Ussuri region

In the territories belonging to the Ussuri region, the mountainous nature of the relief prevails. From the north-east to the south-west runs the Sikhote-Alin ridge . In the upper reaches of the Suchana River, the ridge deviates to the west, and the sea at this point forms the Peter the Great Bay , dissected by the spurs of the ridge. The average height of the ridge is 1.5 km, individual peaks rise above 2000 m, the highest point is the Naked Mountain. The mountains are composed of sandstone, limestone, basalt and granite. To the very peaks, with the exception of individual bare peaks and loaches, they were overgrown with dense forest.

In addition to Sikhote-Alin, in the North Ussuri Territory there is also the Greater Khekhtsir Range , which stretches from west to east and fills its spurs along the right bank of the Ussuri River and the right bank of the Amur River below Khabarovsk . The highest points of this ridge reach 1000 meters. The soil on the mountains is clayey-stony, on low slopes - loamy with a large admixture of sand and chernozem with a layer of black soil of 20 centimeters. The subsoil is mainly composed of clay.

Terrain with the character of a plain is located along the Ussuri coast in its upper and lower reaches. The lower plain begins at the southern foot of the Bolshoi Khekhtsir ridge from the Chirka River and stretches 65 km to the south and 55-60 km to the east. It represents a lowland forested with lakes and swamps. The plain in the upper reaches of the Ussuri River starts from the mouth of the Iman River and ends below the mouth of the Sungach River. It stretches from north to south for 130 kilometers with a width from east to west to 50 km. This plain represents a hilly steppe with chernozem soil, and only near the shores of Ussuri there are swamps and marshes on it. In the South Ussuri Territory, plains are found in river valleys; In addition, there is a vast hilly steppe near Lake Khanka, in which there are up to 2,200,000 hectares of cultivable land. The same land is found in pads and dens, covered with a thick layer of black soil. Loam and a layer of red and gray clay usually lie under the chernozem.

In the Ussuri Territory there are many rivers, the largest of which is Ussuri . In the northern part of the territory, the edges of the river flow into Ussuri or into the Tatar Strait and the Sea of ​​Japan .

The following rivers flow into the sea: Botchi , Nelma, Kutungou, Takhoma, Yadihu, Mutnaya, or Hulsin, Tyutikha and Tazushi, Sidimi, Mongugai, Mayhe, Tsimuhe, Congouza, Shituhe and others. Except for the rivers Suifun and Suchan, which were due to their significant lengths and depths at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries are navigable in their lower reaches, the remaining rivers flowing into the sea are of insignificant length and shallow and during the time of the Russian Empire only their valleys were of interest as a possible object of colonization.

At the same time, the rivers flowing from the right into Ussuri ( Kiya , Khor , Podhoryonok , Bikin , Iman , Tamga and Bolshaya Situkha) are quite large and were available for swimming at a great distance from the mouth at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, in particular during the rains.

The rivers of the northern part of the region open from ice at the end of the first half of April, and sometimes earlier, and become covered with ice in early November.

Significant rivers flow down the western slope of the Sikhote-Alin, of which, apart from the Ussuri with its tributary Sungacha , the most significant are Daubihe and Ulahe. All other rivers of the southern part of the region pour into Lake Khanka . Of these, the most significant are Lefu and Mo. The rivers of this part of the region are opened in early April, and freeze at the end of November.

The coast of the Sea of ​​Japan in the Ussuri Territory has a large number of bays and bays. Of the sea bays in the northern part of the region, the most remarkable are: St. Vladimir, Oprichnik, Plastun, Dzhigit, Terney Bay, the Junta and Grossevich. Some of these bays are very convenient for ship parking, but at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, due to their remoteness from the settlements, the region was hardly visited by ships, but served only as a fishing ground for trepangs and sea kale. In the southern part of the region, the most remarkable bays are: St. Olga, St. Eustache's Bay, Taukhskaya, St. Valentina, Transfiguration, Ostrovnaya Bay, Shallow Water Bay, Assumption, Thadgou, Peter the Great Bay with many secondary bays and bays, America, East , Ussuriysky , Amursky Bay , Zolotoy Rog Bay , Slavyansky Bay, Posyet Bay , etc. Most of the bays and bays are of considerable depth, surrounded by mountains and represent beautiful harbors, protected from winds and waves. All bays and bays in the late XIX - early XX centuries were covered with ice in early December or somewhat later, and opened in late March and early April.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, the climate in the Ussuri Territory was characterized by rather hot summers with prevailing northeasterly winds and with a large amount of precipitation. Winter was very cold, with dry, clear weather with prevailing westerly and northwesterly winds.

The following data give an idea of ​​the climate of the northern part of the region at that time.

In the southern part of the region, the climate was noticeably milder (see Primorsky region ) than in the northern part. Winter lasted 138 days here, spring 82, summer 92 and autumn 53. The cold current of the Okhotsk Sea, which passes through the Tatar Strait along the western coast of the Sea of ​​Japan, continues to influence the decrease in the annual temperature of the region.

The vegetation and fauna of the Ussuri Territory at the beginning of the 20th century was characterized by a combination of northern and southern forms. In the northern part of the region, the following trees and shrubs predominated: linden, maple, cork tree, walnut, Amur maakiya, sweet cherry, bird cherry, apple tree, pear, ash, oak, elm, birch, alder, aspen, cedar, larch, fir, pine , maximovicia, grapes, euonymus, buckthorn, meadowsweet, raspberries, wild rose, elderberry, viburnum, honeysuckle, hazel, etc. In the southern part of the region, cherry (Prunus Maximowitschii), apricot tree, blue raisins (Cissus brevipedunculata) joined these species. The distribution of these rocks was dependent on the location of the terrain with respect to the seashore.

The richest and most diverse vegetation of the beginning of the 20th century was the western slopes of Sikhote-Alin, especially along slopes protected from the wind. Coniferous trees prevailed on the eastern slopes under the influence of cold winds from the sea.

From mammals in the Ussuri region of the beginning of the 20th century there were a tiger, a leopard, a wild cat, a bear, a badger, a raccoon dog, a sable, columns, an ermine, a wolf, a fox, a squirrel, a hare, a wild boar, a red deer, a sika deer, a curly antelope, a musk deer, elk and others. Pheasants were numerous from birds, as well as the East Siberian capercaillie, hazel grouse, various ducks, geese, etc. - The rivers of the beginning of the 20th century, and in particular Lake Khanka, were replete with various fish species, of which wonderful kaluga (Acipenser orientalis), chum salmon, pink salmon, carp, etc.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the fossil wealth of the region consisted of coal, gold, silver, lead and iron. At the beginning of the 20th century, up to 22 locations of coal were known, of which 17 were in the coastal strip, and 5 were inside the region. The following deposits are more known: on ber. Novgorod Bay, on the river. Sidimi, in 40 ver. from her mouth, on the river. Momuchayu, in sowing. parts of the bay of Congousa, at the top of the Amur Hall. and right. the bank of Suchan in the west and north west of the village Novitskaya. The last deposit is one of the best. The local coal belongs to semi-anthracites, the thickness of the layer is 1.95 m. Gold is found in many rivers, but its content is insignificant, why mines are not developed, with the exception of placers at the Annensky mine along the river. Kohout, flowing into Atrek Bay. Deposits of silver, lead and iron are located in different places along the coast of the North Sea of ​​Japan, but at the beginning of the 20th century they have not yet been explored. The Ussuri region at the beginning of the 20th century was rich in marble, building stone of various breeds and lime.

For the population and occupations of residents - see Primorsky Region, Ussuri and South Ussuri Districts.

The Ussuri Territory was annexed to Russia in 1858 , on the basis of the Aigun Treaty . In 1861, after the conclusion of the Beijing Treaty in 1860, the state border of the Russian Empire and China was determined. When the territory was included in the Russian Empire, the population of the region amounted to 70 thousand people. In 1860, the military posts of Vladivostok and Novgorod were founded ^[3] . In 1861, the Turiy Rog post was founded on the western shore of Lake Khanka. In 1864, the peasants from the lower reaches of the Amur River founded the villages of Novinka, Fudin and Perm near the Gulf of St. Olga. In 1866-1867, peasants from the Amur region were formed by the villages of Astrakhan, Nikolskoye and others. In 1868, the Ussuri Cossack Hundred was formed from the Transbaikal and Amur Cossacks.

In 1869, immigrants from the Mai River founded the village of Ilyinskoye, Theology. The development of the region resumed again after 10 years. In 1879, the Cossacks who founded 10 villages were resettled to the South Ussuri Territory from the valley of the Ussuri River. The settlement of the Ussuriisk region by Russian peasant migrants began following its annexation to Russia, but it was initially extremely slow: due to the difficulty of following through Siberia with the complete absence of established communication routes in the Amur region by 1882, in spite of the measures taken, in total 14 villages, with a population of over 3 thousand. Since 1883, with the help of the fleet, the region began to be settled by immigrants from European Russia. In addition to Russian settlers, the Koreans began to master the region. By the end of the century, a railway was built in the territory of the region, passing from Vladivostok to Lake Khanka along the Sungachi and Ussuri rivers to Khabarovsk.

By 1898, the Slavic population of the region amounted to 28,460 people. Due to the natural growth, as well as a significant contingent of reserve soldiers who remained in the region upon serving, the total number of Russian peasant population by January 1, 1899 reached 52,474 people in 108 villages. Of these, 1) 69 villages were located in the western part of the South Ussuri Territory, in the Khankai Plain and along its outskirts (to the Ussuri station); 2) in the region of the coast of the Sea of ​​Japan, 27 villages (including 25 villages between Vladivostok and the Suchan river system and only two villages to the north); 3) in the central part of the South Ussuri Territory, along the coast of Daubikhe, five villages; 4) in the extreme southwest, in Posyetsky site - two villages. Of the 108 villages, 103 were concentrated in the South Ussuri Territory, which was the most developed region in the Russian Far East. On the territory of the North Ussuri Territory by January 1, 1899 there were only five peasant villages, all in the immediate vicinity of Khabarovsk and with a distinct character of suburban villages. Throughout the course of Ussuri, from the station of Ussuri to Khabarovsk, peasant colonization did not begin at all. The number of Ussuri Cossack troops by 1899 was 11,293 people, located in 50 villages, most of which were concentrated in the Khankai plain, and only a rare chain of insignificant for the most part Cossack settlements stretched along the coast of Ussuri. In the last decades of the Russian Empire, sea relocation to the Ussuri Territory has increased significantly, and at the same time, thanks to the railway to Stretensk on Shilka, land relocation has also increased (across Siberia). In 1899, 8307 people migrated to the Ussuri region by sea, by land 849, in 1900 by sea 6354 and land 3582, in 1901 - by sea 7875 and dry route 1289. During these three years, 28256 people, almost as many as before migrated for 13 years old.

Since 1899, work has been carried out in the Ussuri Territory to find and delimit land convenient for settlement.

Agriculture of the beginning of the XX century in the region was represented by two completely different types: peasant-Cossack and Korean-Chinese. According to official data for 1898, 6,259 Russian peasant families had 10,680 horses, 11,681 bulls, 20,933 head of non-working cattle, 13,792 small cattle, and 44,717 tithes were sown under crops. On average, the family accounted for 3.6 heads of livestock and 3.3 non-working animals, and sowing - 5 1/2 dessiatines; if we take only immigrants who have lived in the region for at least 5 years, then for them the average sown area reaches 7 acres per family. According to the Russian population, the sown area is distributed as follows: spring wheat 38.7%, winter rye 1.9%, spring 6.3%, oats 25.7%, barley 4.5%, buckwheat 13.1%, millet bread 2.6%, beans and corn 1.9%, peas 0.4%, potatoes 2.7%, flax and hemp 2.1%. Thus, peasant farming is almost exclusively grain, with a predominance of wheat and oats. On the coast of the Sea of ​​Japan, the climate is too humid for wheat, which is why eggs and oats predominate in crops. Of non-hairy breads, only buckwheat, which plays the role of a steam plant, is more important. The system of field cultivation in the region is purely shifted, even without the black steam commonly used in Siberia. A typical crop rotation for the South Ussuri Territory, according to Kryukov, is: buckwheat - egg - wheat - egg - oats - oats, or barley - buckwheat - eggs, or wheat - oats, and so on, until the field is depleted. This crop rotation is characteristic, apparently, only for coastal areas where the climate is unfavorable for wheat; in areas farther from the sea, sowing of eggs and oats play a smaller role; sowing of wheat plays a much larger role. The cultivation of land on peasant farms — the same as that acquired by the settlers in their homeland, in Little Russia — is little adapted to the peculiarities of the Ussuri climate, as a result of which the peasant farm suffers greatly from excess rain and, in general, from excessive moisture; yields often deteriorate quantitatively, and especially qualitatively, and “ drunken bread ” causes ever greater devastation. Peasant cattle breeding is also in very poor condition, partly due to the poor quality of the feed, also due to excess atmospheric moisture and unfavorable hay harvesting conditions, partly due to the poor quality of local breeds - Korean and Manchurian - with very few improved imported breeds.

The Korean-Chinese economy had a completely different character. According to Kryukov (1892), 2917 Korean households had 3540 cattle, 1879 horses and 3966 pigs, while 9988 acres were sown. Numeric data were not taken into account for the Chinese economy; but according to boundary data it is known, for example, that in the basin of the Sea of ​​Japan alone, at the Congous Bay and along the rr. Suzuhe, Tauhe, Bunchin and Phusun, in the second half of the nineties there were Chinese stocks of up to 3,500 dessiatins. In total, across the Ussuri Territory, the area of ​​Chinese stocks will be, one might think, no less than the area of ​​stocks of Koreans. On average, the size of the plow per family for these latter does not exceed 3.4 acres, cattle account for 1.2 and horses for 0.6 goals. For bread, the sown area of ​​Koreans is defined as follows: wheat 0.4%, eggs 12.6%, oats 31.8%, barley 4.5%, buckwheat 0.1%, millet bread 31.4%, beans and corn 14 , 2%, peas 0.6%, potatoes 3.6%, hemp 0.7%. The huge role of millet bread (chumiza and kaolin), corn and leguminous plants (mainly Chinese soybeans), which together with potatoes occupy almost half of the sown area, is characteristic of Korean and Chinese economies. The system of field cultivation among the Chinese and Koreans is, therefore, not grain, but fruit-bearing - and this gives the economy of Koreans and Chinese great advantages over the Russians. The cultivation of arable lands is even more characteristic: the fields are cut into narrow beds, on which sowing is done in rows; during the growth of bread, arable lands either plow or hoe several times; With these processing methods, a more perfect eradication of weeds is achieved, and most importantly, rainwater is drained and excess atmospheric moisture is eliminated, resulting in more faithful yields and much better product quality. The Korean-Chinese economy is therefore a role model for Russian peasants, who are beginning to adopt from it, although very slowly, individual elements - ridge plowing, sowing legumes, etc. The peasants cannot completely adopt the Sino-Korean culture, because it it requires a huge labor cost, which does not pay off with the existing high assessment of Russian labor in the region. Cattle breeding is also peculiar to the Chinese and Koreans: it is based almost entirely on stall maintenance: in summer, cattle are fed with freshly cut grass, in winter - mainly bean meal, etc. by-products of agriculture.

Private land, according to 1899, was 141, with 17,910 acres of land. Of the owners, 28% belong to the privileged classes, 18% - merchants, 18% - petty bourgeois, 30% - peasants, 2.3% - Cossacks, 3% - different companies and partnerships. Of the 130 plots for which more detailed information is available, 56 - with an area of ​​not more than 100 acres, 72 - from 100 to 400 acres and two over 400, but not more than 1000 acres each. All private ownership plots are grouped in the vicinity of the main settlements of the region - Vladivostok, Nikolsk, Khabarovsk and the village of Razdolny - which provides them with the most profitable sales and comparative ease of timely hiring of workers. There are different opinions regarding the importance of private property holdings in the Ussuri Territory: some (Kryukov) see in them the most important factor in the cultural development of the Territory, but the dominant view is rather negative. Cultural significance - and it is rather limited - is recognized only by a few private-owned farms and not so much in the field of field husbandry as in cattle breeding and fruit growing. The vast majority of private property farms in the region are based entirely on Chinese or Korean utilities and have no cultural significance at all. In total, agriculture in the Ussuri Territory now fully satisfies the food needs of the rural population itself and makes it possible to sell the surpluses that are purchased by the urban population and commissary for food troops. In 1892, up to 600,000 poods were purchased by the quartermaster, and the food needs of the local troops were completely covered by local bread. In recent years, the size of local purchases of commissariat has significantly decreased; for food significantly increased in the number of troops, commissariat finds it more profitable to purchase mainly imported, cheaper bread. The size of cattle breeding is completely insufficient, which is expressed both in the extreme high cost of working cattle and in the lack of animal products that are imported for the most part in canned form for urban consumption.

• Alyabyev. Ussuri region . - St. Petersburg, 1872.
• Geographic Encyclopedic Dictionary. Moscow. "Soviet Encyclopedia". 1989. p. 507
• Budishchev, “Description of the forests of the southern part of the Primorsky region” (2nd ed., Khabarovsk, 1898)
• Kryukov, “An Essay on Agriculture in the Primorsky Region” (St. Petersburg, 1893)
• Busse, “The resettlement of peasants by sea to the South Ussuri Territory” (St. Petersburg, 1896)
• Unterberger, "Primorsky region." (St. Petersburg, 1900)
• Rittikh, “Migration and Peasant Affairs in the South Ussuri Territory” (St. Petersburg, 1899)
• Kaufman, “Report on a business trip to the Amur Region” (St. Petersburg, 1901).
• Arseniev "Across the Ussuri Territory"
• Avilov R.S. “ To protect the borders of the South Ussuri Territory, form ... ” The history of the creation and service of regular cavalry in the Russian Far East (1869–1914). - Vladivostok: Dalnauka, 2011 .-- 181 p.

• Ussuriysk Territory // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.