1. Earth

The Russian North usually means a vast territory in the north of the European part of the country, which includes the lands of the present Vologda, Arkhangelsk, Murmansk regions, the republics of Karelia and Komi. In the past, the Vyatka land (the present-day Kirov region) also belonged to the Russian North, as well as the Perm Territory, which now belongs to the Urals. Strictly speaking, in the historical sense, the lands of the eastern part of the Leningrad region also belong to the Russian North. Currently, the Russian North belongs to the Northwestern Federal District. Economic geography also classifies the North as part of the Northwest Economic Region. But in the field of history, ethnology and culture, the North is an independent unique region.

So, the Russian North is a special historical, cultural and ethnographic region of Russia. It is interesting that at the end of the 19th century there were attempts to call the North Blue Russia, or Blue Russia (by analogy with White, Black and Red Russia).

The Russian North became the first geographical area that became part of the ancient Russian statehood as a result of colonization. At the beginning of Russian colonization, this region was called Zavolochye. Since the 16th century, the name Pomorie has been established. In the imperial era, the name Pomorie gradually began to be replaced by a purely geographical name "North".

This region lies in the basins of the rivers of the Northern Dvina, Onega, Mezen, Pechora, and the vast region of lakes, including Ladoga, Beloe and Onega. The Russian North rests against the seas of the Arctic Ocean. Due to its remoteness from the Atlantic Ocean, the climate of the Russian North is the most severe in Europe. The severity of the climate increases in the northeast direction from Vologda to the lower reaches of the Pechora. At the same time, the polar coast of the Barents Sea off the coast of the Kola Peninsula (Murmansk region), thanks to the branch of the Gulf Stream entering here, does not freeze even in winter. But the White Sea, located to the south, is covered with ice for 6-9 months a year. Up to the Arctic Circle, the entire territory of the region is covered with coniferous forests, in which pine prevails in the western part of the region, and spruce in the eastern part. Tundra begins beyond the Arctic Circle, which also covers the islands closest to the mainland. The most remote islands - the northern part of Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land - are covered with glaciers.

Low temperatures and dense vegetation in the taiga zone contribute to low evaporation, which has led to a huge swampiness of the region. It is no coincidence that for a very long time there were almost no land routes in the region. Before the advent of railroads, rivers were the only means of communication.

1 Fig. Northern part of the European continent

Dvina lands Zavolochya

In itself, the grandiose advance of the Russians to the north is almost not reflected in the annals and testimonies. As the great historian S. M. Solovyov noted, “how the Dvina region received the Russian population and became the possession of Veliky Novgorod - all this happened quietly, imperceptibly for the historian.” In fact, the ancient chroniclers, who describe in detail the grandiose battles, exploits and crimes, somehow did not notice the slow movement to the north, devoid of the noise of "great deeds".

Our ancestors came to the Arctic Ocean about a thousand years ago. Mastering the zone of deciduous forests, the Slavs for a long time did not go beyond this area, suitable for agriculture, stretching from Lake Peipus, the southern shore of Lake Ladoga and to the line of the modern Volga-Baltic route along the Sheksna, White Lake and to the Volga. Previously, along the line of the Volga-Baltic route there was a river route, part of which fell on portage. For this reason, the lands north of the Volga watershed were called Zavolochye (for the first time this geographical concept was used in 1078). Further north lay the taiga.

The native inhabitants of Zavolochye were called by the Russians "Chud of Zavolotskaya" (or "Zavolochskaya").

The Slavs reached the southern border of the taiga already in the 5th-6th centuries. The settlements of the Slavs of that time were found on the rivers Chagodoshche, Kobozha, Kolpi, Mologa (within the current Leningrad and Vologda regions). Following this, the Slavs slowly began to penetrate deep into the taiga, spreading agriculture for the first time in these places, establishing trade relations with the Zavolotsk Chud, who lived in the Stone Age. Under the year 862, the chronicles mention the city of Beloozero, in which Rurik's brother Sineus sat as a prince.

The most ancient of the northern Russian cities at the time of the birth of the state in Russia was, in addition to the mentioned Beloozero, also Ladoga. Both of these cities were very young in time of existence, and in addition to the Slavs, the population of the surrounding lands in the 9th century was dominated by aborigines. Later, in 1238, an independent Belozersky principality arose, which was part of the Grand Duchy of Vladimir.

In the era of Kievan Rus, the advance to the north accelerated. Already in the 9th-10th centuries, hunters, merchants, plowmen, penetrating hundreds of kilometers along the rivers into unknown lands, came to the shores of the Icy Sea, as the Russians called the Arctic Ocean. In ancient times, the polar seas were sometimes also called the "Breathing Sea", since the Russian pioneers were struck by tides reaching up to 10 meters, almost unknown to them on the calm rivers and lakes of Russia.

The disintegration of Kievan Rus into destinies, which began in the middle of the 11th century, paradoxically, only spurred on the state colonization of the north. Mr. Veliky Novgorod sent a gang of good fellows on distant trips on light dugout boats - the ears. By the name of the boats they were called - ushkuiniki. Acting immediately in the roles of discoverers of unknown lands, merchants, missionaries, fur hunters and first settlers, the Ushkuyns in a short time explored and conquered vast territories from the Gulf of Bothnia of the Baltic to the Ural Mountains. Perhaps, if not for the Mongol-Tatar invasion, the development of Siberia by the Russians would have begun 300 years before Yermak.

In the chronicles of the first half of the 11th century, there are the first mentions of the penetration of enterprising Novgorodians beyond the Ural Mountains. In 1032, the Novgorodians, under the command of a certain Gleb, went to the Iron Gates (perhaps, the Karskie Vorota strait or some of the passages through the Urals). In 1079, the Novgorod prince Gleb Svyatoslavovich, the grandson of Yaroslav the Wise, died in the northern Urals. Later there are indications that the Novgorodians for tribute "old people went beyond Yugra and Samoyed." Already in those years, the coast near the Kara Bay was mentioned under the name of Lukomorye.

In what ways did the Novgorodians move to the north? Sailing along the Volkhov and Svir, the Novgorodians penetrated Lake Onega. Further north there were several paths. The first of them passed by the Vodloya River, which flows into Kenozero, and then by the Kena River to Onega and the Onega Bay of the White Sea. The second path went along the Vytegra, which flows into Lake Onega, from where they dragged to Lake Lache (where Kargopol stands) and from there they got to Onega. From White Lake it was possible to get to the Sukhona, a tributary of the Northern Dvina, by dragging. In the future, a number of other ways appeared.

The Novgorodians who settled on the shores of the Icy Sea very quickly mastered maritime affairs and already in the 11th century began to make long voyages beyond the Arctic Circle. Novgorodian Gyuryata Rogovich in 1096 told the chronicler about the voyage of his “lad” (trusted servant) to the Pechora, and this lad also sailed past the Novaya Zemlya archipelago through the Kara Strait. Under the year 1114, the “Tale of Bygone Years” contains stories of old Ladoga residents about their long-distance campaigns “for Yugra” and “for Samoyed” (that is, to the throat of the White Sea), dating back to the times of Yaroslav the Wise.

In 1137, in the charter of the Novgorod prince, a list of Novgorod churchyards (settlements and tribute collection points) in Zavolochye was compiled. Many of the settlements listed there exist to this day. Thus, Tudorov Pogost, Velsk, Vekshenga, Totma, and other settlements, which can still be found in the Vologda Oblast, are mentioned in the charter. In 1147, the Novgorodians founded Vologda on a portage between the Sheksna and Sukhona rivers.

2 Fig. Novgorod land in the XII century.

The wealth that Veliky Novgorod received from its northern possessions caused the desire of the powerful princes of Rostov-Suzdal (or Vladimir-Suzdal, since Vladimir became the capital of the principality, and then of all Russia) to also take part in the development of northern lands. Since they lay below the Rostov-Suzdal land, the Suzdal people called them the Lower Lands. Rostov went to Zavolochye along the middle Sukhona, past the Novgorod settlement of Totma, then along the Vag and Kokshenga to the Yug River. Military clashes began to take place between Rostov and Novgorod. So, in 1149, according to the chronicle, Novgorodians and Suzdalians fought with each other. In 1166, a campaign in Zavolochye against the Dvina by Prince Mstislav, the son of Andrei Bogolyubsky, caused a fierce war between Lord Veliky Novgorod and the Vladimir-Suzdal principality.

In 1212, the city of Veliky Ustyug arose at the mouth of the river, which became the center of the possessions of the Vladimir-Suzdal princes in the north. In general, immigrants from the Rostov lands (“Nizovtsy”) settled on the upper Dvina, along the Sukhona River. Being far from the possessions of the Grand Duke, the Ustyugians themselves began to behave completely independently, like the Novgorodians, pursuing an independent policy. So, in 1322, the Ustyugians “fighted” (that is, fought) with the Novgorodians, not paying attention to the alliance of the Rostov prince, whose subjects they were, with Novgorod. Similar events took place in 1329.

It is interesting that until now in the Russian North, among the locals, the memory of what places of ancient Russia their ancestors came from is preserved. So, the upper reaches of the Northern Dvina are still called Rostov region by the inhabitants of the Arkhangelsk region, since it is inhabited by the descendants of the Rostovites. But the inhabitants of Obonezhie (the shores of Lake Onega), the White Sea and the Dvina lands remember their Novgorodian origin.

In cultural terms, in the Russian North, differences between the Novgorod and Rostov-Suzdal lands remained for a long time. Icons and frescoes in the northern cities of the 17th century still retained certain artistic differences of those places from which settlers arrived over several centuries. In Belozersk (the former ancient Beloozero) and Vologda they had a purely Novgorodian character, in Totma and Veliky Ustyug they corresponded to Rostov traditions.

The remoteness and weak population of the northern lands led to the fact that, until the fall of the Novgorod Republic, many lands and cities of the region were jointly owned by the Grand Dukes of Vladimir and Novgorod, such as Vologda and Perm.

The indigenous inhabitants of the North, the “Chud of Zavolotskaya”, stood at an even more primitive stage of development than the Chud of Zalessky Rus. In the ethnic sense, most of the natives of the north belonged to the Finno-Ugric ethnic groups, which is why the Novgorodians called them Chud. Among them were the Lapps (now the Saami), who today live in a number of areas of the Murmansk region, but during the Novgorod advance to the North, they occupied a vast territory from Lake Ladoga and Onega to the Barents Sea. Around the White Lake lived all (the descendants of which are the Vepsians). Emt lived on the Dvina (from which the names of the Yemtsy River and the city of Yemetsk still remain). To the east lived the ancestors of modern Komi and Komi-Permyaks. Near the Ural Mountains and along the course of the Pechora there were tribes of Yugra (their descendants, the Ugric ethnic groups Khanty and Mansi, later moved east and live in western Siberia, in the lower reaches of the Ob). Finally, the Samoyed tribes of the ancestors of the Nenets lived in the tundra, whom the Russians called Samoyeds (Samoyeds). As you can see, the Zavolotsk Chud meant very diverse ethnic groups. Interestingly, the Zavolotsk Chud (or part of it) was also called the white-eyed Chud. The “white-eyedness” of the Chud was probably due to the weak pigmentation of the eyes, which is often found in some representatives of the Baltic-Finnish ethnic groups. In addition, the Zavolotsk Chud covered their faces with paint or tattoos (in the epics and legends of the Russian Pomors, Kemi is sometimes called a red-skinned Chud!), Which only strengthened the "white-eyed" Chud.

Russian settlers were unpleasantly struck by some of the Chud's everyday customs. For example, "raw food" (that is, eating raw meat and fish), and even cannibalism, was widespread among the Chud.

The colonization of the north by Novgorodians and Rostovites was not always peaceful. This is evidenced by the historical memory of the Russian population of the Arkhangelsk region. Even in the middle of the XX century. on Pinega and Mezen, they remembered that, for example, near the village of Rezya, the Novgorodians “cut” with the Chud for a long time, and that on the Poganets River there was an even more stubborn battle with the “nasty ones”. The locals even still remembered where the “military road” lay, along which the Chud retreated, where the fortified towns of the Chud were located, and from where it fired arrows at the advancing Novgorodians. In the legend of the Russian village of Chuchepala on the Mezen River, the origin of the name of the village was explained by the fact that during the battle with the Chud on the ice of the river, the Russians managed to deftly lure the Chud to a previously prepared hole and sank it. To this day, there is a stretch on the Mezen (that is, a section of the river that is deeper than those located nearby), which is called Bloody, in which, according to the recollection of the inhabitants of Chuchepala, the Chucha, the local Chud, “fell”. (By the way, Alexander Nevsky used a similar tactic during the Battle of the Ice in 1242).

However, often the Chud itself made devastating raids on Russian settlements. In the legends of the Kargopol district, recorded in the 18th century by academician P. B. Inohodtsev, it was said that the “white-eyed monster” constantly robbed the local lands. “The oldest people of this region are filthy raw foodists and white-eyed monsters, who came to the Belozersk area and made great devastation: they set fire to villages, devoured babies, killed adults and the elderly in various ways,” the annals said. These raids continued until a certain prince Vyacheslav (about whom, however, nothing is reported in the chronicles) drove them away.

Andriyan Ondrusovsky, Macarius Vyshkoezersky and a number of other holy martyrs, who were killed by the Chud pagans, are mentioned in the "lives" of the saints.

In the collection of Kirsha Danilov, the first collection of Russian epics, published in 1804, but compiled much earlier, in the 18th century, there was also an epic “How Dobrynya conquered the Chud”. Probably, some battles with the Russian miracle in ancient, "epic" times, really had to be fought.

Among the legends of the Russian North was a legend about how on Kurostrov near Kholmogory there was a golden idol of a Chud, which was stolen by the Novgorodians.

However, all of the above facts were only an exception to the rule. In general, the Russian colonization of Zavolochye was peaceful. An indicator of this is that the Russian settlements did not have any fortifications. Very few weapons were found in the burial grounds.

No less significant is this fact. All the major rivers along the banks of which the Finno-Ugric peoples used to live had a non-Russian name - Onega, Pechora, Mezen, Pinega, Sukhona. But small rivers, including the tributaries of those listed, uninhabited by wandering Finnish hunters, mastered many centuries later by Russians, bore Slavic names - Ustya, Palomitsa, Medveditsa.

Chud lived in the north until the 16th century, and separate groups of Chud existed even before the 19th century. Even in the XIV-XV centuries, there were many settlements of Chud, located mainly in dense forests, near small rivers, while along the most important water "streets" - the Northern Dvina, Onega and Vaga - waves of Russian peasant and monastic colonization were widely spread. In the annals of the 15th century, “Dvinyans” (that is, Russians living along the Northern Dvina) and “zavolochanes” (natives from among the Zavolotsk Chud) are definitely distinguished. But already in the era of Ivan the Terrible, chronicles are often used about empty Chud settlements, abandoned Chud mines, about Chud "stoves" (that is, abandoned villages).

The disappearance of the Chud gave rise to a number of legends and traditions in the north. Basically, they all explain the disappearance of the Chud by the fact that all the Chud "went underground." According to legend, a white birch began to grow in those places, which, according to an ancient prediction, meant the imminent arrival of the white people and their king, who would establish his own order. People dug holes, put up racks, piled stones on top. We went into shelters, pulled out racks and covered ourselves with stones. It is no coincidence that in the dictionary of V. I. Dal there is a proverb: “a miracle dug alive.” Probably, from the North, these legends about the disappeared Chud later spread to the Urals and Siberia.

3 Fig. N. K. Roerich’s painting “The Miracle Buried Alive”, 1913, Novgorod History and Art Museum.

The legends about the self-burial of the Chud are probably based on the preserved information about the group suicides of the Chud who did not want to be baptized, as well as the way the Chud buried their dead, who were actually covered with earth, cutting the log posts. The Russians who came across Chudsky cemeteries, “Chudsky pits”, believed that it was here that all the Chud dug into the ground.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, superstitions associated with Chud places remained in the north - mounds, settlements, "pits" (that is, burial places), groves that were considered sacred by the miracle, etc. Local residents assure that the Chud guards his treasures underground, in every possible way preventing attempts to search for hidden Chud treasures.

Of course, there was no extermination of the Chud by the Russians. Novgorodians and Rostovites were only interested in increasing the number of tributaries, just as the church was glad to increase the number of converted souls. In northern conditions, there was no point in converting local residents into slavery.

Most likely, the small and mobile Zavolotsk Chud partly assimilated among the Russians, partly moved to the west, to the lands of modern Finland. In any case, the basis of the Finnish ethnos was the merger of several related tribes - the Suomi (the Russians called them "sum"), the Häme (probably the same Em), and part of the Saami (Lapps) and Karelians.

We can learn about how this happened from the biography of the monk Lazar, who founded one of the monasteries on the northeastern shore of Lake Onega, on a small island, in the middle of the 14th century. According to Lazar, only Lapps and Chuds, pagans and terrible "raw eaters" lived around the lake. Several times the pagans beat and drove Lazarus from his island and tried to kill him. “I have endured many sorrows and beatings and wounds from these animal-like men,” wrote Lazarus. Chance helped Lazarus. He cured the son of one of the Lapp elders, after which they stopped persecuting him. The Lapp foreman with his children converted to Christianity, then some other Lapps and Chud were baptized, and the most stubborn in paganism retired from these places to the Arctic Ocean.

The whole, who lived on a vast territory from the Volkhov to the Upper Volga region, which became part of Russia as early as the 9th century, was mostly Russified. that now almost everyone speaks Russian. From the name of the vesi, such names as the city of Cherepovets (formerly Cherepoves) and Vesyegonsk (All Egonskaya) have been preserved. Only in the remote forest region on the border of the Leningrad and Vologda regions, direct descendants of the Vess, the ethnic group of Veps, have survived.

The remains of the Zavolotsk Chud, baptized into Orthodoxy, switched to agriculture and their way of life and culture practically did not differ from the local Russians, existed as early as the middle of the 19th century. So, in 1864, the Chud lived together with the Russian population in the Arkhangelsk, Kholmogory and Pinezhsky counties. In the village of Chudinovo, on the Vaga River, local residents, completely Russified, remembered their Chud origin as early as the 40s. XX century. Finally, during the 2002 census, the Chud was entered as an independent nationality at number 351 in the list of nationalities and languages ​​of the Russian Federation. A certain number of residents of the Pinezhsky district of the Arkhangelsk region called themselves a miracle.

On the other hand, another Finnish ethnic group, the Karelians, settled widely in the north. Historically, the Karelians lived mainly on the Karelian Isthmus. Having become part of Russia at the dawn of its statehood and having adopted Orthodoxy in 1227, the Karelians, together with the Novgorodians, began to settle in Zavolochye. At the beginning of the 17th century, after the homeland of the Karelians went to Sweden, the Orthodox Karelians for the most part moved to Russia. This is how Tver Karelians, Tikhvin Karelians appeared, and the lands between Lake Onega and the White Sea became Karelia forever.

After the fall of the Novgorod Republic, the lands of the Russian North became part of the Muscovite state. Approximately from the middle of the 16th century, the name Pomorie was established outside the region.

Vyatka land

In the second half of the 12th century, Novgorodians and Rostovites began to move into the Cis-Urals. The Vyatka land stretched along the Vyatka River (a tributary of the Kama). There were quite fertile soils surrounded by impenetrable forests. As early as 1143, the Russian city of Kotelnich on the Vyatka River was mentioned. In 1174, the Novgorod ushkuyniki founded the city of Khlynov (Vyatka) and Nikulchin on the Khlynovitsa River. The city of Orlov was probably founded at the same time (first mentioned in chronicles only from 1459, but archaeological evidence suggests that a Russian settlement existed here three centuries earlier). Since that time, the penetration of Russian settlers to Vyatka begins. The city of Khlynov was a city with a regular street layout, log pavements and dwellings similar to those in Novgorod. Khlynov arose at the confluence of two settlements: the Udmurt, belonging to the Vyatka tribe, and the Russian one at the mouth of the Khlynovitsa River, which probably explains the double name of the city. The city received the name "Vyatka" only in 1781, and in 1934 it was renamed in honor of S. M. Kirov. In addition to these cities, there were volosts, graveyards and villages.

Due to its remoteness, the Vyatka land with its capital in Khlynov quickly turned into an independent state, becoming in fact another Russian republic. Vyatka formally recognized the power of the Grand Duke of Vladimir, and at the same time the Novgorod Republic, but in almost all of its affairs until the end of the 15th century it was completely independent.

The population of Vyatka was engaged in the extraction of furs, beekeeping and fishing. The state system of Vyatka was peculiar. Zemstvo governors ruled the republic, the local administration was in charge of Podvoi.

In addition to Russians, Udmurts (Votiaks), Maris (Cheremis) lived in Vyatka. Apparently, the influence of the natives was also reflected in the fact that many pagan survivals existed in Vyatka, in particular, polygamy.

Development of the North

What attracted Novgorodians and Rostovites to the north? First of all, furs were the main value for Russians. One can imagine the scale of the fur trade in Zavolochye in the 11th-13th centuries based on archaeological finds in Veliky Novgorod. So, on the found three wooden boxes-cylinders used for sealing bags in which furs were folded, the names "Pinega", "Ust-Vaga" and "Tikhmenga" - the names of famous northern rivers - were carved. Birch bark N 724 contains a report by some Savva, who talks about a conflict while collecting tribute in the north, and mentions arctic foxes, the furs of which were supposed to go to Novgorod.

In addition to furs, Zavolochye attracted Russians with an abundance of salt. In the Statutory Charter of 1137, “chrens” are mentioned - iron vats for boiling sea salt. From each such "draft" the Archbishop of Novgorod was paid a measure of salt. Salt evaporated from sea water was called "moryanka". But in the north there were many salt springs, which were called springs. Northern salt was highly valued in Russia, and for several centuries was one of the main economic activities of Russian settlers. The northern cities - Totma, Solvychegodsk, Nenoksa - rose and flourished on salt production.

The Solovetsky Monastery (the word "Solovki" itself has the root "salt" in its name) had about 50 varnits, which employed up to 800 permanent and about 300 temporary employees. In the 17th century, the Solovetsky Monastery was the main supplier of salt to the domestic Russian market, selling up to 180,000 pounds of salt per year. Salt-workers of the Dvina land and the Vologda region produced up to 800-1000 poods of salt per year and supplied this product to many regions of the Moscow state for more than two hundred years.

Another northern craft that had all-Russian significance was tar smoking. The resin was used to lubricate shoes, wheels, doors, in shipbuilding, leather craft. Already in the second half of the 14th century, resin was driven for sale in the possessions of the Novgorod boyars on the Vaga River. High quality resin was driven a little later also in Kholmogory, Velsk, on Pinega.

With the entry of the Russians to the coast of the Icy Sea, large-scale extraction of walrus ivory began. The oldest walrus tusk items found in Novgorod were found in layers of the 10th - early 11th centuries, which makes it possible to date the time of the first appearance of Russians on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. In addition to bone, marine animals were valued for their fat. Valuable species of fish were also mined in the North.

Somewhat later, mainly from the 15th century, mica mining began to develop in the north. Mica was used for windows and skylights. Russian mica was considered the best in the world and was one of the major Russian exports in the pre-Petrine era. In Western Europe, it was called "muscovite".

Pearls were also mined in the North. Pearl shells were found at the mouths of small northern rivers. For many centuries there was an industrial production of pearls, which became the most common jewelry in Russia. Starting from ancient times, they embroidered the clothes of rich and noble Russian people, church vestments and religious objects; large pearls were used to decorate secular and ecclesiastical items; necklaces, crowns were made from small pearls, they were decorated with buttons, pins, rings. In the north, where pearls were cheap and available, pearl jewelry became an integral part of the folk costume. Small pearls from the rivers of the Russian North were sold by weight; freshwater pearls "are not small and good, and clean" were sold by the piece. The well-known hydrologist of the first half of the 19th century, Stuckenberg, wrote: “There is no country in Europe that would be as rich as Russia in rivers and streams in which pearl shells are found.” The pearl rivers were located in the Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Vologda provinces, in the areas of Onega, Ladoga and Ilmen lakes, on the White Sea and off the coasts of the Arctic Ocean.

Amethyst was mined in the Kandalaksha Bay of the White Sea.

In 1491, an expedition led by the sovereigns Andrei Petrov and Vasily Boltin set off from Vologda to Pechora to search for silver and copper ore. The expedition found silver and copper ores on the tributary of the Pechora - the Tsilma. The year 1491 is considered to be the beginning of the mining and metallurgical industry in Russia. Unfortunately, the Tsilemskoye deposit turned out to be poor, and was soon abandoned.

Blacksmithing developed in the north. Northern craftsmen cast bells, and then cannons. In the Solovetsky and Kirillo-Belozersky monasteries in the 16th-17th centuries, the production of cannons was established. In 1679, Kholmogory gunsmiths received an order from Moscow for the manufacture of 2,000 weapon locks.

In the middle of the 16th century, earthen blood, that is, Ukhta oil, was delivered in barrels to Moscow to illuminate the streets of the capital.

Of course, the Russians, like the original tillers, were also engaged in agriculture in the north. The Russian North is still the region of the northernmost agriculture in the world. It is likely that the very first settlers began to plant vegetable gardens and start arable land. Following the ushkuiniki, the peasants also began to move to the North. Already at the beginning of the 12th century, the lands along the Vaga River, a tributary of the Northern Dvina, which were distinguished by fertility, reminiscent of the opoles of central Russia, became an agricultural region that supplied almost all of Zavolochye with bread. In the 15th century, not so much a geographical as an economic concept appeared - the Dvina land. It included land along the tributaries of the Northern Dvina, primarily the Vage, as well as land along the Pinega, Mezen and further east, to the Pechora.

Another agricultural territory was Zaonezhie - a vast region that includes the western coast of the White Sea and the left tributaries of the Onega River. Zaonezhye was inhabited not only by Novgorodians, but also by people from Rostov lands. The center of Zaonezhie was Kargopol. Arising around the middle of the 12th century, Kargopol was first mentioned in chronicles only in 1380, when the Kargopol prince Gleb took part in the Battle of Kulikovo. By the way, although the Novgorodians probably founded the city, Kargopol became the possession of the Rostov-Suzdal princes, and the Kargopols themselves are considered “rostovshchina” in the North.

Novgorod and Rostov boyars also rushed to the north, capturing vast possessions in the region.

A curious document has survived to this day - a bill of sale dated 1315, according to which the Chud foremen Azika, Haraginets, Rovda and Ignatets, for 20 thousand squirrels and 10 rubles, ceded a vast territory along Vaga to the Novgorod boyar Afanasy Danilovich. At the beginning of the 15th century, the famous Martha Boretskaya, better known as Martha Posadnitsa, was the largest owner of the Zaonezhsky lands.

By the end of the independence of the Novgorod Republic, more than 50 settlements founded by the boyars stood on the Dvina lands. It should be noted that the authorities of the republic were afraid of the appearance in the region of large landed estates of the boyars, capable of becoming specific princelings in these remote lands. The consent of the Novgorod vech or the blessing of the metropolitan was required to obtain land for a fiefdom. Only the powerful families of the Novgorod boyars, who occupied the most important republican posts, could create their own estates in the north.

At the same time, monastic colonization began. Initially, there were few monastic and church lands in the north. But from the second half of the XIV century, under the influence of the activities of Sergius of Radonezh, the rapid development of the northern monasteries began, more busy colonizing the empty northern territories than saving the souls of their inhabitants.

In 1397, St. Cyril, a disciple of Sergius of Radonezh, founded a monastery on the White Lake (Kirillo-Belozersky). His disciples later also founded a number of new monasteries.

In general, in the XIV century, such monastic cloisters as Lyavlensky on the Northern Dvina, Kevrolo-Voskresensky on Pinega, Muromsky on the Kola Peninsula, Strokinsky Hermitage and Kirillo-Chernogorsky near Kargopol appeared.

A special role not only in the religious, but also in the economic and cultural development of the North was played by the Solovetsky Monastery, founded in 1429 by the monks Herman and Savvaty. In 1436, after the death of Savvaty, the monk Zosima, a native of the village of Tolvui, arrived in Solovki, who later headed the monastery for 26 years, turning it into one of the spiritual centers of Russia. Later the monastery became one of the richest in the country. The monastery annually paid a huge amount of 4 thousand rubles to the royal treasury (in an era when the annual salary of a servant was 5 rubles!). The Solovetsky monks created an extremely efficient system of management in northern conditions. Even watermelons, peaches, tangerines, and grapes were grown on Solovki!

A significant role in the history of the Dvina lands was also played by the Antoniev-Siysky Monastery, founded by Anthony, a native of the village of Kekhta on the Northern Dvina, around 1520, on the Siya River, a tributary of the Northern Dvina, in the Kholmogory district of the Arkhangelsk region. On the Kola Peninsula in Pechenga, Tryphon founded a monastery around 1533, which became the center of culture beyond the Arctic Circle.

The level of monastic management is evidenced by such a boring statistical indicator as the yield on monastic lands in a northern climate on poor soils. So, at the Trinity Gledensky Monastery located to the north of Veliky Ustyug, where 87% of the soils were classified as “thin”, and the remaining 13% as “average”, the yield of rye was sam-5 and sam-6. It is interesting that in the black earth south on the sovereign's tithe arable land, the rye harvest was -2.5! All this was explained by the fact that the monks used the most advanced agricultural technology for that time. It also mattered that the monastic peasants were incomparably more free than the forced laborers of the fertile Chernozem region.

The Solovetsky monks themselves were indefatigable inventors. A certain elder Tarasy taught to separate salt from water in brine. Solovetsky abbot Philip used a special seeder, controlled by one person, on the farm.

Northern monasteries were not only the most important religious, economic and cultural centers. No less important is the fact that the monasteries became the stronghold of the Moscow princes, who "gathered" the Russian lands in the north. Almost all northern monasteries were strategic military outposts of the country. The Solovetsky Monastery, for example, had such powerful fortifications that they not only withstood an 8-year siege in 1668-1676, during the Schism, but even in the Crimean War, in 1855, the British naval artillery could not cause serious damage fortress walls of the 16th century.

In general, Pomorie in the XVI-XVII becomes one of the main grain regions of the country. The valley of the Sukhona River has become one of the main suppliers of marketable bread. This economic achievement became possible due to the free labor of the peasants of the North, who did not know the landowner above themselves, as well as the high level of literacy and education, in terms of which Pomorie was ahead of the rest of Russia.

Pomorie has achieved similar success in animal husbandry. Long, cool days in summer and high humidity favored the development of forage grasses for livestock. In the valleys of the Northern Dvina, Mezen, Onega, Pechora in the XVI-XVII centuries, highly productive cattle were raised. By the 18th century, the weight of bulls of the Kholmogory breed reached 600 kg, and the steppe bull of the Cherkasy breed weighed an average of 400 kg. Also in Pomorie, the Mezen breed of horses was bred.

The absence of serfdom in the North, as well as the fact that the Tatars did not reach here, led to the fact that the standard of living of the local residents was the highest in ancient Russia. Calculations made by a group of anthropologists led by T. I. Alekseeva show that the average life expectancy on the shores of the White Lake of the first settlers in XI-XIII approached the maximum for medieval Russia, and for women (who lived on average 43.5 years) even surpassed her. Thus, the Russian settlers in the north, despite the difficult natural conditions, thanks to favorable social conditions, reached a high standard of living. Also, Russian settlers in the north had a high cultural level (which, however, we will say below).

Pomorie inXV-XVII centuries

Differing from the bulk of the Russians in their dialect, clothing, customs, methods of economy and living, as it were, in the outskirts, away from the capitals, the northerners, however, always felt they were truly Russian people, not separating themselves from all of Russia. Certain circumstances of the accession of the North to the Moscow centralized state can be considered evidence.

By the end of the 14th century, the descendants of the Novgorodians began to gravitate toward Moscow, trying to break away from the Novgorod veche republic. In 1398, "the Dvinsky boyars and all the Dvinyans" "questioned" for the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily Dmitrievich, the son of Dmitry Donskoy. In response, Lord Veliky Novgorod sent an 8,000-strong army to the Dvina, which carried out a brutal reprisal against Moscow's supporters. The Grand Duke was forced to make peace "in the old way" and temporarily refuse to extend his power to the north. Later, in 1456, Vasily the Dark annexed part of the Novgorod possessions along the Northern Dvina and Pinega to his "sovereign estate". In 1471-78. after the fall of the Novgorod Republic, the entire Russian North became part of a single Russian state.

The history of the rebellions in the northern outskirts of the Novgorod Republic may seem absurd to a Western researcher. In fact, the Dvinians wanted to secede from Novgorod in order to exchange republican liberties for the sovereign's tax and taxes from Moscow. When the northerners faced an alternative - a single and indivisible Russia, together with the tax and discipline of autocratic power, or freedom in a single area, the northerners preferred unity to freedom.

After the annexation of Zavolochye to Moscow, a new stage in the history of the North begins. Pomorye (the term "Zavolochye" soon disappeared) occupied half of the entire territory of the Russian Muscovite State.

For Pomorie as a whole, including the developed lands for several centuries, the period from the end of the 15th to the beginning of the 18th centuries, that is, from the fall of the Novgorod Republic to the Petrine era, in particular, the founding of St. Petersburg, was an era of prosperity, a kind of "Golden Age" of Pomorie.

About 350 thousand people lived in the vast territory of Pomorie at the beginning of the 17th century. At the same time, 2/3 of the population lived in the Dvina district, and on the Pechora - only about 37 thousand people. There were 12 thousand households in Vyatka.

Local territorial groups of Russians from the XIV-XVI centuries. for a long time they were called purely geographically - Onezhans, Kargopolshchina, Belozers, Dvinyans, Poshekhontsy, Tebleshans, Ilmen Poozers, Kokshars, Ustyuzhans, Vazhans, Totmichi, Vychegodtsy, etc. Recall that there was also the word "Pomor", which was not so much geographical as professional in nature .

This region, not only for its size, but also for its economic significance, was of great importance for Russia. It was Pomorye that in pre-Petrine Russia was a “window to Europe”. Direct trade relations between Russia and the countries of Western Europe were established in the middle of the 16th century, more precisely, from 1553, when an English ship under the command of Chancellor ended up in the White Sea. The result was the establishment of trade and diplomatic relations between England and Russia. Somewhat later, the Dutch and sailors of other countries began to sail in Pomorie.

Trade with Western Europe went through Kholmogory. In 1584, Arkhangelsk was founded, which quickly became the capital of the Russian North, and almost a century and a half after its foundation - the only seaport in Russia. Furs, meat, resin, wheat, metals (copper, tin, lead), hemp were exported from Russia. Ropes for the British fleet were made at the "rope yard" in Kholmogory and a similar "yard" in Vologda. At the beginning of the 17th century, the same “Rope Yard” in Arkhangelsk served more than 400 workers, which made it one of the largest enterprises in Europe.

The resin produced at Vaga was considered the best in the world and was used to make ships watertight and keep them from rotting. Interestingly, England became the "mistress of the seas" after the defeat of the Spanish "Invincible Armada" in 1588, when the British ships received their equipment with ropes and resin from Russia.

The turnover of Russia's northern trade was significant. The turnover of the Arkhangelsk fair in the 17th century reached 3 million rubles (with a state budget of 8 million).

The active movement of goods and people also went along the river routes of the North - along the Northern Dvina and Sukhona. The turnover of the river route between Arkhangelsk and Vologda was 2-3 million pounds.

In the XVI-XVII centuries, thanks to the development of international trade, the cities of Veliky Ustyug, Kargopol, Vyatka, Totma, Solvychegodsk acquired great commercial and industrial importance. Despite the remoteness from the sea coast and Arkhangelsk, all these cities are referred to in official documents of the pre-Petrine time as “pomor cities”, which indicates the presence of a common economic structure that linked them into a single whole. The vast administrative region, which included not only the Dvina land, but also much more southern lands (including the territories of the modern Kirov and Vologda regions), was largely focused on trade through the port of Arkhangelsk. It is obvious that the huge dependence of the economy of this region on marine fisheries and international trade contributed to the formation of a common regional culture with a center in the capital of Pomorie - Arkhangelsk. In general, at the end of the 17th century, 70 Russian cities participated in trade with foreigners through the port of Arkhangelsk - almost all of Russia.

In addition to trade and crafts, the economic growth of Pomorie also affected agriculture. In the 17th century, the Sukhona River basin became one of the most important grain granaries in Russia. It may seem strange that it was in the north, where natural conditions are not very suitable for agriculture, that a granary of Russia could appear, but the absence of serfdom could make such a miracle.

Pomorye of that era successfully refutes the notion of a thousand-year-old "paradigm of lack of freedom", as various publicists of the times of "perestroika" liked to write. The Pomorie of pre-Petrine times could rightly be considered the freest society in Europe.

Traditional peasant communities: a community (land property), a volost (administrative-territorial community), a church parish (spiritual and liturgical community), which together make up the peasant "world", appeared in the Kyiv era. In the Russian North, under the influence of the Novgorod tradition, they acquired their own characteristic features.

Interestingly, after the annexation of the entire Pomorye to the autocratic Moscow state, Grand Duke Ivan III confiscated the estates of the Novgorod boyars. At the same time, the Moscow authorities, with the same suspicion as Mr. Veliky Novgorod had earlier, looked at the possibility of large boyar land ownership appearing in the north. As a result, not a boyar patrimony, but a peasant volost became the basis of economic and social life in the region. Thus, after the fall of the Novgorod Republic, the northern lands became truly self-governing.

Back in 1488, Ivan III issued the Charter of Belozersk immediately after the annexation of this region to the Muscovite state. According to this Charter, a kind of constitution of this region, the powers of the grand princely governors, the amount of "fodder" charged from each "plow", that is, the economy, were clearly defined.

The Belozersky charter served as a precedent for the Sudebnik of 1497, which, in turn, formed the basis for the following Sudebniks of Ivan the Terrible of 1547 and 1550.

Directly for Pomorye, special lip letters of 1539 were issued, on the basis of which the lip reform was later carried out throughout Russia. Created "lips" - criminal police districts. According to the sovereign's charters on the creation of lips, the persecution, catching and punishment of "dashing people" in each bay was carried out by the headman chosen by the population, reminiscent of his functions and powers of American sheriffs of the 19th century. The competence of the labial elders was quite large. They dealt with crimes such as theft, murder, arson, and were also in charge of prisons. The apparatus of the labial headman consisted of "kissers" who kissed the cross in the promise of faithful service, elected by peasants and townspeople. Under the labial headman, there was his own office (“lip hut”), in which the office work was conducted by the labial clerk.

In 1555-1556. Zemstvo reform was carried out everywhere. According to it, the black-eared peasants (the vast majority of the population of Pomorye), as well as the townspeople (townspeople) received the right to choose from among their “favorite heads” (headmen). It is significant that the earlier Sloboda charter of 1540 suggested choosing heads not from the nobles, but from the “best people” from the peasants. At the head of the region (volost or city) was a zemstvo elder elected by the population. His assistants were elected officials of a lower level - sots, fifties, tenths. The office of the zemstvo elder was called the zemstvo hut, which was led by the zemstvo clerk.

The zemstvo bodies were in charge of tax collection, analysis of civil and criminal (except high treason) cases.

In the 1550s into the hands of the elders, the king was transferred to the entire Dvina region. The tsarist governors were engaged only in the command of quartered military units, conscription for military service, monitored the maintenance of order, and exercised financial control.

At the grassroots level, all affairs were led by a peasant gathering. In the archives of the Kurostrovskaya volost, the “protocols” of 12 volost gatherings have been preserved. These gatherings determined the assessment of the property of their members, the measurement of land, and the supervision of communal lands. Local residents also monitored the state of the local church, hired a priest and the entire clergy.

The last circumstance is very interesting. In the North, the volost was not only a zemstvo unit, but also a church parish. As a rule, the buildings of temples were the place of zemstvo meetings. In churches and monastic refectories, royal decrees were read, transactions were made, and court hearings were held. The most peculiar thing for Pomorye at that time was that priestly positions in parishes were filled on the basis of decisions of volost meetings. Interestingly, it was precisely the election of the clergy by the parishioners that constituted the main requirement of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. Most of the chosen priests combined pastoral duties with worldly ones, being zemstvo elders.

The legal system of Pomorie is also interesting. The volost acted as a legal entity, owned land, lands, yards, made purchases and sales and donations.

In legal proceedings in Pomorie there was a jury trial. He listened to the testimony of witnesses (“rumors”) and written documents. The peace commissioners acted as advocates (lawyers, as they would be called today). After the trial, the acquitted party was given a right letter - a copy of the court decision with the seal and signature of the clerk.

Energetic and enterprising northerners became the very first explorers in Siberia. The natives of Veliky Ustyug were Semyon Dezhnev, Erofey Khabarov and Vladimir Atlasov. Most of the ordinary explorers and Siberian pioneers also came from Pomorie.

Northern Split

The schism of the Russian Church has become one of the most important and tragic pages in Russian history. In few regions of Russia, it had such consequences as in the North. Pomorye became the center of resistance of the Old Believers in the 1670s. and in fact "everything went into the Schism." This was explained both by the influence of local monasteries, primarily Solovetsky, and by the fact that it was the parishioners who controlled the priests, and therefore the local white clergy chose to support their flock, not obeying the orders of the hierarchy and not accepting new rites.

The Solovetsky Monastery, defending the "old faith", for 8 years, from 1668-76, withstood the siege of the royal archers. It is indicative that the monastery fell only as a result of betrayal, otherwise the siege could drag on for a long time, because in Solovki after its capture there were stocks of gunpowder and food for another 20 years! The tsarist archers perpetrated atrocious reprisals against the defenders of Solovki, torturing 400 captives.

A similar thing happened with the Paleostrovsky monastery, which fought off the sovereign's people for several months. One and a half thousand zealots of the old faith, led by a certain Herman, died with weapons in their hands.

The fall of the Solovetsky Monastery was only the beginning of the Schism. Proponents of the old faith in the 90s. XVII century in the dense forests on the banks of the river Vyg founded their monastery. Already in 1698, 2 thousand people lived on Vyga. The founders of the Pomeranian wing were the deacon Danila Vikulin (hence the other name - the Danilovites) and the Denisov brothers. In anticipation of the imminent end of the world, followers of the Pomeranian sect denied royal power, did not accept priests, and rejected marriage. However, soon the Pomeranians (as the supporters of the Pomeranian consent began to be called) abandoned celibacy and agreed to pray for the king.

No less than the feats of piety, the Vygovsky hermitage became famous for its economic successes. A diversified economy was created: arable lands were plowed up, cattle were bred, sea and animal trades, grain trade and handicraft industries were organized.

Vygovskaya Pustyn became one of the influential centers of the Old Believers-bespriests. In 1722, at the request of the Holy Synod, the Vygovtsy gave written answers to the questions proposed by them. The "Pomor Answers" of the Vygovtsy became one of the most important and interesting works of the Old Believers. "Answers" became a kind of declaration of the Old Believers and were accepted by all senses.

In the middle of the XVIII century. Vygovskaya Pustyn is a culturally and economically flourishing center of all Old Believers. It was a kind of state within a state. The Pomeranian Old Believers recreated a significant part of the cultural institutions that existed in Russia before the 18th century: church literature, icon painting, the education system, and the singing school. The originality of the continuity of tradition was enhanced by the fact that the culture of Vyga remained, first of all, a peasant one. Vyg turned out to be a place where the type of written and literary tradition that was destroyed by the Petrine era could be preserved for a longer time.

The peacefulness of the Vygovtsy, who did not want to quarrel with the authorities on which the Nikonian church relied, caused discontent among many Arkhangelsk and Olonets Old Believer communities. The radically minded part of the Pomeranian consent, headed by Elder Philip, formed its Philippian sense with its center on the Umba River in the Arctic, on the Kola Peninsula. In 1743, Philip and part of his followers, not wanting to fall into the hands of the soldiers sent after him, committed self-immolation. But the Philippian sense did not disappear, but, on the contrary, spread throughout the Russian North, and then spread to the Volga region.

In general, supporters of the Pomor persuasion in the Old Believers became one of the most prosperous and educated categories of the population in Russia. The Pomor scribes of books from the Olonets province had the reputation of being the best in their field. The Pomeranian handwritten books were distinguished by correct spelling and excellent calligraphy, thanks to which researchers can easily distinguish the Pomeranian book from other handwritten works.

The zealots of "ancient piety" were followed by a significant part of the population of Obonezhie (later - Olonets province, now - Karelia). The Old Believers in the North were divided into many interpretations and agreements, and only in 1988 the Old Orthodox Pomeranian Church was created.

Fleeing from the persecution of the authorities and the official "Nikonian" church, the Old Believers began to move even further deep into the northern lands. In particular, especially many of them began to arrive at Pechora. The Russian population of the Ust-Tsilemsky region (now in the Komi Republic) fully supported the Old Believers. Their descendants made up the original sub-ethnic group of the Ust-Tsilems.

Stagnation of the North during the imperial period

Peter the Great did an incredible amount to modernize Russia, but paradoxically, for the most advanced region in pre-Petrine Russia - Pomorye - the results of the emperor's transformations turned out to be different than for the whole country. Although it was in Pomorie that Peter first went to sea in 1693, it was from the Pomors that he formed the crews of the ships of the Baltic Fleet, for Pomorie the Petrine era turned out to be a ruin. The most skillful sailors were mobilized by the tsar to build a fleet, and to Petersburg. Mobilizations and taxes, the persecution of the Old Believers so numerous in the region, led to the terrible devastation of the region. The most important thing for undermining the economy and the special culture of the region was the deliberate restriction of the role of Arkhangelsk in international trade, so that it would not compete with St. Petersburg. Initially, of course, while the Northern War was going on, Arkhangelsk remained the main “window to Europe”. It is no coincidence that Charles XII in 1701, despite his self-confidence, which the victory near Narva aroused in him, sent his fleet to seize and burn the only Russian port. Thanks to the skillful actions of the Arkhangelsk garrison and the feat of the "sea Susanin", the Pomor Ryabov, the Swedish fleet was defeated, and Arkhangelsk continued to be the sea capital of Russia during the war for another two decades. In 1700, the number of foreign ships that arrived in the Arkhangelsk region was 64 ships, but in 1709 149 ships arrived in the capital of Pomorye, in 1715 - 233 ships. In 1710, more than 3 million rubles worth of goods were exported through the Arkhangelsk customs, and imported goods worth 1 million 606 thousand rubles were brought.

But as the Northern War turned in favor of Russia, Peter I began by his decrees to restrict trade through Arkhangelsk, actually sacrificing his interests in favor of the new Baltic port. In 1718, Peter issued a decree prohibiting the export of bread and the import of most foreign goods. Two-thirds of all goods were ordered to be brought to St. Petersburg. The number of ships coming to Arkhangelsk was sharply reduced. In 1722, only 60 ships came, in 1723 - 40, in 1724 - 22, in 1725 - 19.

As a port, Arkhangelsk existed for a century and a half, remaining the capital of the north. However, it was difficult for the Arkhangelsk port, which had a shorter navigation period and a longer route from European cities, to compete with St. Petersburg. When in 1762 Arkhangelsk was completely equated with St. Petersburg, this did not stop the decline of the northern city.

Arkhangelsk experienced a new, but very short, heyday in 1809-1814, when Russia was supposed to join the continental blockade of Great Britain by Napoleon. Naturally, taking advantage of the remoteness of the northern ports from the eyes of Napoleonic spies, the Arkhangelsk merchants launched (with the tacit approval of the Russian government) a brisk smuggling trade. More than 300 Russian merchant ships sailed illegally to England at that time on the White Sea. At the same time, British ships under the American flag visited Arkhangelsk (the United States was neutral in the Napoleonic wars that tore apart Europe). After the victory over Napoleon, Arkhangelsk again went into hibernation.

In 1862, the Arkhangelsk port was abolished by the government of the Russian Empire. The government document read: “The main port in Arkhangelsk is to be abolished and only the hydrographic part and the management of lighthouses and navigation are retained at this port ...”.

But if Arkhangelsk “only” fell into decay, then many cities of Pomorye simply disappeared, turning into villages. So, in 1637, there were 31 cities on the North Dvina waterway, and in 1719, after the abolition of this route, there were 19 of them.

The population of Pomorye at the beginning of the 18th century decreased due to mass migrations to the new capital of the empire, St. Petersburg, and the most educated and enterprising northerners moved (Lomonosov and the sculptor F. Shubin are only the most striking and famous examples of brain drain from Pomorye). The migration of northerners to Siberia, the Urals and even overseas continued. A native of Totma, I. Kuskov founded the Russian settlement of Fort Ross in California in 1811, and A. Baranov became the first ruler of Russian America from 1790 to 1818.

Significantly reduced the volume of fishing Pomors. If until the 18th century a large role for the Pomors was played by trades associated with long-distance travels outside the White Sea for such expensive prey as furs and walrus tusk, as well as other marine animal trades and Murmansk cod fishing, then from the 18th century the importance of local coastal fishing began to increase. on the White Sea. Mostly Pomors harvested salmon, herring and saffron cod for their own consumption.

The population began to grow from the second half of the 18th century, but slowly due to the ongoing outflow. In 1857, about 1.2 million people lived in the North. A period of economic and cultural stagnation of the region began. For example, the evaporation of salt completely stopped (competition with salt brought from the south of Russia affected). Likewise, the share of the North in fisheries has declined significantly, again under the influence of competition with the fisheries of the Caspian Basin. The fur trade has lost its all-Russian importance, since now the main part of the fur was mined in Siberia.

Gradually, the very historical name "Pomorye" disappeared.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian North administratively occupied the territories of the Arkhangelsk, Olonets and Vologda provinces.

The Arkhangelsk province occupied the territories of modern Arkhangelsk, Murmansk regions, a number of regions of modern Karelia and the Komi Republic, and was the largest province in European Russia in terms of territory. In terms of industrial production, the province occupied one of the last places in the empire. The population of the province (within the boundaries of 1913) increased over two centuries from 100 thousand to 376 thousand inhabitants in 1897, and 483 thousand by 1914. The city of Arkhangelsk, with its 21 thousand inhabitants, was a large city only in terms of the scale of the region. It is not surprising, because only 10 thousand citizens lived outside the provincial center in the cities of the province. There were 451 educational institutions in the once literate region in 1902, with 18,316 students, including 429 elementary and literacy schools, with 16,132 students; the rest are medium and professional.

The Vologda province had 1.5 million inhabitants, that is, it exceeded the Arkhangelsk province by 5 times. The provincial center of Vologda had 27 thousand inhabitants. However, the Vologda region was also a backward region. Only 19% of Vologda residents were literate.

The Olonets province, the center of which was Petrozavodsk, also had the reputation of "sub-capital Siberia" and "the land of fearless birds", and in 1913 had 364 thousand inhabitants, of which 12 thousand lived in Petrozavodsk, and in Olonets there were generally less than one and a half thousand inhabitants. The Vepsian, Karelian and Russian population of the Olonets province lived peacefully, the western regions were occupied by Karelians (16.3%) and Vepsians (4.4%), the Zaonezhsky Peninsula and Petrozavodsk were occupied by Russians (78.2%).

In the old-populated territory of the European North, Russians by the beginning of the 20th century. made up 89% of the population, the rest - Zyryans (now - Komi), Karelians, Chukhari (Vepsians), Lapps (Saami), Samoyeds (Nenets) - only 11%; 93% of the area of ​​the region belonged to the state, only 1% of the land was under peasant arable land. The population density in the region in 1897 was 1.6 people per 1 sq. km. km, in 1914 - 2.0 people. Its number in 1897 was 2,052 thousand people, in 1914 - 2,701 thousand. Migration of the population to other regions faded. The peasantry remained as before the main category of the population (2,513 thousand in 1914), the urban estates numbered 188 thousand people.

The economy of the region developed slowly, but, nevertheless, could boast of many achievements. For example, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Russia was the world's largest producer and exporter of flax products. It supplied to the foreign market up to 80% of all flax produced in the world. And the Vologda province occupied one of the leading places among the 27 flax-growing regions of Russia.

Flax growing in the Vologda province has a long tradition. The first evidence of flax cultivation near Vologda is found in documents from the 13th century. The soil and climatic conditions contributed to the production of high quality flax fiber here. The geographical position of the Vologda Territory contributed to its sale abroad along the Sheksna - to the Baltic Sea and along the Sukhona - to the White Sea. Commodity flax growing developed especially successfully in the Vologda, Kadnikovsky and Gryazovets counties.

In the North, barley was grown, for the production of which Russia was in first place in the world. Also, the North was the main Russian center for the cultivation of hemp, for the production of which Russia also ranked first in the world.

It cannot be said that the Russian North was dormant, but in comparison with the previous development of the region, two centuries after Peter the Great can be considered a period of stagnation.

However, paradoxically, it was precisely this circumstance that contributed to the preservation of many elements of ancient Russian culture and life in the North. Indeed, the North has become a living ethnographic museum. Since, as already mentioned, the North did not know the Tatar yoke, serfdom, and a significant part of the population were Old Believers, who stubbornly sought to preserve the “old times” not only in the field of religion, but also in life in general, the stop in the development of the region led to the preservation of forgotten throughout the rest of Russia features of ancient Russian culture. In the 19th century, the North began to be called "Russian Iceland". Just as in Iceland, precisely because of the stagnation of the local society, the ancient German epic was preserved for science, so in the Russian North epics from the times of Kievan Rus were discovered. In the early 60s. XIX century P. N. Rybnikov, exiled to the Olonets province for participating in student riots, recorded about 200 epics, historical songs and other works.

A.F. Gilferding (1831-1872) became the real discoverer of northern epics. In the summer of 1871, he set off from Petrozavodsk on a trip to the Olonets province. In three months of intense research, interviewing more than 70 folk storytellers (of which only five were literate), scrupulously filling more than 2 thousand pages with collected samples of folk poetry, Hilferding accomplished a real scientific feat. The article published as a result of the trip "Olonets province and its rhapsody", which Hilferding posted in the journal "Bulletin of Europe" (N 3, 1872), became a real sensation. Once Pushkin called Karamzin, evaluating his great "History of the Russian State", "the Columbus of Russian antiquities." With no less reason, Alexander Hilferding can be called the "Columbus of the Russian folk epic."

The result of Hilferding's trip to the North was a collection of 318 epics with the names of the storytellers and the names of the villages where they were recorded. For the ethnography of the 19th century, when the creation of author's works based on folklore motives prevailed, this was new. In 1872 Hilferding went on a new trip to the North, but on the way he caught a cold and died in Kargopol. Hilferding's case did not disappear, and after him new researchers went to the North, who managed to record and thereby preserve the ancient Russian folklore for posterity.

Historian V.O. Klyuchevsky noted the paradoxical fact that in the North: “The historical epic flourished where it was not sown, and disappeared where it grew ... Obviously, these poetic legends moved to the distant North along with the very population that composed and sang them . This resettlement took place even before the 14th century, that is, before the appearance of Lithuania and the Poles in the south of Russia, because in the most ancient heroic epics there is still no mention of these later enemies of Russia.

In addition to oral folk art, many monuments of ancient Russian material culture have been preserved in the North - examples of architecture, ancient books. So, in 1876, the merchant of the 2nd guild S. T. Bolshakov bought the Gospel of 1092 from a peasant, known as the “Arkhangelsk Gospel”. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the scientific study of the North began. Artists and writers helped to see the originality and beauty of the northern nature, to realize the role of the North as the guardian of Russian culture. The pilgrimage of artists to the North begins, books and paintings dedicated to him appear.

In the Russian North, many types of traditional applied art were not only preserved, but also actively developed. Only in one Vologda province in 1882, as can be judged from the materials of the industrial and art exhibition in Moscow, there were 18 varieties of handicraft industry and 11 types of individual cottage industry.

In the same Vologda province, lace-making flourished. Lace is a very ancient type of arts and crafts. The data of archeology, history of art and writing suggest that lace-making was known to the Egyptians and Greeks even before our era. However, it became widespread in Europe later, only from the end of the 15th-beginning of the 16th century. It was produced in many countries. For a long time, Italy occupied a leading position in this industry, then she had to give up the leadership of Flanders (the duchy in the territory of present-day Belgium and the Netherlands) and France.

The first information about lace in Russia dates back to the 13th century. The Ipatiev Chronicle tells how in 1252 Prince Daniel of Galicia received foreign ambassadors in rich clothes with trim resembling lace. But they became a noticeable phenomenon in the daily life of Russia in the 17th century. Moreover, lace products were common both at the royal court, and among the merchants, and among the peasants. Only their quality, of course, was different.

The earliest examples of Vologda lace-making date back to the 17th century. These are the so-called "golden" laces made of gold and silver threads. They were sold by weight, taking into account primarily the value of precious metals, and not the craftsmanship. Such lace was used to decorate outfits made of dense expensive fabrics - brocade, velvet, and patterned silk. They were also used to decorate church utensils.

In the second half of the XIX century. lace-making quickly spread in the central districts of the Vologda province. In 1893, 4,000 lace-makers were engaged in lace-making in the Vologda province, and in 1912 there were already about 40,000 lace-makers. According to statistics, 20% of them were teenage girls. They usually started learning the craft at the age of 5-7. There were cases when boys also wove lace.

Finished products through buyers got to Moscow and St. Petersburg. In the capital's stores, Vologda lace was highly valued. It happened that they were passed off as foreign, thereby trying to increase the cost. But tricks of this kind were unnecessary: ​​in terms of their merits, the products of craftswomen from the Vologda province were not inferior to foreign samples. In 1876, Vologda lace was highly appreciated at the international exhibition in Philadelphia. With the same success they were demonstrated in 1893 in Chicago.

In Kargopol, the craft of clay toys became widespread.

In the forest-rich region, the manufacture of wooden utensils is widespread. This occupation acquired the character of fishing in the villages located on the banks of the Kubena River. Carved ladles made in the Totma district were considered good goods.

But not only villagers were engaged in the manufacture of wooden utensils in the Vologda province. Its production was also established in monasteries. Masters from the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery and the surrounding villages (Velikoslavinsky, Sannikov, etc.) have long been famous for their wooden utensils. Back in the 17th century. their products were sent for sale to Vologda, Veliky Ustyug, Moscow, Novgorod. The monastic dishes also came to the royal court, where they received the special name "Kirillovskaya".

In the XIX-beginning of the XX century. in every peasant house in the North one could find birch bark baskets, baskets for bread, shovelers, boxes, large birch bark bottles for storing grain, pesters, salt boxes, birch bark sandals (feet).

But the northerners, who were distinguished by a rich aesthetic sense, used birch bark not only for domestic needs. The art of birch bark carving brought fame to the craftsmen of the Shemogodsky volost of the Veliky Ustyug district. Already in the XVIII century. the inhabitants of the village of Kurovo-Navolok and neighboring villages located along the Shemoksa River, a tributary of the Northern Dvina, carved openwork patterns on birch bark plates and applied embossing to them. Over time, this type of craftsmanship turned into a craft. In 1791, the famous Russian traveler P.I. Chelishchev wrote about products made of birch bark as a commodity. At the fair in Veliky Ustyug, he saw in the stalls and "printed beetroots with figurines." According to the volost, the craft was called “Shemogodskaya” carving.

This technique was used in the manufacture of caskets, boxes, tea caddies, pencil cases, tuesov, dishes, plates, cigarette cases. Decorated with carved birch bark, they took on the appearance of elegant, skillfully made products. Openwork ornaments of Shemogoda carvers were called "birch lace".

At the end of the XIX-beginning of the XX century. The trade of Domshinsky birch bark has also gained wide popularity. It got its name from the Domshinsky volost of the Vologda district, in the villages of which the craftsmen decorated wicker birch products in a special way.

The long-standing northern traditions of artistic metal processing contributed to the development of such an artistic craft as blackening on silver in Veliky Ustyug (Veliky Ustyug, or northern niello). In the era of Kievan Rus, blackening on silver was very common. But the centuries of the Tatar yoke led to the death of this art form throughout Russia, except for the North. Moreover, paradoxically, it was in the era of stagnation that the art of blackening on silver on silver received a new development. In 1762, the brothers Afanasy and Stepan Popov opened a factory for the production of niello and enamel products in Veliky Ustyug. 30 best masters of enamel and niello worked there. The factory produced a wide variety of items - from huge salaries for liturgical books to tiny perfume bottles, snuff boxes, boxes and other toilet accessories. Although the factory existed for 15 years, it marked the beginning of the development of the industry. In the 18th-first half of the 19th century, the art of the northern niello flourished in Veliky Ustyug, but by the beginning of the 20th century, it experienced a certain decline.

In the economic sphere, the North also did not remain aloof from the rapid pace of development of Russian industry at the end of the 19th and 20th centuries. The Vologda province has become one of the centers of Russian butter-making. In 1871, Nikolai Vereshchagin, the elder brother of the famous artist, organized a butter factory in the Vologda province, laying the foundation for the production of Vologda oil.

Cheese making also developed in the northern provinces. Although our ancestors made cheese back in the pre-state period (it is no coincidence that the word “cheese” sounds the same in all Slavic languages), but industrial cheese making began only in the second half of the 19th century by the same Nikolai Vereshchagin. Thanks to the peculiarities of the northern climate, the use of advanced industrial technologies, and, finally, thanks to the Moscow-Vologda railway, which made it possible to deliver butter and cheese from the Vologda province to the capital and then to world markets, the era of Russian industrial cheese making began.

Russian North in the XX century.

From the stagnation, the North began to slowly emerge from the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1898, the Vologda-Arkhangelsk railway went into operation. The railway from Vyatka approached Kotlas. Siberian bread began to flow through it for export through Arkhangelsk. In 1906, the St. Petersburg-Vologda-Perm railway was launched. All this contributed to the revival of the economic life of the region. Vologda butter-making and cheese-making are gaining worldwide fame, pulp-and-paper and sawmill enterprises are emerging. In general, the North in 1912 accounted for no more than 1% of the entire industry of Russia, so it would be premature to talk about the beginning of a new prosperity. More than 2/3 of the entire industry was provided by the timber and woodworking industries. The food industry (especially the production of butter and cheese) accounted for one fifth of the region's industry. However, due to the difficulty of counting the handicraft industries so developed in the North, all statistical indicators remained rather conditional.

During the First World War 1914-18. The Russian North unexpectedly turned out to be a frontline zone. Since the exit from the Baltic and Black Seas was in the hands of Germany and Turkey, the only way connecting Russia with the Entente allies turned out to be the Arctic Ocean. Although quite a lot was said and written about the strategic importance of the polar seas in Russia, it was only in 1915-16 that the northernmost Murmansk railway in the world was built with incredible speed, linking St. Petersburg with the non-freezing part of the Barents Sea. On September 21 (October 4), 1916, the city of Romanov-on-Murman was opened. However, the new city bore such a name only for a few months. After the fall of the monarchy, the city lost its dynastic name "Romanov", becoming simply Murmansk.

The year 1917 was for the North, as well as for the whole country, a time of radical change. Interestingly, the influence of the Bolsheviks in the North was initially insignificant. Socialist-Revolutionaries predominated in the soviets that arose after the February Revolution in the region. It seemed that the North could become a stronghold of anti-Bolshevik forces, because the absence of landowners would make the northern peasantry immune to Bolshevik propaganda, and there was almost no working class here due to the fact that there were no large industrial enterprises. But when, at the invitation of the local Socialist-Revolutionary Soviets, in the summer of 1918, foreign interventionists arrived and established a real colonial regime in the region, the sympathies of the “petty-bourgeois” (in Bolshevik terminology) northerners turned to the Bolsheviks.

The occupation regime of the Entente in the North was characterized by cruelty and looting. In the concentration camps created by the interventionists, there were 52,000 prisoners. 4,000 of them were shot, the rest worked from 5 am to 11 am. Severe exploitation, poor nutrition and lack of medical care led to high mortality.

In the fighting against the Reds, the British, by order of the then British Minister of Arms, W. Churchill, used chemical warfare agents. According to the British newspaper "Daily Mail" dated October 2, 2013, Churchill ordered 50 thousand shells filled with the most deadly gas at that time to be dropped from airplanes on the villages and positions of the Red Army troops in August-September 1918.

At the same time, the invaders carried out a large-scale robbery of the region. In 1919, the Manager of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Department of the puppet "government" N. Tchaikovsky complained that foreigners exported goods worth approximately 4 million pounds, of which, according to the calculations of the Soviet historian A.V. The Americans exported 304,575 pounds of one flax from Beryozkina alone. It is understandable why the Civil War in the North quickly took on the character of a national liberation war against foreign occupiers and their henchmen. The inhabitants of the North, regardless of their political sympathies and class position, supported the Bolsheviks, who were considered "their sons of bitches."

What is striking in the Civil War in the North is the absence of any significant internal counter-revolution and the surprising weakness of the local white movement. There was mainly a lake-river guerrilla war waged by Russian irregular units, calling themselves the Red Army, against the Anglo-French-American-Finnish troops with a certain number of Russian collaborators, or "whites".

In the 20-30s. The north began to develop rapidly. The development of natural resources and the development of forestry began. In addition to economic, the development of the North was influenced by geopolitical problems. After the separation of the Baltic States, the USSR retained a small territory on the Baltic Sea. The experience of the First World War showed the strategic importance of the North, while there were practically no Soviet warships. In 1931-33. By the hands of about 120 thousand prisoners, the 227-kilometer White Sea-Baltic Canal was dug, connecting the White Sea with Lake Onega and having access to the Baltic Sea and the Volga-Baltic waterway. Thanks to this northernmost canal in the world, it became possible to quickly transfer warships from the Baltic to the Arctic Ocean. In 1933, the Northern Fleet of the Soviet Union was created.

At the same time, apatite mining began on the Kola Peninsula, and the development of coal deposits began in the Pechora Basin. The main branch of industry in the pre-war years was forestry, and it was not by chance that the North was called the “all-Union sawmill”.

The population of the North increased significantly due to those who, voluntarily or involuntarily, arrived from all over the country to shock construction sites, mines, roads, canals, and factories. For 1926-39 13 new cities were built in the region, including Monchegorsk, Kirovsk, Severodvinsk, Inta, Sosnogorsk, Kondopoga, and others. The "old" cities significantly increased their population. Thus, Arkhangelsk, with less than 50,000 inhabitants by 1920, grew to 284,000 inhabitants in 1939. The population of Vologda grew from 58,000 in 1926 to 95,000 in 1939. Petrozavodsk for the same years grew from 27 to 70 thousand inhabitants.

Particularly impressive is the growth of the population of the Kola Peninsula, on the territory of which the Murmansk region was formed. In 1895, there were only 8 thousand inhabitants in the Kola district (of which 5.7 thousand Russian Pomors, 2 thousand Lapps, as well as about a thousand Finns and Norwegians). In 1914, the entire permanent population of the Kola Peninsula numbered 13 thousand people. But by 1939, 300 thousand people lived in the region, of which 117 thousand lived in Murmansk itself.

On the other hand, the population of the deep rural areas of the Russian North was declining. In the Vologda Oblast, the population decreased by 200,000 people between 1926 and 1939 (from 1,800,000 to 1,600,000).

After the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40. The territories on the Karelian Isthmus and along the northern shore of Lake Ladoga were ceded to the USSR. Since the Finnish population of these lands was deported to Finland, the colonization of the annexed territories by settlers from all over the Soviet Union began.

During the Great Patriotic War, the North turned out to be a theater of military operations. Naval battles were going on in the Arctic latitudes, a front was formed along the entire land border of the USSR with Norway occupied by the Germans and Hitler's ally Finland. In general, military actions affected the waters of the seas adjacent to the north and border territories. Finnish troops occupied part of Soviet Karelia, including Petrozavodsk (which the occupiers renamed Yajanislinna (Onega Fortress), cut the Murmansk railway, and advanced to the Svir River, where they were stopped by Soviet troops.

A partisan movement unfolded in the territory occupied by the Finns. In total, 15 partisan detachments operated in Karelia. Taking into account the replenishment, the total number of partisans in Karelia was 5 thousand fighters. In order to deprive the partisans of the support of the local population, the invaders created 10 concentration camps. With a total population of the occupied territories of Karelia of approximately 86,000 people, 30,000 people passed through the Finnish concentration camps, of which a third died.

4 Photo. Children in the Petrozavodsk "resettlement" camp in 1944.

Communication with the Western allies was carried out through the northern ports. At the height of the war, the extraction of strategic minerals continued. Thus, the large-scale coal mining in the Vorkuta polar coal basin was carried out mainly by the hands of prisoners and labor army workers. In 1942, the Pechora railway from Kotlas to Vorkuta was rapidly built. The mining settlement of Vorkuta in 1943 received the status of a city.

After the war, the development of the region continued along the lines laid down in the 1930s. samples. The north was still the center of forestry, the extraction of raw materials (Vorkuta coal, Ukhta oil, Kola apatites), and fishing in the northern seas. Prison labor continued to be widely used in logging and mines. The development of the military infrastructure of the region continued. Murmansk became the center of the strategic northern fleet of the USSR. In the Arkhangelsk region, in Plesetsk, a cosmodrome was built. Nuclear submarine missile carriers were built in the city of Severodvinsk. On the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in 1954-90. nuclear tests were carried out.

The population continued to grow, both due to natural increase and migration. In 1989, more than 1 mil. population, in the Arkhangelsk region - over 1.5 million, in Karelia - 780 thousand, in the Komi Republic - 1.25 million, in the Vologda region - 1.350 million.

In general, during the Soviet era, the Russian North experienced a radical break in all spheres of life. The traditional northern way of life was largely destroyed, and the general Soviet cultural and economic preferences became characteristic of the northerners. As a result of mass migration, the North also lost its ethnic integrity.

The number of migrants who arrived in the North during the Soviet era exceeded the number of hereditary northerners. As a result, large communities of all ethnic groups of the USSR formed in the North. For example, Ukrainians and Belarusians, who were almost absent in the North before, began to make up a large part of the population of the northern regions and republics (in the 1950s, Belarusians made up 11% of the population of Karelia, Ukrainians -10% of the inhabitants of the Komi Republic). Tatars, representatives of the Caucasian peoples, also appeared here. However, gradually the proportion of the Russian population in the North began to increase again, mainly due to the fact that the children of Ukrainians and Belarusians began to identify themselves as Russians.

On the other hand, the rural areas of the North themselves became suppliers of labor for the great construction projects of communism. The population of the Vologda Oblast, which had neither ports nor significant mineral deposits, decreased from 1,800 thousand people in 1926 to 1,353 thousand people in 1989, with 2/3 of the Vologda residents living in cities.

For the northerners themselves, the Soviet era was a time of loss of many traditional crafts and crafts. The 20th century was a time of mass urbanization, and now the vast majority of the population of the North lives in large cities with their characteristic cultural unification. "Depeasantization" in the North was even more widespread than in the central regions of Russia; as a result, the northern peasantry was actually liquidated as a class.

The Church, both Old Believer and "Nikonian", was also persecuted. The religious life of the northerners was eradicated with firm consistency. By 1923, all monasteries were closed, the infamous SLON (Solovki Special Purpose Camp) was opened in the Solovetsky Monastery, and by the end of the 1920s, organized church life was completely eliminated. Even the traces of the former spiritual life were destroyed. In Arkhangelsk, for example, all monuments of church architecture were destroyed.

The post-war Stalinist policy of allowing the existence of the Church affected the North very little. In the Arkhangelsk diocese (it then included not only the Arkhangelsk, but also the Murmansk region and the Komi Republic) in the 70s there were only 18 churches. In Karelia (in the church-administrative sense included in the Leningrad diocese) by the beginning of "perestroika" there were only 5 Orthodox parishes left.

Contrary to popular belief, many types of folk art in the Soviet era received state support and reached a new level in their development. So, in 1933, the artel "Northern Niello" was created, and this ancient art was revived. The art of carved birch bark, Kargopol toys, Vologda laces was also revived. By the way, in 1937 and 1958, at international exhibitions in Paris and Brussels, Vologda lace products received the first prizes.

During the Soviet era, the North ceased to be a land of illiteracy, small indigenous peoples received a written language, and the Karelians and Komi also received autonomy.

After the collapse of the USSR and the beginning of the "reforms", the North experienced a severe crisis, more acute than in most regions of the Russian Federation. The outflow of the population began, caused by the closure of many enterprises and the reduction of troops. Given the excess of mortality over births, this caused a real demographic catastrophe in the Russian North. Thus, in Murmansk, the number of city residents decreased by 150,000 compared to 1989, that is, by almost a third. A comparable decline among cities with a population of more than 100 thousand inhabitants was only in Grozny and Magadan, destroyed by the war. The entire population of the Murmansk region decreased from 1,025 thousand in 1989 to 796 thousand in 2010. The Arkhangelsk region, which had 1,515 thousand inhabitants in 1989, had only 1,228 thousand inhabitants in 2010. The population of Karelia decreased from 760 to 645 thousand inhabitants, and the number of inhabitants in the Komi Republic decreased from 1,250 thousand to 900 thousand people. The mining village of Khalmer-Yu in the Komi Republic, after the mine was closed in 1995 due to unprofitability, the financing of the village was stopped, then residents who did not want to leave were forcibly evacuated with the help of riot police. After that, the railway from Vorkuta was dismantled, and Khalmer-Yu became one of the completely abandoned cities: in the middle of the taiga there are slowly collapsing boxes of multi-storey buildings, not a single person lives around for many kilometers. In the Vologda Oblast, the population decreased over 21 years from 1,353,000 in 1989 to 1,202,000 people,

However, the migration of people from the North Caucasus region and Transcaucasia continues to the North. The emergence of large ethnic diasporas led to a number of ethnic clashes, for example, in Kondopoga.

With such demographic and ethnic indicators, the Russian North entered the new millennium.

(To be continued)

Solovyov S. M. History of Russia since ancient times. M., 1988, book 1, vol. 1, p. 58

Russian North. Ethnic history and folk culture of the XII-XX centuries. M, 2004. p. 17

Milchik M.I. Along the banks of Pinega and Mezen. L., 1971. C. 15, 20, 56, 155, 156

Kolomiytsev I. Secrets of Great Scythia. M. : Olma-Press, 2005, p. 108

I. V. Vlasova. Folk consciousness and culture of the North Russian population. // Essays on Russian folk culture. M., Nauka, 2009, p. 124

Bulatov V.N. Russian North. M, 2006, p.7 Lukyanov V.S. Tragic Zaonezhie. Petrozavodsk, 2004. C.14

WORD TO THE READER

Look at the map of the Vologda Oblast. In the northeast of a vast forest area there is a small town Nikolsk. He, like a person, has his own appearance, his own destiny, his own history. From time immemorial, Nikolsk has been considered a symbol of a provincial outback. It is difficult to reconcile with such a statement. Once you visit there, you fall in love with the city, you are fascinated by the unique monuments of provincial antiquity, wooden mansions, and most importantly, communication with its inhabitants. Agree that Nikolsk residents and visitors feel in Nikolsk a “special feature” expressed in the surrounding reality. It is she who makes the amazing northeastern town native and attractive. I don’t know, it seems to me that Nikolsk and its inhabitants conquer with the charm of sincerity and originality.
Nikolsk is a truly northern city. The city-worker, the city-custodian of traditions. His discreet beauty and calm dignity are true. Originally his self-awareness of his own necessity and significance in human destinies. Here, historical memory, wise concentration, slowness in deeds and undertakings are poured into the air, giving confidence in the future. In its decoration there is no noisy arrogance, importunity and unbridled narcissism, which are typical for capital cities. In Nikolsk, everything is planned, proportionate, and it is thought somehow differently here - softer, more lyrical ... Nikolsk is a small town, of which there are thousands in the Fatherland. But with every step of his history, he affirmed the foundations of the state for several generations of citizens.
It was eccentric to consider Nikolsk and its environs as a symbol of a provincial outback. Nikolsk never gave the impression of stiffness, idle contemplation, detachment from the existing foundations of life. Here everything was the same as elsewhere in our state. From the very first centuries of local history, people worked, learned about life, made friends, fell in love, created families, raised children, completed their journey on earth, fulfilling their life purpose.
What is this life purpose? Each person independently determines it for himself. For some, as for A. S. Pushkin, it consisted in awakening “good feelings” with a lyre, in order to glorify freedom “and mercy for the fallen” to call. An equally worthy mission is to devote yourself to the well-being of your loved ones, relatives, and your family. Or, as Nikolsk residents Ivan Stepanovich Kubasov, Vladimir Vasilyevich Spirin, Mikhail Avtonomovich Perov, Antonina Yakovlevna Kolotilova, Evgenia Alexandrovna Tropina, Alexander Yakovlevich Yashin did, devote themselves to glorifying Nikolsk and creating interesting traditions of the culture of the Russian province there. But in order to answer the question about one's own destiny, it is necessary to realize oneself in the fullness of human life in today's dimension. But this will not happen if we forget the history of our small homeland. She always acts as a guiding star, which, like "the land of fathers and grandfathers ... gave me everything, without depriving me of anything: neither joy, nor pride, nor pain."
Once the ancient Roman writer and historian Plutarch said: “As for me, I live in a small town and, in order not to make it even smaller, I am going to live in it further.” Agree, a wise phrase. We also wish the reader human wisdom, which will help not to offend his native city, the city of Nikolsk.

Sergei Tikhomirov

D. D. Badanin, R. P. Bilanchuk, A. N. Naumov, V. A. Smirnov, A. V. Suvorov, M. E. Shilovsky

I

In ancient, or, as they used to say, "prehistoric" times, the territory now called the European North was predominantly inhabited by Finno-Ugric tribes. A significant number of publications of a scientific and popular science nature are devoted to the study of their history and culture. The main problem, which to this day worries specialists in the history of the Finno-Ugric peoples, remains the clarification of the chronological and geographical boundaries of the initial origin of this linguistic and ethnic community.
According to one of the widespread points of view, the future Finno-Ugric tribes were formed in the Neolithic era - the New Stone Age (for the forest zone of the European part of Russia, this period dates back to the 6th - 3rd millennium BC), at the same time they also settled huge forests from the Baltic to the Urals. From the point of view of the sequence of archaeological cultures, the ancient Finno-Ugric peoples in this case should correspond to the Neolithic culture of pit-comb ceramics.
Other scholars insist that the ancient Finno-Ugric peoples appeared in the 3rd millennium BC. The Urals and the Volga-Kama region became their historical ancestral home. The primary unity of the future Finno-Ugric peoples around the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC broke up and began to move. A long period of gradual settlement and development of new territories began, stretching for several centuries.
The aborigines who lived in these parts after the end of the Ice Age, at least from the 10th millennium BC, were assimilated by new tribes who occupied the practically undeveloped expanses of the European North. By the 1st millennium BC, the Finno-Ugrians settled to the Baltic states (modern Finns, Karelians, Estonians, etc.) and northern Scandinavia (Saami), occupying the forest belt of Eastern Europe. In Russian chronicles, to which we will turn later, they are known as the tribes of Mary, Murom, Chud, Perm.
On a linguistic basis, the Finno-Ugric peoples (more precisely, the peoples who speak Finno-Ugric languages) can be divided into two large branches: Ugric and Finno-Perm. The Hungarian, Vogul and Ostyak languages ​​belong to the Ugric branch. The Finno-Permian linguistic community is more extensive: three groups of languages ​​can be distinguished in its composition: 1) the Permian group, which includes the Udmurt (Votyak) and Komi (Zyryan and Perm) languages; 2) Eastern Finnish group - Mari (Cheremis) and Mordovian (Erzya and Moksha) languages; 3) the Western Finnish group, consisting of Karelian, Estonian and Suomi (that is, actually Finnish) languages. The ancestors of these peoples were tribes that settled in ancient times in the north and northeast of modern Russia.
In the first century AD, information about the Finno-Ugric peoples first appears in written sources. The ancient Roman historian Tacitus, in his famous book on Germany, mentions three tribes that lived in the territory between the "Germans and the Sarmatians." These are Peucins, Wends and Fenns. Many historians identify the Tacitus Wends with the Slavs, and the Fenns with the Finns.
The first mention of the peoples who lived on the territory of the Vologda region dates back to the middle of the 6th century AD. The Gothic historian Jordan, when listing the peoples of northern Europe, mentions the Chud, the whole and measure. According to researchers, Jordan took this information from an earlier source of the 4th century, which described the route from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, which then passed through the Upper Volga.
The well-known Russian publicist, writer and historian N. M. Karamzin, relying on the news of the above-mentioned Cornelius Tacitus, in his “History of the Russian State” noted the following: “... this people is ancient and numerous, occupying such a great space in Europe and Asia, did not have a historian, because he was never famous for victories, did not take away foreign lands ... and in poverty he sought security for himself, having no houses, no horses, no weapons, eating herbs, dressing in animal skins, hiding from the weather with woven branches " . Among the "rare blessings" inherent, according to the author, to the "Finnish tribe", for lack of anything else, the Russian historian especially noted "independence, happy from fate."
The meager and fragmentary information of ancient authors about the peoples who inhabited the north of Europe, however, as well as the opinion on this subject of a Russian researcher of the early 19th century, reflected the level of development of historical and geographical knowledge of their time.
Great changes in our understanding of the ancient history of the European North were made by the development of the science of archeology. Where ancient sources are silent or they do not exist at all, archaeological research becomes the only way to know the past.
Under the influence of new knowledge, scientists gradually parted with ideas about the perfect "savagery" and underdevelopment of the peoples who inhabited the North in antiquity. Numerous places of ancient settlements of the Finno-Ugric and other peoples were discovered - settlements and settlements, burials and tools of economic activity were studied, migration routes of the population of the North and trade relations were outlined. And although far from everything has been done in the scientific research of our northern region, we can now speak more confidently about many things in the ancient history of the North.
Let us single out the period from the second half of the first to the early centuries of the second millennium AD. This time was marked by serious shifts in economic and social development, the gradual formation of large ethnic communities that laid the foundation for the medieval Finno-Ugric peoples.
The north of the European part of our country in the second half of the 1st millennium AD belonged to the ancestors of the Veps, Ves, Zavolochskaya Chud and Northern Komi. The basis of the economy of the majority of the Finno-Ugric tribes was hunting, fishing, various forest crafts. Those who settled on the sea coast successfully mastered the prey of sea animals.
Archaeological materials testify to the important place in the economy of this time of fur trade. The presence of specialized fur hunting suggests that the skins of beavers and other fur-bearing animals could become the subject of trade with other, more southern lands. Some tribes already in the 1st millennium of our era were familiar with agriculture and cattle breeding.
For example, archaeologists note a high level of agricultural development in the ancient villages, which occupied the western limits of the European North and the modern Vologda region. Of great interest in this respect are the excavation materials of the settlement near the village of Gorodishche, Kirillovsky District, Vologda Region, and the most ancient layer of Beloozero.
Scientists associate the emergence of a large metallurgical and trading center with the ancient Beloozero. The extraction and processing of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, the manufacture of a wide range of wood products, bone carving and pottery were developed there. The remains of forges, forges, tools for metal processing were found.
Early iron products on the territory of the Vologda Oblast were also found in the settlements of Veksa near Vologda and near the village of Kurevanikha on the Mologa River in the Ustyuzhensky District.
The appearance of settlements fortified with ramparts and ditches indicates that the ancient inhabitants accumulated wealth and had to be protected. On the territory of our region, such fortified settlements are located in the southwestern part of the region - in the basins of the Mologa and Suda rivers. Archaeologists attribute their appearance to the early Iron Age, the upper (late) boundary of which is determined by the 5th century AD. Burial monuments also give us an idea of ​​the accumulation of wealth among a part of the Finno-Ugric population. In the far northeast, in the basins of the Vychegda and Pechora rivers, during the excavation of burial grounds, many imported items made of gold, silver, and precious stones were found. Among the jewelry in large quantities are beads made of carnelian, amber, rock crystal. Items of military equipment are also presented: iron swords, daggers, chain mail.
A similar picture can be observed among the archaeological finds on the territory of the Vologda Oblast. Already at the end of the 1st millennium BC, on the land of the ancient Vologda region, along with earth burials common for the Finno-Ugric population, wooden collective tombs, the so-called "houses of the dead", appeared. They were usually located near ancient settlements and were log cabins approximately 5x4 meters in size. In addition to the cremated remains of the buried, such "houses" contained household items, weapons, women's jewelry (pendants, pins, beads, etc.).
“Among the decorations,” writes the famous Vologda archaeologist A. N. Bashenkin, “of great interest are zoomorphic pendants depicting a bear, waterfowl ... The cult of the bear has existed among the Finno-Ugric population since ancient times. The bear was considered the owner of the forest, he was worshiped. Waterfowl, ducks in particular, played a special role in Finno-Ugric mythology. The ancient Finno-Ugric peoples considered the duck to be the progenitor of everything on earth, assigned it the role of the creator of nature... It is no coincidence that in the "houses of the dead" there were also bird pendants with wings wide open in flight. According to the surviving ancient ideas of some Ural-Siberian and Finno-Ugric peoples, the soul of a person continued to live after his death, and the sacred bird carried it to heaven.
In the 4th - 5th centuries AD, using the earlier steppe tradition, the Finno-Ugric population of the western regions of the modern Vologda region began to build burial structures in the form of barrows. Some of them, called hills, reach about eight meters in height and more than thirty meters in diameter. “The construction of such structures,” the same author sums up, “required significant labor costs. The possibility of using significant labor resources in the non-productive sphere indicates a fairly high level of development of the productive forces. On the other hand, the existence of huge monumental burial structures, essentially "forest pyramids", along with small mounds, clearly shows the presence of social stratification.
Unfortunately, we can say little about the level of development of the Finno-Ugric tribes that lived in the eastern regions of the Vologda Oblast and, in particular, in the Yug River basin. The first archaeological sites in the lower Sukhona and the South were discovered at the beginning of the 20th century, but active archaeological research began only in the late 1980s.
Preliminary data obtained in the course of research indicate that the ancient man began to develop the territory of the South in the Mesolithic era (VIII - VII millennium BC). Traces of human presence were also found in the periods of subsequent archaeological epochs: the Neolithic - the New Stone Age (VI - III millennium BC), the era of early metal (III - II millennium BC). It is possible that further work in the South will also reveal sites of the next period - the early Iron Age (dated from the 1st millennium BC - the first half of the 1st millennium AD).
In the course of archaeological research in the South, several monuments of the late Iron Age were also found, belonging to the Finno-Ugric Vanvizda culture, which existed during the second half of the 1st millennium AD. The main array of Finno-Ugric tribes belonging to the circle of this archaeological culture was located in the region already familiar to us - the basins of the Vychegda and Pechora rivers. Economically and culturally, the Vanvizda people were quite developed tribes with a well-established hunting and fishing economy, the beginnings of cattle breeding and agriculture. One of the distribution areas of these tribes was the South River basin.
At the turn of the 1st - 2nd millennium AD, the Finno-Ugric tribes living in the north of the East European Plain were at the final stage of development of the primitive communal system. By this time, large nationalities had formed in the region of the future Russian North, which entered into trade, cultural and other contacts with the Slavs and other neighbors.
With the unconditional dominance of the tribal community during this period, the emergence of a neighboring community can be observed among certain groups of the Finno-Ugric population. Blood relations began to be replaced by new ones - territorial, in which the main thing is not common blood, but living together in a certain territory. The tribal community also retained the ancient nature of land ownership for a long time. In the literature, he received the name of the oven. This type is characterized by complete undivided hunting and fishing grounds between members of the community. Shared landownership was formed under the neighboring community, which eventually developed into a household. The latter became more and more noticeable when a small one began to stand out from a large family - the main unit of society at that time; family and appear elements of private property.
The process of decomposition of the tribal system was rather slow and uneven. On the threshold of social relations of a new type stood the Karelian peoples and the whole. The rest of the Finno-Ugric tribes, apparently, were dominated by the primitive communal system at one stage or another of its decomposition. But still it should be recognized: the change in the level of material production, expressed in the development of productive forms of economy, the increase in trade contacts associated with the extraction of fur trade, gradually led to the emergence of property and social inequality. Among the Finno-Ugric peoples, a tribal elite took shape: elders, priests (sorcerers), tribal leaders (“princes”). Russian written sources also single out a “deliberate child”, which, apparently, should be understood as wealthy community members.
In The Tale of Bygone Years, the first Russian source that mentions the pre-Russian population of the North, when listing “all the tongues” of the “Afetova part” of the world ecumene, among other peoples were mentioned “... Merya, Muroma, the whole, Mordva, Zavolochskaya Chud, Perm, stove, pit, eel ... ". This original ethnological insertion was made around 1113 when compiling the first edition of the chronicle code. Later sources add Korela, Lop, Samoyed, and Toymokars to this list.
Comparing the data of written sources and the results of archaeological research, scientists determine with greater or lesser certainty the places where various Finno-Ugric peoples once lived. On the territory of the Vologda Territory, the entire chronicle occupied the basin of the Sheksna River and White Lake. To the east, in the basins of the Kubenskoye and Vozhe lakes, the Sukhona and Vaga rivers, scientists presumably establish the habitats of the Zavolochskaya Chud. The south of the Gryazovetsky and Babushkinsky districts was occupied by Merya, the extreme east of the region belonged mainly to the Permian tribes.
The Chud Zavolochskaya is considered the most mysterious people. The considered Chud is localized by the chronicle “behind the portage”, in the lands located on the routes of the Slavic development of the European North. The question of the ethnic character of this people still remains unresolved. Some researchers recognize the predominantly Baltic-Finnish origin of the Zavolochka Chud. Other scholars include part of the Permian tribes in the chronicle Chud. In this case, the term “Chud Zavolochskaya” most likely has a collective meaning, and behind it lies not a monolithic ethnic community, but a collection of Finno-Ugric peoples located east of the Volga-Severodvinsk watershed.
In Northern Russian dialects, the term "chud", "eccentric" corresponds to the words "strange", "eccentric". This is a person whose behavior and actions do not fit into generally accepted norms. As synonyms, one can name "Chukcha", "Chucha", "Chukhar".
Many names of localities, rivers, lakes in the North are of pre-Slavic origin. Toponymic linguists give hope for establishing the facts of the residence of a people in a certain territory, even if we do not have written evidence and archaeological finds at our disposal. We will also try, using toponymic data, to present in more detail the picture of the settlement of the Finno-Ugric tribes in the territory of the South.
The former residence of the Finno-Ugric tribes on the territory of the European North left its mark in numerous hydronyms (names of rivers and lakes) with the formant -nga (-enga).
According to the ethnolinguistic concept developed by the researcher A.K. Matveev, this toponymic layer belongs to the Zavolochskaya Chud, which the author refers to the Baltic-Finnish linguistic community. Hydronyms in -nga are mainly concentrated "in the triangle formed by the Vaga, Northern Dvina and Sukhona, although they are found further in the east up to the borders of the Komi ASSR, as well as in the west - in the Onega basin, beyond which they disappear." One of the microareas of distribution of the above hydronym was the Yug River basin. In the south one can count over two dozen such hydronyms.
A. V. Kuznetsov did a great deal of work on the study of the features of the ancient toponymy of the Vologda region. The author did not ignore the "language of the land" Nikolskaya. In the Nikolshchina, he was attracted by a number of toponyms, clearly indicating their pre-Slavic origin. So, hydronyms with their names often go back to the language of the ancient Permians - the ancestors of the modern Komi people. In particular, the main river of the Nikolsky Territory - the South - translated from ancient Permian means simply a river. And this is not surprising, "... for the South was for them the largest, most important river of the region." Some other rivers of the South basin also have formant-south: Pyzhug (“pyzh” - boat), Kuzyug (from Komi “kuz” - long, long), Nyuryug (“nyur” - swamp).
The ancestors of the Komi people who once inhabited these lands are also evidenced by the name of a small river Cherny ker (“ker” is a forest intended for felling).
Finno-Ugric in origin, the hydronym "Ambal", literally - "beaver sources" (there are as many as three rivers with this name on the territory of the Nikolsky district), according to the same author, could be preserved by the Russian population who came to these places as a particle of the linguistic heritage of the ancient Mary, who also once lived within the Nikolsky Territory.
The Kumbiser River stores information about the ancient Lapps (Saami) and can be translated as “bear tributary stream” (from the reconstructed original - “Kumeboysuor”).
Thus, using toponymic data, it can be assumed that by the time the territory of the South region was included in the sphere of ancient Russian colonization, this region was inhabited by a heterogeneous Finno-Ugric population, in which one can distinguish, first of all, the Chud Zavolochskaya and Permians. In addition, the presence of a large number of toponyms of different linguistic origin indicates to us that the region of the South, due to its geographical position in antiquity, was most likely a kind of “contact zone” of various Finno-Ugric ethnic communities.
Let us also point out a number of interesting toponymic evidence of the distant past of the Nikolsky Territory. The village of Bludnovo still exists as part of the Permas Village Council - the small birthplace of the famous Vologda poet and writer Alexander Yashin. The central estate of this village council - the village of Permas - takes its name from the river of the same name - the "Perm River". Bludnovo itself in the documents of the 17th century is called nothing more than “Chutskoye Dvorishche”. There was also a settlement in the Nikolsky district with the name "Old Chudskoye Oven" (the modern village of Skochkovo of the Osinovsky village council).
The ancient Chud "ovens" (as the disappeared settlements were called in the Russian North) were a very common name throughout Zavoloch and the Dvina land. How can one not recall here a well-known excerpt from the peasant petition of the middle of the 17th century, cited in the work of M. M. Bogoslovsky.
“To the Tsar Sovereign ... your orphan, sovereign, beats the brow of the Ustyug district from the Upper-South of Nikolsky Slobidki, the bobby Nazarko Ivanov, the son of Shebunin and comrades. It was found, sir, above the parish of Nikolsky, up the South river on the river on the Andang on the narrow shore in the black forest, there were Chud ovens, and in the forest, sir, those Chud ovens were overgrown with large, clips of a tree by one and a half and two or more.
“In the course of the Slavic-Russian colonization,” writes Professor of the Pomor University N. M. Terebikhin, “not only new (foreign) lands were mastered, but also new (Chudsky) names of the land.” In turn, the mastered "language of the earth" was closely connected with many legends and toponymic legends, which explained (of course, in a bizarre, mythologized form) the names of localities, rivers, lakes, and any features of the surrounding landscape. “As one of the examples of the mythologization of the Chud toponymy, one can cite a historical legend about the etymology of the hydronym Vashka: “There is a river Torval - here the defense was broken through. When the Chud crossed another large river, she said to the Novgorodians: “This river is still yours,” and they began to call her Vashka.
Such semantic changes in toponyms of pre-Russian origin were also very characteristic of the folklore tradition of the Nikolsky region. For example, one of the small rivers flowing into the South near the Ivakovo pier is called Gorodchukha. This hydronym in local folklore is associated with the "town" (or settlement) of the Chudi, allegedly located here in ancient times. Another nearby small tributary of the South is called the Morotchukha. In terms of semantic content, this hydronym is directly opposite to the first one and, according to legend, is associated with the death of a miracle.
We will return to the conversation about the mysterious miracle more than once, but for now we will try to describe in general terms the events that took place on the territory of the European North at the turn of the 1st - 2nd millennium AD.
According to new archaeological data, in the 5th - 6th centuries, the development of local Finno-Ugric tribes and nationalities, which was original and relatively isolated from the influences of the outside world, was interrupted by the settlement in the southwestern territories of the North of the tribal groups of the annalistic Krivichi - representatives of the Slavic or Balto-Slavic population. On the territory of the modern Vologda region, the Krivichi moved from the south-west along the rivers Kobozha, Pesi, Chagoda, Mologa. At the same time, the local population was either included in the composition of the Krivichi, or pushed back to the east.
In the 9th-10th centuries, a new wave of the Slavic population, the Slovenes of Ilmen, moved into the territory of the region. The Slavs are developing the territory of the Belozerye, the watershed of the lakes Beloye and Vozhe. Without stopping in the Vozheozersky region (in other words, the Charonda district), the flow of Slavic colonization moves to the area of ​​\u200b\u200bLacha Lake and the Onega River. The colonists, moving east from the White Lake, reach the upper reaches of the Sukhona by the 12th century.
In the X-XI centuries, on Sheksna and White Lake, the entire Finno-Ugric people were actively assimilated, and thus the foundations of the northern version of the Old Russian people were laid. In the future, the colonization of the eastern and northern regions would be more correctly called Old Russian - ethnically multi-component, and not Slavic.
In the course of the development of new territories along the banks of the rivers, new settlements arise. Some of them later become cities. The oldest urban centers in the Vologda region appear in the places of initial colonization. By the middle of the 12th century there were three of them: Beloozero, Lukovets, Ustyuzhna and all of them - in the south-west of the region.
The gradual but successful advancement of "meet the sun" is reinforced by the emergence of new cities. Under the year 1178, the Vychegodsko-Vymskaya chronicle tells about the foundation by Prince Vsevolod of the Big Nest of the city of Gleden at the mouth of the South. According to the same chronicle, in 1212, the son of Vsevolod Konstantin "laid the city of Ustyug the Great four stages from Gledena and arranged a citadel in the church in it." For a long time, the Gleden fortress served as the main military stronghold, until in 1438 it was destroyed and burned by the warlike Vyatchans. Veliky Ustyug eventually became the economic and cultural center of a large district - the Ustyug region. The latter became one of the border zones of the initial stage of the Old Russian colonization of the North. Further to the east, beyond the Dvina, on Vychegda and Vym, only Permian tribes lived - the ancestors of modern Komi. The literary monument of the 13th century "The Word of the Destruction of the Russian Land" when listing the pagan, "pogan lands" mentions, in particular, the territories to the east of "Ustyug where byakho tamo toymitsi of filth".
The territories, most of which lay north of Beloozero, Prisukhony and Ustyug, were under the control of Veliky Novgorod for a long time. The city, which received the proud names of "Master" and "Great", was the largest state of medieval Europe. Novgorodians gradually established their control over a vast territory from the Baltic to the Urals. The Novgorod volosts-colonies of Vologda, Zavolochye, Perm included most of the territory of the European North.
In the course of further advancement to the north and east, the tribes of the Zavolochskaya Chud, Meri, Perm were gradually included in the new state formations and were assimilated by the local population.
What attracted the distant lands of the colonists? The new territories were vast, but sparsely populated. Rare settlements in those distant times seemed like small islands in the sea of ​​the "black forest" - the endless centuries-old taiga. The efforts of the farmer to clear the forest were unparalleled in terms of labor costs, but they paid off in the harsh climatic conditions of the North not always and not immediately. Therefore, we especially emphasize that the economic basis of the initial colonization of the northeastern lands was the fishing activity and, first of all, the extraction of furs. "Soft gold" was the most popular commodity in all ancient markets, and trading operations with it brought a steady profit, more than covering any costs. Commercial hunting for fur-bearing animals was supplemented by exchange transactions with the natives and the organization of military detachments in order to impose tribute on the local population.
The comments made about the importance of fishing activities during the initial stage of Old Russian colonization do not at all reject the fact that it was with the arrival of new colonists in the northern lands that the era of agricultural, peasant development of new territories began, however, the strengthening and expansion of agricultural occupations of the population in the northeast of the European North nevertheless, it should be attributed to the later period of the XIV-XV centuries.
Mastering new territories - "midnight countries", as medieval scribes called them, the Slavs were significantly influenced by the people to whose country they came. According to the apt remark of the Russian historian V. O. Klyuchevsky, "our typical bulbous nose, resting on a broad base, is undoubtedly of Finnish origin." Thus, in the anthropological appearance of the current representatives of the Great Russians, we can still see the direct descendants of mixed marriages.
But the matter, of course, was not limited only to anthropological changes. New settlers adopted from the natives and new forms of adaptation to an unusual natural environment, and, as a result, some features of the psychological warehouse. In one of the ethnographic essays dedicated to the inhabitants of the Nikolsky district of the late 19th century, the following is literally reported: “... even now, the features of the original Finn relative have not been completely erased in the local peasant: correcting, as if reluctantly, field work, he feels happy then only when he goes into the wilderness of forests to hunt for squirrel and hazel grouse; there he is in his sphere - nothing reminds him of his social life. His vital needs are extremely limited and therefore very little is needed to make him happy. His main character trait is his attachment to antiquity and dislike for innovations or changes in his way of life, which is why he considers the time when everyone could cut wood and roll wherever he pleases as a model of improvement and prosperity.
It is important to remember that by the 17th century, in many places in the North, the Chud had disappeared and had been assimilated. Only stoves and legends passed down from generation to generation reminded of the places of her former residence.
So, the reality of the existence of the "Chud" people is not in doubt. The legends about the Chud, combined with toponymic data and archaeological materials, are important sources on the history of the region. What are the traditions and legends about the Chud preserved Nikolskaya land?
“A legend has been preserved in Nikolsk that in the vicinity
it in time immemorial lived non-Russian filthy people,
who hid from ours in pits covered with earth on top:
ours brought down these roofs on the filthy and thereby choked
them. The remains of these pits are shown now. Here they are called
"White-eyed miracle".
Literary transcriptions of this kind of oral traditions from the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries appeared quite often on the pages of northern periodicals and scientific publications.
This and similar legends are based on the motif of Chud's self-burial "in the pits" (or, as in this case, its violent destruction). Such ideas of the Russian population about the Chud, which “went into the ground”, “disappeared underground”, “buried alive”, most likely, could arise from numerous accidental finds of ancient burial places of the Chud - “houses of the dead”, which we mentioned above.
The external, anthropological signs of the Chud are also interesting. The legends of the Vologda region are mainly associated with the "white-eyed" Chud. But along with it, “black-eyed”, “black-haired”, “dark-skinned” and even “red-skinned” can appear.
The sign of "filthiness" indicates the facts of military clashes between the "baptized" new settlers and the "unbaptized" miracle, who, moreover, did not want to lose their originality.
“As a last defense, Chud dug pits, took cover in them with flooring on props, and if, fighting back in these pits, they saw the inevitability of defeat, they destroyed the props and died.”
Let us cite other, more detailed, legends that have preserved information about a new stage in the development of the region, which began with the arrival of ancient Russian colonists.
“In times far from us, when there was still no settlement at the place where the city of Nikolsk now stands, on the right low bank of the South, downstream at the confluence of the Molokovitsa River, twenty-seven miles from Nikolsk, and from the Ustyug tract to Nikolsk, three miles away, lived the Swedish people, who at that time were called Chud, but today they are Chukhnas.
When the Chud left this settlement for a while or completely, some of the Novgorodians, using their freedoms, moving from one place to another, also appeared on the shores of the South. The local area captivated the Novgorod natives, and they, having built a wooden prayer temple in the name of the Great Martyr George the Victorious, settled on a mountain on the other side of the Yuga River opposite the residence of Chud.
This mountain, rising up fifteen sazhens, juts out into the river and ends in a steep slope towards it: the mountains were of the same steepness on its other sides, only on the northern mountain side there are large slopes. That is why the Novgorodians remained to live on this steep mountain: they, fearing an attack by a miracle, about which they probably had a sufficient understanding before this time, chose a mountain for their residence, from which it was more convenient to defend themselves from the expected enemies, who were not slow to come to them. habitation and viciously approached him.
The Novgorodians began to fight back from their enemies, rolled large logs and stones from the top of the mountain, poured boiling water on the filthy Chud, and nothing helped. Finally, the besieged turned to the prayer temple and began to kneel there to pray to the Great Martyr George, so that with his prayers he would ask Almighty God for their protection. And suddenly several enthusiastic exclamations were heard near the prayer house: "Glory to God! Glory to God! The monsters are going away!" The new settlers still remaining in the chapel, with inexplicable joy of soul, ran out from there to look at the announced consoling spectacle.
It's been a while since this event. The Chud again approached the Novgorod settlement, the inhabitants of which, already knowing their savior in this case, again asked him for their salvation, and the Chud, without even starting any of its formidable attempts for the Christian people, retired forever from this place and did no more dirty tricks to the Novgorodians. . Some of the Chuds then fell in love with Christianity, having been moved to this by two miracles, subsequently told by them to the native inhabitants, to whom they joined by accepting the faith.
Those baptized from Chud said that when the Novgorodians prayed in their chapel for the first time during their attack, then they all saw her warrior sitting on a white horse and threatening his entire enraged Chud with a spear, why she, embraced by great horror and fear, did retreat from the inhabited mountain. The Chud, who attacked the Novgorodians for the second time, saw the same warrior with a spear, and only not on a horse, but simply standing in a half-mountain, and now in the Staroyegorevsky parish on the Yug River, the inhabitants say the expression: "George is in the half-mountain."
Many years have passed since the miraculous attacks on the Christian settlement, and the number of Novgorod immigrants from various circumstances has increased significantly, so that the first place of residence of the settlers became cramped, and from that they began to settle in the vicinity of their prayer temple, which was subsequently converted into a church in the name of the Great Martyr George the Victorious. So, over time, the Staroyegorevsky Khalezsky parish of the Nikolsky district was formed. From the reproduction of the first inhabitants of this parish, one after another, three more churches existing in the same Khalezsky district with parishes appeared - Novogeorgievskaya, Vvedenskaya and Christ of the Nativity. In place of the altar of Staroyegorievsk, originally a wooden temple, there is a decent wooden monument. The church was carried thirty sazhens from the place where it was before, because of the crushing pressure of the waters of the South on it in the springs.
In the fence of this transferred temple, a pit (ditch) is still visible, running thirty sazhens from east to west. This pit was made by Novgorod natives near the mountain of their first settlement, on its north-eastern sloping side, to protect against the attack of the Chud. On the right bank of the South opposite this mountain, the place where the Chud lived is still called courtyards by the natives, and right there the river Molokovitsa flows into the South. From that it has such a name that the Chud called it Pim, and the word "Pim" in Russian means milk. The name of the Khalez parishes comes from the word "khalega", also a Chudin word meaning sound, battle. The name was given to this mountain, on which the Novgorod natives established themselves after the battle with the Chud.
At present, among the inhabitants of the Khalez region, each of the inquisitive can hear the swear words used by the Chud during the battles. For example: "kurat-siga", "carpet-liga", which means in Russian "devil-pig", "dog-meat".
There is another, later version of the legendary cycle of legends about the formation of the Novgorod settlement and the first Orthodox church on the site of the former residence of the "Chud" people. The written text of the legend is called "Kolotushka" and is stored in the Nikolsky Museum of Local Lore. Let us present it as it has come down to our time in the records of the 40s - 60s of the XX century.
“When the Novgorodians established themselves in the town near Old George, which was first called George on the corner, and then George in the half-mountain, that is, they drove the Chukchi (Chud) deep into the forests or baptized them, they decided to build a church in the name of St. George the Victorious.
On the right bank of the Yuga River, near the Molokovitsa River, they chose a place for the construction of the church on the field of the Chukchi, whose village was called Dvorishche Zayuzhye. But the Chukchi, who had not yet abandoned their pagan beliefs and superstitions, opposed this. The timber brought by the Novgorodians for the construction of the church was rolled downhill to the river Yuga. At night, the forest, by some miracle, all turned up again on top of the field of the Chukchi. The latter, despite this, again threw the logs downhill. The miracle of the return of the forest up from under the mountain was repeated. But this did not convince the Chukchi: they again threw the forest downhill to the river. South. After that, the mysterious return to the mountain did not happen again.
In Dvorishche Zayuzhye at that time there were 40 huts and smokes, the courtyard stood on a high steep bank of the river. South, and from the field was protected by a palisade. On one of the autumn nights, the Chukchi of the village were alarmed by the resounding shot of blows, as if on a mallet, which night watchmen now arrange. Thinking that the Novgorodians had attacked them at the Dvorishche, the Chukchi, with weapons in their hands, poured out into the street and ran to the tyn or palisade, but what was their amazement when they saw that there was no attack on the village, and that beaters rushed from the Chukchi dugout Vaul and produced by someone invisible.
On the same day old Vaul fell ill and died the next day. Before they had time to bury him, his wife and son immediately fell ill.
A day later, both of them died, and a week later, the whole Vaul family died out and the hut was empty.
Ten days later, the "mallet" pounded against the hut of the Chukchi Fedi, and less than a week had passed, when all the inhabitants of this hut died, like the Chukchi Vaulya.
After that, the "mallet" knocked against the hut of one Chukchi, then against another. The Chukchi died like flies in autumn, they did not have time to bury. The Chukchi were terrified. They made spells and prayers to their gods, but the "mallet" did not let up. There are only 10 huts left. Seven of them hurriedly gathered and fled from their courtyard deep into the Kudrinsky forest. The Chukchi who remained in the village went to the Novgorodians and begged them to ask St. George to calm down the "mallet".
Shortly after November 26, on which day the Novgorodians and Chukchis served a prayer service to St. George, one of the Chukchis of the village saw in a dream St. George, who rode along the village street on a white horse and, stopping in front of the hut of this Chukchi, told him that the "mallet" was more she will not knock, but when there are again 40 families or houses in the village of Zayuzhye, she will reappear and knock out the village, as she has now knocked out the courtyard of the Chukchi.
The first part of the Chukchi dream came true. More "mallet" in the village did not knock.
The Novgorodians, however, did not insist on building a church on the field of the Chukchi and placed it on the left bank of the Yuga River "in the town". The church was moved to its current location, instead of a wooden one, a stone one was built, which still exists today.
The village of Zayuzhye is located three versts across the river Yugo from the Church of Old George. Now there are about 40 houses in it, and foreigners, remembering the legend well, are afraid of the appearance of a "beater".
Forty sazhens from the church of Old George, on the mountain, stands a lone pine tree. Tradition from generation to generation claims that this pine is special, and that if someone cuts it down, they will immediately die, and if they damage it (weep, etc.), they will become seriously ill.
Pine has a thickness of up to one and a half arshins and a height of 12 - 15 sazhens.
So, we have before us two mutually complementary versions of certain "events", which are enclosed in the form of legends, or, better, legendary stories. These stories, in turn, consist of separate legends. Since many of the legends were created at different times, these texts in chronological and semantic terms are a multi-layered "pie", in which different "fillings" - temporary layers - are also fancifully mixed with each other.
It is not by chance that we put the word "event" in quotation marks. The fact is that tradition and legend are not a chronicle and not a historical narrative. Historical realities are certainly present there (and we will try to find them), but, as a rule, there is no mirror reflection of the events that took place, and often no real space (place) in such sources. Thus, we will have to reconstruct not the actual, but the semantic content of the “events” that once occurred and try to determine their possible place in historical time.
Let's make a reservation right away that these legends are not something unique. Texts of this kind, or, more often, their fragments, are widespread in the Russian North. But at the same time, we have in our hands a “version” that is rare in its completeness and richness. In accordance with the rules for working on folklore texts of a historical-legendary nature, we would have to break the texts into semantic units, which, in turn, would make up separate cycles according to the plots: “About Settlement”, “About Chud”, “About Ancestors” and etc.
Simplifying the task somewhat, let's imagine that we have a single text that reflects the historical memory of one of the socio-territorial communities of the South, formed during the period of ancient Russian colonization.
What evidence of the distant past of the Nikolskaya land can give us an analysis of this historical and legendary cycle?
Firstly, we have in our hands very important and interesting material for understanding the general picture and the principles of the settlement of lands along the Yug River by Russian colonists. As their Russian ancestors, the population of the territory, which later became the Khalez parishes, calls the Novgorodians. In northern legends, the epithet "free" was usually added to the word "Novgorodians". The “freedom” of the settlers is also indicated in these legends: using their freedom of movement, they, rising up the Yug River, were looking for a place for a new residence and found it on the left bank opposite the “Chudsky” settlement.
The choice of a site near the village of hostile natives does not look reckless or random, as it might seem at first glance. The Russian colonists, whenever possible, tried to adhere to the once inhabited territories, in all respects convenient for living. In all likelihood, this place is the best of all that they came across on the way.
Fixing on a new territory for residence was necessarily accompanied by its consecration: the first temple (originally a chapel) was erected in the name of that saint, whose icon-painting image accompanied the settlers on the way. Over time, the temple became the sacred center not only of the first settlement, but of the entire neighborhood (in this case, the Khalez parishes). In order to determine the place for the future church, a special ritual was usually used: an icon of a revered saint or a timber tied into a raft was launched along the river; where the raft (icon) will be nailed - there the temple will be. The Saint (George the Victorious) “himself” must determine the place of “his” future stay. Indications of this ancient method are present in the second text: the “miraculous return” of the timber to the place chosen by the sacred patron is precisely the fragment of the description of the site selection ritual that has survived and has already undergone serious changes.
The place of construction of the first temple is also noteworthy. The chapel is being built near (“in forty fathoms”) from the “sacred” pine. Sacred centers for the administration of ancient pre-Christian rites near "sacred" trees, groves, ponds, stones very often later became places for the construction of Christian churches. Pagan shrines, after the "filthy" place was re-consecrated and "marked" with crosses, icons, chapels, became the object of worship for many generations of Orthodox parishioners of the rural church.
The next important element in the establishment of Russian settlers in a new place is the fight against the Chud. In legends, this confrontation is presented in the form of a collision of two principles: "Orthodox" (Novgorod) and "nasty" (Chudsky). The main factor in the victory of the few Novgorodians was the intercession of their patron Saint George. The latter twice saves "his own" from death, "appearing" to the enemy, first in the form of a formidable warrior on horseback, and then on foot.
It is easy to see that in the description of the "appearances" of St. George the Victorious, two variants of the icon-painting image of the Holy Great Martyr George, which were widespread in the Russian North, are clearly discerned. The motive of deliverance from danger through one or another saint in the future could become the basis of the narrative of a special genre of hagiographic literature - the legend of the miraculous icon - and go into oral traditions and legends.
The final stage in the development of a new territory is the final pacification of the Chud and its partial Christianization. Novgorod settlers and local residents gradually form a new territorial community on a single confessional (Christian) basis within the framework of an Orthodox parish (parishes). The toponymic indicator of the merging of two different ethnic groups was the renaming of the Chud river Pim into Molokovitsa (“pim” - milk). Aborigines also receive new, "Christian" names ("Chukchi Fedya"). On a par with the above, you can put the obvious intercession of St. George for the Chukchi, who were harmed by a certain "mallet" - a mysterious mythological character of local folklore.
The question of determining the time of the appearance of the Novgorodians in this part of the territory of the South region remains open. In the absence of accurate written evidence, the “events” described in the legends can, with a certain degree of caution, be attributed to the end of the 13th - beginning of the 14th century - the period of the greatest activity of the Novgorodians in Zavolochye.
The legends and traditions we have cited are a fairly typical example of the preservation in the people's memory of ideas about the "Chud" past and the settlement of the region by Russians. The latter are usually people from Novgorod land, although in reality the penetration of settlers from northeastern Russia into the Yug River basin and their influence on the further history of the Nikolsky Territory were also very noticeable, and from the 15th century - predominant.
The oral tradition of the Russian North at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century preserved ideas about the foundation of some fortified settlements - "towns" - by the "Chud people" long before the arrival of the Russians. As such, in the Nikolsky district was called the "town" in the parish of Michael the Archangel:
“A hundred miles from Ustyug, for noon, she lived on the river Yug Chud. It had a wooden tower here, up to twelve sazhens high and 5 sazhens wide, with small openings on the sides and with one exit door. This tower was called by the natives "town", and from it the current parish of the Archangel Michael, where the tower was located, is called "Town". "Gorodok" was gone for 25 years, it burned down for no known reason. The villagers say that whoever of them attempted to destroy this structure of the Chud saw sparks flying out from the blows of the ax, and then soon died ... "
A similar legend was also recorded by local priests about the "town" near the villages of Kolotovo and Shchekinskoye of the Utmanovsko-Ilyinsky parish of the Utmanovskaya volost. From the latter, by the end of the 19th century, the remains of an earthen rampart were still preserved.
The places with which the population associated the former residence of the Chud were considered enchanted, “unclean”. There was an unspoken prohibition to be there or, even worse, to disturb the peace of the ancestors with any actions.
As a conclusion of our trip to the “Chudian antiquities”, we will try to answer the questions: how did the relations between Russian settlers and the natives develop and what was the significance of the arrival of new residents on the territory of the northern region? To begin with, let's take the opinion of the classic of Russian history S.M. Solovyov. He believed that there were no hostile clashes between the Slavs and the Chud, since “it can be easily assumed that the tribes did not really quarrel over the land, which was so much, on which it was possible to settle so spaciously without offending each other ... All this happened quietly, unnoticed by history, because here, in fact, there was not the conquest of one people by another, but the peaceful occupation of land that belonged to no one. Another, no less authoritative, historian V. O. Klyuchevsky, in confirmation of the first, writes: “The very nature of the Finns contributed to such a peaceful rapprochement of both sides. The Finns, at their first appearance in European historiography, were marked by one characteristic feature - peacefulness, even timidity, downtroddenness.
However, the above data from oral traditions show that the process of settling the northern region by Russians was not so peaceful. Chud desperately defended their land from the invasion of Russian settlers. Such legends have been preserved in other places of the Russian North. The "Russian-Chud" wars were accompanied by mutual armed clashes and attacks, and when the Chud no longer had the strength to resist the desperate Russian pioneers, the Chud "buried" into the ground.
And yet we emphasize: the armed struggle that took place did not determine the general character of the colonization of the region. There can be no talk of any total extermination of the Chud. The famous historian and local historian V.P. Shlyapin wrote the following about this: “The disappearance of the Finnish people, or the white-eyed Chud, must be understood not in the literal sense of the extermination or destruction of the people, all its inhabitants ... No, the disappearance of the Finnish peoples occurred through complete absorption their other peoples, through such a merger with these peoples, in which there was a complete change in mores, customs, the native language was forgotten, the consciousness of one's origin was lost and conversion into a new nationality took place. The direct descendants of the Finnish peoples can still live in the same places where their ancestors lived, but only under the guise of the Great Russian population.
Leaving in question the problem of "a complete change in the customs and mores" of the descendants of the Chud, we emphasize the main thing: a long coexistence, diverse economic ties and cultural contacts led to the fact that the ethnic groups that inhabited the North before the arrival of the Slavs gradually adopted the language and culture of the Russian population. In turn, the Slavic settlers also took a lot from the culture of the Finno-Ugric peoples. On the basis of cultural symbiosis, over time, a unique northern Russian ethno-cultural community was formed, one of the local variants of which was the population of the Yug River basin.
Already in the XIV century, the compact settlement of the Finno-Ugric population moved far to the northeast and began with the ancient Pyras (modern Kotlas). Pyras at that time was a border settlement of the Komi-Zyryans, whose habitat in ancient times was called Perm land. Historical sources of the 15th-16th centuries mention the ancient peoples of the Yugra, Samoyeds, Pertas, Lop, Korela and others living in the northern regions, but the documents of that time also note the emergence of new territorial (regional) population groups: Dvinyans (residents along the Northern Dvina River) , Vazhan (Vaga River), Ustyuzhan (Ustyug Territory). There is also a new social community along the Yug River - southerners.
Each regional group had its own distinctive, special features, inherent only to it. This was manifested primarily in dialect dialects and the appearance of northern Russians. The main reason for regional differences lay in the historical and natural conditions in which the colonists found themselves when moving through a particular territory. Many traditions, economic and cultural, were brought from the places of former residence. At the new places of residence, the skills, habits, and elements of the language of the local population were perceived and mastered. The population from the Lower Dvina retained some ethnic features of the Novgorodians. The Sukhons, Kokshars and southerners were closer to the Rostov-Suzdal people. The population living on Lower Vychegda in close proximity to the ancestors of the Komi people showed the influence of the latter.
Let's not forget to mention one more important fact. In 1886, "Lists of populated places in the Vologda province" were published. Based on the information provided by parish priests, it can be argued that even at the end of the 19th century, the Finno-Ugric population, mixed with Russians, lived in some areas of the Vologda region. In the Nikolsky district, there were "1630 souls of both sexes (237 households)". According to the memoirs of the Nikolsky people, the “Chudsky” villages existed quite recently - in the 40s-50s of the XX century ...

The successes of the initial Old Russian colonization radically changed the further historical fate of the northern lands. By the end of the 13th century, a significant part of the territory of the North was under the control of the two largest state-territorial formations that appeared on the political map of Eastern Europe after the collapse of Kievan Rus: Veliky Novgorod and Rostov-Suzdal. The entire subsequent history of the Russian North until the end of the 15th century was closely connected with the confrontation of these opponents, equal in strength, who tried to take control of the northern lands rich in furs and other natural resources. Later, by the end of the 14th century, the Rostov, Vladimir and Suzdal princes were replaced in this struggle by the growing strength of Moscow.
Researchers are almost unanimous that the leading role in the development of land "beyond the Volok" belonged to people from Novgorod. The starting point for the spread of the future Novgorodian influence was originally ancient Ladoga. As a major urban center of the early Middle Ages, Ladoga has been known since the 8th century. It was from here that the Ilmenian Slovenes - the ancestors of the future Novgorodians - colonized Poonezhie by the 11th century and advanced on the territory of the western coast of the White Sea. From the end of the 12th century, Novgorod itself - the new capital of North-Western Russia - began to successfully extend its control over a significant part of Zavolochye.
With the movement of the Novgorodians to the east, the very historical and geographical concept of Zavolochye gradually acquired real outlines. Regarding its size and boundaries among historians, there are quite a few different versions, but Yu. S. Vasiliev's view of this problem is recognized as the most significant and authoritative. In his opinion, in the 11th-13th centuries, the term "Zavolochye" denoted the Novgorod volost along the Vaga River.
In the 13th-14th centuries, this name also extended to the Lower Dvina, which is often referred to in sources as Dvina or Dvina land. In the XIV - XV centuries, the terms "Zavolochye" and "Dvina" often replaced each other, denoting the Dvina and Vazh lands together. With the annexation of Veliky Novgorod and its possessions to Moscow, Poonezhie and lands east of the Dvina to Pechora are added to the concept of Zavolochye. The name "Zavolochye" existed until the 16th century and was gradually replaced by the broader concept of "Pomorie", and "Dvina" and "Vaga" became the names of counties in the same century.
The initial method of subordinating the new lands to Novgorod was the organization of military-industrial expeditions, and the main character in the continuous movement to the northeast was the ushkuinik. The term "ushkuynik" itself came from the name of the boat "ushkuy", on which most of the "geographical discoveries" were made in the northern region. Ushkuy as a means of transportation was ideally suited for traveling along the northern rivers and lakes. It was very roomy, had a small draft and good maneuverability. According to M. M. Bogoslovsky, the armed gangs of the Ushkuiniki prevailed at the first stage of the Novgorod colonization of the North. “The mob seized places favorable for fishing from the Finnish population, built fortresses, started settlements in these places and imposed tribute or simply robbed the natives ...” Gradually the occupied territories were assigned to Novgorod and the turn of another - agricultural - flow of colonization came. Following the peasants, the first hermit monks appeared in the North, who founded many monasteries in the northern forests and along the shores of the White Sea.
The organization of military fishing expeditions for precious furs - "soft junk" and "fish tooth" - walrus tusks, lard of sea animals and other riches of the northern region was taken over by the urban community or groups of "the best", "eminent people": Novgorod boyars and rich merchants.
By the middle of the 13th century, the territories acquired in Zavolochye became not just one of the northern lands, but also an administrative unit of the Novgorod Republic. Along with Zavolochye, Novgorod lands included volosts: Tre (on the Kola Peninsula), Vologda (along the Vologda River and the upper Sukhona), Pechora and Yugra (from the upper reaches of the Pechora River to the Urals). The territory along Lake Onega was called the Obonezhsky Ryad. Volost-lands were divided into graveyards - territorial-administrative and judicial-tax districts.
The control system in the possessions of Veliky Novgorod gradually took shape. Initially, its activities were expressed in the collection of tribute, for which military detachments were sent. Soon special tributaries appeared, and at the end of the 13th - beginning of the 14th centuries - posadniks from among the Novgorod boyars. Management in individual churchyards-districts was carried out by feeders.
The long-term control of the Novgorod boyar families over a certain territory often led to the fact that many lands became their private feudal possessions. However, this did not happen immediately. Until the end of the 14th century, the boyars were practically not interested in the problems of land ownership. Another thing is the collection of tribute in the form of skins of sables, arctic foxes, beavers, martens, for which there has always been a constant demand in Russia and beyond.
With the establishment of statehood in the North, a new religion, Christianity, also spread. The population was obliged to pay tithes in favor of the church and perform a number of duties.
Novgorodians greatly valued their northern lands, which brought them fabulous wealth. In an agreement of 1264 with the Grand Duke Yaroslav Yaroslavich, they firmly stated: “And here are the volosts of Novgorod: ... Vologda, Zavolotsye, Tre, Perem, Yugra, Pechera.” In this and similar documents, it was always emphasized that the prince and his people should not, without the knowledge of the Novgorodians, send their squads to Zavolochye and other lands and independently collect tribute.
At the confluence of the Sukhona and the South, the Rostov possessions cut like a big wedge into the lands controlled by Novgorod, and therefore it can be said that the further historical fate of the northern lands was largely in the hands of the Ustyug people. Despite its attraction to Rostov, Ustyug very early became a fairly independent center. Relying on the support of the “grassroots” lands, having the closest spiritual ties with Rostov (Ustyug was part of the Rostov diocese), the Ustyugians, apparently, established close contacts with the population of Zavolochye, who were clearly burdened by the tributary policy of the Novgorodians. In 1322, the Ustyugians intercepted the Novgorodians who were collecting tribute in Yugra. “The Ustyugians swarmed with the Novgorodians,” a Novgorod chronicler reported, “seized the Novgorodians who went to Ugra and robbed them.” In retaliation, the Novgorodians "took Ustyug on the shield", but a few years later the attack on the Ugra tributaries was repeated. In 1329, "the princes of Novgorod, who went to Yugra, were beaten." All this suggests that the Ustyug residents had their own interests in Zavolochye and tried to realize them on their own.
Of considerable importance for increasing the role of Ustyug were the events that took place in North-Eastern Russia during and after the Mongol campaigns of the first half of the 13th century. After the defeat of a number of large cities in the Rostov-Suzdal land, many townspeople and peasants from the “grassroots” lands were drawn to what seemed to them calmer northern places: to develop new lands for arable land, start trade, crafts. Many joined the Ustyug military-commercial squads and tried their luck in military-tributary campaigns to the far outskirts of the North.
Apparently, in that distant and turbulent time, the development of land along the Yug River and the Dvina-Volga-Kama watershed - the Northern Uvals - began. An approximate map of the spread of Novgorod and “grassroots” colonization on Nikolskaya land and adjacent territories appears as a bizarre pattern, which is now very difficult to figure out. And yet we will try to do it.
The approximate demarcation line between the possessions of the Rostov-Suzdal (Vladimir-Suzdal) land and Novgorod passed in the interfluve of the Unzha and the South along the left tributary of the South - the Kipshenga River. Then the border followed the watershed of the Yuga and Unzha rivers. The Kudanga and its tributaries Rassokha, Sleepy and Nochnaya (aka Povechernaya) remained under the control of immigrants from Novgorod land. Novgorodians also mastered the Pyschug river basin. The tributaries of the Lundanga River - the Michug and the Yurmanga - belonged to Rostov. Further, the dividing line went along the rivers Chiche and Mezha - a tributary of the Unzha. As a living legacy of those distant times, the saying has remained in these parts to this day: "Kipshenga is a common river." The name Mezha, apparently, is also a reflection of the border, "boundary" status of the river. A little lower than its mouth, on the banks of the Unzha River, the town of Manturovo was set up by people from the "grassroots" lands.
Thus, the territory of the future Nikolsky district was almost equally developed by two colonization flows. Natives of the Rostov-Suzdal land settled mainly in the southwestern limits of the Nikolsky Territory, capturing the lower reaches of the South. The main ways of their penetration lay along the rivers Sukhona and Unzha. Novgorodians were traditionally attracted to the eastern territories of the Nikolshchyna, and this was no coincidence. Bypassing the well-fortified Gleden, the armed gangs of Novgorodians sought to seize and master the river routes and portages on the watershed of the Dvina and the basin of the Volga and Kama rivers. This distant outskirts of the ancient Zavolochye was an important starting point and a link for controlling the tributaries of the Volga and the Kama, which was practically undeveloped by the Russians. Novgorod was attracted by new fur resources in the territories of the not yet conquered tribes of the Kama region and the rich markets of the Volga region.

Each person experiences special feelings for his native land, where he was born, grew up, studied, began his working life. Recently, there has been an unprecedented rise in interest in local history. And this is right - every person should know and love his land. And love for the Motherland begins with its knowledge.

Chud white-eyed

Chud white-eyed - such a strange name was for the people who inhabited the lands of Zavolochye (from the Varangian Sea (Baltic) to the foothills of the Urals. Where did this people come from? For the first time this people is mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years, written in the 11th century. Some historians believe that this people descended from the Finnish tribes and later mixed with the Novgorod newcomers. Lomonosov, on the other hand, considered the white-eyed Chud, descended from the numerous and warlike Scythians who came here from the lands of the Russian Sea (Black). But most believe that the Chud, who lived along the shores of the northern rivers, is the fore-Russians, our ancestors. They lived ten years before our era, and were sedentary hunters, fishermen, plowmen, oratay. This wonderful and mysterious people has long gone into oblivion, sunk into the earth, as they say in legends. Now you can’t find a white-eyed miracle among us, but we should remember that our roots came from this one.

Z settlement of the "midnight region"

In the 11th-13th centuries, the settlement of the northern lands by the Slavs began. The abundance of animals, birds, which constituted the main wealth of this region, attracted enterprising Novgorodians here. Some historians believe that the settlement of the North proceeded peacefully (Soloviev S.M. and others). Others believe that Novgorodians raided the North and robbed its peaceful inhabitants.

Stories about the riches of the region attracted merchants who wanted to subdue the locals by force of arms. According to folk legends, the locals desperately defended their land and did not want to submit to the aliens for anything. At every convenient place they built fortifications. The settlement of the "midnight region" came from the lands of the Ilmen Slavs and the Rostov-Suzdal land. In the Vazhsky land, the settlers walked along the Onega River, its tributary, the Moshe, and went to the Puya River, as well as along the Voloshka tributary, the Vakhtomice River, through the portage, went to Vel. Rostov-Suzdal went from the Sukhona River, dragged out to the upper reaches of the Vaga and Kokshenga. Having loaded their belongings into boats, the settlers sailed along the rivers, dragged the boats on dry land from the river to the river, and, having chosen a convenient place, set up settlements.

Capture of the Dvina lands by the Novgorodians

An important role in the development of the North was also played by the Novgorod free people who lost their settled land. Novgorod boyars and posadniks often used them to seize land. They did not go alone, but in detachments, descending on their boats-ears along the rivers. They paved the way for merchants and settlers, settled themselves for residence. Appeared on the Vaga and Dvina and boyar estates. Academician S. Platonov wrote: “Following the peasant colonization, from the 11th century, the Novgorod boyars began to move - detachments of ushkuiniki equipped by boyars to seize land and “soft junk”. As a result of these campaigns, by the 12th century, the power of Veliky Novgorod was firmly established in Zavolochye.

Free peasants

History protected the Dvina land from serfdom. For several centuries, the region was a classic region of free black-mowed peasantry, ignorant of the landlord's bridle, from which a local type of resident developed - an enterprising pioneer industrialist with his inherent spirit of independence and vigorous economic activity. Pomor is accustomed to boldly face reality, rely on his own strength, defend and assert his "I" alone with recalcitrant nature. Life itself forced the peasants to show a healthy initiative, enterprise, contributed to the identification of versatile talents, aroused insatiable curiosity. Hence - a huge number of trades and crafts that the Russian North has been famous for over the centuries.

In the written sources of Ancient Russia, the earliest information about the peoples of the North dates back to the 12th century. According to the chroniclers, various Finno-Ugric tribes lived in the forests, and in the tundra - "Lapps" (Saamis) and "Samoyeds" (Nenets). These peoples were not yet familiar with Christianity, they professed ancient pagan beliefs.

Primeval North

The northern lands, washed by the Barents and White Seas, began to be developed in ancient times. The primitive period usually includes the Stone Age (20-25 millennium BC - V-IV millennium BC) and the era of early metal (III-I millennium BC). Gradually, the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Ages were replaced by the Iron Age (mid-1st millennium BC - mid-1st millennium AD) and the early Middle Ages (after 500).

The economy of the primitive times of the North was characterized by a remarkable factor - the emergence of ancient hunters, fishermen and gatherers on the sea and ocean coast. Separate groups of people even penetrated the islands of the seas of the Arctic Ocean.

The harsh climate and barren lands did not at all contribute to the creation of the necessary conditions for the development of agriculture and cattle breeding. On the vast expanses of the northern tundra and forests, peculiar archaeological cultures of ancient hunters and fishermen have developed. Over the centuries and millennia, the economy of the agoneolithic tribes ("ago" - hunting) has progressed, the methods of forest and lake-sea hunting, and fishing techniques have been improved. Techniques for processing stone tools developed. Household utensils became more diverse. Tools made of copper and bronze appeared. Primitive art was born.

The pagan worldview of primitive hunters and fishermen gradually developed. They believed in gods who personified the forces of nature. People erected temples and sanctuaries where religious ceremonies were performed. Several sanctuaries have been discovered, for example, on the Solovetsky Islands.

Archaeological study of primitive history continues in our time.

The first Russian people in the North

In the written sources of Ancient Russia, the earliest information about the peoples of the North dates back to the 12th century. According to the chroniclers, various Finno-Ugric tribes lived in the forests, and in the tundra - "Lapps" (Saamis) and "Samoyeds" (Nenets). These peoples were not yet familiar with Christianity, they professed ancient pagan beliefs.

Christianity was brought here by the Ladoga and Ilmen-Novgorod Slavs, who appeared in Pomorie, first in the Sukhona River basin in the 10th-11th centuries, and from the 12th century. - in Podvinye. Belozersk and Rostov residents, refugees from the centers of northeastern Russia, also rushed there. This disparate and then massive migration of Russian smerds, who called themselves "peasants" (ie Christians), was caused by two reasons. Firstly, the Slavic farmers were looking for new lands for themselves. Thus, the first Russian settlements appeared in the forest spaces - "novelties", "repairs", "chischenins", "kopanins", "plowed", "dery" and "villages". Secondly, the smerds fled from their native places from the feudal order and internal "specific disorder". Land and freedom - that's what the peasants were looking for here.

Having entrenched themselves in Pomorye, the Novgorodians were the first to "cross" the Kamen (Northern Urals) and ended up in the Siberian Ugra. In this movement to the north and east, the Onega, Northern Dvina, Pinega, Mezen and Pechora rivers played a significant role. It was along them, as well as along the portages separating them, that new and new waves of peasant colonization went.

However, following the peasants, princes and boyars came to the lands "behind the portages" (hence "Zavolochye"). Their fortified settlements arose in the basins of the Vaga, Dvina and Pinega. An important source of income for Veliky Novgorod, for example, was the collection of tribute-yasak from the local "chud" and the Nenets. Novgorod ushkuyniki (“ushkuy” - a boat) robbed all the northern rivers. The squads of the Rostov specific princes did not lag behind them.

Under the rule of Novgorod

Boyars, merchants and monks advanced here along the explored river roads. As a result of the rapid state-monastic colonization, Zavolochye was included in the East Slavic states - Novgorod with its "pyatins" and Rostov the Great with the Dvina "rostovshchinas". However, in most of Pomorye, the power of the Novgorod boyars-governors and missionaries of the archbishop's Hagia Sophia was firmly established for a long time.

Kolmogory (Kholmogory) with the residence of the Novgorod rulers in Matigory became the administrative center of the "charismatic" region. In the XII century. there were graveyards-factories in Ust-Vaga, Ust-Emets, Pinega, Toyma, etc.

Vikings in Biarmia

At this time, the Novgorodians first encountered the pagan peoples of Scandinavia. The Vikings-Varangians sailed to the northern seas even before the Novgorodians. They met here with the Sami, the chronicle "Lopyu".

Scandinavian sagas (tales) told, for example, about the Norwegian hevding Ottar, who at the end of the 9th century. collected tribute from the local Lopi. In his trade and military trips, this wealthy peasant-landowner from Halogaland (Norway) obtained marten furs, deer and bear skins, bird feathers by buying or robbing, hunted sea animals. Ottar also traveled to the shores of the White Sea, where he fought and robbed the local "chud" like a real Viking. He called the inhabitants of the Arctic seas "terfinns", "berms".

Other Vikings followed in the footsteps of Ottar, discovering the legendary country of Biarmia. In the X-XII centuries. the Vikings penetrated into the lower reaches of the Northern Dvina, and here they were stopped by the Novgorodians.

Traces of the presence of the Vikings in the White Sea Biarmia were recently discovered by archaeologists. In 1989, they found a treasure near Arkhangelsk, which contained a lot of silver coins and jewelry of the 11th-12th centuries.

The Arkhangelsk treasure contained over two thousand Western European coins, among which were Scandinavian ones. These finds led to the conclusion that in the "Viking" era there was a northeastern part of the great trade route from the coast of England and Scandinavia to the foothills of the Polar Urals, and through Northern (Novgorod) and Southern (Kyiv) Russia, this route continued far to the East , as evidenced by the coins of Arab minting in the Arkhangelsk treasure.

Fortification of Novgorodians in Pomorie

Meanwhile, Novgorod was becoming more and more fortified in Zavolochye. Novgorodians exported “soft junk” (furs), “fish tooth” (walrus tusks), skins and lard of sea animals, river pearls, red fish (mainly salmon), berries (especially cloudberries, cranberries and lingonberries), salted and dried mushrooms, fluff from bird markets, etc. These goods were in great demand not only in Novgorod, but also in Europe and even in eastern countries.

Novgorodians valued their northern estates and tried to secure them for themselves forever. The governors of Novgorod in every possible way prevented the penetration of the great princely boyars and tiuns. In the agreement (1264) between Novgorod and the Tver prince Yaroslav Yaroslavich, it was unambiguously stated: "And these are the volosts of Novgorod: .. Vologda, Zavolotsye, Koloperem, Tre, Yugra, Pechora." The prince of Tver, in turn, promised "not to collect" tribute from Zavolochye, "not to own" any lands there, and not to send "his people" there.

The Novgorod boyars in many ways increased their treasury at the expense of Zavolochye. The Novgorod archbishop's house of Hagia Sophia also grew rich by collecting the so-called "tithe" from the northern dioceses subject to it.

Fight for the Dvina

Years passed, and Moscow began to threaten the Novgorod rule in the Dvina land.

In 1342, the Novgorodian Luka Varfolomeevich, having quarreled with the ruling boyars, left with a gang to the Dvina. Having conquered almost the entire lower Dvina, he built the first stone fortress in the North, Orlets.

For several decades, the Dvina land did not recognize the authorities of Novgorod. The Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily Dmitrievich took advantage of this. In 1397, he sent his "Dvina statutory charter", in which he invited the Dvinians to come under the rule of Moscow.

However, the Novgorodians did not want to lose their northern lands. They sent their troops here. Having laid siege to the Orletsk fortress, the Novgorodians took it by storm.

Only after the destruction of the Novgorod boyar republic in the 1470s did the Dvinians finally accept Moscow citizenship.

In the list of lands in 1471, the Yemetsky town was mentioned, which was destroyed to the ground by Muscovites. The podvinye became the "sovereign's patrimony".

In 1478, Perm, Zaonezhie, Murman, Kargopol and Pechora became part of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

The accession of the Northern Lands to Moscow was of great economic, political and cultural significance. The territory of the Muscovite State almost doubled due to the northern counties and volosts. The debilitating intra-feudal strife ceased. Finally, the three-hundred-year rivalry between Novgorod and Moscow for the possession of vast northern lands has ended. The Russian North joined the all-Russian culture. The positions of the Russian Orthodox Church were strengthened, which launched a wide missionary activity here. However, the Novgorod Saint Sophia retained administrative power in most of the northern parishes and monasteries.

Internet source:

http://projects.pomorsu.ru/

Russian Civilization

Mr Veliky Novgorod
With the exception of the shores of the Scandinavian and Kola Peninsulas, the entire northern coast of Europe was open to the Russians, and the Russians were the first to freely swim in the Barents Sea and its southern parts - the White and Pechora Seas. The pioneers of the great Russian discoveries in the north of Europe were Novgorodians - citizens of a powerful feudal ancient Russian republic, which bore the proud name "Lord Veliky Novgorod". They took over by the 12th century. throughout the European North - from the Kola Peninsula and Karelia to the Pechora basin inclusive - and until the XIII century. stepped east beyond the "Stone Belt" (Urals) ("When ... under Ivan III, the Novgorod land joined the Moscow centralized state, it immediately doubled its size" ("History of the USSR", vol. I, 1966, p. 627)) . These northern Novgorod possessions were called "volosts".
Among the oldest Slavic settlements in the north-west of the East European Plain, Novgorod, which arose in the 9th century. in the upper reaches of the Volkhov, near its source from Lake Ilmen, was then really a "new city", a remote northern outpost of Kievan Rus. But by the eleventh century it became the largest trade and craft center, and crafts developed in its northern and eastern possessions: fur, fur slaughter, fishing and salt extraction. They delivered valuable goods to Novgorod for export to the west, to the "Germans" (as all Western Europeans were called in general), to the south - to Kyiv and to the southeast - to the Russian "Nizovsky" principalities (The nearest Novgorod lands were in the Upper Volga basin; therefore Russian principalities along the Middle Volga and Oka, including the largest - Vladimir-Suzdal, were for the Novgorodians "Nizovye"). The land of Novgorod gave very low yields, there were often crop shortages when the frost ruined the bread; there were few livestock. Novgorodians bought bread and livestock in the "Nizovye", which demanded in return salt and red fish, blubber, down, walrus tusks and especially furs, and for princely and boyar falconry - gyrfalcons (white polar falcons).
The faster the fishing grounds in the indigenous Novgorod lands were depleted, the stronger was the thrust of the Novgorodians to the north, to the banks of the northern rivers and the “Cold” Sea, “pleasant and plentiful” with fish, animals and birds. The "lower" also needed "overseas" goods, which were delivered to Novgorod by Hanseatic merchants - Germans and Swedes ("Goths"). And these merchants, in turn, bought in Novgorod both northern and grassroots goods. The Novgorod nobility, who dominated the republic, especially valued Pomorye, from where the most valuable goods came for trade with Western European countries and with the Russian "Lower".

Novgorodians in Pomorie
For various parts of Pomorye, that is, for the shores of the Barents and White Seas, the Novgorodians had special names that have been preserved in the geographical literature: the northern coast of the Kola Peninsula is Murmansk (Norman); its eastern and southeastern coast, at the Throat of the White Sea, is Tersky; the western coast of the sea, approximately to the mouth of the Kem River, is Karelian, since “Korelian children” (Karelians) lived in the adjacent country; the southwestern coast of the sea between the mouths of the Kem and Onega - Pomeranian; southwestern coast of the Onega Peninsula - Onega; northeast coast - Summer; the eastern coast of the sea, from the mouth of the Northern Dvina to the Mezen Bay, is Zimny. And further to the north-east stretched the still undeveloped shores of the countries where the "Samoyed" (Nenets) and "Ugra" lived.
Novgorod "smerdy" (dependent people) and boyar "holopi-failures" (daring slaves) discovered and first mastered the shores of Northern Europe, east of the Kola Peninsula, paved the way to them, organized trades there, settled along the lower reaches and in the mouths of the rivers , “forming, as it were, Russian oases among deserted forests” (S. F. Platonov).
Northeast routes. Novgorodians descended along the Volkhov (228 km) to Lake Nevo (Ladoga), climbed to Lake Onega along the Svir River (224 km), set up “a ship’s passage by Onego Lake on both sides of the graveyards” (that is, along the banks from village to village) . And then they used mainly waterways. There were no wheeled roads; it was possible to ride in the summer only with great difficulty: "... mosses and lakes entered, and many transports across the lakes."
From Lake Onega (9600 sq. km) three paths led to the White Sea. The first one went from the southeastern corner of the lake up the short river Vytegra and then to Lake Lacha (335 sq. km), from which the rapids Onega (416 km) flows to the north. The second path - from the eastern shore up the short rapids of Vodla - led through Kenozero to Onega, bypassing the upper rapids; descended along it to the lower threshold, at 63 ° N. sh., then with a short portage they crossed to Yemtsa and sailed down it to the Northern Dvina. And along the Dvina, navigable throughout its entire length (750 km from the confluence of the Sukhona and the South), Novgorodians went to the Dvina Bay, the southeastern part of the White Sea. The third way - straight to the north, through the Zaonezhsky and Povenets bays to Vygozero (1200 sq. km), and through the "Zaonezhsky graveyards" down the short rivers - led to the Onega Bay.
The northwestern route went from the one founded in the 10th century. the town of Korely (Priozersk - on the western coast of Ladoga) to the "Lopsky graveyards", to the "wild lop", through the Kem lake-river system (385 km), and from there to the Karelian coast of the White Sea.
It is not known when the movement of Novgorodians to the north began. According to the Primary Chronicle, by the end of the 11th century they visited Pechora, the most remote region of Northern Europe. It can be assumed that they penetrated the White Sea much earlier.
"Holopi-failures" on boats "ushkuy", which is why they themselves were called ushkuyniks, sailed off the coast of the White and Barents Seas and climbed along the "sea" rivers to the first rapids. Where it was possible to count on successful fishing, they made "zaimka" for their boyar. This is how northern fishing centers arose - fishing villages, hunting camps (for catching gyrfalcons), etc. Following the boyar crafts, agricultural villages appeared in those places where it was possible to engage in farming. "Holopi-failures" conquered the Karelians and Saami (Lapps, "wild lop") in the north-west, and the Nenets in the north-east and forced them to work in the fields of their masters. Small-scale industrialists, peasants and monks followed the "slave-failures" to the north. They settled among the Karelians and Saami.
There was no enmity between the newcomers and the locals because of the land, since it was enough for everyone: Russians, Karelians and Sami people sat down on small plots and worked for themselves alone or in groups (squads). The differences between aliens and natives soon blurred. Boyars seized mainly areas on the Summer and Pomeranian coasts. Peasants usually settled at some distance from the sea, on the Onega and especially on the Northern Dvina and its left tributaries. There were many newcomers on the Dvina from the “nizovsky” lands.

The first Russians in the northeast of Europe
Novgorod ushkuiniki also discovered the extreme northeast of Europe, Podkamennaya Ugra, the Pechora basin, and Kamen (Northern Urals). As an ethnic term, “Ugra” denoted an indefinite group of northern peoples who lived mainly between the Pechora and the lower Ob on both sides of the Urals: to the west of it, “under the Stone”, and to the east of it, “beyond the Stone”. The Nenets (“Samoyeds”) were excluded from Ugra; the bulk of it was made up of Voguls and Ostyaks (Mansi and Khanty). Novgorodians equipped the detachments that collected tribute in "Ugra".
The Novgorodians laid two routes to the northeast of Europe.
By the northern route, the ushkuyniki ascended the Pinega (about 800 km, the lower right tributary of the Dvina), passed from its bend - through the Kul oy River (360 km) - to the Mezen (over 900 km) and its lower tributary Pezu (400 km), from the upper reaches of the Peza to the Tsilma (365 km) and descended along it to the Pechora. But this route was very inconvenient for navigation, and the portages between the river systems were heavy.
The southern route, easier and more convenient, went down the Sukhona (over 560 km) to the Northern Dvina, and then up the Vychegda (1130 km), the right tributary of the Dvina, straight to the Pechora. Thus, the ushkuyniki bypassed the most difficult area for movement from the south - the Mezen basin.
Very early, "grassroots" Russia begins to compete with Novgorod in the North. Already in the XIII century. The “Nizovsky” princes laid claim to the Tersky coast, or at least to that part of it “where the Novgorodians do not go”, to the Zimny ​​Coast and to the “Pechora Territory” (the southeastern coast of the Barents Sea), which has long been famous for birds of prey. At that time, there were already several princely settlements where the Nizovsky "troops" hunted, and the princes demanded that some Novgorod settlements in the lower reaches of the northern rivers perform various duties for them.
In the XIV century. a chain of Nizovsky settlements and princely settlements stretched from the upper Volga through the Vaga (the left tributary of the Northern Dvina, 575 km) along the Dvina to the mouth and from there spread along the shores of the White Sea. The Nizovsky princes also advanced eastward and fought the Novgorodians on the way to Ugra. First of all, they closed the southern route to Pechora for the Ushkuins: there was a struggle between the Novgorodians and the inhabitants of Veliky Ustyug, subject to the Vladimir-Suzdal principality; Ustyugians won.
In the XV century. After the conquest of Novgorod, Moscow united all northern Russian settlements under its rule. The movement to the northeast continued, and here the Pomor industrialists, the descendants of the first Russians who settled on the shores of the northern seas, played a prominent role. Their stronghold was at first the village of Kholmogory in the lower reaches of the Northern Dvina. At the end of the XV century. Pustozersk was founded at the mouth of the Pechora.
Probably, even two or three centuries before the Pomors settled near the Pechora Sea, Russian hunters and St. John's wolves sailed north and discovered Novaya Zemlya. In the XVI century. it was annually visited by Russians. Not only Pustozero people came here, but also Pomors from the western "sea" rivers and from the White Sea. The industrialists who “sailed” along the coast to the mouth of the Pechora and to Novaya Zemlya inevitably had to first of all discover the Kanin Peninsula and the low-lying Kolguev Island along this path. Sailors bypassed it both from the north and from the south through the Pomeranian Strait (87 km at its narrowest point).
History has not preserved the names of Russian sailors who discovered the polar regions and islands of North-Eastern Europe. But in the second half of the 16th century, when Western European entrepreneurs organized the search for the "Northeast Passage", English and Dutch captains constantly met Russian ships off the coast of the "discovered" lands, which were led by very experienced and skilled sailors.

Discovery of the Northern Urals
In The Tale of Bygone Years, under 1096, the story of the Novgorodian Gyuryata Rogovich is placed: “I sent [about 1092] my youth [combatant] to Pechora, to people who give tribute to Novgorod; and my boy came to them, and from there he went to [land] Yugra. Yugra is a people, but its language is incomprehensible; neighbors with the Samoyed in the northern countries. Ugra said to my boy: there are mountains, they go into the bow [bay] of the sea, their height is up to the sky ... and in [one] mountain a small window is cut through, and from there they speak, but do not understand their language, but they point to the iron and wave hands, asking for iron; and if anyone gives them a knife or an axe, they give furs in return. The path to those mountains is impassable because of the abysses, snow and forests, and therefore we do not always reach them; He goes further north. From this story, N. M. Karamzin concluded that the Novgorodians crossed the Urals already in the 11th century. However, they could collect such information to the west of the "Stone". As can be seen from the words of Gyurata, his messenger did not even see the high mountains.
In the second half of the XII century. chroniclers note two campaigns of the Ushkuins for tribute to Ugra. In the middle of the XIII century. Novgorodians named Perm, Pechora and Ugra among their northern volosts. According to the records of the XII-XIII centuries. it is impossible to find out which Yugra is being referred to there, “Podkamennaya” or “Stoney”; in other words, it cannot be argued that the Novgorodians crossed the Urals. But the Rostov record of the XIV century. is already quite clear: “In the same winter, the Novgorodians arrived from Yugra. Boyar children and young people of the governor Alexander Abakumovich fought on the Ob River and to the sea, and the other half up the Ob ... "
This record leaves no doubt that the Novgorodians penetrated east beyond the Urals, but it does not indicate how they went to the Ob from the Pechora. Probably, the detachment that fought in the lower reaches of the Ob, "to the sea", climbed along the right tributary of the lower Pechora, the Use, and then crossed through the Polar Urals to the Sob, a tributary of the Ob. And the detachment that fought "higher along the Ob" could go there and along the southern route along the Shchugor River to the upper reaches of the Northern Sosva (Ob basin), and crossed the Northern Urals.
It is not known exactly when the Russians first became acquainted with the Komi country (Pechora and Vychegda basins), adjacent to the Northern Urals in the east, but no later than the 12th century. Merchants from Novgorod and from the Rostov-Suzdal land constantly came there. In the XIV century. The Komi country became part of the Moscow Principality. By this time, the Russians began to penetrate into the "Great Perm", that is, the country of the Komi-Permyaks (the basin of the upper Kama). And around 1472, the Moscow governors went through the whole of Perm the Great and "brought the whole land for the Grand Duke."
In 1483, the Moscow governors - Prince Fyodor Kurbsky-Cherny and Ivan Saltyk-Travin made the first historically proven Russian crossing through the Middle Urals. For the first time, participation in the Komi campaign is noted. “... We walked past Tyumen to the Siberian land, and from Siberia along the Irtysh ... And the army went from Ustyug on May 9, and came to Ustyug ...” After this campaign in the spring of 1484, they came to the sovereign of Moscow with a request to accept them into their citizenship "princes" (tribal leaders) Vogul (Mansi) and Ugra and one of the Siberian (probably Tatar) princes. "And the prince laid a great tribute on them and let them go home."
In 1499, three Moscow governors led a large campaign to the "Siberian Land". The campaign was completed in 1501: “The Grand Duke Pyotr Fedorovich Ushaty sent ... And they went to Pinezhsky Volochok by rivers of 2000 miles. And they went 150 versts along the Kolodoy River [Kuloi] from the Deer Ford, went to many rivers and came to the Pechora River to Ustasha-grad.
Prince Ushaty from Vologda swam along the Sukhona to the Northern Dvina and along it to the mouth of the Pinega, along this river he rose to the place where it approaches the upper reaches of the Kuloi, and went down the Kuloi to the Mezen Bay. Then the path went up the Mezen and Peza to its sources, where it approaches the upper Tsilma. Along the Tsilma, the prince went down to Pechora, and along it he climbed to the Ustasha. (Probably, the city stood near the mouth of the Shchugor, at 64 ° N, where the navigable part of the Pechora ends.) There he waited until the detachments of Prince Semyon Fedorovich Kurbsky and Vasily Ivanovich Gavrilov-Brazhnik approached.
“Yes, they made a hay here [spent the autumn]... And the governors went from the Pechora-river... And from Pechora they went to Kamen for two weeks. And then they passed through the Stone with a gap [gorge], and the Stones in the clouds cannot be seen, and if it is windy, the clouds are torn apart, and its length is from sea to sea. It took a week from Kamen to the first town of Lyapin (the Vogul settlement on the Lyapin River), in total, 4650 versts went to those places ... And from Lyapin the governors went on deer, and the army on dogs ... And they came to Moscow ... all on a great day [Easter] to sovereign."
The phrase “and its length is from sea to sea” can only be interpreted in such a way that the “Stone” stretches from the “Cold” sea to the “Khvalissky” (Caspian), that is, from north to south. In fact, the governors went east through the gorge, on both sides of which high mountains rise, and came to the Lyapin River, in the upper reaches of which (to the north of their path) the highest peaks of the Urals rise. In addition, the Russians in the XV century. they did not divide the "Cold" Sea into two different basins, which they could consider separate seas; therefore, one cannot think that “from sea to sea” means: from the western (Barents) to the eastern (Kara) Sea. But the most convincing evidence in favor of the fact that it was at this time that the Russians discovered the true direction of the Stone is provided by Herberstein's map, compiled according to Russian sources of the first quarter of the 16th century. (see below). It shows for the first time the "mountains called the Earth Belt", which stretch from north to south between the Pechora and the Ob.
So, the Russians by the beginning of the 16th century. they discovered not only the whole of Northern and North-Eastern Europe, but also the Polar, Subpolar and Northern Urals, that is, most of the "Stone Belt", and crossed it in several places. Moscow possessions moved beyond the "Stone", which from that time began to appear on maps as a meridional ridge.

Russians in Lapland
Even in the first half of the XIII century. Novgorodians not only made occasional trips to the inner regions of the Kola Peninsula, but, apparently, completely subjugated it, as evidenced, in particular, by the negotiations (in 1251) of the Norwegian king Haakon IV the Old with Alexander Nevsky on the border of his possessions in Lapland (Finmark). In the first quarter of the XIV century. According to the Scandinavian chronicles, the Novgorodians made at least two sea campaigns to the west, rounding the North Cape and moving along the coast of Norway, according to the Scandinavian chronicles, to the region of Helgeland (now Nordland). Only after the conclusion of the Novgorod-Norwegian treaty of 1326 did the sea raids stop. But peaceful navigation through the Barents Sea on both sides, of course, continued, and in the XV-XVI centuries, when there was a very difficult political situation on the Baltic Sea, the northern sea route became safer than the Baltic one.
The all-Russian chronicle says about the 1496 campaign to the “Kayan land” (that is, to the Swedish-Finnish Lapland) governor, princes Ivan Ushaty and Peter Ushaty, that they “... went from the Dvina [Northern] sea-ocean and through the Murmansk Nose” . It is sometimes unreasonably identified with the North Cape, but the chronicler could call any cape to the east of the Rybachy Peninsula, on the Murmansk coast, except Svyatoy Nos.
It is most likely that the Russians climbed from the southern shore of the Varangerfjord up the Patsjoki River to the large Lake Inari along one of its southern tributaries and through a short, easy drag they crossed to Kemi, and along it went down to the Gulf of Bothnia. The chronicler lists nine rivers where the Russians fought. Some of their names are distorted beyond recognition, but five are indisputably identified: Tornio, Kemi, Oulujoki (Ovlui), Sikajoki (Sigovaya), Limingoya (Limenga). All these rivers flow into the Gulf of Bothnia between 66° and 64° 30'N. sh.
Those who lived on the Limingoy River, “... they beat with their foreheads for the Grand Duke and came to Moscow with the governors [in what way, it is not indicated]. And the great prince granted them and let them go.