Von Visinov, Athanasius Denisovich

The Fonvizin family is of German origin. Yuri Denisovich Fonvisin , son of a colonel in Russian service, was a second-generation representative born in Russia. It is known that in the middle of the XVII century he was serving in the Armory Order - a large metropolitan institution. In 1653, Yuri Denisovich, the only one of his relatives, converted to Orthodoxy under the name Athanasius.

For Athanasius (Yuri) Denisovich, the transition to Orthodoxy became a source of royal bounty. He was elevated to the rank of steward , given a substantial cash allowance, estates in the Yaroslavl district . At the same time, instead of his local salary , his relatives received only monetary support . In the spirit of Nikon’s reform, there was also a change of the name of Yuri (as a colloquial, not book, and therefore undesirable) to the church calendar Athanasius (Greek "immortal").

The court rank of the steward gave his bearer the right to occupy good positions (in the voivodship , in the investigation , in orders ), uniting the local foreigner with representatives of the middle noble families. In the 1660s , A.D. Fonvisin was in military service in a Polish company near Polotsk and Smolensk , where Russian troops failed. The finale of the Russo-Polish war of 1654-1667, however, brought Russia the return of some western lands. After completing his service in Samara, A.D. Fonvisin participated in carrying out the voivodship reform of the last third of the 17th century. In 1678 he compiled a census book of the city ​​of Kholmogory with the county. The last time he was mentioned in 1687 in connection with the organization of the Crimean campaign , in which he could not participate, since he left the sovereign with age.

Having been appointed to Samara , A.D. Fanvisin became the main performer and organizer of the local government. The main areas of his activity as a military official became the strengthening of the town and the garrison, the renewal of fortifications, which acquired an impressive appearance in the second half of the 17th century. It should be noted that the main population of Samara in the 70s was composed of service people , among whom foreigners (about 70 people) were mentioned, who were assigned the functions of field commanders . It is likely that there were Germans among them. The voivode and the warriors themselves lived in the Kremlin - a specially fortified part of the town, where office premises were also located. The strategy of the garrison service required the voivode to be very efficient, to organize patrols, guards, and village service . Samara governor was also a land surveyor , knowing the development of "empty lands", their settlement. The right bank of Samara Luka , the first agricultural region of the region, was under the reliable cover of Samara. The agricultural potential of the entire region was gradually increasing. In 1673, Fanvisin ordered the construction of three prison camps on the Volga river to protect the right-bank rural settlements of Samarskaya Luka. At the same time, their garrisons controlled traffic in this important area of ​​river trade, contributing to the establishment of local commodity exchange.

• Savchenko I.A., Dubinin S.I. Russian Germans in the Samara Territory. Samara: Samara University, 1994. p. 7-19.