HISTORICAL SKETCH. 9 



As al the very beginning of Russia's acciuaintauce witU Siberia the enterprise of pri- 

 vate persons had a great significance in the movement of the Russians eastward, so in the 

 beginning of the eighteentli century no slight services were rendered the Government by the 

 rich trader Akinfi Demidov. In 1723 his parties penetrated, with trading and industrial objects 

 in the Altai mountains to Mount Siniukha near lake Kolyvans, and here found Chudie mines 

 and traces of ores. In 1726 artisans and clerks were sent here by Demidov from his Nevian 

 works in the Urals, and on the small stream of the Loktevka falling into tlie AUei was built 

 the first works, called Kolyvansk. Soon other mines were discovered in the neighbourhood of 

 whose existence Demidov presented a report to the Government and by an ukaz of the year 

 1747 the works of Kolyvansk and Voskresensk were taken over from Demidov by the Cruwn. 



"With the development of mining in the Ural, Altai and at the Nerchinsk works, there 

 was requii'ed an increased number of workmen. To meet this demand hundreds of families 

 were sent furth from the interior of Russia to the works ami attached to the latter, and in 

 this way the Russian population of Siberia grew every year. 



To unite the limits of conquest already indicated by stockades and fortresses to inter- 

 mediate points as also for the defense of the mining works from the raids of nomads, the 

 tracts or main routes were settled, and Cossack defense posts and settlements established. 

 In 1744 to 1745 the tract between Tobolsk and Tara was so inhabited, followed by those be- 

 tween Ishim and Omsk, and the Chauss stockade and Tomsk. In 1762 to 1780 the tract be- 

 tween Tara and the Chauss stockade was settled, and in 1763 the Ekaterinburg road was 

 built. Among the Cossack defense lines in 1720 to 1773 was constructed that of the Irtysch, 

 in 1755 that between Omsk and Zverinogolovsk. Further, with the movement of colonization 

 Into the depths of the Altai, the Kolyvan-Kusnetsk, Novokolyvau-Kusnetsk, and in 1780 the 

 Bukhtarminsk lines. 



Parallel to the colonization patronized by the Government, at times during the critical 

 moments in Russia's historical and economical life, another kind of colonization, namely, secret 

 colonization was effected. 



The government of Tobolsk, as the first zone lying on the road to the little kniiwu 

 country, was more thickly populated with fugitives belonging to those groups of the population 

 of European Russia who were there faring ill. In Siberia these fugitives nnder the protection 

 of dense forests and swamps raised their solitary dwellings, made so-called «;zaimkas-> or 

 enclosures, cleared forests and introduced tillage. The voevodes on discovering such settle- 

 ments did not destroy them but only levied upon them state taxes. Such emigrants, settling 

 and at the same time securing the possession of an alien region, were not without their advant- 

 ages to the voevodes. Thus the acceptance with an amnesty of the allegiance of the so-called 

 Bukhtarmin masons, the fugitive families of dissenters and criminals who had taken up their 

 abodes beyond the Kamen, one of the ridges of the Altai, spread the dominion of Russia to 

 one of the best valleys of the Altai. 



With the extension of the settlements the people became acquainted with the surroundo 

 ing spots and finding more convenient places, built themselves new outlying hamlets and 

 suburbs. Each settled upon a separate patch over which he had arbitrary control; when, how- 

 ever, he did not wish to remain any longer in llie same place, he handed over his land to 

 another and sought a new home. 



