Minusinsk district (Yenisei province)

Occupied the southern part of the Yenisei province, it has borders: from the north - the Krasnoyarsk and Achinsky okrugs , from the west - the Achinsky okrug, from the south-west - Tomsk provinces , from the south - Mongolia and the Usinsky okrug of Yenisei provinces, from the southeast - Mongolia, from the east - Irkutsk province , from the north-east - the Kansky district of the Yenisei province.

The area of ​​the district, after the allocation of the Usinsky border district from it, has about 77641 square meters. versts. The district is administratively divided into a city and 4 police zemstvo plots, which include 11 volosts, including 2 foreign ones. The size of volosts is from 2777 to 14933 sq. versts.

Most of the district’s surface, especially southwestern, southern, southeastern and northeastern, —hilly plains with a steppe character, intersected in places by low, treeless mountain ridges or groups in the majority, fill the middle and partly western and northwest parts of the county. The area of ​​the district on one side has a slope to the north, and on the other from east to west. On the southern and southeastern outskirts of the okrug, the Sayan ridge extends, lying within the okrug between 95 ° and 101 ° east longitude from Grinich. The Sayan mountain range , starting in the southwestern corner of the district with a high mass of Shaban-dabaga , rising to 7,600 feet, leaves the Kantegir River beyond the boundaries of the okrug, sending its north-western spurs into it: the Kyzirsuk, Oysky and Kolyumyus ridges on the right bank of the Yenisei and Kalganovsky ridge on the left. The first two, stretching from the southeast to the northwest, cross the Yenisei, forming thresholds in it. The Kyzirsuk ridge from 4,500 to 5,000 feet, breaking off into the Yenisei by the high plateau-like mountain Borus , crosses the river, towering on the left bank of it by Mount Item , then merges with the eastern spurs of the Kalganovsky ridge. The Oy ridge , up to 4,500 feet high, passing beyond the Yenisei in the form of the high Bos-tag mountain, breaks off to the Abakan steppe by the elevated hill Omai-Tura . The Kolyumyus Range, which rises to 3,650 feet, extends between the Oia and Kebesh rivers , further to the north there are lower ridges of mountain ranges that fill the southern part of the okrug. To the east of the upper reaches of the Us river , the Irchak mountain range extends along the Mongolian border, from 4,500 to 6,000 feet, and only at some points it rises to 8,000 feet; further north-east to the border of the Irkutsk province, mountain ranges of the Ergik Argak-Taiga ridge extend, rising from 4,000 to 5,000 feet, but up to 5,820 feet in the hills near Black Lake; then the ridge drops to 4180 feet and only in the Kotur hill rises to 6000 feet; to the borders of the Irkutsk province, the ridge rises from 6,000 to 7,000 feet. The entire southeastern corner of the okrug, in the basins of the Amyla , Kizira and Kazyra rivers , is filled with mountain ranges, gradually lowering to the Tuba River and representing a deaf, inaccessible taiga ; the entire eastern and north-eastern part of the district bears the same character, in the basins of the Shinda , Kyzirik rivers, in the upper reaches of the rivers Sydy , Sisima and Derbinai; between these rivers and the basins of the Mana and Kana rivers, from the Belogorye itself, at the beginning stretch the high mountain ranges of Kalbak-taiga, Maklu, Argak-jai, Forty and Medlet, reaching 6,000 feet. All these mountains are covered with dense forests, just like the Sayan Mountains , and this entire part of the district represents the inaccessible, wild, marshy and rocky taiga. The Kalganov Range, starting from the Shaban-Dabag massif to the north-northeast with a height of up to 5300 feet, subsequently gradually decreases to 3000 feet, then passes into the low spur of Issykh , stretching along the right bank of the Abakan River , up to its mouth. In the southwestern and western parts of the okrug, along the border of Tomsk province, the Kuznetsk Alatau ridge extends. These ridges bear their special names; Thus, in the southwestern corner of the okrug, the high Taskyl mountain range rises to 4,500 feet, the Koyak mountain range in the upper Tashtyp river, the Karatash spur in the upper Askyz river, and the Karlygan in the upper Uybat and Bely Yus rivers. From these mountains in the northeast direction extend into the interior of the Kutenbulaksky mountain spur, reaching the left bank of the Yenisei and merging further with the Batenevsky mountains; on the right bank of the White Yus , further to the northeast, between the Chulym and Yenisei rivers, pass the Chulymsky mountains, further spreading to 1,500-1,600 feet and imperceptibly merging with the Gremyachikhinsky ridge, making up the watershed of the Ob and Yenisei river basins. The plain-steppe part of the district lies on both sides of the Yenisei: the Abakan steppe, Sagai, Kachinsky and Salty steppes.

Most of the district’s most important rivers belong to the Yenisei system, which cuts the district from south to north along its entire length, to the border of the Achinsk district. The width, depth and speed of the river are very different; for example, from the Talova River to the village of Ovazhennaya , over 170 versts it has 150 to 200 fathoms of width and speed reaches 12 to 15 miles per hour, in rapids and rapids and even more so. The river on this stretch is only flooded, flows in high mountains, spiraling its course. When the Yenisei leaves the mountains, below the last threshold, the river valley expands into the steppe with beautiful meadows, fertile soil and benign forest along its right bank, while the left bank represents a treeless, solonetzic plain. The course of the river becomes slow, it becomes non-navigable. Entering the region of the Minusinsk Salt Steppe, below the mouth of the Shush River, the river flows along a hilly, sandy steppe; sand dunes are overgrown in most pine forests. Below the Tuba and Abakan rivers, the width of the river reaches 300-350 fathoms, forming extensive meadows along the banks and on the islands, but soon the river valley narrows and the river flows between the sandstone mountains, from the village of Byskar to the borders of the okrug the river flows between the rocky mountains, which in some places move away . The depth of the river is from 2 to 5 fathoms. Of the more remarkable tributaries of the Yenisei, it should be noted from the right rivers the Blue, Sizuy, Shush, Oy, Lugavskaya, Tuba , Syda , Kom , Kill and Sisim ; from the left of the river Kantegir , Jai , Abakan, Koksu and Yerbu. Chulym belongs to the rivers of the Ob basin and its right peak is the White Iyus River, flowing along the border of the Achinsk District.

Of the other rivers belonging to the steppe lake basins, the Tuim River is a tributary of Lake Bilyu , the Son River is a tributary of Lake Shira and the Karish River is a tributary of Lake Itkul .

Lakes, especially saline and bitter-salted, the district abounds; it counts 54 lakes and salt marshes producing buzun, bitter and salt; of which the lakes are more noteworthy: Firkal , Bilyu , Shira , Itkul , Tosta-kul , Altai , Minusinskoe , Beyskoe , Tagarskoe , Krasnoe; from unleavened: Alyson , Madzhar and Tibirkul ; from the mountains, Lake Bulan-Kul , Oy and Black. There are few swamps in the region, but in the mountainous part they are not infrequent; between them are known: Tyukhtetskoye, along the Amyl River , peat bogs between the villages of Grigoryevskaya and Salba, along the Kebeshu River and in the area of ​​Lakes Majar and Tibirkul. The bitter-salt lake of Shira enjoys the fame of healing; up to 500 patients came to him annually for swimming; Tagarskoe and Minusinskoe lakes can be considered as healing lakes.

The geognostic composition of the district is diverse. Post-Pliocene sediments in the form of loess, which completely covers the area of ​​the Irbinsky dacha, up to 20 fathoms thick, are also common on the right bank of the Yenisei from the mouth of the Oia River to the mouth of the Sydy River. Traces of the Jurassic formation were found at the northeast end of the Issykh ridge, in which the coal system , where brown coal deposits are located, is also highly developed. Deposits of the Devonian system occupy one of the leading places in the okrug, filling its entire middle part: they represent the alternation of clay limestones with red, gray, and greenish sandstones dominating the former. The alternation of red-colored rocks with gray-yellow forms the entire height of the mountains of the right bank of the Yenisei. Crystalline rocks, granites, syenites, diabases, diorites, protogins, porphyries and melafirs are distributed both throughout the Sayan, Kuznetsk Alatau, Belogorye, and along some of their spurs; they are exposed on the banks of the Yenisei. Crystalline schists , especially talc, are even more common in the Sayan Mountains and its foothills. The soil conditions of the district are very diverse; in the mountainous foothills of the Sayan and Belogorye, in the intermontane valleys of these ranges, as well as in the Kuznetsk Alatau, the soil is generally clayey, marshy and rocky, unsuitable for agriculture; on the slopes of mountains and hills of non-taiga terrain, as well as along the river valleys of the middle part of the okrug, it is chernozemic and fertile, contributing to the development of agriculture and agriculture, although the thickness of the chernozem layer is not great - from 6 to 12 points. In some places, the soil of the steppes is solonetzic and sandy, but in general it produces excellent forage grasses that contribute to the development of cattle breeding here. The river islands on the Yenisei and Tube possess beautiful meadows, on which a lot of hay is harvested. The dense, mostly coniferous forests cover the southern, southeastern, eastern, northeastern, and southwestern parts of the okrug, but recently there has been some depletion of timber as a result of reinforced logging, forest fires, and mining.

With regard to agriculture and cattle breeding, the Minusinsky district occupied the first place in the province and supplied the Yenisei district and its gold mines with surpluses. In 1891, 233,000 acres were under arable land, steam, and butchering; sowed spring rye 90,000 acres, spring wheat 60,000 acres, oats 40,000 acres, then winter rye , barley , buckwheat and so on. There were 90,000 tithes of pocos; Hay collected up to 22 million pounds. Bread collected more than 6 million pounds. Gardening is quite significant, especially in Tesinsky volost. A lot of potatoes, cabbage , onions, turnips, cucumbers, pumpkins , watermelons and melons are bred, which are rafted down the Yenisei to Krasnoyarsk and Yeniseisk . Crops of flax and hemp are increasing every year. Shag tobacco and low quality hops ; The early advancing matinees and cold dews in the first half of August, and especially a severe cold in winter, interfere with the cultivation of sunflower, berry bushes and fruit trees, which migrants from Russia began to introduce here. The collection of wild root crops ( saran and kandyk ) is mainly done by foreigners. Beetroot is successfully bred in Shushenskaya volost.

The number of peasants and foreigners is 418256 tithing, state and factory dachas 1844494 tithing, Cossack 62482 tithing, urban 8881 tithing, landlord 312 tithing, church 2738 tithing. Forests 261720 acres, under buildings and villages 11870 acres, convenient but not cultivated land 123960 acres, under arable land and mowing 325000 acres; the rest is inconvenient land and water. Cattle breeding in a flowering state, despite the destructive cases of the 1870s. and epizootics rarely ending here. Horses were registered in 1895 until 186600, cattle 102460 heads, sheep 350,000, goats 11120, pigs 26340. Horse breeding is developed in the steppe areas of the western part of the district, especially among foreigners and steppe peasants. The predominant breed of horses is Kyrgyz; The horse factory is just one private. Beekeeping is negligible; up to 18,000 hives, giving annually up to 2500 pounds of honey and 500 pounds of wax.

Logging and rafting of the forest along the Yenisei River, the construction of baroque boats and rafts are significant fishing in the eastern part of the district. From small forestry, tarning, burning of coal, collecting bark for tanning leather, walnut farming, larch sulfur for chewing, which is so common among the female population of Siberian old-timers and foreigners, occupy many hands in the staunch population. The handicraft industry is limited to weaving canvas, weaving netting and nets, felting felt and felt, sewing sheepskin coats and some kind of spoiled craft. Hunting is carried out by aliens and Russian stranded areas; the subject of hunting is predominantly salted, Manchurian deer , roe deer , musk deer , squirrels , lynxes , bears and occasionally sables ; animal industry is falling year by year. Fishing is developed in the Yenisei villages. Several thousand hands occupy the do-it- yourself craft and alloy of baroque and rafts with bread and other goods along the Yenisei, Abakan and Tube, as well as work in gold mines and factories. The factory industry is limited to the processing of raw agricultural products, livestock, and partly metals and minerals. Of all the factories, not counting the gold mines, there were 53, and the sum of their production did not exceed 1,200,000 rubles, however, making up almost 45% of the total factory production of the province. From this figure, 690,000 rubles fell. 3 distilleries and 1 vodka factory, in addition, an iron-making iron foundry was in operation, with a production of 120,000 rubles; three grain mills for 188,000 rubles, one glass factory for 25,000 rubles, one match mill for 27,000 rubles, three salt factories for 60 thousand rubles, one sugar factory with production up to 35,000 rubles .; the remaining plants are small - leather, pottery, brick, etc.

The main industry is gold mining . Gold was discovered in 1835 , and development began in 1837 . All local mines, including those located in the land of Soyot, beyond the border pillars, belong to the Yenisei river system. They are located in the mountain valleys of the river basins of Oi, Amyl, Kizir, Sistikem, Ubey, Sisim and Abakan. In the Oi River basin, gold was mined with a small 3 pounds. In the Amyla basin, 815 pounds of gold were mined (until 1890 ); in the basin of the Kizir River ( 1890 ) 230 pounds; 145 pounds in the Sisim river basin; in the Sistekem basin, gold was mined from 1851 to 1890, 509 pounds; in the basin of the Abakan River ( 1890 ) 30 pounds. In 1894, 49 mines with 1,200 workers worked in the Minusinsk district; 29 pounds 30 pounds of gold were mined, with an average content of 39 pounds in one hundred pounds of sand. Gold mining is now less than before. All gold in the district from 1837 to 1895 produced 2100 pounds.

In the villages there are a lot of creameries for the production of oil from flaxseed and hemp seeds, pine nuts, sunflowers and mustard ; in 1890 there were more than 30 of them, with production up to 85,000 rubles. Craftsmen in the district consisted of up to 1700 people; 413 of them are carpenters, blacksmiths and locksmiths 351. In the last century, there were two breeders, which then closed and passed into private hands, but also soon ceased to exist: the Lugava smelter and the Irbinsky ironworks. Copper ore was delivered first from the Maysky mine, as well as from Bazinsky, Karyshsky and Syrinsky. The Irba plant was located in the Irba cottage along the Tube River and its tributary, the Irbe River; The factory operated, with long interruptions, from 1742 to 1827 . According to studies carried out in 1893, Irbinsky ores are very rich in iron content. Traces of silver-lead and copper ores and brown coal were found in the same Irba cottage. There are several fairs in the district: in the village of Karatuz - with a turnover of 17,000 rubles., In Abakansk - with a turnover of 60,000 rubles., In the village of Solenozyorny - with a turnover of 35,000 rubles.

Residents in the Minusinsk district (without a city) were counted by January 1, 1896, 153876 (81459 men and 72,417 women), including 138887 Orthodox, schismatics 7412, 1085 Catholics, 5262 Protestants, 317 Jews, 296 Mohammedans, 358 shamanists, 259 other confessions. A large number of Protestants is explained by the existence of three exile colonies - the Top. and Lower Bulanka and Top. Suetuk, where exiled Protestants are sent. The ethnographic composition of the district is the most diverse. Aboriginal people - foreigners - are considered settled 5131 men and 1986 women, nomadic - 13650 men and 13122 women. If we exclude family members who voluntarily came for exiles, then all the exiled settlers in the district are 6149 men and 486 women. Fertility and mortality, without a city, over a five-year period: 3760 boys were born in the year, 3545 girls, including 620 illegitimate boys and 615 girls, illegitimate. 2460 men and 2267 women died annually; population growth over the five years, 6380 men and 4956 women. Marriages were concluded per year, on average over the 5th anniversary, without a city, 991. The Minusinsk district is notable for the highest marriage rate in the province, although at the same time it has the highest number of illegitimate children (17%). Mortality is high, reaching an average of 30 per 1000 inhabitants of both sexes.

Literacy is poorly developed, but relatively Minusinsk district is the most literate in the province; literate and semi-literate 6170 men and 993 women. In the district there are 9 rural schools of the Ministry of Education, in which 290 boys and 111 girls studied, and 11 parish schools, with 248 boys and 62 girls. There are 3 catechetical schools in Protestant colonies, with 133 students (71 boys and 62 girls). The resettlement movement is growing every year; in the last 10 years, at least 20,000 people have moved from European Russia; in the last 4 years, the tide of free immigrants reaches more than 3,000 people a year. 49 churches, 5 almshouses; two doctors, several paramedics and not a single hospital, excluding gold mines, in which several hospitals. In 3 Protestant colonies there were 2 churches and 1 house of worship. The communication lines in the district, except for the Achinsko-Minusinsky tract, are in an unenviable position, as they consist of ordinary country roads; the roads to the gold mines are unsettled, for the most part these are horse trails. Settlements in the okrug, except for the city: 9 Cossack villages, 6 factory settlements, 46 villages, 182 villages and a settlement, 77 settlements, less than 5 yards in each, 144 foreign uluses, 221 foreign settlements and two outposts, Sayansky and Buzunovsky.

The populated area of ​​the district is sharply divided into two parts - the northern one, which includes the Abakan, Idrinsk and Novoselovskaya volosts, and the southern, which includes all the rest; the latter is twice as dense as the north. The largest village in the district, by the number of inhabitants, is Berezovskoye, Kuraginsky volost, in which there were 2060 inhabitants; 9 villages have inhabitants of more than 1,500 people each and 16 villages of more than 1,000 people each; of the foreign uluses, the most populated is the Ust-Sossky ulus of the Sagai department, which has 63 houses and 416 inhabitants.

The climate of the district is quite continental; the average annual temperature is + 0.7 °, the average temperature of winter is −14.5 °, spring + 6.2 °, summer + 19 ° and autumn −5.8 °. The warmest month is July (+ 21 °), the coldest - January (-22.4 °). The area of ​​the district, limited from the south and west by mountain ranges, is completely open to northerly winds; their influence explains the different thickness of the snow cover. In the southern, southwestern, southeastern and eastern mountainous parts of the okrug, in dense taiga, so much snow accumulates that its melting delays the onset of spring, shortens the summer period and causes flooding, why in these places, despite the favorable ground, farming is impossible. In the lowland and steppe parts of the okrug, snow cover is insignificant, due to the prevalence of southwestern winds in the first half of winter, with which the snow blows off, quickly disappears in spring, which allows foreigners to keep livestock on pasture almost all winter; but in these areas, agriculture often suffers from droughts.

The Minusinsk foreign element, known among Russians under the common name of the Tatars, is divided into many separate peoples bearing different names: Kachins , who came here from the Krasnoyarsk district at the end of the last and the beginning of this century, Hamasans, Sagaians , Kizilians , Koibals and Karagas . Many of them are completely Russified, converted to Christianity and changed their way of life; this includes most Kachintsy, motors , partly Kiziltsy. Kastren ranks all these people in the Altai group of peoples, dividing them into several branches: Mongolian, Turkic, Samoyed and Finnish. The Kirghiz, who once lived here and partly Kalmyks, at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries left the region after unsuccessful resistance to the Russian invasion, and partly went to China and Altai . Undoubtedly, all the monuments, inscriptions, mounds and ancient settlements preserved in the region belong to the ancestors of the Kirghiz, who were known here from the Christian era, known from the Chinese chronicles of the 5th century after R.H. under the names of Khakases and keel-kiji. The Russians first appeared in the region in 1613 , when a party of Cossacks sent from the Ket fortress collected yasak from the tubans and motors living on the Yenisei and Tube rivers. With the foundation of Krasnoyarsk, in 1628, a stronger impact begins on the people who lived in the Minusinsk Territory. Embittered by the oppression of the Cossacks, they repeatedly attacked the Krasnoyarsk volosts. The present and more solid occupation of the region began in 1701 , when the Karaulny prison was set up in its northernmost part, now a village, and in 1707 the Abakan prison, on the left bank of the Yenisei, 135 miles south of the first, in the land of the Tubans. The founding of the Abakan prison and the removal of the Kyrgyz from the territory of the Minusinsk district led to its full occupation and pacification, which was also our delimitation with China, after the Nerchinsky and Burinsky treaties . Due to its fertility, the region moved quickly: already in 1742 state-owned factories Lugavsky and Irbinsky arose, and the region was settled mostly by free immigrants from Russia and partly criminals referred here. In 1823, the Minusinsk Territory formed a special district, and the village of Minus became a district city. In 1886, a special border Usinsky district was allocated from the Minusinsk district .

• Latkin N.V. Minusinsk // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.