Zverev Vladimir A.,
Doctor of Historical Sciences, Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University; Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Kosareva Maria A.,
Student, Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Origin of Iskitim Town: Development of the Proto-Urban Settlements Complex on the Berd River in the Second Half of the 19th – First Third of the 20th Century
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2018-2-6
In the 18th century, on the left bank of the Berd River, one of the large arms of the Ob River, Russian rural settlements were founded nearby: Vylkovo, Koinovo, Chernorechka and Shipunovo. Their two centuries long history is of great interest, because in the first third of the 20th century they made the basis for the establishment of a worker’s settlement Iskitim (1933), which turned into a town of the same name (1938). This article reveals the positive changes that took place in the 1850s–1920s in the proto-urban settlements complex and in some of the settlements. The authors describe historical dynamics of the number of local peasant households, population size, its social and gender composition, household population density, scope of communal land tenure. It has been established that during the period under study the number of residents and households was rapidly increasing in the proto-urban complex due to the high natural population increase and especially due to the massive influx of agrarian immigrants. Number of peasants per household tended to decline, proportion of males in the population increased over time. The area of land “suitable” for agriculture and used on the permanent and unlimited basis by rural communities was decreasing. There were more and more elements of the settlement infrastructure, uncommon for traditional society: schools, spots of industrial production, etc. In the early 20th century, under the influence of the Altai Railway construction (the southern branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway), the discovery of rich limestone and shale deposits, there were demographic, transport and production preconditions for the transformation of the village complex into an urban settlement. The main source of information for the study are “Lists of settlements of Tomsk Governorship” composed periodically by regional statistical authorities (they contain records on the intra- and inter-settlement situation for the years 1859, 1878, 1885, 1893, 1899, 1904 and 1911), “Lists of settlements of the Siberian Region” for 1926. Archival maps of the early 20th century and drawings by the Iskitim old resident, self-taught artist M.I. Sokolov were used as sources and at the same time as illustrations to the article.
Publishing: 19/12/2018
How to cite: Zverev V.A., Kosareva M.A. Origin of Iskitim Town: Development of the Proto-Urban Settlements Complex on the Berd River in the Second Half of the 19th – First Third of the 20th Century // Historical Courier, 2018, # 2. Article 6. [Available online:] http://istkurier.ru/data/2018/ISTKURIER-2018-2-06.pdf
Links: Issue 2 2018
Keywords: Iskitim Town; Siberian village; origin of the town; proto-urban settlements; settlement dynamics; demographic dynamics