After the abolition of serfdom, the Russian Empire experienced significant demographic growth. According to the census, by the end of the century, the population of the state had reached 129 million. Since the 60s of the 19th century, Russia occupied a leading position among European countries in terms of birth rate.
It was from this period that the migration of rural residents across the territory of Central Russia sharply increased. Most peasants, freed from the oppression of the landowners, headed to big cities, where it was easier to find work.
Some of the former serfs began to gradually populate the free lands of Siberia, since there was an opportunity to cultivate land for which the landowner did not have to pay a tax.
Growth of cities
The development of railway transport, the modernization of industry, the liberation of the countryside from serfdom are the factors that determined the significant growth of cities at the end of the 19th century. The largest populated areas at that time were Moscow, Tula, Rostov-on-Don, St. Petersburg, Kazan, and Odessa.
With the increasing level of urbanization, the main problem of Russian cities at the end of the 19th century was the housing shortage. Only wealthy citizens could purchase their own apartments in industrial cities. About 5% of the city's population lived in basements and attics, where there was often no heating.
During this period, gas lighting first appeared on city streets. By the end of 1892, on the street. Tverskoy and st. The first electric lights are installed on Sadovaya Street in Moscow. In the mid-60s, the first water pipes were installed in big cities, and later sewerage became available to citizens.
In the early 80s, Russian cities acquired the ability to use the first internal telephone line, and within a few years long-distance calls became possible.
Population of cities
The population of the cities was made up of representatives of all classes: nobility, merchants, workers and former peasants, who gradually assimilated with the workers of factories and factories. Characteristic of this period is that the standard of living of the middle class was not uniform; skilled workers were paid decently.
Over time, such representatives of the proletariat became the intelligentsia, because in addition to quality food and decent housing, they could afford a variety of leisure activities, trips to the theater and libraries, and also provide education for their children.
In the second half of the 19th century, a new bourgeois class appeared, the third generation of the first commercial and industrial dynasties, whose lifestyle and education actually made it possible to equate them with the noble elite.
Village in the second half of the 19th century
Despite the trend of peasants moving to cities, the majority of the population of the Russian Empire during this period were rural residents. The technical revolution of the late 19th century fundamentally failed to influence the life and spiritual life of peasant society.
In Russian villages, as before, ancient traditions and customs were carefully preserved, the ethics of family relationships remained unchanged, and special attention was paid to hospitality and mutual assistance. However, a new generation of peasants, born after the abolition of serfdom, increasingly succumbed to the influence of new conditions and trends.
Representatives of the “enlightened” peasantry realized their ambitions at the beginning of the 20th century, becoming the main ideological leaders of new social transformations.
Village improvement
Peasant life remained difficult. The innovations that were actively introduced in the city hardly affected the Russian village. Rural huts were covered with thatch; wealthy landowners could afford iron roofs. For heating and cooking, as before, a stove was used.
Mass mortality was also typical for the village. Peasants were affected by smallpox, diphtheria, measles and scarlet fever. Some diseases that were successfully treated in the city turned out to be fatal for rural residents.
In the village, a high percentage of child mortality remained due to neglect: parents, who were constantly busy with field work, often left preschool children alone.
The abolition of serfdom failed to provide the peasantry with economic independence: the lack of land forced former serfs to be hired to work for large landowners on unfavorable terms.
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Previous topic: Artistic culture of the peoples of Russia in the second half of the 19th centuryNext topic: Social and economic development of Russia at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries
1. Industrial cities, industrial centers.
2. Trade function of cities.
3. Cultural function of cities.
Guryshkin “Merchant Moscow”, R.N. Dmitrienko “The Siberian city of Tomsk” Tomsk 2000, Mironov B.N. “Social history of Russia during the empire” St. Petersburg 2000, V.A Spubnevsky, Goncharov Yu.A. “Cities of Western Siberia in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries” Barnaul 2007.
1. In the era of capitalism, cities become industrial centers. In Russia, the formation of an industrial city began in the post-reform period. The main industrial centers were Moscow and St. Petersburg. Moscow in the central industrial region as a center was formed even before the abolition of serfdom, as the largest textile center. In 1890, its textile factories produced 62 million rubles worth of products with 43 thousand workers. The most famous textile enterprises were Prokhorov's Trekgorka manufactories, and the Trekgorka complex was a whole town, where, in addition to factory buildings and warehouses, there was its own vocational school, medical institutions, libraries and even its own theater. Other large enterprises included Emil's cotton-printing manufactory, Albert Bigner's calico-printing factory, the Bakhrushenykh cloth factory, the Nosovykh factory, and the Giraud and Sons silk factory. Moscow textiles were not only sold throughout Russia, but were also partially exported. Other groups of Moscow industry did not play such a role as textile production, but they were represented by modern large enterprises, among such enterprises was the metalworking plant of the Bromley brothers, which produced machine tools, fittings, equipment for city water supply systems, other large enterprises were the Goujon nail factory, factories mill equipment, partnership Dobrov and Nagolts. The large population of Moscow itself and the mass of visitors stimulated the development of the food industry. Confectionery and tea-packing enterprises and vodka factories stood out in size. In the production of alcoholic beverages there were Smirnov companies and Shustov companies that produced vodka and cognac. The largest brewing industry in Moscow was. Confectionery enterprises are known throughout the country. The Einen company produced sweets, the Abrikosov company specialized in caramel products. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, perfume production received great development. A French perfumer from Moscow was able to build a factory from a workshop. This factory produced perfume, soap, and powder worth 1 million rubles. This factory produced packaged soap. They produced rural, military, electrical and a bouquet of Plevna. All other cities in the central region could not compete with Moscow. But in Ivano-Voznesensk, Kostroma, Serpukhov there were large textile factories, engineering plants, among others there was Ivanovo-Voznesensk. In 1890, there were 52 factories employing 15.3 thousand workers, their annual production amounted to 26 million rubles. In Ivanovo, the enterprises of the Gorelin and Gondurin brothers stood out. In the northwestern region, St. Petersburg became the main industrial center. The capital provided 10% of the industrial output of the entire country. And in mechanical engineering it is 50%. This was due to the presence of large banking centers in St. Petersburg. What made it easier to get a loan was also the proximity of the ministry, which made it easier to get a contract. The seaport provided an opportunity to supply imported equipment. There were more skilled workers in this city. It was here that the huge and most advanced factories in the industry were located, such as Putilovsky, Nevsky, Obukhovsky, Izhora, Admiralty, Aleksandrovsky Mechanical. 12 thousand people worked at the Putilovsky plant, 3 thousand at the Baltic plant. The capital's factories produced sea and river vessels, carriages, steam locomotives, and structures for bridges. The Obukhov plant smelted its own steel, and guns were smelted here. Submarines were built at the Nevsky Plant. In addition, St. Petersburg was a significant center of textile production, but inferior to Moscow. Among the textile enterprises of St. Petersburg one can name: the Nevsky Thread Manufactory, the Malovtinskaya factory, and the factory of the Englishman Torten. Moscow enterprises produced cotton products, and St. Petersburg enterprises produced wool and velvet. St. Petersburg's leading enterprise was the Triangle plant; this plant produced exclusively fashionable rubber shoes at that time and, above all, galoshes.
Food enterprises were represented by confectionery, vodka and breweries. The Landrin Georg factory stood out. The assortment included chocolate, sweets, and lollipops. Monpossier lollipops were very popular. Among the unique ones was the Imperial Porcelain Factory, the volumes are not large, but the quality is very high. In addition, St. Petersburg was the center of printing production; private and state enterprises, private Marx and Stafilevich, are concentrated here. Unlike Moscow, St. Petersburg is not surrounded by industrial villages. In the North-Western industrial region, the centers of Riga, and to a lesser extent Talin, stand out. At the end of the 19th century, the Southern region developed rapidly, which was facilitated by the development of the Donetsk coal basin and Krivoy Rog deposits. Large centers of metallurgical and mechanical engineering production were Kyiv, Odessa, Lugansk, Ekaterinoslav, and Rostov-on-Don.
Among other enterprises in the southern region, the Bellino-Fendrich iron foundry in Odessa stands out, which produced iron foundries and shipbuilding products. In Kharkov, Gelherik Garden, a machine-building enterprise. In large cities of the south, products for processing agricultural products are also known, in connection with this, wool milling, flour milling, and soap production are being formed.
During this period, the old industrial Urals lagged behind the South, which was associated with serfdom and distance from ports and other industrial centers. At the beginning of the 20th century, most of the large factories were outside the cities, in Nizhny Tagil and Izhevsk. Large industrial cities were Yekaterinburg, where cloth enterprises were developed. The Yatis mechanical plant worked there. Other industrial centers in mechanical engineering and shipbuilding were Perm and Yufa.
In the cities of the Volga region, steam mills were large enterprises. The most notable center of flour milling was Saratov, followed by Samara, Tsaritsyn, and Kazan. In addition to the large centers, there was a network industry. The products of the Austrian-Vacano brewery in Samara were famous throughout European Russia; it was he who created the Zhigulevsky variety. Later, Zhigulevskoye beer began to be produced in Saratov and Kazan.
In the central black earth region, industrial development is lower. The economy of the Voronezh and Kursk provinces was agricultural. But in this area the unique city of Tula. In Tula there was a famous imperial arms factory, where the famous Mosin and Berdan rifles were produced. In addition, the famous Tula samovars, accordions and gingerbreads were produced in Tula.
In the northern Caucasus, in the Kuban and Stavropol provinces there were oil distilleries, tobacco plants, and oil refineries. In Transcaucasia, Baku was a major industrial city. In 1870, 1.7 million poods of oil were produced, and in 1900, 600 million poods of oil were produced. There are 4 oil refineries in Grozny.
The cities of Siberia and the Far East lagged behind. Pre-factory production existed here. But shipbuilding developed in the cities of Tyumen, Blagoveshchensk, and Vladivostok. Flour-grinding production developed in Kurgan, Tyumen, Tomsk, Barnaul, and Blagoveshchensk. Leather production in Tyumen. In distilling in Tobolsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk.
In the cities of Central Asia, along with traditional crafts for the production of astrakhan fur, dried fruits, and carpet weaving, factory enterprises are beginning to appear. The large city of Tashkent. 6 cotton gin plants were built here.
2. At the beginning of the 20th century, cities became large shopping centers; the larger the city, the more developed its infrastructure. In this regard, the picture of the Development of Trade in St. Petersburg and Moscow is especially clear. The zone of influence of Moscow wholesale trade was the whole of Russia, due to the fact that Moscow is the main railway junction of the country. The products of the central industrial region were transported from Moscow to other cities. It was Moscow that was the center of the tea trade. Up to 800 thousand poods of tea came here from China to Moscow and through Odessa. At the same time, the weight of the cars delivered to Moscow was 2 times less than the weight of tea.
Roads had a huge impact on the volume and nature of trade. This strengthened and accelerated the division of labor between regions. The central industrial region supplied textiles, mechanical engineering products, and the food industry. North-Western region - products of engineering, textile, chemical enterprises, central - black soil region - grain, livestock, flour. Southern region coal, metal, sugar, alcohol, livestock, agricultural products. cars. Siberia: gold, bread, furs. Poland: textiles, haberdashery, clothing. Bessarabia, Crimea and the Caucasus: grape wines. Astrakhan: melons, fish (sturgeon, kaluga, beluga, caviar). Central Asia: cotton, carpets, dried fruits, velvet fabrics.
Railways determined the growth of stationary trade and the gradual decline of fair trade. But fairs still played a big role. The largest fairs were the Makaryevskaya Fair in Nizhny Novgorod, the Irbitskaya Fair in the Perm province, the Siberian Fair on the Volga, and the Orenburg Fair. And yet, at the beginning of the 20th century, stationary trade came to the first place, which is manifested in the increase in taverns and restaurants. The largest trading city was Moscow. Trade took place on all central streets, and on Red Square, where the ancient Gostiny Dvor was located. But in the 80s of the 19th century it was demolished, and upper shopping arcades were built in its place. In Moscow trade, shops on Kuznetsky Most, Stoleshnikov Lane, and Tverskaya also stood out. In 1901, the famous store of the Eliseev brothers opened on Tverskaya. At the same time, Moscow had foreign trade. As before, bazaars were of great importance to city residents. For foreigners, the Palm and Mushroom bazaars were amazing. Another major center was St. Petersburg. He was inferior to Moscow. But he mostly traded in imported products. There are more pastry shops, antique shops, and restaurants. The famous centers were: Gostiny Dvor, Apraksin Dvor. St. Petersburg especially stood out for its large number of bookstores.
The 3rd trading center was Odessa, the main port on the Black Sea. Large quantities of grain were exported from Odessa. The centers of Odessa trade were Deribasovskaya Street, and the legendary Odessa bazaar “Privoz” also stood out. Trade also developed in other southern cities. Centers Kharkov.
There are large shopping centers in Siberia: Tomsk, Tyumen, Irkutsk.
In the Urals: Yekaterinburg, Perm, Ufa.
Fair trade existed in Siberian and Ural cities, but is gradually being replaced by stationary trade.
3. Urbanization processes manifested themselves not only in the development of the economy and trade, but also in Culture. Most trade institutions represented higher and secondary educational institutions, theaters and museums. The capital cities especially stood out: St. Petersburg and Moscow. But regional cultural cities include: Riga, Warsaw, Tobolsk, Tiflis, Omsk, Tomsk. There were university centers throughout Russia in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Kharkov, Kiev, Derbt, Novorossiysk (Odessa), Warsaw, Tomsk. Higher education in the cities was received in academies, commercial, medical, and religious. There was a famous technical school in Moscow. The cultural function was largely determined by theaters, city parks, dance halls and traveling menageries. The Sokolniki and Hermitage parks were famous in Moscow. In St. Petersburg: America, Arcadia. The ability to use these cultural centers was limited.
The cities of Russia were complex, industrial, commercial, and cultural formations that determined the dynamic development of economic development.
This article is a logical continuation of my pseudo-research artisanal activity. It was reflections on the topic of the heroic exploration of the far north in the 17th century that led me to think about the demography of that time.
To begin with, I will state the idea on which I ended the previous article, namely: How quickly humanity is multiplying and isn’t history very stretched out compared to the rabbit-like agility of people.
I looked through many articles on the topic of demography of the Russian family. I learned the following very important point for me. Peasant families usually grew from 7 to 12 children. This was due to the way of life, the enslavement of Russian women and, in general, the realities of that time. Well, at least common sense tells us that life at that time was less suitable for entertainment than it is now. Nowadays, a person can occupy himself with a wide range of activities. But in the 16th-19th centuries there were no televisions, as well as the Internet and even radio. But what can we say about radio, even if books were a novelty, and then only church ones, and only a few knew how to read. But everyone wanted to eat, and in order to run the household and not die of hunger in old age, they needed a lot of children. And besides, the very creation of children is an international pastime and does not lose relevance in any era. Moreover, this is a godly thing. There was no contraception, and there was no need for it. All this causes a large number of children in the family.
They got married early, before Peter, 15 was the right age. After Peter it’s closer to 18-20. In general, 20 years can be taken as childbearing age.
Also, of course, some sources talk about high mortality, including among newborns. This is something I don't understand a bit. In my opinion, this statement is unfounded. It seems like the old days, no scientific and technical progress in terms of medicine, no institutes of obstetrics and gynecology and all that. But I take my father as an example, in whose family he had 5 brothers and sisters. But they were all born in a rather distant village without these obstetric tricks. The only progress that was made was electricity, but it is unlikely that it could directly help health. Throughout their lives, very few people from this village turned to a doctor for help and, as far as I could see, the absolute majority lived to be 60-70 years old. Of course, there were all sorts of things everywhere: someone would be bitten by a bear, someone would drown, someone would burn in their hut, but these losses were within the limits of statistical error.
From these introductory notes I make a table of the growth of one family. I take it as a basis that the first mother and father begin childbearing at the age of 20 and by the age of 27 they already have 4 children. We don’t take three more into account; let’s say they died suddenly during childbirth or then did not comply with life safety rules, for which they paid, and some men were even taken into the armed forces. In short, they are not the successors of the family. Each of these four lucky ones, let’s say, has the same fate as their parents. They gave birth to seven, four survived. And those four who were given birth to by those whom the first two gave birth to did not become original and followed in the footsteps of their mothers and grandmothers and each gave birth to 7 more children, of whom four grew up. I apologize for the pun. Everything is clearer in the table. We get the number of people from each generation. We take just the last 2 generations and count them. But, since successful childbearing requires a man and a woman, we assume that in this table there are only girls, and another identical family gives birth to boys for them. And then we calculate the birth rate index for 100 years. We divide the sum of 2 generations of people by 2, since for each girl we are forced to add a man from a neighboring family and divide the resulting number by 4, this is how many people we had in our conditions, in the first level of this pyramid. That is, dad and mom are from families where only boys and only girls are born. All this is conditional and only to present the level of possible birth rates over 100 years.
That is, under these conditions, the population would increase 34 times in a year. Yes, this is just potential, under ideal conditions, but then we keep this potential in mind.
If we tighten the conditions and assume that only 3 children reach the childbearing stage, we get a coefficient of 13.5. An increase of 13 times in 100 years!
And now we take a completely catastrophic situation for the village. Nobody pays a pension, the cow needs to be milked, the land needs to be plowed, and there are only 2 children. And at the same time we get a birth rate of 3.5.
But this is just a theory, even a hypothesis. I'm sure there's a lot I didn't take into account. Let's turn to the great Vicky. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_Reproduction
Returning to the topic of the development of medicine, which defeated high mortality. I can’t believe in the great medicine of the designated countries, and in my opinion, the high growth in them is only in comparison with the low growth in European countries, and before it was at the same level.
And Russia in the 19th century, judging by the same Wiki, was in 2nd place in terms of birth rates in the world, after China.
But the main thing we see is population growth of 2.5-3% per year. And a modest 3% per year turns into an 18-fold increase in population in 100 years! An increase of 2% makes a 7-fold increase in 100 years. That is, in my opinion, these statistics confirm the possibility of such an increase (8-20 times per 100 years) in Russia in the 16th-19th centuries. In my opinion, the life of peasants in the 17th-19th centuries was not very different, no one treated them, which means the increase should be the same.
We roughly understood that humanity can multiply many times over in a very short time. Various reviews of Russian families only confirm this; there were many children. My observations also confirm this. But let's see what the statistics tell us.
Sustainable growth. But if we take the lowest coefficient of 3.5 times over 100 years, which is MUCH less than the 2 or 3% per year that some advanced countries have, then even that is too high for this table. Let's take the interval 1646-1762 (116 years) and compare it with our coefficient of 3.5. It turns out that the meager demography should have reached 24.5 million in 100 years, but only reached 18 million in 116 years. And if we calculate the growth over 200 years within the boundaries of 1646, then in 1858 there should be 85 million, but we have only 40.
And I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the end of the 16th and the entire 17th century for Russia was a period of great expansion into territories with very difficult climatic conditions. With such an increase, I think it’s hardly possible.
To hell with the 17th century. Maybe someone was missing somewhere or the quantity was compensated by quality. Let's take the heyday of the Russian Empire in the 19th century. Just a good 100 year period is indicated as 1796-1897, we get an increase of 91.4 million in 101 years. They had already learned to count and mastered absolutely the entire territory, at the maximum of which the Republic of Ingushetia died. Let’s calculate how much the population should have been with an increase of 3.5 times in 100 years. 37.4* 3.5 equals 130.9 million. Here! It's already close. And this despite the fact that the Russian Empire was the leader in birth rates after China. And let’s also not forget that over these 100 years, Russia not only gave birth to people, but in the number 128.9, as far as I understand, the population of the annexed territories is also taken into account. But to be honest, we generally need to compare within the territories of 1646. In general, it turns out that according to the meager coefficient of 3.5 there should have been 83 million, but we have only 52. Where are there 8-12 children in a family? At this stage, I am inclined to believe that there were still a lot of children, rather than in the statistics given, or whatever Mironov’s work is called.
But you can play with demographics in the opposite direction. Let's take 7 million people in 1646 and interpolate back a hundred years with a factor of 3, we get 2.3 million in 1550, 779 thousand in 1450, 259 thousand in 1350, 86,000 in 1250, 28,000 in 1150 and 9,600 people in 950 year. And the question arises: did Vladimir baptize this handful of people?
What will happen if we interpolate the population of the entire earth with a minimum coefficient of 3? Let's take the exact year 1927 - 2 billion people. 1827th - 666 million, 1727th -222 million, 1627th -74 million, 1527th - 24 million, 1427th - 8 million, 1327th - 2.7 million... In general, even with a coefficient of 3, in the year 627 there should have been 400 people living on earth ! And with a coefficient of 13 (3 children in a family), we get a population of 400 people in the year 1323!
But let's return from heaven to earth. I was interested in facts, or rather, at least some official sources, information from which I could rely. I took Vicky again. Compiled a table of the population of large and medium-sized cities from the beginning of the 17th century to the end of the 20th. I entered all the significant cities into Wiki, looked at the date of the city’s founding, and the population tables and moved them to my place. Maybe someone will learn something from them. For those less curious, I recommend skipping it and moving on to the second, in my opinion, the most interesting part.
When I look at this table, I remember what was there in the 17th and 18th centuries. We need to deal with the 17th century, but the 18th century is the development of manufactories, water mills, steam engines, shipbuilding, iron making, and so on. There should be an increase in cities in my opinion. But our urban population begins to increase at least somehow only in 1800. Veliky Novgorod was founded in 1147, and in 1800 only 6 thousand people lived in it. What did you do for so long? In ancient Pskov the situation is the same. In Moscow, founded in 1147, already 100 thousand live in 1600. And in neighboring Tver in 1800, that is, only 200 years later, only 16,000 people live. In the north-west rises the capital city of St. Petersburg, with 220 thousand people, while Veliky Novgorod has passed just over 6 thousand. And so on in many cities.
Part 2. What happened in the mid-19th century.
Regularly, “underground” history researchers stumble upon the mid-19th century. Many incomprehensible wars, great fires, all sorts of incomprehensible things with weapons and destruction not comparable to them. Here is at least this photo, where the date of construction is clearly indicated on the gate, or at least the date when these gates were installed, 1840. But at this time, nothing could threaten or harm the abbey of these gates, much less simply destroy the abbey. There were skirmishes between the British and the Scots in the 17th century, and then quietly.
So I, while researching the population of cities on Wiki, ran into something strange. Almost all Russian cities experienced a sharp decline in population around either 1825 or 1840s or 1860s, and sometimes in all three cases. The thought comes to mind that these 2-3 failures are actually one event that was somehow duplicated in history, in this case in censuses. And this is not a percentage drop, as in the 1990s (I counted a maximum of 10% in the 90s), but a decrease in population by 15-20%, and sometimes 30% or more. Moreover, in the 90s a large number of people simply migrated. And in our case, they either died, or people found themselves in such conditions that they could not give birth to children, which led to this effect. We recall photographs of empty cities in Russia and France from the mid-19th century. We are told that the shutter speed is long, but there are not even shadows from passers-by, perhaps this is just that period.
I would like to note one more detail. When we look at the demographic gap, we compare it with the value of the previous census, the second minus the first - we get a difference that we can express as a percentage. But this will not always be the right approach. Here's the example of Astrakhan. The difference between 56 and 40 is 11,300 people, which means that the city lost 11,300 people in 16 years. But in 11 years? We don’t yet know whether the crisis was extended over all 11 years, or whether it happened, say, in a year, in 1955. Then it turns out that from 1840 to 1855 the trend was positive, and another 10-12 thousand people could have been added and by the 55th there would have been 57,000. Then we get a difference of not 25%, but 40%.
So I look and I can’t understand what happened. Either all the statistics are falsified, or something is seriously mixed up, or the guardsmen wandered from city to city and slaughtered thousands of people. If there was a catastrophe, like a flood, then everyone would be washed away in one year. But if the catastrophe itself happened earlier, and then a sharp change in the world paradigm followed, as a result of the weakening of some states that were more affected and the strengthening of those less affected, then the picture with the guardsmen takes place.
Below, for the sake of an example, I would like to superficially examine a couple of oddities in the clippings.
City of Kirov. There was a very small population decline in the years 56-63, not great, only 800 people were lost. But the city itself is not great, although it was founded God knows how long ago, in 1781, and before that, it also had a history dating back to the era of Ivan the Terrible. But to start building a huge cathedral in the unremarkable city of Kirov, Kirov region with a population of 11 thousand in 1839, in honor of Alexander I’s visit to the Vyatka province and calling it, of course, Alexander Nevsky Cathedral is strange. Of course, it is 2 times lower than St. Isaac's, but it was built over several years, not counting the time of collecting money. http://arch-heritage.livejournal.com/1217486.html
Moscow. 
It began to lose a fair amount of population at the beginning of the 18th century. I admit the possibility of an outflow of the population to St. Petersburg in the mid-18th century, after the construction of the road in 1746, along which, by the way, it took a month to get there. But in 1710, where did those 100 thousand people go? The city has been under construction for 7 years and has already been flooded a couple of times. I cannot accept that 30% of the population with their belongings, it is not clear how they leave the pleasant Moscow climate, a populated city, to the northern swamps and barracks. And where did more than 100 thousand people go in 1863? Are the events of 1812 happening here? Or let’s say the turmoil of the early 17th century? Or maybe it's all one and the same?
One could somehow explain this by some kind of recruitment or local epidemic, but the process can be traced throughout Russia. Tomsk has a very clear framework for this cataclysm. Between 1856 and 1858 the population declined by 30%. Where and how were so many thousands of conscripts transported without even the presence of railways? To central Russia on the western front? The truth can also protect Petropavlovsk-Kachatsky.
It feels like the whole story is mixed up. And I’m no longer sure that the Pugachev uprising took place in the 1770s. Maybe these events just happened in the middle of the 19th century? Otherwise I don't understand. Orenburg.
If we put these statistics into official history, it turns out that all the disappeared people were conscripts for the Crimean War, some of whom later returned. Still, Russia had an army of 750 thousand. I hope that in the comments someone will evaluate the adequacy of this assumption. But, all the same, it turns out that we underestimate the scale of the Crimean War. If they went so far as to sweep almost all adult men from large cities to the front, then they were also swept out of villages, and this is already the level of losses of the 1914-1920s if expressed as a percentage. And then there was the First World War and the Civil War, which claimed 6 million people, and don’t forget about the Spanish Flu, which only within the borders of the RSFSR claimed 3 million lives in a year and a half! It’s strange to me, by the way, why such an event receives so little attention in the same media. Indeed, in the world it claimed from 50 to 100 million people in a year and a half, and this is either comparable to or more than the losses of all sides over 6 years in the Second World War. Isn’t this the same manipulation of demographic statistics, in order to somehow trim the population size, so that there would be no questions about where these 100 million people went, say, in the same mid-19th century.
Istanbul in the 19th century
Cities, like people, have a life expectancy - a life path.
Some of them, like Paris, are very ancient - they are more than 2000 years old. Other cities, on the contrary, are still very young.
In this article, with the help of old maps, reproductions and photographs, we will trace the life path of these cities - what they were like then, and what they are now.
Rio de Janeiro was founded by Portuguese colonists in 1565.
Guanabara Bay, the second largest bay in Brazil, beckoned with its splendor.
By 1711 a large city had already grown here.
And today it is still one of the most picturesque cities in the world.
You may have heard that New York was first called New Amsterdam, which was the name given to it by Dutch settlers who settled there in the early 17th century. It was renamed in 1664 in honor of the Duke of York.
This 1651 engraving of southern Manhattan reveals that the city was still called New Amsterdam.
Between 1870 and 1915, New York's population tripled, growing from 1.5 to 5 million residents. This 1900 photo shows a group of Italian immigrants on a New York City street.
A lot of money went into building structures like this Manhattan Bridge (1909 photo) to support the city's growing population.
Divided into five boroughs, New York City is now home to 8.4 million people, according to the 2013 census.
Archaeologists claim that around 250 BC. one Celtic tribe who called themselves Parisii(Parisi), settled on the banks of the Seine, founding the city that now bears the name Paris.
They settled on the Ile de la Cité, where Notre Dame Cathedral now stands.
The Parisians minted such beautiful coins; they are now kept in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA).
By the early 1400s, when this painting was painted, Paris was already one of the largest cities in Europe, perhaps even the largest. Shown here is a castle on the Ile de la Cité.
Now it is one of the most beloved cities on our planet.
Situated along the Huangpu River in central Shanghai, the area called the Bund of the Bund became a global financial center in the late 1800s, housing trade missions for the United States, Russia, Great Britain and other European countries.
This photo from the 1880s shows that the old part of the city is surrounded by a moat, which remains from earlier times.
It was noisy and lively here. Commercial success turned the fishing town into the “Pearl of the Orient.”
In 1987, Shanghai's Pudong district was not nearly as developed as it is now. He grew up in a swampy area on the other side of the Huangpu River, opposite the Bund.
In the early 1990s, Pudong opened its doors to foreign investment.
And in place of inconspicuous high-rise buildings, skyscrapers immediately rose. The Shanghai TV Tower, the third tallest tower in the world, is also located here. It is also called the “Pearl of the East”.
Today, the Bund of the Bund is one of the most beautiful places in all of China.
And Pudong is one of the most futuristic. Here anyone will feel like a hero of a fantasy blockbuster.
Istanbul (first called Byzantium and then Constantinople) was founded in 660 BC. Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1453.
It did not take the Ottomans long to transform the city, which was a stronghold of Christianity, into a symbol of Islamic culture. They built richly decorated mosques here.
Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.
Since the 19th century, the city has been constantly expanding. Istanbul's shopping center is located near the Galata Bridge, which has been rebuilt five times over the past five centuries.
Galata Bridge in the late 1800s.
Today, Istanbul remains the cultural center of Turkey.
The Romans founded Londinium (modern London) in 43 AD. In the picture below you can see the first bridge built over the River Thames.
By the 11th century, London was already the largest port in England.
Westminster Abbey, built in the second century, is a World Heritage Site and is one of London's oldest and most significant buildings. Here it is depicted in a painting from 1749.
In the 17th century, approximately 100,000 people died in London as a result of the Black Plague. In 1666, the Great Fire broke out in the city - it took several years to rebuild.
From 1714 to 1830, new areas such as Mayfair emerged and new bridges over the Thames stimulated the development of areas in South London.
Trafalgar Square in London in 1814.