Karmaleyka (Nizhny Novgorod region)

Located 9 km south of r.p. Ardatova .

The village stands on the northern shore of a small lake, from which a stream flows southward. In the north and northeast of the village, 1-1.5 km are ravines up to 4 m deep.

In the middle of the XIX century. Karmaleyka was located 8 miles from the county town, on the right side of the trade route Ardatov - Temnikov (Tambov province). The village was part of the first camp of Ardatovsky district.

In Karmaleyka there was no temple, therefore, despite the significant population, it had the status of a village.

In 1859, Karmaleyka consisted of 101 courtyards, 324 males and 340 females lived here. The village was listed as a department. After peasant reforms, Karmaleyka became part of the Kuzhendeevsky volost.

Along with agriculture, the peasants of the village were engaged in turning wooden dishes, by the mid-1880s. they specialized mainly in the manufacture of wooden cups.

At this time, the village population consisted of 385 men and 390 women. The village contained 136 horses, 138 cows and 385 heads of small livestock.

According to the recollections of local residents, Karmaley’s men were called “krueniks” - not having the means to build their own church, they “walked around the world with circles, collecting to build the temple of God.”

However, they not only “traveled the world”, Karmaleyka, along with other villages of state and specific peasants of the Ardatov district, was the center of the export trade.

In the village, the house of the rich man Polygalin is still preserved. Old people remember his big apiaries and the oil mill.

By the end of the XIX century. (according to the first All-Russian census) the population of the village decreased from 775 to 699 people, and the reduction was due to the male population. By 1897, there were only 294 male residents in the village, ascribed to the Karmaley peasant society, and 9 newcomers. There were 396 women in the village, 6 of them were newcomers.

In 1904, two grocery stores were registered in the village. Their owners were I.I. Voronin, N.A. Saltykov.

In 1910 The village consisted of 142 households, united in a peasant society. In 1912, the number of households remained the same. The population was 873 people, the total number of livestock is 703 heads.

Old-timers remember that there were few pastures and meadows in Karmaleyka, therefore the number of livestock was small. The huts and courtyards were thatched. This, according to N.V. Kopein, testified to the chronic poverty of the Karmaleans: "Poverty peeped out of all the cracks."

In 1931 the collective farm “Red furrow” was organized in the village. According to Nina Viktorovna, "the Karmaleyites began to live better, poverty receded, the collective farm was gaining strength."

The collective farm was headed by D.S. Posadnov. The activists of the collective farm movement were: S.N. Kharitonov, F.A. Kondakov, I.I. Rozhnov, Savin.

In the post-war years, at different times S.N. Kharitonov and F. A. Kondakov were the chairmen of the Karmaley collective farm, then it was merged with the Iskra collective farm, then it re-existed independently.

The name of the village of Mordovian origin: “karmamo” means the beginning, and “lei” means the river, river valley. This name corresponds to the location of the village - in the upper reaches of the Lemeti River.