Katorzhnye centraly Russia

The central bankers appeared in the Russian Empire in the 19th century as a result of the reform of the police and the prison system in Russia. Until 1879, there was no centralized management of places of detention in Russia. As a result of the reform, a single national prison system was created. Three types of prisons were created:

1. Large prisons with central subordination (the so-called "centrals"), such as the Aleksandrovsky Central near Irkutsk and others, subordinated directly to the Main Prison Administration; Petropavlovsk and Shlisselburg fortresses, which were formerly under the authority of Section III , were also transferred to him;
2. General prisons subordinate to the provincial prison inspections;
3. Prisoner prisons.

By the end of the 19th century , the following prisons existed in Russia: Aleksandrovsky (in Aleksandrovskoye village, near Irkutsk), Iletsky , Irkutsk , Nikolaevsky , Nerchinsky ( Gorno-Zerentuysky , Akatui , etc.), Novoborisoglebsky ^[1] , Novobelgorodsky ^[2] , Tobolsk , Ust-Kamenogorsk , Ust-Kut , Kharkov , Pskov , Riga .

According to the law of April 18, 1869, which continued to operate after 1879, only those convicted in Siberia and trans-Ural parts of the Perm and Orenburg provinces were sent to Siberia for convict work , and all others sentenced to hard labor were placed in convict prisons - Novoborisoglebsk, Novobelgorod , Iletskaya, Vilna, Perm, Simbirsk and Pskov, two Tobolsk and Aleksandrovsk near Irkutsk. No work was done in these prisons.

In 1893, the last convict prisons that existed in European Russia were abolished - the convictry centers Iletsk, Novoborisoglebskiy, Novobelgorodskiy were closed, and instead of them prison detainees were established. ^[3]

During the Stolypin reforms of 1906-1911, a number of already existing prisons were transformed into hard labor centrals - Shlisselburgsky , Vologda , Moscow (Butyrskaya prison), Vladimirsky , Novonikolayevsky (Kherson province), Orlovsky , Smolensky , Yaroslavsky .

Particularly difficult conditions and atrocities against convicts differed Oryol Central . In March 1917 , after the overthrow of the autocracy, hard labor in Russia was abolished, along with it the centrals were abolished.

• M. Gernet , History of the Tsarist Prison, 3rd ed., Vol. 15, M., 1960-63.
• Dvoryanov V.N., In the Siberian distant side (Essays on the history of the tsarist prison and exile, 60s of the 18th century - 1917), Minsk, 1971
• Maksimov SV, Siberia and hard labor, 2 ed., Part 1-3, St. Petersburg, 1891

• S. M. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky "Russia under the rule of kings"
• V.G. Timofeev. The Russian penitentiary system: figures, facts and events. Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation. Chuvash State University. I. N. Ulyanova
• Captivity Museum (about Tobolsk Central)
• Yaroslavl penal prison "Cowsheds"
• History of Zerentui prison of Nerchinsk prison