The history of the development of the Urals by man is centuries-old. Since ancient times, few human tribes settled mainly along the banks of rivers, began to develop the foothills of the Ural Mountains. The main stage in the development of the Urals can be called the time of industrial growth in Russia. When, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Tsar Peter, caring for the glory and greatness of Russia, shrewdly determined the direction of development of Russia, then the Ural storerooms shone in front of the gaze of new Russian industrialists with unprecedented strength.

The industrialists Strogonovs are considered one of the first developers of the Ural wealth in history. In addition to factories and workshops, they left behind in their ordinary estate Usolye-na-Kame household buildings (house, chapel, Transfiguration Cathedral), which today are considered the cultural heritage of the industrial past of the Ural region.

The next stage of the development of the Urals belongs to the same old dynasty of industrialists Demidovs. Among the remaining industrial monuments built on the territory of the Demidovs' estate are the remains of the blast furnaces of the famous Nevyanovsk plant, a dam, the famous Nevyanovsk leaning tower, a manor house, "Tsar-Domna", the building of which has survived to this day.

In place of industrial development, cities began to appear in the Urals. One of the first in the 18th century to build the so-called "city - factories": Nevyansk, Nizhny Tagil, Barancha, Kushva, Zlatoust, Alapaevsk and others. These cities, according to the description of Russian writers of that time, were buried in countless ramifications of the Ural Mountains among dense forests. High mountains, clear water, impenetrable forest surround these human settlements, creating an atmosphere of freshness and solemnity, despite the constantly smoking chimneys of factory workers.

It is interesting that, being one of the oldest regions of metallurgical production on the planet, the Urals supplies non-ferrous and ferrous metals not only to Russia, but also to Asia Minor, and later contributed to the development of machine production in a number of European countries and even America. The Urals played an important role in the patriotic wars of the 18-20th centuries. During the First World War, and especially the second, the Urals became the forge of Russia's military power, the main arsenal of the Red Army. In the Urals, during the Second World War, the Soviet nuclear and missile industries began to be created. The first city installations under the affectionate name "Katyusha" also come from the Urals. In the Urals, there was also a network of research laboratories for the development of new types of weapons.

This paper describes the features of the history of the development of the Urals by Russian people.

Ural development history

Intensive development of the Urals began in the crucial historical era of the 17th – 18th centuries, which opened the beginning of the “imperial civilization” (A. Flier), or a new time in the history of the Russian state. The special place of the Urals in this period is determined by the fact that this border region became the historical zone of the first Russian experience in the formation of a new "Russianness" (P.N.Savitsky's term), as a synthesis of the efforts of two cultures: the new - state-Westernizing and old - "soil" and "foreign" at the same time.

The 17th century in the history of the development of the Urals can be regarded as a period of mass "free" peasant colonization, associated mainly with the agrarian development of the region. Over the course of a century, an old-time Russian population has formed here, which reproduced in a new habitat the features of traditional culture in the version of the Russian North. During this period, the "grassroots" element was the leader of the colonization movement. The state barely had time to make its own administrative adjustments to this fleeting process.

In the XVIII century. The Urals, like no other region of the country, experienced all the innovations and costs of "Europeanization", as a result of which the type of specific "Ural" subculture was determined. The mining industry became its basic element. The construction of more than 170 factories in a century, the production of pig iron from 0.6 million poods at the beginning of the century to 7.8 million poods by the end of the century, the conquest of the international metal market - all this was the undoubted result of industrial progress. But the industrial phenomenon of Russian Europeanization became possible not only as a result of the active borrowing of Western technologies, but also the creation of a specific system of organizing the mining industry based on feudal-local principles and coercion. Free popular colonization is being replaced by the forced resettlement of tens of hundreds of serfs to the Urals, as well as the transformation of the descendants of free settlers from state peasants into "assigned" peasants who were forced to perform "factory" duties. By the end of the XVIII century. there were more than 200 thousand of them. In the Perm province, by its nature the most "mining", the "assigned" at that time accounted for over 70% of the state peasants.

By the middle of the XIX century. from a heterogeneous mass of dependent people, a specific class group is formed - the "mining population". It was the social substratum that defined the cultural image of the mining Urals by its professional and everyday traditions.

The nature of this young Russian estate can be considered intermediate in relation to the classical social models - peasants and workers. The forcible separation of the mass of artisans from the usual peasant environment determined their marginal state and created a long-term explosive social atmosphere in the Ural region. The permanent manifestation of various forms of social protest has become a characteristic feature of the “Ural” culture.

The economic and economic base of the Ural phenomenon was formed by the mining-district system of industry. The main element of this system, the mountainous district, was a diversified economy that operated on the principle of self-sufficiency. The mining complex provided itself with raw materials, fuel, energy resources and all the necessary infrastructure, creating an uninterrupted closed production cycle. The "natural" character of the mining industry was based on the monopoly right of plant owners to all natural resources of the district, which eliminated competition for their production. "Naturalness", "isolation", "local system of industry" (VD Belov, VV Adamov), orientation of production to state orders, weak market relations were the natural features of this phenomenon. Organizational and administrative transformations of the first half of the 19th century This system was “improved” by turning the mining Urals into a “state within a state” (VD Belov). From the modern point of view, the “original system” of the Ural industry must be associated with the transitional nature of the Russian economy during the New Age. This approach (for example, by T.K. Guskova) seems to be fruitful, since it interprets this system as an evolutionary stage from a traditional society to an industrial one.

Formed in the XVIII - the first half of the XIX century. the Ural mining culture retained its features even by the beginning of the 20th century. The Ural mining settlement preserved the atmosphere of a peasant, by nature, social and family life, which was facilitated by the fact that the artisans had their houses, vegetable gardens, land plots, and livestock farming. The artisans have preserved the historical memory of the paternalistic foundations of the mining system, which was reflected in the vitality of the "commitment relationship". Their social requirements are characterized by an orientation toward trusteeship on the part of factories and the state. They were distinguished from other groups of Russian workers by their low professionalism and low wages. According to I.Kh. Ozerova, Ural worker of the early XX century. psychologically was aimed at the equalizing principle of remuneration. Accustomed to the prevailing level of factory earnings, if it increased, he wasted money irrationally, going on spree. He was not inclined to change his usual working profession for another, even if it was materially beneficial. Cultural influences on the life of the mining environment were extremely scarce, due to the peculiarities of the social structure of the mining industry in the Urals, the remoteness of factory settlements from cultural centers. Irrational features of the social psychology of the Ural artisan and other characteristics of his social appearance confirm the version of his belonging to a transitional type of culture.

Thus, the "Ural mining" subculture typologically adjoins the transitional intercivilizational phenomena. The Urals most expressively demonstrated their features, which allows us to consider this region as a kind of "classic" of transitional states of modernizing societies.

Conclusion

We can say that the Urals, especially those of the second and third generations, have lost their national identity. Most of them have ceased to be Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians. They ceased to be both Tatars and Bashkirs, i.e. "Indigenous" inhabitants of the Urals. This loss, we believe, was the result of a spontaneously formed "strategy" of forming the population of the Urals from exiles. If in Soviet times there were numerous islands of the "Gulag Archipelago", and most importantly - the areas of permanent residence of released prisoners and exiled settlers, then the Ural was such a place even before the revolution. The Soviet gulag was preceded here by the tsarist protogulag, beginning with Anna Ioannovna, and perhaps even with Peter I.

Siberia was also settled by exiles and settlers. But they got there by villages and patriarchal families. The settlers did not break their fundamental ties with their relatives and neighbors - the community environment. Often the settlers were from areas in trouble. So, the author's great-grandfather, as a youth, ended up in hard labor for screwing up his master to death. He plowed, and the master passing by, walking and burned with a whip. Great-grandfather could not stand it, pulled the offender from the horse, took the whip and ... And, having served his exile, he returned home, but only then to take his relatives and neighbors to Siberia. So the village of Ozhogino arose south of Tyumen, and existed until, in my memory, it became the southern outskirts of the city.

The Urals were settled differently. Even before the revolution, the Urals were a kind of filter that sifted out people of a peculiar nature and specific professions from the flow of forced migrants. And not only artisans, but, oddly enough, both swindlers and counterfeiters were welcomed here. The local authorities needed competent and smart assistants.

Today, scientists speak, not without reason, about the fate of the Urals as a cultural monument of the industrial development of Russia, where, along with old enterprises, new factories of metallurgical and mining industries appear. The Russian metallurgical industry is 300 years old. Scientists, historians and archaeologists consider it a gift for the anniversary - the transformation of the Urals into a conservation area and the establishment there of museums of art casting, decorative tableware, Russian industrial architecture of the 17-18th centuries, original technical improvements, and the history of mining. Unfortunately, all this requires a lot of material costs and a lot of human labor. However, the wondrous Ural is patiently waiting in the wings. An expressive portrait of the mountainous region, craftsmen and their creations should not disappear from human memory.

Literature

1. Alevras N.N. Gornozavodskaya Ural: the specifics of the provincial subculture - Chelyabinsk, 2008.

2. Evsikov E. About the Ural land and about the "master of words" P.P. Bazhove - Chelyabinsk, 2008.

3. Markov D. Ural Territory - Yekaterinburg, 2007.

4. Urals as a subethnos // Ural digest / ed. Sidorkina M.E., Yekaterinburg, 2008.

Introduction

It is interesting that, being one of the oldest regions of metallurgical production on the planet, the Urals supplies non-ferrous and ferrous metals not only to Russia, but also to Asia Minor, and later contributed to the development of machine production in a number of European countries and even America. The Urals played an important role in the Russian wars of the 18-20 centuries. During the First World War, and especially the second, the Urals became the forge of Russia's military power, the main arsenal of the Red Army. In the Urals, during the Second World War, the Soviet nuclear and missile industries began to be created. The first city installations under the affectionate name "Katyusha" also come from the Urals. In the Urals, there was also a network of research laboratories for the development of new types of weapons.

This paper describes the features of the history of the development of the Urals by Russian people.

Ural development history

Intensive development of the Urals began in the critical historical era of the 17th-18th centuries, which opened the beginning of the “imperial civilization” (A. Flier), or a new time in the history of the Russian state. The special place of the Urals in this period is determined by the fact that this border region became the historical zone of the first Russian experience in the formation of a new "Russianness" (P.N.Savitsky's term), as a synthesis of the efforts of two cultures: the new - state-Westernizing and old - "soil" and "foreign" at the same time.

In the XVIII century. The Urals, like no other region of the country, experienced all the innovations and costs of "Europeanization", as a result of which the type of specific "Ural" subculture was determined. The mining industry became its basic element. The construction of more than 170 factories in a century, the production of pig iron from 0.6 million poods at the beginning of the century to 7.8 million poods by the end of the century, the conquest of the international metal market - all this was the undoubted result of industrial progress. But the industrial phenomenon of Russian Europeanization became possible not only as a result of the active borrowing of Western technologies, but also the creation of a specific system for organizing the mining industry based on feudal-local principles and coercion. Free popular colonization is being replaced by the forced resettlement of tens of hundreds of serfs to the Urals, as well as the transformation of the descendants of free settlers from state peasants into "assigned" peasants who were forced to perform "factory" duties. By the end of the XVIII century. there were more than 200 thousand of them. In the Perm province, by its nature the most "mining", the "assigned" at that time accounted for over 70% of the state peasants.

This paper describes the features of the history of the development of the Urals by Russian people.

Ural development history

Conclusion

A brief overview of the history of the Urals from ancient times to the 20th century.

Stone Age in the Urals

Paleolithic

The Paleolithic (or Ancient Stone Age) is the earliest and longest period in the history of mankind. It lasted from the beginning of the use of stone tools by humans (this happened on Earth 2.5 million years ago) to the retreat of glaciers in the northern hemisphere (10 thousand years ago).

The settlement of the territory of the Urals by ancient people began during the early Paleolithic - 300-100 thousand years ago. The climate at that time was milder and warmer, which contributed to the settlement of people. There were two directions of resettlement: one - from Central Asia, the second - from the East European Plain, Crimea and Transcaucasia. Scientists have determined this by the similarity of tools.

The earliest sites of ancient people in the Urals are Mysovaya (Republic of Bashkortostan) and Elniki II (Perm Territory). At the Yelniki II site, the bones of a trogontery elephant were found, which made it possible to date the monument. Also, the Early Paleolithic monuments include Ganichata I and II, Borisovo, Sludka, Tupitsa, the Big Deaf grotto on the Chusovaya River and others.

The archaeological sites Bogdanovka (Chelyabinsk Region) and Peshcherny Log (Perm Territory) belong to the Middle Paleolithic (200–40 thousand years ago). In the Upper (Late) Paleolithic (40-10 thousand years ago), man appeared even in the Subpolar Urals (Byzovaya site), the Medvezhya Cave and Garchi I monuments in the Northern Urals, the Talitsky and Zaozerye in the Middle Urals and Gornovo V in the South Urals. The monuments of this period are more numerous. The unique monuments of cave painting in the Kapova and Ignatievskaya caves (14-13 thousand years ago) are attributed to the end of the Upper Paleolithic. In total, 41 monuments of the Paleolithic era are now known in the Urals.

Paleolithic sites were located in grottoes and in the entrance of caves. People at that time made tools of labor from stone - quartzite, jasper, flint. By chipping pebbles, they received a tool called a chopper (chopping) or a chopper. Also, scrapers were made of stone for processing skins, scrapers for processing wood. Later, they began to make a core, from which thin plates were cleaved, which were used as an assembly cutting tool.

Ancient people survived by hunting. The mined hides and bones were used to build a dwelling. Berries and roots were also collected.

Mesolithic

In the Mesolithic era (9-7 millennia BC), the mass settlement of the Urals began. By that time, the glacier retreated, a modern river network was formed, the climate changed, and new natural zones were formed.

People settled along the banks of rivers and lakes. Numerous Mesolithic monuments have been found in the basins of the Kama, Ufa, Belaya, Tura, Iset rivers, in the upper reaches of the Urals. People invented insert tools, bows, arrows, skis, sledges, boats. They lived in semi-dugouts, huts or tents. In the Mesolithic era, the first domestic animal appeared - a dog (the bones of two individuals were found at the Koksharovsko-Yuryinsk site). At the same time, many large animals became extinct: mammoth, woolly rhinoceros and others. In addition to hunting and gathering, the ancient people mastered fishing.

The sanctuaries in the Dyrovaty stone on the Chusovaya river and on the Goliy stone mountain belong to this period.

A rich collection of tools has been collected at the Shigir peat bog in the Sverdlovsk region. The most unique of these finds is the Shigir Idol, the oldest wooden sculpture in the world.

Neolithic

This was the last stage of the Stone Age (6-4 millennia BC). At this time, the climate in the Urals (warm and humid) was most favorable for flora and fauna, forests spread. In the Neolithic, people mastered the manufacture of pottery. Thanks to the various ornaments on the dishes, archaeologists distinguish archaeological cultures and date monuments. New technologies for stone processing have also appeared: sawing, drilling, grinding. Stone axes, adzes, chisels, chisels appeared. Large log dwellings began to be built.

Due to the different natural conditions (taiga, forest-steppe, steppe), there was a difference in the development of the ancient cultures of the Southern, Middle and Northern Urals. In the Neolithic, the division of the Finno-Ugric language and the formation of the ethnic basis of the modern Uralic peoples began. At this time, sanctuaries appeared in the northern Trans-Urals. These include fill hills (Koksharovsky, Ust-Vagilsky), in which excavations were found ceramics painted with ocher, sometimes with molded animal heads. The burial of the shaman in the Rainstone Stone on Chusovaya is attributed to the same time.

Eneolithic (copper-stone age)

The transitional era from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age (III millennium BC). The climate became cooler at this time. The heterogeneity of the development of the population of different regions of the Urals is increasing. Metallurgy has already begun to develop in the Southern Urals. The earliest metallurgical center is associated with the Kargalinsky copper mines (Orenburg region). Early metal tools were made by forging, although stone was still the main material for tools. The first copper tools are delivered to the Middle Trans-Urals by exchange.

The art of wood carving arose (specimens have been preserved in the Shigir and Gorbunov peat bogs). Cattle breeding appeared in the southern part of the Urals. The domestication of horses takes place.

In the Neolithic-Eneolithic era, most of the scribes were made on the coastal rocks on the Vishera, Tagil, Tura, Rezh, Neiva, Irbit, Iset, Serga, Ufa, Ai, Yuryuzan, Zilim, Belaya rivers. They reflect the mythological worldview of ancient people and reproduce ritual scenes. An unusual monument-sanctuary Savin in the Kurgan region also belongs to this time.

Bronze Age

In the II millennium BC. In the Urals, the mass development of bronze metallurgy began, tools, weapons, and jewelry were made from it. The metal obtained as a result of smelting was poured into casting molds or subjected to forging.

In the South Urals, copper was mined mainly at the Tash-Kazgan, Nikolskoye, Kargaly deposits. Bronze products are widely distributed, and trade ties are strengthened. In the same place, in the Southern Urals, the so-called "Country of Cities" arose, the most famous of whose settlements are Arkaim and Sintashta. It is believed that war chariots were invented there and the tactics of chariot fighting were developed.

The Bronze Age in the Urals contains many archaeological cultures. Population movements led to the mixing, if not the disappearance of a number of groups. At the same time, in the Bronze Age, the uneven development of the population of different archaeological cultures increased. In the steppe and forest-steppe zones, pastoral livestock raising, and possibly agriculture, developed. In the north of the forest-steppe and the south of the forest zone, residents combined hunting, fishing, cattle breeding, and agriculture. In taiga and tundra areas, hunting and fishing developed.

At the beginning of the Bronze Age, the population of the Tashkov culture lived in the forest Trans-Urals. At the settlement of Tashkovo II, the first copper tools, crucibles, drops of copper, ore were found. In the mountain-forest Trans-Urals, the Koptyakovskaya, Cherkaskulskaya, Mezhovskaya cultures replaced each other, and the Barkhatovskaya culture came from the middle reaches of the Tobol River. The early stage of the formation and interaction of the peoples of the Finno-Ugric (forest zone) and Indo-Iranian (steppe and forest-steppe zone) language families began.

The population of the Bronze Age developed a cult of the dead. Burial mounds began to appear in the steppe zone, and ground ones in the forest zone. From the things that were placed next to the deceased, one can understand what he was doing and what position he occupied in society.

The Seima-Turbino transcultural phenomenon belongs to the Bronze Age - accidental finds in the forest Trans-Urals and monuments with these finds, cast using a new technology of thin-walled casting using a core. The trail of this phenomenon stretches from Altai, through the Urals, the Volga region, Karelia.

During the transition period to the Early Iron Age, the population of the Gamayun culture came from the northeast of Western Siberia to the Trans-Urals. They began to build the first fortified settlements in the forest zone. Historians associate them with the ancient proto-samodians.

Iron age

Gradually, people mastered the manufacture of tools and weapons from iron. Such products were much stronger than bronze ones, they could be sharpened. There was a decomposition of the primitive communal system and a transition to a class society.

Historians divide the Iron Age into two stages: early iron age (VIII century BC - III century AD) and late iron age (from the IV century A.D. to the middle of the II millennium A.D.).

Due to the cold snap in the early Iron Age and as a result of a decrease in food resources in the steppe part of the Southern Urals, semi-nomadic and nomadic cattle breeding appears. In the second half of the 1st millennium BC. warming begins and the establishment of a drier climate, as a result of which the nomads move north to the Ural forest-steppe. In the South Urals, a distinctive Savromat culture was formed, which was then replaced by the Sarmatian culture. The mounds became the main source for their study.

Copper foundry flourished in the Middle Trans-Urals. At the beginning of the era, iron products appeared only in the Ural steppes among the nomadic tribes of the Savromat culture. In the forest-steppe and in the south of the taiga zone, iron products appeared not earlier than the 5th-4th centuries BC. and were associated with the Itkul and Ananyinsky centers of non-ferrous metallurgy and metalworking.

In the early Iron Age, the population of the Itkul culture (VII-III centuries BC) lived on the territory of the mountain-forest Trans-Urals. Itkul foundry workers smelted copper, made tools and weapons, exchanged things from copper to the Ananyin culture living in the Kama region, and weapons - to the tribes of the Savromats and Sarmatians in the Southern Urals. A fur trade route is formed, linking the south and north. By this time, the treasures of cult castings with images of birds, animals, people that come across in the Urals. At this time, the Permian animal style appeared (copper cast images of animals, birds, people), bone-sanctuaries appeared. Due to the threat of military attacks from the south, fortified settlements are being built.

In the late Iron Age, the Great Migration of Peoples happened - the movement of tribes in the II-VI centuries A.D. It all started with the advancement of nomadic steppe tribes, which pushed the forest-steppe and even forest tribes of the Trans-Urals and Urals to move.

In the middle of the 1st millennium A.D. nomadic Ugric horse breeders passed through the forest and mountain-forest belt of the eastern slope of the Urals, which influenced the economy and the life of the local population. In the 6th-9th centuries, three archaeological cultures developed in the forest Trans-Urals - Petrogrom, Molchanov and Tyn, which became the basis of the Yudin culture (X-XIII centuries), these are the ancestors of the Mansi.

At this time, the Bashkir people arose, the modern peoples of the Urals were formed, the primordial foundation of the proto-Mansian ethnos was formed. In the 7th-10th centuries, the stabilization of the Ural societies and the formation of tribal unions took place, which led to the flourishing of cultures and the restoration of ancient trade relations with Central Asia, the Kama region and Veliky Novgorod. From the middle of the II millennium on the eastern slope of the Urals began to come "plowed Tatars" (Türks), who settled along the river Nitsa and for a long time peacefully adjacent to the Mansi.

Middle Ages (X-XVII centuries)

Novgorod merchants and free ushkuiniks became the first of the Russian people to penetrate the Urals. They exchanged their goods for furs from the “Yugra” (ancestors of the Khanty and Mansi), and also collected tribute. Since the 12th century, such trips to the Urals and the Northern Trans-Urals have become regular.

However, the Russian colonization of the Urals during this period was restrained by the opposition of the Volga Bulgaria. The Mongol invasion, which conquered the tribes of the Ob and Irtysh basin, the Bashkirs, the southern Udmurts, defeated Bulgaria, was of decisive importance. At the end of the XIII-XIV century, part of the Bulgars and nomadic Polovtsians moved to the territory of the Urals.

Over time, the Great Perm passed into the hands of the Moscow princes and became part of the Russian state. During this period, to strengthen the position of Moscow in the Kama region, Orthodox missionaries launched activities. They destroyed pagan sanctuaries and converted local peoples to Orthodoxy.

The process of resettlement of the Mansi from the western slope of the Urals to the eastern one began. This process intensified when the mass resettlement of peasants from Pomorie to the Urals began. By the 15th century, the Mansi, who lived on the Konda, Pelym rivers and the lower reaches of the Sosva river, united into the Pelym principality, the center of which was in the Pelym town near the confluence of Pelym with Tavda.

From time to time there were raids on Russian lands. During one of them, in 1481, the Great Perm prince Mikhail died, a number of settlements were destroyed. Moscow also organized military campaigns in the Trans-Urals (in particular, in 1465, 1483, 1499). Ugra joined Moscow, but citizenship was not strong.

In the XIV century, the Siberian Tatars developed their own statehood. The Tyumen Khanate emerged with its center in the town of Chimgi-Tura (later on this place Tyumen arose). Later it expanded and became the Siberian Khanate with its capital in the town of Siberia, or Kashlyk (near modern Tobolsk). The Tatars set up the Mansi against the Russians, and they themselves organized raids.

The defeat of the Kazan Khanate by Ivan the Terrible in 1552 led to the voluntary incorporation of the main part of Bashkiria into Russia.

The Stroganov family was of great importance in the development of the Middle Urals. The founder of the family Anika Fedorovich Stroganov in 1558 asked for permission to engage in salt production on the Kama River, pledging in return to defend the land from raids and founding fortified towns. The royal charter granted the Stroganovs vast lands from the mouth of the Lysva to the mouth of the Chusovaya. Later, the Stroganov possessions became even larger. The population of Prikamye began to increase rapidly, new settlements arose.

Of the indigenous peoples of the Urals by the 16th century, the peoples of the Urals were the largest - Bashkirs, Komi-Perm, Udmurts, there were fewer representatives of the peoples of the Trans-Urals - Mansi, Khanty, Siberian Tatars.

In the 1570s, the Siberian Khanate, led by Khan Kuchum, raided the Stroganov towns. To fight them, the Stroganovs hired the Volga Cossacks, headed by the ataman Ermak. Thus began the famous campaign of Yermak, "who took Siberia." The Siberian Khanate finally fell in 1598. The conquest of Siberia opened the way for Russia to the east.

Ermak's hike. Painting by P. Shardakov. Ethnopark of the history of the Chusovaya river

On the rivers of the Urals and Trans-Urals, Russian cities and forts began to appear, the Urals were more and more actively mastered by the Russians. At first, they got beyond the Urals by river. In 1597, construction began on the first land road through the Urals, explored by the peasant Artemy Babinov. The road was named Babinovskaya. In 1598 the city of Verkhoturye was founded.

The development of the Urals gradually proceeded mainly from north to south. In the 17th century, Russian colonization of the Urals became widespread. Most of the peasants and townspeople of the Russian North moved to the Urals of their own free will, but there were also those who were sent by the tsar's decree.

In the 1730-50s, the Zakamsk and Orenburg fortified lines were built, which created conditions for even more active settlement, including the South Urals.

The majority of the population of the Urals belonged to the peasantry. For example, in the last quarter of the 17th century there were about 80% of them. Approximately 60% of them had to pay monetary or grain quitrent to the treasury (black-haired peasants). Serfs lived in the Stroganov estates, who bore both quitrent and labor duties.

In the 17th century, agriculture was the main occupation of the Urals population. The main crops were rye and oats, although barley, wheat, spelled, buckwheat, peas, and millet were also sown.

At the same time, in the 17th century, the first small factories began to appear in the Urals. In 1631, on the river Nitsa (the territory of the Sverdlovsk region), the first state-owned ironworks (Nitsinsky) was established. Iron was obtained by the raw method in four small blast furnaces. The peasants who fulfilled the factory service were obliged to work at the plant. Half a century later, the plant closed.

Finds from the Nitsinsky plant. Museum of History and Archeology of the Middle Urals

In 1634, the Pyskorsky state copper-smelting plant (Perm Territory) started operating, which worked until the end of the 40s. In 1640, a state-owned iron-making plant (Krasnoborsky) appeared on the Vishera River in the Cherdyn district, however, due to the depletion of ores, it did not work for long.

In 1669, a private iron-making plant of the Tumashev brothers appeared on the Neiva River (closed in 1680). There was also a small factory in the possession of the Dalmatovsky Monastery, on the Zheleznyanka River at its confluence with the Iset.

However, salt production was best developed at that time. The largest salt-making center in the country was Sol Kamskaya (Solikamsk).

Modern times (XVIII - XIX centuries)

The first quarter of the 18th century was marked by the administrative reforms of Peter I. At the same time, factories began to appear in the Urals. The first, almost simultaneously, in 1701, were put into operation the Nevyansk and Kamensk factories, and soon the Alapaevsk and Uktussk state factories were founded. Then the number of factories increased rapidly. Private entrepreneurs took part in the construction of the factories. In 1702, the Nevyansk plant was transferred to Nikita Demidov, from which a large dynasty of Ural industrialists began. The Stroganovs and Yakovlevs also became the largest plant owners. The population of the Urals grew, new settlements arose abundantly. In the Urals, there were many Old Believers who moved here from the central part of the country, hiding from persecution. The construction of the Yekaterinburg plant in 1723 was of great importance.

In the 18th century, the Urals became a major mining and metallurgical center. The factories employed artisans (they performed all production and technical work in the factories) and workers (together with the registered peasants, they were involved in auxiliary work, these included miners, coal burners, carpenters, lumberjacks, carters, bricklayers, etc.) ... They had to work in factories "forever", were released from work only because of old age or serious illness.

With the advent of factories, the importance of waterways increased. Factory products were floated along the rivers Chusovaya, Belaya, Ufa, Ai and others. By the beginning of the 19th century, the Urals produced 4/5 of Russian cast iron and iron, and Russia was in first place in the world in the production of ferrous metals.

In the 1730s, a network of fortified lines - fortresses (old and new Zakamsky, Orenburg (Yaitskaya), Sakmarskaya, Isetskaya) was created in the South Urals. Cossacks also served here. The Orenburg expedition arose with the aim of developing the southern part of the Urals. This contributed to the shift of the Russian population from north to south.

In 1704-11, 1735-37, 1738-39, 1740 large Bashkir riots broke out in the Urals. The Bashkirs attacked villages and settlements, burned down houses, and destroyed factories. In 1773-74, the Peasant War broke out under the leadership of Yemelyan Pugachev, posing as Peter III.

In the 18th century, the first educational institutions began to appear, but education began to develop real development only towards the end of the 19th century. However, most of the children did not attend school.

When the industrial revolution began in the West in the 19th century, Russian industry began to lag significantly behind.

The adoption of the decree of 1812 on the permission of private individuals to mine gold led to the opening of numerous mines in the Urals, and the gold rush soon broke out. The gold mining control center was located in Yekaterinburg. The Ryazanovs, Kazantsevs, Balandins, and Zotovs were major gold miners. By 1845, Russia's share in world gold production was 47%. Before the discovery of the California and Australian deposits, she overtook all countries in the world. Rich deposits of platinum (95% of world production) were also discovered in the Urals.

Trade revived in the 19th century. The annual turnover of the Ural fairs on a national scale exceeded 20%, of which 80% of the turnover in the Urals was provided by the Irbit Fair, the second in Russia after the Nizhny Novgorod one.

At the same time, in the 19th century, uprisings often broke out, the Ural peasants fought for their rights. The Urals and Trans-Urals became a place of exile for the Decembrists.

An important stage in the development of the country was the abolition of serfdom on February 19, 1861. Legally, the peasants found freedom, but in reality everything turned out to be more complicated. According to the law, the artisans were given only a manor and mows, but not allotments. By this, they became attached to the factories. For the use of artisan mowing, pasture, forest, the possibility of working off at factories was provided. The breeders continued to be the owners of significant farmland and vast areas.

Thanks to the reforms of Alexander II, people began to get involved in active social life, and the intelligentsia played a significant role.

By the end of the 19th century, the Urals began to lose competition to the new large metallurgical center in the Donbass. The enterprises were technically backward, poorly reconstructed, the ore and fuel base was depleted. As a result, an industrial crisis broke out in the Urals. To find ways out of the crisis in 1899, on the instructions of the Minister of Finance S.Yu. Witte, an expedition of a group of scientists and engineers headed by D.I. Mendeleev.

Soon an era of upheavals began: the first world war, revolution, civil war ...

References:
Panina S.N. Ancient history of the peoples of the Urals. - Yekaterinburg, publishing house "Kvadrat", 2017.
History of the Urals from ancient times to the end of the 19th century. - Yekaterinburg, 2002.
Materials of the Museum of History and Archeology of the Middle Urals

Copper ores on the Vye River became known at the end of the 17th century. In 1721 a copper smelter was built here. True, Demidov did not succeed in smelting copper for a long time, for copper ore was mixed with iron. Malachite ores were probably also found.

We find the first evidence of Tagil malachite from P. Pallas. Examining the old copper mines, which were almost abandoned by his arrival in 1770, he noted that "hefty copper ores were mined between the factory dwellings."

Photo by Vlad Kochurin

After the conquest of Siberia by Yermak, the entire Urals became Russian. Now travelers could safely make hikes of any difficulty and duration throughout the Urals from north to south. In 1666, during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, a group of Russian officers (46 people!) Made the transition from Solikamsk to Verkhoturye along the Babinovskaya road. One of the officers (his name remained unknown) kept a travel diary, which is very interesting to read after almost 350 years.