on the Ob River 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. Here it was necessary to revive arable farming. Already in the 17th century. its first foci were created. The movement of agriculture here went from Yeniseisk through Baikal, Transbaikalia and to the Amur. Arable lands arose near the forts on the route Irkutsk - the upper reaches of the Amur. Perhaps the most striking moment was the success of Russian agriculture associated with Albazin. Having not arisen by government decree, Albazin contributed to the development of Russian agriculture in the form of “sobin” plowing. The “sobin” arable lands were followed by the organization of sovereign tithes. 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 the forts. Small "zaimkas", villages and settlements were scattered along the rivers, sometimes at a very far distance from the walls of fortified places. These 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 of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The migration wave reached this remote area having already weakened significantly, so the quantitative results of agriculture in comparison with the Verkhoturye-Tobolsk and Yenisei regions were small. Nevertheless, the thoughts that in this area “there are many arable places”, that these places are “like the kindest Russian lands”, fill all descriptions of the area.
The desire to develop more fully and widely these places, where the land is “black and white in the human belt,” in addition to the distance 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. The visiting military people “take sables from the Russian people and the yasash foreigners and take away meat and beef lard and flour from the storehouses, and they beat the Russian people and the yasash foreigners.” The resistance of the small population of villages and settlements to the incoming 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 completely ruined, and the houses and the peasant factory were robbed and every building was burned,” when people “fled through the forests only in soul and body,” 41 the population again returned to their burned and trampled fields, plowed again the ground and sowed grain in it. And yet, these events could not help but delay the agricultural development of the region. The terms of the Treaty of Nerchinsk did not destroy Russian agriculture in the entire region as a whole, and even in its most eastern part (the Amur Settlement was preserved); nevertheless, they delayed for a long time what began in the 17th century. the process of plowing land. 42
Thus, Russian agriculture in the 17th century. captured a huge territory. Its northern border went north of Pelym (Garinskaya settlement), crossed the Irtysh below the confluence of the Tobol (Bronnikovsky Pogost), passed through the Ob in the Narym region and then retreated north, crossing the Yenisei at the confluence of the Podkamennaya Tunguska (Zavarukhinskaya village), exited 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 18th century. this northern border of Russian agriculture went to Kamchatka. The southern border began on the middle reaches of the river. Mias (Chumlyatskaya settlement), crossed the Tobol south of modern Kurgan (Utyatskaya settlement), through the upper reaches of Vagai (Ust-Laminskaya settlement) reached the Irtysh in the area of Tara, crossed the Ob south of the Tom and went to the upper reaches of the Tom (Kuznetsk villages). The southern border crossed the Yenisei in the Krasnoyarsk region, and then went to the upper reaches of the river. Oka and Baikal. Beyond Baikal, at Selenginsk, she crossed the Selenga and went to. Uda and then to the Amur before 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 bread, refusing to import it from European Russia. In 1685, the obligation to supply large supplies 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 became a consumer item for the local population, although 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 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 turn to agricultural activities of the aboriginal population proceeded through the creation of their own peasant-type farms. We do not see any involvement of indigenous people in cultivating fields on Russian farms. Siberia did not know agricultural plantations with forced labor of the indigenous population. On the sovereign's tithe arable lands and large plowed fields of Siberian monasteries he acted as a forced laborer
35 Ibid., pp. 45, 54, 56.
36 Relation du voyage de M-r I. Isbrand. . . par le Sieur Adam Brand. Ui. Ill, IV. Amsterdam, MDCXCIX.
37 PO GPB, Hermitage collection, No. 237, l. 12.
38 3. Y. Boyarshinova. Population of Tomsk district in the first half of the 15th century. Tr. Tomsk, state Univ., vol. 112, ser. historical-philological, p. 135; V. I. Shunkov. 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, dept. Ethnogr., vol. X, issue. 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, SP, stlb. 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 with his hands, his labor and then that Siberia turned into a grain-producing land.
Along with farming, the Russian population invested its labor in the development of the fur and fisheries that had existed in Siberia since ancient times. Chronologically, these occupations most likely preceded agricultural ones and went back to the times when Russian industrialists occasionally appeared on the territory of Siberia before its annexation to the Russian state. After the annexation, when the feudal state itself organized the removal of furs from Siberia by collecting yasak, and the Russian merchants received furs by buying them, direct production of furs and fish by the Russian population also began. In agricultural areas, this activity was an auxiliary activity. In the northern regions, in the taiga, forest-tundra and tundra zones, special fur mining enterprises were created. 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 in this matter for fear of weakening the tax capacity of the local hunting population.
Real riches and legendary stories about the abundance of fur-bearing animals in Siberian forests High Quality(“the wool of a living sable drags along the ground”) attracted the fishing population of the already “industrialized” largely European north to new areas. Initially, this area was all of forested Siberia. Then, due to the settlement of the Russian population in the zone accessible to agriculture in these parts, the number of fur-bearing animals decreased. The expansion of agricultural settlements and fur trades did not get along well, since “every animal runs out from the knocking and from the fire and from the smoke.” Therefore, over time, the fishing population moved to the northern non-agricultural zone. In the first half of the 17th century. Every year, hundreds of fishermen went to the area of 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, others remained in Siberia forever, sometimes continuing to engage in trades, sometimes exchanging them for other jobs. This population usually settled temporarily in the northern Siberian forts, periodically turning them into fairly populous 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 a lot of trade and industrial people in Mangazeya, 1000 people and two or more.” 43 A large number of fishermen also passed through Yakutsk. Thus, in 1642, the Yakut customs house released 839 people to sable fisheries. V. A. Aleksandrov counts 44 in the 30-40s of the 17th century. in one Mangazeya district there were up to 700 adult male permanent population, engaged primarily in fishing.
The fishing population went to Siberia from Pomerania, with which these areas were connected by an ancient waterway from Rus' to the Trans-Urals, known as the Pechora, or trans-stone, route: from Ustyug to Pechora, from Pechora to Ob and then along the Ob and Taz Bays to Taz and further to the east. It brought with it its fishing skills. Sable hunting was carried out according to the “Russian custom” - with the help of bags (traps) or dogs and nets (sweeps). 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. . . where those dogs are just like 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 and early 18th centuries. M., 1946. p. 218.
The Lena foreigners shoot with bows, but they don’t get sables in any other way, like the Russian people do, with a sweep and a saddle.” 45 Hunting with sacks was considered the most productive.
S.V. Bakhrushin also noted that according to the social composition, the visiting and fishing population of Siberia was divided into 2 groups. 46 Its main mass was formed from fishermen, over whom stood a few, but economically stronger, trading people. Both went to Siberia on their own initiative in the hope of finding success in fishing, the former through personal labor, the latter through investing capital in fishing enterprises. Some chose to fish at their own risk alone. Despite the riskiness of this method, some people found success and remained a lone fisherman for a long time. These, obviously, include the Russian man P. Koptyakov, who hunted on the Lozva River, acquired his own “paths” and eventually became a tribute person. The numerically small category of Russian yasak people, noted in documents of the 17th century, was obviously formed from such single fishermen.
More often than not, fisheries were organized on an artel basis. Several fishermen united (“formed”) into one artel on a common basis, followed by division of the spoils. S.V. Bakhrushin described in detail the fishing enterprises organized by capitalist Russian traders, who invested significant funds in them and hired unsecured ordinary fishermen. The entrepreneur supplied the hired man (pokruchenik) with food, clothing and shoes, hunting equipment (“industrial plant”), and means of transportation. In return, the pokruchenik, who had been “spun” for a certain period of time, was obliged to give the entrepreneur a large part of the spoils (usually 2/3) and perform all the necessary work. For the duration of the twist, the twister became a forced person. He did not have the right to leave the owner before the expiration of the term of duty and was obliged to carry out all the instructions of the owner or his clerk - what “the owners tell him to do and he listens to them.” According to the testimony of the perpetrators themselves, “their business is involuntary.” 47 The gangs of henchmen, depending on the means of the entrepreneur, were quite significant. Gangs of 15, 20, 30 and 40 people are known.
Unfortunately, based on the state of the sources, it is not possible to find out the total number of fishermen operating in Siberia in a given year of the 17th century. In any case, the number of fishermen was significantly smaller than the number of other categories of the Russian population, primarily service people, peasants and townspeople. The predominance of the number of fishermen 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. Aleksandrov, based on careful comparisons, comes to a reasonable conclusion that the yasak collection during the heyday of the fur trade was many times inferior to the total production of Russian traders. According to his data, in the Mangazeya district in 1640-1641. The fishermen produced 1028 magpies of sables, while 282 magpies entered 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 DAI, vol. III, no. 12, pp. 50-57; TSGADA, f. Yakut orderly hut, stlb. 43, pp. 355-362.
46 S. V. Bakhrushin. Mangazeya lay community in the 17th century, p. 300.
47 S. V. Bakhrushin. Twisting in the sable trades of the 17th century. Scientific works, vol. III, part 1, M., 1955, pp. 198-212.
left tax and taxation of fur sales. Thus, in these years, tribute accounted for no more than 10% of the total export of furs from the district. 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 fisheries. 48
The main organizers of the fishing enterprises were the largest Russian merchants - guests, members of the living room of the hundred. On the basis of these enterprises, the largest for the 17th century grew. capitals (Revyakins, Bosykhs, Fedotovs, Guselnikovs, etc.). The owners of these capitals remained in European Russia. In Siberia itself, small-scale fishing people lingered. Even in successful years, the bulk of the production went into the hands of the organizers of the fisheries, while only a small part fell into the hands of individual profiteers. In “bad” years, in years of fishing failures, the pokruchenik, who had no reserves and worked from a small share, found himself in a difficult, sometimes tragic situation. Unable to either return back to European Russia or survive until a new gang was organized, he wandered “between yards” and lived “for hire” in seasonal agricultural work, eventually falling into the ranks of Siberian peasants or townspeople and service people.
Another consequence of the activities of Russian fishing entrepreneurs was the sharp “industrialization” of one fishing area after another. Already in the first half of the 17th century. sable began to disappear in Western Siberia, by the 70s there was a sharp decline in sable fishing on the Yenisei, and later the same phenomenon was observed on the Lena. The sharp decline in sable stocks became so alarming that the government already in the 17th century. began to take measures to limit hunting for it. In 1684, a decree was issued banning sable hunting in the districts of the Yenisei region and Yakutia. In Siberia, a clear picture emerged that was typical for a number of other countries. The accumulation of capital in one place led to the depletion of natural resources in another, through the predatory exploitation of whose wealth this accumulation took place. It should only be noted that in the fur trade, as in agriculture, the actual hunter being exploited was not a native inhabitant, but the same Russian newcomer - a pokruchenik. However, the hunting economy of the indigenous population of these places certainly suffered from a decrease in sable stocks. The situation was softened 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, should be seen as the reason why, both in the area of fishing activity of the Russian population and in the areas of agricultural centers, as a rule, an increase in the number of the indigenous population is observed, with the exception of fluctuations caused by extraordinary phenomena (epidemics, migration, etc. ). In this regard, the calculations of B. O. Dolgikh, in particular for the Mangazeya district, are interesting. 49
Fishing had a somewhat different character. The length of large and small Siberian rivers is enormous. The richness of these rivers in fish was noted by Russian people upon their first acquaintance with Siberia. Fishing existed before, being the main branch of the economy for part of the indigenous population. It was also widespread on the immediate approaches to Siberia. At the beginning of the northern Pechora
48 V. A. Alexandrov. Russian population of Siberia in the 17th and early 18th centuries, pp. 217-241.
49 B. O. Dolgikh. Clan 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 going beyond the Urals stocked up on dried and salted fish. Residents of the European north, who were engaged in fishing in their homeland, walked through these places and carried with them not only fish stocks, but also labor skills. The lack of grain in Siberia in the first years of its development, and the presence later of huge grain-free areas, made fish an important food product. Fishing developed throughout Siberia, but especially in grain-free areas. The presence of tones, hedgehogs and pins is noted everywhere. They were owned by peasants, townspeople and service people, and monasteries. True, they are rarely found in acts formalizing the right of ownership. Sometimes they are meant by other terms. Thus, in deeds of gift to Siberian monasteries lakes, rivers, and lands are mentioned - undoubted fishing grounds. Occasionally there are direct instructions. For example, in the records of the Verkhoturye prison hut for the period from 1668 to 1701, a number of land transactions were noted, covering 31 objects. Among them, along with arable lands, hayfields, and animal lands, fishing is also mentioned. The paucity of such references obviously indicates that fishing places were assigned to individuals in the 17th century. did not gain distribution. In all likelihood, those fishing places where human labor was invested (fishing grounds, slaughter) were assigned to individuals or villages.
Fish were caught “for daily use” and for sale. In the first case, always, and often in the second case, fishing was an additional occupation for Russian people. Sometimes, due to specific conditions, it became the main or only means of existence. This happened when there was a 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 nutrition for the industrialists themselves and the only food for their dogs. For this reason, large-scale fish production took place near Tobolsk, in the lower reaches of the Yenisei, in the middle reaches of the Yenisei and in other places. According to V.A. Aleksandrov, in 1631, 3,200 pounds of salted fish and 871 cases of yukola were reported to the Mangazeya customs; in the same year, more than 5,000 pounds of fish and 1,106 cases of yukola were registered in the Turukhansk winter quarters. The fishing was carried out by peasants, townspeople and industrial people. Some of the industrial people steadily flew in the fisheries from year to year. 50
The organization of fishing was reminiscent of the organization of hunting, with the difference, however, that in fishing loners were a more common occurrence. Sometimes fishermen united in small groups on shares, purchasing carbass and seine together. Sources also note significant fishing expeditions organized by capitalist people who hired pokrucheniki. As in the sable fisheries, the twist in the fisheries turned the hired man into a dependent person, obliged to his master “not to disobey in anything.”
The fishing gear was seines (“seine saddles”, “bredny”), sometimes very large in size - up to 100 or more fathoms, nets and forests. The mention of the existence of special forests of local origin indicates that fishing gear was usually made “according to Russian custom.”
Thus, the development of Russian fishing has provided a significant additional food supply, which is especially important in the northern grain-free regions. Unlike fur farming, fishing
50 V. A. Alexandrov. Russian population of Siberia in the 17th and early 18th centuries, p. 222.
fishing did not lead into the 17th century. to the depletion of fish stocks. We have not received any complaints about the disappearance of fish. Russian fishing did not pose a threat to the long-standing fishing industry of the local population. Like the hunter, he introduced some new elements into Siberia that were previously unknown to the indigenous population. The main workforce in it was also forced Russian people.
For many centuries, the peoples of Siberia lived in small settlements. Each individual settlement had its own clan. The inhabitants of Siberia were friends with each other, ran a joint household, were often relatives to each other and led an active lifestyle. 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 already led their own way of life and spoke a language incomprehensible to their neighbors. Over time, some settlements disappeared, while others 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 occupations include 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 Baikal lived the Buryats, who became famous for their iron-making craft.
The largest territory from the Yenisei to the Sea of Okhotsk was inhabited by Tungus tribes. Among them were many hunters, fishermen, reindeer herders, some were engaged in crafts.
Along the shore of the Chukchi Sea, the Eskimos (about 4 thousand people) settled down. Compared to other peoples of the 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 extraction of furs, 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), Yukagirs (inhabited the main territory of the tundra), Nivkhs (inhabitants of Sakhalin), Tuvinians (indigenous population of the Republic of Tuva), Siberian Tatars (located in the territory of Southern Siberia from Ural to Yenisei) and Selkups (residents 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 turned into a multinational state and the preservation of the culture of small and endangered nationalities has become one of the state priorities. The Siberian indigenous peoples were not left out here either: some of them received the right to self-government in autonomous okrugs, while others formed their own republics as part of the new Russia. Very small and endangered nationalities enjoy full support from the state, and the efforts of many people are aimed at preserving their culture and traditions.
In this review we will give brief description to every Siberian people whose number is more than or approaching 7 thousand people. Smaller peoples are difficult to characterize, so we will limit ourselves to their name and number. So, let's begin.
Siberia is a vast historical and geographical region in the northeast of Eurasia. Today it is almost entirely located within the Russian Federation. The population of Siberia is represented by Russians, as well as numerous indigenous peoples (Yakuts, Buryats, Tuvinians, Nenets and others). In total, at least 36 million people live in the region.
This article will discuss the general characteristics of the population of Siberia, the largest cities and the history of the development of this territory.
Most often, the southern border of Siberia coincides with the state border of the Russian Federation. In the west it is limited by the ridges of the Ural Mountains, in the east by the Pacific Ocean, and in the north by the Arctic Ocean. However, in a historical context, Siberia also covers the northeastern territories of modern Kazakhstan.
The population of Siberia (as of 2017) is 36 million people. Geographically, the region is divided into Western and Eastern Siberia. The demarcation line between them is the Yenisei River. The main cities of Siberia are Barnaul, Tomsk, Norilsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Ulan-Ude, Irkutsk, Omsk, Tyumen.
As for the name of this region, its origin is not precisely established. There are several versions. According to one of them, the toponym is closely related to the Mongolian word “shibir” - this is a swampy area overgrown with birch groves. It is assumed that this is what the Mongols called this area in the Middle Ages. But according to Professor Zoya Boyarshinova, the term comes from the self-name of the ethnic group “Sabir,” whose language is considered the ancestor of the entire Ugric language group.
According to the census taken back in 2002, 39.13 million people lived within the region. However, the current population of Siberia is only 36 million inhabitants. Thus, it is a sparsely populated area, but its ethnic diversity is truly enormous. More than 30 peoples and nationalities live here.
The average population density in Siberia is 6 people per 1 square kilometer. But it is very different in different parts region. Thus, the highest population density indicators are in the Kemerovo region (about 33 people per sq. km.), and the minimum are in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Republic of Tyva (1.2 and 1.8 people per sq. km., respectively). The valleys of large rivers (Ob, Irtysh, Tobol and Ishim), as well as the foothills of Altai, are most densely populated.
The level of urbanization here is quite high. Thus, at least 72% of the region’s residents currently live in the cities of Siberia.
The population of Siberia is rapidly declining. Moreover, the mortality and birth rates here, in general, are almost identical to the all-Russian ones. And in Tula, for example, birth rates are completely astronomical for Russia.
The main reason for the demographic crisis in Siberia is the migration outflow of the population (primarily young people). And the Far Eastern Federal District is leading in these processes. From 1989 to 2010, it “lost” almost 20% of its population. According to surveys, about 40% of Siberian residents dream of traveling to permanent place residence in other regions. And these are very sad indicators. Thus, Siberia, conquered and developed with such great difficulty, becomes empty every year.
Today, the balance of migration in the region is 2.1%. And in the coming years this figure will only grow. Siberia (in particular, its western part) is already experiencing a very acute shortage of labor resources.
Ethnically, Siberia is an extremely diverse territory. Representatives of 36 indigenous peoples and ethnic groups live here. Although, of course, Russians predominate in Siberia (approximately 90%).
The ten most numerous indigenous peoples in the region include:
The peoples of the Turkic group (Khakas, Tuvans, Shors) live mainly in the upper reaches of the Yenisei River. Altaians are concentrated within the Altai Republic. Mostly Buryats live in Transbaikalia and Cisbaikalia (pictured below), and Evenks live in the taiga of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
The Taimyr Peninsula is inhabited by Nenets (in the next photo), Dolgans and Nganasans. But in the lower reaches of the Yenisei, the Kets live compactly - a small people who use a language that is not included in any of the known language groups. In the southern part of Siberia, within the steppe and forest-steppe zones, Tatars and Kazakhs also live.
The Russian population of Siberia, as a rule, considers itself Orthodox. Kazakhs and Tatars are Muslims by religion. Many of the region's indigenous peoples adhere to traditional pagan beliefs.
“The Pantry of Russia” is how Siberia is often called, meaning the region’s enormous scale and diversity of mineral resources. Thus, colossal reserves of oil and gas, copper, lead, platinum, nickel, gold and silver, diamonds, coal and other minerals are concentrated here. About 60% of all-Russian peat deposits lie in the depths of Siberia.
Of course, the economy of Siberia is completely focused on the extraction and processing of the region’s natural resources. Moreover, not only mineral and fuel and energy, but also forest. In addition, the region has a fairly developed non-ferrous metallurgy, as well as the pulp industry.
At the same time, the rapid development of the mining and energy industries could not but affect the ecology of Siberia. So, this is where the most polluted cities in Russia are located - Norilsk, Krasnoyarsk and Novokuznetsk.
After the collapse of the Golden Horde, the lands east of the Urals were effectively no man's land. Only the Siberian Tatars managed to organize their own state here - the Siberian Khanate. True, it did not last long.
Ivan the Terrible took up the colonization of Siberian lands seriously, and even then only towards the end of his tsarist reign. Before this, the Russians had practically no interest in the lands located beyond the Urals. At the end of the 16th century, the Cossacks, under the leadership of Ermak, founded several fortified cities in Siberia. Among them are Tobolsk, Tyumen and Surgut.
At first, Siberia was developed by exiles and convicts. Later, already in the 19th century, landless peasants began to come here in search of free hectares. Serious development of Siberia began only at the end of the 19th century. This was largely facilitated by the construction of the railway line. During the Second World War, large factories and enterprises of the Soviet Union were evacuated to Siberia, and this had a positive impact on the development of the region's economy in the future.
There are nine cities in the region whose population exceeds the 500,000 mark. This:
The first three cities on this list are “millionaire” cities in terms of the number of residents.
Novosibirsk is the unofficial capital of Siberia, the third most populous city in Russia. It is located on both banks of the Ob - one of the largest rivers in Eurasia. Novosibirsk is an important industrial, commercial and cultural center of the country. The leading industries of the city are energy, metallurgy and mechanical engineering. The basis of the Novosibirsk economy is about 200 large and medium-sized enterprises.
Krasnoyarsk is the oldest of the large cities in Siberia. It was founded back in 1628. This is the most important economic, cultural and educational center of Russia. Krasnoyarsk is located on the banks of the Yenisei, on the conventional border of Western and Eastern Siberia. The city has a developed space industry, mechanical engineering, chemical industry and pharmaceuticals.
Tyumen is one of the first Russian cities in Siberia. Today it is the most important oil refining center in the country. Oil and gas production contributed to the rapid development of various scientific organizations in the city. Today, about 10% of the working population of Tyumen works in research institutes and universities.
Siberia is the largest historical and geographical region of Russia with a population of 36 million people. It is unusually rich in various natural resources, but suffers from a number of social and demographic problems. There are only three million-plus cities within the region. These are Novosibirsk, Omsk and Krasnoyarsk.
Features of the peoples of Siberia
In addition to anthropological and linguistic features, the peoples of Siberia have a number of specific, traditionally stable cultural and economic characteristics that characterize the historical and ethnographic diversity of Siberia. In cultural and economic terms, the territory of Siberia can be divided into two large historical regions: the southern region - the region of ancient cattle breeding and agriculture; and the northern one – the area of commercial hunting and fishing. The boundaries of these areas do not coincide with the boundaries of landscape zones. Stable economic and cultural types of Siberia developed in ancient times as a result of historical and cultural processes that were different in time and nature, occurring in conditions of a homogeneous natural and economic environment and under the influence of external foreign cultural traditions.
By the 17th century Among the indigenous population of Siberia, according to the predominant type of economic activity, the following economic and cultural types have developed: 1) foot hunters and fishermen of the taiga zone and forest-tundra; 2) sedentary fishermen in the basins of large and small rivers and lakes; 3) sedentary hunters of sea animals on the coast of the Arctic seas; 4) nomadic taiga reindeer herders-hunters and fishermen; 5) nomadic reindeer herders of the tundra and forest-tundra; 6) cattle breeders of steppes and forest-steppes.
In the past, foot hunters and fishermen of the taiga mainly included some groups of foot Evenks, Orochs, Udeges, separate groups of Yukaghirs, Kets, Selkups, partly Khanty and Mansi, Shors. For these peoples great importance There was hunting for meat animals (elk, deer), and fishing. A characteristic element of their culture was the hand sledge.
The settled-fishing type of economy was widespread in the past among the peoples living in the river basins. Amur and Ob: Nivkhs, Nanais, Ulchis, Itelmens, Khanty, among some Selkups and Ob Mansi. For these peoples, fishing was the main source of livelihood throughout the year. Hunting was of an auxiliary nature.
The type of sedentary hunters of sea animals is represented among the sedentary Chukchi, Eskimos, and partly sedentary Koryaks. The economy of these peoples is based on the production of sea animals (walrus, seal, whale). Arctic hunters settled on the coasts of the Arctic seas. The products of marine hunting, in addition to satisfying personal needs for meat, fat and skins, also served as an object of exchange with neighboring related groups.
Nomadic taiga reindeer herders, hunters and fishermen were the most common type of economy among the peoples of Siberia in the past. He was represented among the Evenks, Evens, Dolgans, Tofalars, Forest Nenets, Northern Selkups, and Reindeer Kets. Geographically, it covered mainly the forests and forest-tundras of Eastern Siberia, from the Yenisei to the Sea of Okhotsk, and also extended to the west of the Yenisei. The basis of the economy was hunting and keeping deer, as well as fishing.
The nomadic reindeer herders of the tundra and forest-tundra include the Nenets, reindeer Chukchi and reindeer Koryaks. These peoples have developed a special type of economy, the basis of which is reindeer husbandry. Hunting and fishing, as well as marine fishing, are of secondary importance or are completely absent. The main food product for this group of peoples is deer meat. The deer also serves as a reliable means of transportation.
Cattle breeding of the steppes and forest-steppes in the past was widely represented among the Yakuts, the world's northernmost pastoral people, among the Altaians, Khakassians, Tuvinians, Buryats, and Siberian Tatars. Cattle breeding was of a commercial nature; the products almost completely satisfied the population's needs for meat, milk and dairy products. Agriculture among pastoral peoples (except for the Yakuts) existed as an auxiliary branch of the economy. These peoples were partly engaged in hunting and fishing.
Along with the indicated types of economy, a number of peoples also had transitional types. For example, the Shors and northern Altaians combined sedentary cattle breeding with hunting; The Yukaghirs, Nganasans, and Enets combined reindeer herding with hunting as their main occupation.
The diversity of cultural and economic types of Siberia determines the specifics of indigenous peoples' development of the natural environment, on the one hand, and the level of their socio-economic development, on the other. Before the arrival of the Russians, economic and cultural specialization did not go beyond the framework of the appropriating economy and primitive (hoe) farming and cattle breeding. The diversity of natural conditions contributed to the formation of various local variants of economic types, the oldest of which were hunting and fishing.
At the same time, it must be taken into account that “culture” is an extra-biological adaptation that entails the need for activity. This explains so many economic and cultural types. Their peculiarity is their gentle attitude towards natural resources. And in this all economic and cultural types are similar to each other. However, culture is, at the same time, a system of signs, a semiotic model of a particular society (ethnic group). Therefore, a single cultural and economic type is not yet a community of culture. What is common is that the existence of many traditional cultures is based on a certain method of farming (fishing, hunting, sea hunting, cattle breeding). However, cultures can be different in terms of customs, rituals, traditions, and beliefs.
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General characteristics of the peoples of Siberia
The indigenous population of Siberia before the start of Russian colonization was about 200 thousand people. The northern (tundra) part of Siberia was inhabited by tribes of Samoyeds, called Samoyeds in Russian sources: Nenets, Enets and Nganasans.
The main economic occupation of these tribes was reindeer herding and hunting, and in the lower reaches of the Ob, Taz and Yenisei - fishing. The main fish species were arctic fox, sable, and ermine. Furs served as the main product for paying yasak and for trade. Furs were also paid as dowry for the girls they chose as wives. The number of Siberian Samoyeds, including the Southern Samoyed tribes, reached about 8 thousand people.
To the south of the Nenets lived the Ugric-speaking tribes of the Khanty (Ostyaks) and Mansi (Voguls). The Khanty were engaged in fishing and hunting, and had reindeer herds in the area of the Ob Bay. The main occupation of the Mansi was hunting. Before the arrival of the Russian Mansi on the river. Ture and Tavde were engaged in primitive agriculture, cattle breeding, and beekeeping. The settlement area of the Khanty and Mansi included the areas of the Middle and Lower Ob with its tributaries, the river. Irtysh, Demyanka and Konda, as well as the western and eastern slopes of the Middle Urals. The total number of Ugric-speaking tribes in Siberia in the 17th century. reached 15-18 thousand people.
To the east of the settlement area of the Khanty and Mansi lay the lands of the southern Samoyeds, southern or Narym Selkups. For a long time, Russians called the Narym Selkups Ostyaks because of the similarity of their material culture with the Khanty. The Selkups lived along the middle reaches of the river. Ob and its tributaries. The main economic activity was seasonal fishing and hunting. They hunted fur-bearing animals, elk, wild deer, upland and waterfowl. Before the arrival of the Russians, the southern Samoyeds were united in a military alliance, called the Piebald Horde in Russian sources, led by Prince Voni.
To the east of the Narym Selkups lived tribes of the Keto-speaking population of Siberia: Ket (Yenisei Ostyaks), Arins, Kotta, Yastyntsy (4-6 thousand people), settled along the Middle and Upper Yenisei. Their main activities were hunting and fishing. Some groups of the population extracted iron from ore, the products from which were sold to neighbors or used on the farm.
The upper reaches of the Ob and its tributaries, the upper reaches of the Yenisei, the Altai were inhabited by numerous Turkic tribes that differed greatly in their economic structure - the ancestors of modern Shors, Altaians, Khakassians: Tomsk, Chulym and “Kuznetsk” Tatars (about 5-6 thousand people), Teleuts ( White Kalmyks) (about 7–8 thousand people), Yenisei Kirghiz with their subordinate tribes (8–9 thousand people). The main occupation of most of these peoples was nomadic cattle breeding. In some places of this vast territory, hoe farming and hunting were developed. The “Kuznetsk” Tatars developed blacksmithing.
The Sayan Highlands were occupied by Samoyed and Turkic tribes of Mators, Karagas, Kamasins, Kachins, Kaysots, etc., with a total number of about 2 thousand people. They were engaged in cattle breeding, horse breeding, hunting, and knew farming skills.
To the south of the areas inhabited by the Mansi, Selkups and Kets, Turkic-speaking ethnoterritorial groups were widespread - the ethnic predecessors of the Siberian Tatars: Barabinsky, Tereninsky, Irtysh, Tobolsk, Ishim and Tyumen Tatars. By the middle of the 16th century. a significant part of the Turks of Western Siberia (from Tura in the west to Baraba in the east) was under the rule of the Siberian Khanate. The main occupation of the Siberian Tatars was hunting and fishing; cattle breeding was developed in the Barabinsk steppe. Before the arrival of the Russians, the Tatars were already engaged in agriculture. There was home production of leather, felt, bladed weapons, and fur dressing. The Tatars acted as intermediaries in transit trade between Moscow and Central Asia.
To the west and east of Baikal were the Mongol-speaking Buryats (about 25 thousand people), known in Russian sources as “brothers” or “brotherly people”. The basis of their economy was nomadic cattle breeding. The secondary occupations were farming and gathering. Enough high development received ironworking craft.
A significant territory from the Yenisei to the Sea of Okhotsk, from the northern tundra to the Amur region was inhabited by the Tungus tribes of the Evenks and Evens (about 30 thousand people). They were divided into “reindeer” (reindeer breeders), which were the majority, and “on foot”. “On foot” Evenks and Evens were sedentary fishermen and hunted sea animals on the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk. One of the main activities of both groups was hunting. The main game animals were moose, wild deer, and bears. Domestic deer were used by the Evenks as pack and riding animals.
The territory of the Amur and Primorye was inhabited by peoples who spoke Tungus-Manchu languages - the ancestors of the modern Nanai, Ulchi, and Udege. The Paleo-Asian group of peoples inhabiting this territory also included small groups of Nivkhs (Gilyaks), who lived in the vicinity of the Tungus-Manchurian peoples of the Amur region. They were also the main inhabitants of Sakhalin. The Nivkhs were the only people of the Amur region who widely used sled dogs in their economic activities.
The middle course of the river The Lena, upper Yana, Olenek, Aldan, Amga, Indigirka and Kolyma were occupied by the Yakuts (about 38 thousand people). This was the most numerous people among the Turks of Siberia. They raised cattle and horses. Hunting for animals and birds and fishing were considered auxiliary industries. Home production of metals was widely developed: copper, iron, silver. They made weapons in large quantities, skillfully tanned leather, wove belts, and carved wooden household items and utensils.
The northern part of Eastern Siberia was inhabited by Yukaghir tribes (about 5 thousand people). The borders of their lands extended from the tundra of Chukotka in the east to the lower reaches of the Lena and Olenek in the west. The northeast of Siberia was inhabited by peoples belonging to the Paleo-Asian linguistic family: Chukchi, Koryaks, Itelmens. The Chukchi occupied a significant part of continental Chukotka. Their number was approximately 2.5 thousand people. The southern neighbors of the Chukchi were the Koryaks (9-10 thousand people), very close in language and culture to the Chukchi. They occupied the entire northwestern part of the Okhotsk coast and the part of Kamchatka adjacent to the mainland. The Chukchi and Koryaks, like the Tungus, were divided into “reindeer” and “foot.”
Eskimos (about 4 thousand people) were settled along the entire coastal strip of the Chukotka Peninsula. The main population of Kamchatka in the 17th century. were Itelmens (12 thousand people). A few Ainu tribes lived in the south of the peninsula. The Ainu were also settled on the islands of the Kuril chain and in the southern tip of Sakhalin.
The economic activities of these peoples were hunting sea animals, reindeer herding, fishing and gathering. Before the arrival of the Russian peoples northeastern Siberia and Kamchatka were still at a rather low stage of socio-economic development. Stone and bone tools and weapons were widely used in everyday life.
Before the arrival of the Russians, hunting and fishing occupied an important place in the life of almost all Siberian peoples. A special role was given to the extraction of furs, which was the main subject of trade exchange with neighbors and was used as the main payment for tribute - yasak.
Most of the Siberian peoples in the 17th century. The Russians were found at various stages of patriarchal-tribal relations. The most backward forms social organization were noted among the tribes of northeastern Siberia (Yukaghirs, Chukchi, Koryaks, Itelmens and Eskimos). In the field of social relations, some of them noted the features of domestic slavery, the dominant position of women, etc.
The most developed in socio-economic terms were the Buryats and Yakuts, who at the turn of the 16th–17th centuries. Patriarchal-feudal relations developed. The only people who had their own statehood at the time of the arrival of the Russians were the Tatars, united under the rule of the Siberian khans. Siberian Khanate by the middle of the 16th century. covered an area stretching from the Tura basin in the west to Baraba in the east. However, this state formation was not monolithic, torn apart by internecine clashes between various dynastic factions. Incorporation in the 17th century Siberia's inclusion into the Russian state radically changed the natural course of the historical process in the region and the fate of the indigenous peoples of Siberia. The beginning of the deformation of traditional culture was associated with the arrival in the region of a population with a producing type of economy, which presupposed a different type of human relationship to nature, to cultural values and traditions.
Religiously, the peoples of Siberia belonged to different belief systems. The most common form of belief was shamanism, based on animism - the spiritualization of forces and natural phenomena. A distinctive feature of shamanism is the belief that certain people - shamans - have the ability to enter into direct communication with spirits - the shaman's patrons and assistants in the fight against disease.
Since the 17th century Orthodox Christianity spread widely in Siberia, and Buddhism in the form of Lamaism penetrated. Even earlier, Islam penetrated among the Siberian Tatars. Among a number of peoples of Siberia, shamanism acquired complex forms under the influence of Christianity and Buddhism (Tuvians, Buryats). In the 20th century this entire system of beliefs coexisted with the atheistic (materialistic) worldview, which was the official state ideology. Currently, a number of Siberian peoples are experiencing a revival of shamanism.
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The peoples of Siberia on the eve of Russian colonization
Itelmens
Self-name - itelmen, itenmyi, itelmen, iynman - “local resident”, “resident”, “one who exists”, “existing”, “living”. Indigenous people of Kamchatka. The traditional occupation of the Itelmens was fishing. The main fishing season was during the salmon runs. Fishing gear used were locks, nets, and hooks. The nets were woven from nettle threads. With the advent of imported yarn, seines began to be made. The fish was prepared for future use in dried form, fermented in special pits, and frozen in winter. The second most important occupation of the Itelmens was sea hunting and hunting. They caught seals, fur seals, sea beavers, bears, wild sheep, and deer. Fur-bearing animals were hunted mainly for meat. The main fishing tools were bows and arrows, traps, various traps, nooses, nets, and spears. The southern Itelmen hunted whales using arrows poisoned with plant poison. The Itelmens had the widest distribution of gathering among the northern peoples. All edible plants, berries, herbs, roots were used for food. Saran tubers, lamb leaves, wild garlic, and fireweed were of greatest importance in the diet. Gathering products were stored for the winter in dried, dried, and sometimes smoked form. Like many Siberian peoples, gathering was the lot of women. Women made mats, bags, baskets, and protective shells from plants. The Itelmens made tools and weapons from stone, bone and wood. Rock crystal was used to make knives and harpoon tips. Fire was produced using special device in the form of a wooden drill. The Itelmens' only domestic animal was a dog. They moved along the water on bahts - dugout, deck-shaped boats. Itelmen settlements (“fortresses” - atynum) were located along the banks of rivers and consisted of one to four winter dwellings and four to forty-four summer dwellings. The layout of the villages was distinguished by its disorder. Main building material served as a tree. The hearth was located near one of the walls of the dwelling. A large (up to 100 people) family lived in such a dwelling. In the fields, the Itelmen also lived in light frame buildings - bazhabazh - gable, lean-to and pyramidal-shaped dwellings. Such dwellings were covered with tree branches and grass, and heated by fire. They wore thick fur clothing made from the skins of deer, dogs, sea animals and birds. The set of casual clothing for men and women included trousers, a jacket with a hood and bib, and soft reindeer boots. The traditional food of the Itelmens was fish. The most common fish dishes were yukola, dried salmon caviar, and chupriki - fish baked in a special way. In winter we ate frozen fish. Pickled fish heads were considered a delicacy. Boiled fish was also consumed. As additional food they consumed meat and fat of sea animals, plant products, and poultry. The predominant form of social organization of the Itelmens was the patriarchal family. In winter, all its members lived in one dwelling, in summer they broke up into separate families. Family members were related by ties of kinship. Communal property dominated, and early forms of slavery existed. Large family communities and associations were constantly at odds with each other and waged numerous wars. Marriage relationships were characterized by polygamy - polygamy. All aspects of the life and everyday life of the Itelmens were regulated by beliefs and signs. There were ritual festivals associated with the annual economic cycle. Main holiday of the year, which lasted about a month, took place in November, after the end of fishing. It was dedicated to the master of the sea, Mitgu. In the past, the Itelmens left the corpses of dead people unburied or gave them to dogs to eat; children were buried in tree hollows.
Yukaghirs
Self-name - odul, vadul (“mighty”, “strong”). The outdated Russian name is omoki. Number of people: 1112 people. The main traditional occupation of the Yukaghirs was semi-nomadic and nomadic hunting for wild deer, elk and mountain sheep. They hunted deer with a bow and arrows, placed crossbows on deer paths, set snares, used decoy decoys, and stabbed deer at river crossings. In the spring, deer were hunted in a pen. A significant role in the economy of the Yukaghirs was played by hunting fur-bearing animals: sable, white and blue fox. Tundra Yukaghirs hunted geese and ducks during the birds' molt. The hunt for them was collective: one group of people stretched nets on the lake, the other drove birds deprived of the ability to fly into them. Partridges were hunted using nooses; when hunting seabirds, they used throwing darts and a special throwing weapon - bolas, consisting of belts with stones at the ends. Collecting bird eggs was practiced. Along with hunting, fishing played a significant role in the life of the Yukaghirs. The main fish species were nelma, muksun, and omul. Fish were caught with nets and traps. The traditional means of transportation for the Yukaghirs were dog and reindeer sleds. They moved through the snow on skis lined with camus. An ancient means of transportation on the river was a raft in the shape of a triangle, the top of which formed the bow. The settlements of the Yukaghirs were permanent and temporary, seasonal in nature. They had five types of dwellings: chum, golomo, booth, yurt, log house. The Yukagir tent (odun-nime) is a conical structure of the Tunguska type with a frame of 3–4 poles fastened with hoops made of woven wool. Reindeer skins are used as covering in winter, larch bark in summer. People usually lived in it from spring to autumn. The chum has been preserved to this day as a summer home. The winter dwelling was golomo (kandele nime) - pyramidal in shape. The winter home of the Yukaghirs was also a booth (yanakh-nime). The log roof was insulated with a layer of bark and earth. The Yukaghir yurt is a portable cylindrical-conical dwelling. Sedentary Yukaghirs lived in log houses (in winter and summer) with flat or conical roofs. The main clothing was a knee-length swinging robe, made from rovduga in summer, and deer skins in winter. Tails made of seal skins were sewn onto the bottom. Under the caftan they wore a bib and short trousers, leather in summer, fur in winter. Was distributed winter clothes made of rovduga, similar in cut to the Chukchi kamleika and kukhlyanka. Shoes were made from rovduga, hare fur and reindeer camus. Women's clothing was lighter than men's, made from the fur of young deer or females. In the 19th century Among the Yukaghirs, purchased cloth clothing spread: men's shirts, women's dresses, scarves. Iron, copper and silver jewelry. The main food was animal meat and fish. The meat was consumed boiled, dried, raw and frozen. Fat was rendered from fish giblets, the giblets were fried, and cakes were baked from caviar. The berry was eaten with fish. They also ate wild onions, sarana roots, nuts, berries and, which was rare for the Siberian peoples, mushrooms. A feature of the family and marriage relations of the taiga Yukaghirs was matrilocal marriage - the husband after the wedding moved to his wife’s house. The Yukaghir families were large and patriarchal. The custom of levirate was practiced - the duty of a man to marry the widow of his older brother. Shamanism existed in the form of tribal shamanism. Deceased shamans could become objects of cult. The shaman's body was dismembered, and its parts were kept as relics and sacrifices were made to them. Customs associated with fire played a big role. It was forbidden to transfer fire to strangers, to pass between the hearth and the head of the family, to swear at the fire, etc.
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Nivkhi
Self-name - nivkhgu - “people” or “Nivkh people”; nivkh – “man”. The outdated name for the Nivkhs is Gilyaks. The traditional occupations of the Nivkhs were fishing, sea fishing, hunting and gathering. An important role was played by fishing for anadromous salmon fish - chum salmon and pink salmon. Fish was caught using nets, seines, harpoons, and traps. Among the Sakhalin Nivkhs, marine hunting was developed. They hunted sea lions and seals. Steller sea lions were caught with large nets, seals were beaten with harpoons and clubs (clubs) when they climbed onto the ice floes. Hunting played a lesser role in the Nivkh economy. The hunting season began in the fall, after the end of the fish run. We hunted a bear that came out to the rivers to feast on fish. The bear was killed with a bow or gun. Another object of hunting among the Nivkhs was sable. In addition to sable, they also hunted lynx, weasel, otter, squirrel and fox. The fur was sold to Chinese and Russian producers. Dog breeding was widespread among the Nivkhs. The number of dogs in a Nivkh household was an indicator of prosperity and material well-being. On the sea coast they collected shellfish and seaweed for food. Blacksmithing was developed among the Nivkhs. Metal objects of Chinese, Japanese and Russian origin were used as raw materials. They were reforged to suit their needs. They made knives, arrowheads, harpoons, spears and other household items. Silver was used to decorate the copies. Other crafts were also common - making skis, boats, sleds, wooden utensils, dishes, processing bones, leather, weaving mats and baskets. In the Nivkh economy there was a sexual division of labor. Men were engaged in fishing, hunting, manufacturing tools, gear, vehicles, preparing and transporting firewood, and blacksmithing. Women's responsibilities included processing fish, seal and dog skins, sewing clothes, preparing birch bark utensils, collecting plant products, housekeeping and caring for dogs. Nivkh settlements were usually located near the mouths of spawning rivers, on the sea coast and rarely numbered more than 20 dwellings. There were winter and summer permanent dwellings. Winter types of housing included dugouts. The summer type of housing was the so-called. letniki - buildings on stilts 1.5 m high, with gable roof, covered with birch bark. The main food of the Nivkhs was fish. It was consumed raw, boiled and frozen. Yukola was prepared and often used as bread. Meat was rarely consumed. The Nivkhs seasoned their food with fish oil or seal oil. Edible plants and berries were also used as seasoning. Mos was considered a favorite dish - a decoction (jelly) of fish skins, seal fat, berries, rice, with the addition of chopped yukola. Other tasty dishes were talkk - a salad of raw fish, seasoned with wild garlic, and planed meat. The Nivkhs became acquainted with rice, millet and tea during trade with China. After the arrival of the Russians, the Nivkhs began to consume bread, sugar and salt. Currently National dishes prepared as holiday treats. The basis of the social structure of the Nivkhs was an exogamous* clan, which included blood relatives in the male line. Each genus had its own generic name, indicating the place of settlement of this genus, for example: Chombing - “living on the Chom River. The classic form of marriage among the Nivkhs was marriage to the daughter of the mother's brother. However, it was forbidden to marry the daughter of his father's sister. Each clan was connected by marriage with two more clans. Wives were taken only from one specific clan and given only to a certain clan, but not to the one from which the wives were taken. In the past, the Nivkhs had an institution of blood feud. For the murder of a member of a clan, all men of a given clan had to take revenge on all men of the killer's clan. Later, blood feud began to be replaced by ransom. Valuable items served as ransom: chain mail, spears, silk fabrics. Also in the past, the rich Nivkhs developed slavery, which was patriarchal in nature. Slaves performed exclusively domestic work. They could start their own household and marry a free woman. The descendants of slaves in the fifth generation became free. The basis of the Nivkh worldview was animistic ideas. In each individual object they saw a living principle endowed with a soul. Nature was full of intelligent inhabitants. The owner of all the animals was the killer whale. The sky, according to the Nivkhs, was inhabited by “heavenly people” - the sun and the moon. The cult associated with the “masters” of nature was of a tribal nature. The bear festival (chkhyf-leharnd - bear game) was considered a family holiday. It was associated with the cult of the dead, as it was held in memory of a deceased relative. It included a complex ceremony of killing a bear with a bow, a ritual meal of bear meat, the sacrifice of dogs, and other actions. After the holiday, the head, bones of the bear, ritual utensils and things were stored in a special family barn, which was constantly visited regardless of where the Nivkh lived. Characteristic feature The funeral rite of the Nivkhs was the burning of the dead. There was also a custom of burial in the ground. During the burning, they broke the sled on which the deceased was brought, and killed the dogs, whose meat was boiled and eaten on the spot. Only members of his family buried the deceased. The Nivkhs had prohibitions associated with the cult of fire. Shamanism was not developed, but there were shamans in every village. The duties of shamans included healing people and fighting evil spirits. Shamans did not take part in the tribal cults of the Nivkhs.
Tuvans
Self-name - Tyva Kizhi, Tyvalar; outdated name - Soyots, Soyons, Uriankhians, Tannu Tuvans. Indigenous people Tuva. The number in Russia is 206.2 thousand people. They also live in Mongolia and China. They are divided into Western Tuvans of central and southern Tuva and Eastern Tuvans (Tuvan-Todzha) of the northeastern and southeastern parts of Tuva. They speak Tuvan language. They have four dialects: central, western, northeastern and southeastern. In the past, the Tuvan language was influenced by the neighboring Mongolian language. Tuvan writing began to be created in the 1930s, based on the Latin script. The beginning of the formation of the Tuvan literary language dates back to this time. In 1941, Tuvan writing was translated into Russian graphics
The main branch of the Tuvan economy was and remains cattle breeding. Western Tuvans, whose economy was based on nomadic cattle breeding, raised small and large cattle, horses, yaks and camels. Pastures were mainly located in river valleys. During the year, Tuvans made 3-4 migrations. The length of each migration ranged from 5 to 17 km. The herds had several dozen different heads of livestock. Part of the herd was raised annually to provide the family with meat. Livestock farming fully covered the population's needs for dairy products. However, the conditions of keeping livestock (pasture keeping throughout the year, constant migrations, the habit of keeping young animals on a leash, etc.) negatively affected the quality of young animals and caused their death. The technique of cattle breeding itself often led to the death of the entire herd from exhaustion, lack of food, disease, and from attacks by wolves. Livestock losses amounted to tens of thousands of heads annually.
In the eastern regions of Tuva, reindeer husbandry was developed, but Tuvans used reindeer only for riding. Throughout the year, deer grazed on natural pastures. In the summer, the herds were driven to the mountains; in September, squirrels were hunted on deer. The deer were kept openly, without any fences. At night, the calves were released to pasture with their mothers, and in the morning they returned on their own. Reindeer, like other animals, were milked using the suckling method, with young animals being allowed in.
The Tuvans' secondary occupation was irrigation farming using gravity irrigation. The only type of land cultivation was spring plowing. They plowed with a wooden plow (andazyn), which was tied to a horse's saddle. They harrowed with drags from karagannik branches (kalagar-iliir). The ears were cut with a knife or pulled out by hand. Russian sickles appeared among Tuvans only at the beginning of the 20th century. Millet and barley were sown among grain crops. The site was used for three to four years, then it was abandoned to restore fertility.
Among domestic industries, felt production, wood processing, birch bark processing, hide processing and tanning, and blacksmithing were developed. Felt was made by every Tuvan family. It was necessary to cover a portable home, for beds, rugs, bedding, etc. Blacksmiths specialized in making bits, girths and buckles, stirrups, iron tags, flints, adzes, axes, etc. By the beginning of the 20th century. in Tuva there were more than 500 blacksmiths and jewelers, working mainly to order. The range of wood products was limited mainly to household items: yurt parts, dishes, furniture, toys, chess. Women were engaged in processing and dressing the skins of wild and domestic animals. The main means of transportation for Tuvans was riding and pack horses, and in some areas - deer. We also rode bulls and yaks. Tuvans used skis and rafts as other means of transportation.
Five types of dwellings were noted among the Tuvans. The main type of dwelling of nomadic herders is a lattice felt yurt of the Mongolian type (merbe-Og). This is a cylindrical-conical frame building with a smoke hole in the roof. In Tuva, a version of the yurt without a smoke hole is also known. The yurt was covered with 3–7 felt covers, which were tied to the frame with woolen ribbons. The diameter of the yurt is 4.3 m, the height is 1.3 m. The entrance to the dwelling was usually oriented to the east, south or southeast. The door to the yurt was made of felt or board. In the center was a hearth or iron stove with a chimney. The floor was covered with felt. To the right and left of the entrance there were kitchen utensils, a bed, chests, leather bags with property, saddles, harnesses, weapons, etc. They ate and sat on the floor. People lived in a yurt in winter and summer, transporting it from place to place during migrations.
The dwelling of the Tuvinians-Todzhins, hunters and reindeer herders, was a conical tent (Alachi, Alazhi-Og). The design of the chum was made of poles covered with deer or elk skins in winter, and with birch bark or larch bark in summer. Sometimes the design of the chum consisted of several felled young tree trunks placed next to each other with branches left at the top, to which poles were attached. The frame was not transported, only the tires. The diameter of the chum was 4–5.8 m, the height was 3–4 m. 12–18 reindeer skins, sewn with threads from deer tendons, were used to make tires for the chum. In summer, the tent was covered with leather or birch bark tires. The entrance to the tent was from the south. The hearth was located in the center of the dwelling in the form of an inclined pole with a loop of hair rope, to which a chain with a boiler was tied. In winter, tree branches were laid on the floor.
The plague of Todzha cattle breeders (alachog) was somewhat different from the plague of reindeer hunters. It was larger, did not have a pole for hanging the boiler over the fire, larch bark was used as tires: 30-40 pieces. They laid it like tiles, covering it with earth.
Western Tuvans covered the chum with felt tires, fastened with hair ropes. A stove or fire was built in the center. A hook for a cauldron or teapot was hung from the top of the chum. The door was made of felt in a wooden frame. The layout is the same as in a yurt: the right side is for women, the left is for men. The place behind the hearth opposite the entrance was considered honorable. Religious objects were also kept there. The plague could be portable and stationary.
The settled Tuvans had four-walled and five-six coal frame-and-post buildings made of poles, covered with elk skins or bark (borbak-Og). The area of such dwellings was 8–10 m, height – 2 m. The roofs of the dwellings were hipped, vaulted, dome-shaped, sometimes flat. Since the end of the 19th century. settled Tuvans began to build rectangular single-chamber log houses with a flat earthen roof, no windows, and a fireplace on the floor. The area of the dwellings was 3.5x3.5 m. Tuvans borrowed from the Russian population at the beginning of the 20th century. technique for constructing dugouts with a flat log roof. Rich Tuvans built five or six coal log houses-yurts of the Buryat type with a pyramid-shaped roof covered with larch bark with a smoke hole in the center.
Hunters and shepherds built temporary single-pitched or double-pitched frame dwellings-shelters from poles and bark in the form of a hut (chadyr, chavyg, chavyt). The frame of the dwelling was covered with twigs, branches, and grass. In a gable dwelling, the fire was lit at the entrance, in a single-slope dwelling - in the center. Tuvans used log-frame above-ground barns, sometimes covered with earth, as economic buildings.
Currently, nomadic herders live in felt or log polygonal yurts. In the fields, conical and gable frame buildings and shelters are sometimes used. Many Tuvans live in villages in modern standard houses.
Tuvan clothing (khep) was adapted to nomadic life until the 20th century. bore stable traditional features. It was made, including shoes, from tanned skins of domestic and wild animals, as well as from purchased fabrics purchased from Russian and Chinese merchants. According to its purpose, it was divided into spring-summer and autumn-winter and consisted of everyday, festive, fishing, religious and sports.
The shoulder outerwear-robe (mon) was a tunic-like swing. There were no significant differences between men's, women's and children's clothing in terms of cut. It was wrapped to the right (the left floor over the right) and was always girded with a long sash. Only Tuvan shamans did not girdle their ritual costumes during rituals. Characteristic feature outerwear The robe had long sleeves with cuffs that fell below the hands. This cut saved the hands from spring-autumn frosts and winter frosts and made it possible not to use mittens. A similar phenomenon was noted among the Mongols and Buryats. The robe was sewn almost to the ankles. In spring and summer, they wore a robe made of colored (blue or cherry) fabric. In the warm season, rich Western Tuvan cattle breeders wore torgov ton robes made of colored Chinese silk. In summer, silk sleeveless vests (kandaaz) were worn over the robe. Among Tuvan reindeer herders, a common type of summer clothing was hash ton, which was sewn from worn-out reindeer skins or autumn roe deer rovduga.
Various trade cults and mythological ideas played a significant role in the beliefs of the Tuvans. Among the most ancient ideas and rituals, the cult of the bear stands out. Hunting him was considered a sin. The killing of a bear was accompanied by certain rituals and spells. In the bear, the Tuvans, like all Siberian peoples, saw the spirit-master of fishing grounds, the ancestor and relative of people. He was considered a totem. He was never called by his real name (Adyghe), but allegorical nicknames were used, for example: hayyrakan (lord), irey (grandfather), daay (uncle), etc. The cult of the bear was most clearly manifested in the ritual of the “bear festival”.
Siberian Tatars
Self-name – Sibirthar (residents of Siberia), Sibirtatarlar (Siberian Tatars). In the literature there is a name - West Siberian Tatars. Settled in the middle and southern parts of Western Siberia from the Urals to the Yenisei: in the Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Tomsk and Tyumen regions. The number is about 190 thousand people. In the past, the Siberian Tatars called themselves yasakly (yasak foreigners), top-yerly-khalk (old-timers), chuvalshchiki (from the name of the chuval stove). Local self-names have been preserved: Tobolik (Tobolsk Tatars), Tarlik (Tara Tatars), Tyumenik (Tyumen Tatars), Baraba / Paraba Tomtatarlar (Tomsk Tatars), etc. They include several ethnic groups: Tobol-Irtysh (Kurdak-Sargat, Tara, Tobolsk, Tyumen and Yaskolbinsk Tatars), Barabinsk (Barabinsk-Turazh, Lyubeysk-Tunus and Terenin-Chey Tatars) and Tomsk (Kalmaks, Chats and Eushta). They speak the Siberian-Tatar language, which has several local dialects. The Siberian-Tatar language belongs to the Kipchak-Bulgar subgroup of the Kipchak group of the Altai language family.
The ethnogenesis of the Siberian Tatars is presented as a process of mixing Ugric, Samoyed, Turkic and partly Mongolian population groups of Western Siberia. For example, in the material culture of the Barabinsk Tatars, features of similarity between the Barabinsk people and the Khanty, Mansi and Selkups, and to a small extent - with the Evenki and Kets, have been identified. The Turin Tatars contain local Mansi components. Regarding the Tomsk Tatars, the point of view is held that they are the aboriginal Samoyed population, which experienced strong influence from the nomadic Turks.
The Mongolian ethnic component began to be part of the Siberian Tatars in the 13th century. The most recent influence of the Mongol-speaking tribes was on the Barabins, who in the 17th century. were in close contact with the Kalmyks.
Meanwhile, the main core of the Siberian Tatars were ancient Turkic tribes, which began to penetrate into the territory of Western Siberia in the 5th-7th centuries. n. e. from the east from the Minusinsk Basin and from the south from Central Asia and Altai. In the XI–XII centuries. The Kipchaks had the most significant influence on the formation of the Siberian-Tatar ethnic group. The Siberian Tatars also include tribes and clans of Khatans, Kara-Kypchaks, and Nugais. Later, the Siberian-Tatar ethnic community included the Yellow Uyghurs, Bukharan-Uzbeks, Teleuts, Kazan Tatars, Mishars, Bashkirs, and Kazakhs. With the exception of the Yellow Uighurs, they strengthened the Kipchak component among the Siberian Tatars.
The main traditional occupations for all groups of Siberian Tatars were agriculture and cattle breeding. For some groups of Tatars living in the forest zone, hunting and fishing occupied a significant place in their economic activities. Among the Baraba Tatars, lake fishing played a significant role. The northern groups of Tobol-Irtysh and Baraba Tatars were engaged in river fishing and hunting. Some groups of Tatars had a combination of different economic and cultural types. Fishing was often accompanied by grazing livestock or caring for areas of land sown in fishing areas. Foot hunting on skis was often combined with hunting on horseback.
The Siberian Tatars were familiar with agriculture even before Russian settlers arrived in Siberia. Most groups of Tatars were engaged in hoe farming. The main grain crops grown were barley, oats, and spelt. By the beginning of the 20th century. Siberian Tatars already sowed rye, wheat, buckwheat, millet, as well as barley and oats. In the 19th century the Tatars borrowed the main arable tools from the Russians: a one-horse wooden plow with an iron coulter, “vilachukha” - a plow without a front harness harnessed to one horse; “wheelie” and “saban” - advanced (on wheels) plows harnessed to two horses. When harrowing, the Tatars used a harrow with wooden or iron teeth. Most Tatars used plows and harrows of their own making. Sowing was done manually. Sometimes the arable land was weeded with ketmen or by hand. During the collection and processing of grain, they used sickles (urak, urgyish), a Lithuanian scythe (tsalgy, sama), a flail (mulata - from the Russian “threshed”), pitchforks (agats, sinek, sospak), rakes (ternauts, tyrnauts), a wooden shovel (korek) or a bucket (chilyak) for winnowing grain in the wind, as well as wooden mortars with a pestle (kile), wooden or stone hand-held millstones (kul tirmen, tygyrmen, chartashe).
Cattle breeding was developed among all groups of Siberian Tatars. However, in the 19th century. nomadic and semi-nomadic cattle breeding has lost its economic importance. At the same time, at this time the role of domestic stationary cattle breeding increased. More favorable conditions for the development of this type of cattle breeding existed in the southern regions of the Tara, Kainsky and Tomsk districts. The Tatars bred horses, large and small cattle.
Cattle breeding was predominantly of a commercial nature: livestock was raised for sale. They also sold meat, milk, hides, horsehair, sheep wool and other livestock products. Raising horses for sale was practiced.
In warm weather, livestock grazing took place near settlements in specially designated areas (pastures) or on communal lands. For young animals, fences (calf sheds) were set up in the form of a fence inside a pasture, or livestock area. Cattle were usually grazed without supervision; only wealthy Tatar families resorted to the help of shepherds. In winter, cattle were kept in log houses, thatched wicker houses, or in a covered yard under a shed. Men looked after the livestock in winter - they brought in hay, removed manure, and fed them. Women were milking cows. Many farms kept chickens, geese, ducks, and sometimes turkeys. Some Tatar families were engaged in beekeeping. At the beginning of the 20th century. Vegetable gardening began to spread among the Tatars.
Hunting played an important role in the structure of traditional occupations of the Siberian Tatars. They hunted mainly fur-bearing animals: fox, weasel, ermine, squirrel, hare. The objects of hunting also included bear, lynx, roe deer, wolf, and elk. In the summer they hunted moles. The birds caught were geese, ducks, partridges, wood grouse and hazel grouse. The hunting season began with the first snow. We hunted on foot and in winter on skis. Among the Tatar hunters of the Barabinsk steppe, hunting on horseback was common, especially for wolves.
The hunting tools were various traps, crossbows, baits, guns and purchased iron traps were used. They hunted the bear with a spear, lifting it from its den in winter. Elk and deer were caught using crossbows, which were placed on elk and deer trails. When hunting wolves, the Tatars used clubs made of wood with a thickened end covered with an iron plate (checkmers); sometimes hunters used long knives-blades. On the weed, ermine or wood grouse they placed bags, in which meat, offal or fish served as bait. They put cherkans on the squirrel. When hunting hare, nooses were used. Many hunters used dogs. The skins of fur-bearing animals and elk skins were sold to buyers, and the meat was eaten. Pillows and duvets were made from feathers and down of birds.
Fishing was a profitable occupation for many Siberian Tatars. They were practiced everywhere both on rivers and lakes. Fish were caught all year round. Fishing was especially developed among the Baraba, Tyumen and Tomsk Tatars. They caught pike, ide, chebak, crucian carp, perch, burbot, taimen, muksun, cheese, salmon, sterlet, etc. Most of the catch, especially in winter, was sold frozen at city bazaars or fairs. Tomsk Tatars (Eushta people) sold fish in the summer, bringing it to Tomsk live in specially equipped large boats with bars.
Traditional fishing gear were nets (au) and seines (alim), which the Tatars often wove themselves. Seines were divided according to their purpose: ulcer seine (opta au), cheese seine (yesht au), crucian carp seine (yazy balyk au), muksun seine (chryndy au). Fish was also caught using fishing rods (karmak), nets, and various basket-type tools: muzzles, tops and grapples. Wicks and nonsense were also used. Night fishing for large fish was practiced. It was mined by torchlight with a spear (sapak, tsatski) of three to five teeth. Sometimes dams were built on rivers, and the accumulated fish were scooped out with scoops. Currently, fishing has disappeared in many Tatar farms. It retained some significance among the Tomsk, Barabinsk, Tobol-Irtysh and Yaskolbinsk Tatars.
The auxiliary occupations of the Siberian Tatars included collecting wild edible plants, as well as collecting pine nuts and mushrooms, against which the Tatars had no prejudice. Berries and nuts were exported for sale. In some villages, hops growing in talniks were collected, which were also sold. Carriage played a significant role in the economy of the Tomsk and Tyumen Tatars. They transported various cargoes on horseback to major cities of Siberia: Tyumen, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Tomsk; transported cargo to Moscow, Semipalatinsk, Irbit and other cities. Livestock and fishery products were transported as cargo; in winter, firewood from cutting sites and timber were transported.
Among the crafts, the Siberian Tatars developed leatherworking, making ropes and sacks; knitting nets, weaving baskets and boxes from willow twigs, making birch bark and wooden utensils, carts, sleighs, boats, skis, blacksmithing, jewelry. The Tatars supplied tanneries with tall bark and leather, and glass factories with firewood, straw and aspen ash.
Natural waterways played an important role as routes of communication among the Siberian Tatars. In spring and autumn, dirt roads were impassable. They moved along the rivers in dugout boats (kama, kema, kima) of a pointed type. The dugouts were made from aspen, and the cedar logs were made from cedar planks. The Tomsk Tatars knew boats made of birch bark. In the past, the Tomsk Tatars (Eushta people) used rafts (sal) to move along rivers and lakes. On dirt roads in summer, goods were transported on carts, in winter - on sleighs or firewood. To transport cargo, the Barabino and Tomsk Tatars used hand-held straight-legged sleds, which the hunters pulled with a strap. The traditional means of transportation for the Siberian Tatars were skis of the gliding type: podvolok (lined with fur) for moving in deep snow and golitsy for walking on hard snow in the spring. Horseback riding was also common among the Siberian Tatars.
Traditional settlements of the Siberian Tatars - yurts, auls, uluses, aimaks - were located mainly along floodplains, lake shores, and along roads. The villages were small (5–10 houses) and located at a considerable distance from each other. The characteristic features of Tatar villages were the lack of a specific layout, crooked narrow streets, the presence of dead ends, and scattered residential buildings. Each village had a mosque with a minaret, a fence and a grove with a clearing for public prayers. There could be a cemetery next to the mosque. The dwellings were wattle, adobe, brick, log and stone houses(ii). In the past, dugouts were also known.
Tomsk and Baraba Tatars lived in rectangular frame houses woven from twigs and coated with clay - mud huts (utou, ode). The basis of this type of dwelling was made up of corner pillars with transverse poles, which were intertwined with rods. The dwellings were backfilled: earth was poured between two parallel walls, the walls outside and inside were coated with clay mixed with manure. The roof was flat, it was made on slags and matitsa. It was covered with turf and over time overgrown with grass. The smoke hole in the roof also served for lighting. The Tomsk Tatars also had huts that were round in plan, slightly recessed into the ground.
Among the household buildings of the Siberian Tatars there were pens for livestock made of poles, wooden barns for storing food, fishing gear and agricultural equipment, bathhouses built in a black way, without a chimney; stables, cellars, bread ovens. The yard with outbuildings was enclosed with a high fence made of boards, logs or wattle. A gate and a wicket were installed in the fence. Often the yard was enclosed with a fence made of willow or willow poles.
In the past, Tatar women ate food after men. At weddings and holidays, men and women ate separately from each other. Nowadays, many traditional customs related to food have disappeared. Foods that were previously prohibited for religious or other reasons, in particular pork products, came into use. At the same time, some national dishes made from meat, flour, and milk are still preserved.
The main form of family among the Siberian Tatars was a small family (5–6 people). The head of the family was the eldest man in the house - grandfather, father or older brother. The position of women in the family was degraded. Girls were married off at an early age - at 13 years old. His parents were looking for a bride for their son. She wasn't supposed to see her fiancé before the wedding. Marriages were concluded through matchmaking, voluntary departure and forced abduction of the bride. It was practiced to pay kalym for the bride. It was forbidden to marry relatives. The property of the deceased head of the family was divided into equal parts among the sons of the deceased. If there were no sons, then the daughters received half of the property, and the other part was divided among relatives.
Of the folk holidays of the Siberian Tatars, the most popular was and remains Sabantuy - the festival of the plow. It is celebrated after the completion of sowing work. Sabantuy hosts horse racing, racing, long jump competitions, tug-of-war, sack fighting on a balance beam, etc.
The folk art of the Siberian Tatars in the past was represented mainly by oral folk art. The main types of folklore were fairy tales, songs (lyrical, dance), proverbs and riddles, heroic songs, tales of heroes, historical epics. The performance of songs was accompanied by playing folk musical instruments: kurai (wooden pipe), kobyz (reed instrument made of a metal plate), harmonica, tambourine.
Fine art existed mainly in the form of embroidery on clothing. Embroidery subjects – flowers, plants. Of the Muslim holidays, Uraza and Kurban Bayram were widespread and still exist today.
Selkups
The basis of the Nivkh worldview was animistic ideas. In each individual object they saw a living principle endowed with a soul. Nature was full of intelligent inhabitants. Sakhalin Island was presented in the form of a humanoid creature. The Nivkhs endowed trees, mountains, rivers, earth, water, cliffs, etc. with the same properties. The owner of all the animals was the killer whale. The sky, according to the Nivkhs, was inhabited by “heavenly people” - the sun and the moon. The cult associated with the “masters” of nature was of a tribal nature. The bear festival (chkhyf-leharnd - bear game) was considered a family holiday. It was associated with the cult of the dead, as it was held in memory of a deceased relative. For this holiday, a bear was hunted in the taiga or a bear cub was bought, which was fed for several years. The honorable duty of killing a bear was given to the narcs - people from the “son-in-law family” of the organizer of the holiday. For the holiday, all members of the clan gave supplies and money to the owner of the bear. The host's family prepared food for the guests.
The holiday was usually held in February and lasted several days. It included a complex ceremony of killing a bear with a bow, a ritual meal of bear meat, the sacrifice of dogs, and other actions. After the holiday, the head, bones of the bear, ritual utensils and things were stored in a special family barn, which was constantly visited regardless of where the Nivkh lived.
A characteristic feature of the Nivkh funeral rite was the burning of the dead. There was also a custom of burial in the ground. During the burning, they broke the sled on which the deceased was brought, and killed the dogs, whose meat was boiled and eaten on the spot. Only members of his family buried the deceased. The Nivkhs had prohibitions associated with the cult of fire. Shamanism was not developed, but there were shamans in every village. The duties of shamans included healing people and fighting evil spirits. Shamans did not take part in the tribal cults of the Nivkhs.
In ethnographic literature until the 1930s. The Selkups were called Ostyak-Samoyeds. This ethnonym was introduced in the middle of the 19th century. Finnish scientist M.A. Castren, who proved that the Selkups are a special community, which in terms of conditions and way of life is close to the Ostyaks (Khanty), and in language is related to the Samoyeds (Nenets). Another outdated name for the Selkups - Ostyaks - coincides with the name of the Khanty (and Kets) and probably goes back to the language of the Siberian Tatars. The first contacts of the Selkups with the Russians date back to the end of the 16th century. The Selkup language has several dialects. An attempt made in the 1930s to create a single literary language(based on the northern dialect) failed.
The main occupations of all Selkup groups were hunting and fishing. The southern Selkups led a mostly semi-sedentary lifestyle. Based on a certain difference in the ratio of fishing and hunting, they had a division into forest dwellers - Majilkup, who lived on the Ob channels, and Ob inhabitants - Koltakup. The economy of the Ob Selkups (Koltakup) was focused mainly on mining in the river. Obi fish of valuable species. The life support system of the forest Selkups (majilkup) was based on hunting. The main game animals were elk, squirrel, ermine, weasel, and sable. Elk were hunted for meat. When hunting it, they used crossbows placed on the trails and guns. Other animals were hunted using bows and arrows, as well as various traps and devices: jaws, sacks, gags, scoops, snares, dies, traps. They also hunted bears
Hunting for upland game was of great importance for the southern Selkups, as well as for many peoples of Siberia. In the autumn they hunted wood grouse, black grouse and hazel grouse. Upland game meat was usually stored for future use. In summer, moulting geese were hunted on the lakes. The hunt for them was carried out collectively. The geese were driven into one of the bays and caught in nets.
In the Tazovskaya tundra, Arctic fox hunting occupied a significant place in hunting. Modern hunting is developed mainly among the northern Selkups. There are practically no professional hunters among the southern Selkups.
For all groups of southern Selkups, the most important economic activity was fishing. The objects of fishing were sturgeon, nelma, muksun, sterlet, burbot, pike, ide, crucian carp, perch, etc. Fish were caught year-round on rivers and floodplain lakes. She was caught both with nets and traps: cats, snouts, samolov, wicks. Large fish were also caught by spearing and archery. The fishing season was divided into a “small fishery” before the water receded and the sands were exposed, and a “big fishery” after the sands were exposed, when almost the entire population switched to the “sands” and caught fish with nets. Various traps were placed on the lakes. Ice fishing was practiced. In certain places at the mouths of tributaries, spring constipations using stakes were made annually.
Under the influence of the Russians, the southern Selkups began to breed domestic animals: horses, cows, pigs, sheep, and poultry. At the beginning of the 20th century. Selkups began to engage in gardening. The skills of cattle breeding (horse breeding) were known to the ancestors of the southern Selkups at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. The problem of reindeer herding among the southern Selkup groups remains debatable.
The traditional means of transportation among the southern Selkups are a dugout boat - an oblask, and in winter - skis lined with fur or golits. They walked on skis with the help of a stick-staff, which had a ring on the bottom and a bone hook on top to remove snow from under the foot. In the taiga, the hand sled, narrow and long, was widespread. The hunter usually dragged it himself using a belt loop. Sometimes the sledge was pulled by a dog.
The northern Selkups developed reindeer herding, which had a transport direction. Reindeer herds in the past rarely numbered 200 to 300 deer. Most northern Selkups had from one to 20 heads. The Turukhan Selkups were landless. The deer were never herded. In winter, to prevent the deer from wandering far from the village, wooden “shoes” (mokta) were put on the feet of several deer in the herd. In the summer the deer were released. With the onset of mosquito season, the deer gathered in herds and went into the forest. Only after the end of fishing did the owners begin to look for their deer. They tracked them the same way they tracked wild animals while hunting.
The northern Selkups borrowed the idea of riding reindeer in a sled from the Nenets. When going hunting, the ashless (Turukhan) Selkups, like the southern Selkups, used a hand sled (kanji), on which the hunter carried ammunition and food. In winter they traveled on skis, which were made of spruce wood and covered with fur. They moved along the water in dugout boats called oblaskas. Rowed with one oar, sitting, kneeling and sometimes standing.
The Selkups have several types of settlements: year-round stationary, supplemented seasonal for fishermen without families, stationary winter, combined with portable ones for other seasons, stationary winter and stationary summer. In Russian, Selkup settlements were called yurts. Northern Selkup reindeer herders live in camps consisting of two or three, sometimes five portable dwellings. The taiga Selkups settled along rivers and on the shores of lakes. The villages are small, from two or three to 10 houses.
The Selkups knew six types of dwellings (chum, truncated-pyramidal frame underground and log-frame underground, log-house with flat roof, underground from beams, boat-ilimka).
The permanent home of the Selkup reindeer herders was a portable tent of the Samoyed type (korel-mat) - a conical frame structure made of poles, covered with tree bark or skins. The diameter of the chum is from 2.5–3 to 8–9 m. The door was the edge of one of the chum tires (24–28 deer skins were sewn together for tires) or a piece of birch bark suspended on a stick. In the center of the plague, a fire pit was built on the ground. The hearth hook was attached to the top of the chum. Sometimes they installed a stove with a chimney. The smoke came out through a hole between the tops of the frame poles. The floor in the tent was earthen or covered with boards to the right and left of the hearth. Two families or married couples (parents with married children) lived in the chum. The place opposite the entrance behind the hearth was considered honorable and sacred. They slept on reindeer skins or mats. In the summer, mosquito curtains were installed.
The winter dwellings of taiga sedentary and semi-sedentary fishermen and hunters were dugouts and semi-dugouts various designs. One of the ancient forms of dugouts is karamo, one and a half to two meters deep, with an area of 7–8 m. The walls of the dugout were lined with logs. The roof (single or gable) was covered with birch bark and covered with earth. The entrance to the dugout was built towards the river. The karamo was heated by a central fireplace or chuval. Another type of dwelling was a half-dugout "karamushka" 0.8 m deep, with unfortified earthen walls and a gable roof made of slabs and birch bark. The basis of the roof was a central beam resting on a vertical post mounted against the rear wall and two posts with a crossbar mounted against the front wall. The door was made of planks, the fireplace was external. There was also another type of semi-dugout (tai-mat, poi-mat), similar to the Khanty semi-dugout. In dugouts and semi-dugouts they slept on bunks arranged along two walls opposite the fireplace.
As a temporary fishing dwelling among the Selkups, buildings in the form of a lean-to screen (booth) are well known. Such a barrier was placed during a stay in the forest for rest or overnight. A common temporary dwelling of the Selkups (especially among the northern ones) is the kumar - a hut made of semi-cylindrical woven wool with a birch bark covering. Among the southern (Narym) Selkups, birch bark covered boats (alago, koraguand, andu) were common as a summer home. The frame was made of bird cherry twigs. They were inserted into the edges of the sides of the boat, and they formed a semi-cylinder vault. The top of the frame was covered with birch bark panels. This type boats was widespread in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. among the Narym Selkups and Vasyugan Khanty.
In the 19th century many Selkups (southern Selkups) began to build Russian-type log houses with gable and hipped roof. Currently, Selkups live in modern log houses. Traditional dwellings (semi-dugouts) are used only as commercial outbuildings.
Among the traditional economic buildings of the Selkups there were piled barns, sheds for livestock, sheds, hangers for drying fish, and adobe bread ovens.
The traditional winter outerwear of the northern Selkups was a fur parka (porge) - an open-front fur coat made of deer skins sewn with the fur facing out. In severe frosts, a sakui was worn over the parka - a thick garment made of deer skins, with the fur facing out, with a sewn hood. Sakuy was used only by men. The parka was worn by both men and women. Men's underwear consisted of a shirt and pants made from purchased fabric; women wore a dress. The winter footwear of the northern Selkups were pimas (pems), sewn from kamus and cloth. Instead of a stocking (sock), combed grass (sedge) was used, which was used to wrap the foot. In the summer they wore Russian shoes and Russian boots. The hats were sewn in the form of a hood from a “pawn” - the skin of a newborn calf, arctic fox and squirrel paws, from the skins and neck of a loon. The ubiquitous headdress for both women and men was a scarf, which was worn in the form of a headscarf. The northern Selkups sewed mittens from kamus with the fur facing out.
The southern Selkups had fur coats made from “combined fur” – ponjel-porg – as outerwear. Such fur coats were worn by men and women. A characteristic feature of these fur coats was the presence of a fur lining, collected from the skins of small fur-bearing animals - the paws of sable, squirrel, ermine, weasel, and lynx. The assembled fur was sewn together in vertical strips. Color selection made in such a way that the color shades transition into one another. The top of the fur coat was covered with fabric - cloth or plush. Women's fur coats were longer than men's. A long women's fur coat made from prefabricated fur was of significant family value.
As fishing clothing, men wore short fur coats with the fur facing out - kyrnya - made from deer fur or hare skins. In the 19th–20th centuries. Sheepskin sheepskin coats and dog coats became widespread - winter travel clothing, as well as cloth zipuns. In the middle of the 20th century. this type of clothing was replaced by the quilted sweatshirt. The lower shoulder clothing of the southern Selkups - shirts and dresses (kaborg - for shirt and dress) - came into use in the 19th century. The shoulder clothing was girded with a soft woven girdle or leather belt.
The traditional food of the Selkups consisted mainly of fishery products. Fish was prepared in large quantities for future use. It was boiled (fish soup - kai, with the addition of cereal - armagay), fried over a fire on a spit stick (chapsa), salted, dried, dried, yukola was prepared, fish meal - porsa was made. Fish was stored for future use in the summer, during the “big catch.” Fish oil was boiled from fish entrails, which was stored in birch bark vessels and used for food. As a seasoning and addition to the diet, the Selkups consumed wild edible plants: wild onions, wild garlic, saran roots, etc. They ate large quantities of berries and pine nuts. The meat of elk and upland game was also eaten. Purchased products are widespread: flour, butter, sugar, tea, cereals.
There were food prohibitions on eating the meat of certain animals and birds. For example, some groups of Selkups did not eat bear or swan meat, considering them to be close in “breed” to humans. Taboo animals could also be a hare, partridge, wild geese, etc. In the 20th century. The Selkup diet was replenished with livestock products. With the development of gardening - potatoes, cabbage, beets and other vegetables.
The Selkups, although they were considered baptized, retained, like many peoples of Siberia, their ancient religious beliefs. They were characterized by ideas about the spirit owners of places. They believed in the master spirit of the forest (machil vines), the master spirit of water (utkyl vines), etc. Various sacrifices were made to the spirits in order to enlist their support during fishing.
The Selkups considered the god Num, who personified the sky, to be the creator of the whole world, the demiurge. In Selkup mythology, the underground spirit Kyzy was an inhabitant of the underworld, the ruler of evil. This spirit had numerous helping spirits - vines that penetrated the human body and caused illness. To combat diseases, the Selkups turned to the shaman, who, together with his helping spirits, fought against evil spirits and tried to expel them from the human body. If the shaman succeeded in this, then the person recovered.
The Selkups believed that the land they lived in was initially level and flat, covered with grass, moss and forest - the hair of Mother Earth. Water and clay were its ancient primary state. The Selkups interpreted all earthly elevations and natural depressions as evidence of events that took place in the past, both earthly (“battles of heroes”) and heavenly (for example, lightning stones dropped from the sky gave birth to swamps and lakes). For the Selkups, the earth (chvech) was the substance that generated and generated everything. The Milky Way in the sky was represented by a stone river that passes to the ground and flows. Ob, closing the world into a single whole (southern Selkups). The stones that are placed on the ground to give it stability also have a celestial nature. They also store and give heat, generate fire and iron.
The Selkups had special sacrificial places associated with religious rituals. They were a kind of sanctuary in the form of small log barns (lozyl sessan, lot kele) on one stand-leg, with wooden spirits - vines - installed inside. The Selkups brought various “sacrifices” to these barns in the form of copper and silver coins, dishes, household items, etc. The Selkups revered the bear, elk, eagle, and swan.
The traditional poetic creativity of the Selkups is represented by legends, the heroic epic about the hero of the Selkup people, the cunning Itya, various types of fairy tales (chapte), songs, and everyday stories. Even in the recent past, the genre of improvised songs of the “what I see, I sing” type was widely represented. However, with the Selkups losing their skills colloquial speech In the Selkup language, this type of oral creativity has practically disappeared. Selkup folklore contains many references to old beliefs and cults associated with them. Selkup legends tell about the wars waged by the ancestors of the Selkups with the Nenets, Evenks, and Tatars.
