Forgotten peoples of Siberia. Bricklayers

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Bricklayers (Bukhtarma bricklayers, Bukhtarma Old Believers, Altai stonemasons, Bukhtarma residents) are an ethnographic group of Russians that formed in the 18th - 19th centuries on the territory of Southwestern Altai in the numerous inaccessible mountain valleys of the Bukhtarma River basin and the high-altitude Uimon steppe at the headwaters of the Katun River.

The name comes from the old Russian designation for mountainous terrain - stone, which means "mountain dwellers, highlanders." It was formed from the families of Old Believers, mostly bespopovtsy Pomor consent, and other fugitives from government duties - mining peasants, recruits, serfs, convicts and later settlers.

The formation of the Bukhtarma bricklayers was the result of a mixture of people from different regions and different social groups, who gradually poured into the communities of old-timers. The core was made up of kerzhaks from the Nizhny Novgorod province. The cultural influence of immigrants from Pomorie, Olonets, Novgorod, Vologda, Perm provinces, Western Siberia and Altai Territory, as well as Kazakhs, Altai, Oirats is noted. Due to their common origin and long-term cohabitation, the Bukhtarma residents became especially close to the “Poles”. Due to the lack of women, there were mixed marriages with the local Turkic and Mongol peoples (it was obligatory for the bride to accept the Old Belief), the children were considered Russian. The influence of Kazakh traditions on the life and culture of masons is noticeable in the elements of clothing, household items, some customs, knowledge of the language. There was a custom of adopting other people's children, regardless of nationality. The illegitimate children bore the surname of their maternal grandfather and enjoyed the same rights as the "legal" ones. Old Believers, in order to avoid closely related marriages, remembered up to nine generations of their ancestors.

Researchers noted the great prosperity of the Bukhtarma masons, due to the minimum pressure of state duties, the internal system of self-government and mutual assistance, a special temperament, generous natural resources of the region, and the use of hired workers. Masons, up to collectivization, represented a very closed and local society, with its own unique culture and traditional way of life - according to the conservative norms and rules of Orthodox Old Believer communities, with a strong restriction on external contacts.

From the very beginning of the 18th century, Russian fugitives settled behind the Kolyvano-Kuznetsk fortified line in the vast, inaccessible places of the southern Altai mountains. After the weakening and defeat of the Dzungar Khanate by the troops of the Qing Empire, the Bukhtarma Territory found itself on neutral territory, between the fuzzy borders of the Russian Empire and China. The region was rich in natural resources and was outside the legal framework of neighboring states. The first Old Believers appeared here in the 1720s, but documentary evidence refers only to the 1740s. The reason for the shoots was the introduction in the 20s. XVIII century double salary from Old Believers, as well as the order of 1737 on attracting schismatics to mining work at state-owned factories.

The Bukhtarma Valley was often the ultimate goal of the fugitives. Later, these lands were called Belovodye.

The founder of the Bukhtarma freemen was considered the peasant Afanasy Seleznev, as well as the Berdyugins, Lykovs, Korobeinikovs, Lysovs. Their descendants still live in villages on the banks of Bukhtarma.

The first settlements consisted of single houses, settlements and small villages of 5-6 yards. Bricklayers were engaged in hunting, agriculture (the fallow-fallow system prevailed), fishing, beekeeping, and later maral breeding (breeding of the Altai subspecies of the Red Deer). They exchanged the obtained furs and products for goods from neighbors - Siberian Cossacks, Kazakhs, Altai, Chinese, as well as visiting Russian merchants. Villages were built near rivers, and a mill and a smithy were always installed in them. In 1790, there were 15 villages. Some of the masons left the Bukhtarma Valley further into the mountains, on the Argut and Katun rivers. They founded the Old Believer village of Uimon and several other settlements in the Uimon Valley.

After the foundation of the Bukhtarma fortress, 17 Russian settlements were discovered in the surrounding mountains on the lower Bukhtarma.

By the rescript of Catherine II of September 15, 1791, part of the masons (205 men and 68 women) and the territories inhabited by them were accepted into Russia as the Bukhtarma foreign council and the Uimon foreign council. They paid the government with yasak in the form of furs and animal skins, like foreigners (peoples of non-Russian origin). On the one hand, such a legal position gave more freedoms, and on the other hand, it equated them with the least revered categories of the population. In addition, the Bukhtarma residents were freed from subordination to the sent administration, mining operations, recruitment and some other duties.

After receiving the official status of Russian subjects, the Bukhtarma masons moved to more convenient places to live. In 1792, instead of 30 small settlements from 2-3 courtyards, 9 villages were formed, in which a little more than 300 people lived: Osochikha (Bogatyrevo), Bykovo, Sennoe, Korobikha, Pechi, Yazovaya, Belaya, Fykalka, Malonarymskaya (Ognevo).

In 1796, yasak was replaced by a monetary tax, and in 1824. - quitrent as from sedentary foreigners. In the 1835 census, there were 326 men and 304 women in the council.

In 1878 the Bukhtarma and Uimon non-Russian councils were abolished and turned into ordinary peasant councils with the elimination of all benefits.

In 1883, the population of the Bukhtarma region, which was administratively part of the Biysk district of the Tomsk province, was 15503 souls of both sexes, including 5240 souls lived in the Zyryanovskaya volost; Bukhtarma peasant - 4931, Bukhtarma foreign - 2153, Bolshenarym - 3184 souls. The Bukhtarma peasant volost consisted of 11 villages, whose inhabitants were engaged in cattle breeding, arable farming, beekeeping, transporting ores from the Zmeinogorsk mine to the Bukhtarma ore-alloying pier, trade, etc. They used 5000 dessiatines. arable land and up to 1400 dess. hay land. Some of the settlements unknown to the authorities remained until the October Revolution and Collectivization.

In 1927, only five Bukhtarma villages founded by bricklayers numbered over 3000 people.

As a result of pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet cultural-political processes and migrations, the descendants of Bukhtarma residents consider themselves to be a common Russian ethnos and live in various regions of Kazakhstan, Russia, China, the United States, and other countries of the world. The largest number of descendants of Altai masons live in cities and villages of the East Kazakhstan region, which includes the main territories of the historical formation of masons. In the 2002 census on the territory of the Russian Federation, only 2 people indicated their affiliation with masons.

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