Organization of Passenger Transportation in the Ob-Irtysh Water Basin (End of XIX – Early XX Centuries)

Abstract

In modern historical literature the problem of the formation and development of river companies is actively studied by historians, which allows us to trace the formation of new forms of economic relations, primarily in remote regions. But the development of entrepreneurial companies is primarily associated with customers, consumers, and potential clients. The transportation of passengers at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries, including in the Ob-Irtysh water basin, became a popular commercial service, which, in the absence of alternative transportation options, brought in good income. The purpose of this article is to show the organization and dynamics of passenger transportation in the Ob-Irtysh water basin. In preparing this work, a statistical method and a method of selective analysis of data from the reporting documentation of several river companies were used. This made it possible to identify not only categories and groups of passengers of river companies, but also to show the conditions of accommodation during transportation along the rivers of the Ob-Irtysh water basin. Although there were seven groups of passengers transported, the main customers of this service were local residents, and the most profitable client was the state. These conclusions confirm the opinion of contemporaries, as well as the conclusions of historians about the interest of all participants in the process of commodity-money relations in Western Siberia in the development of not only railway transport, but also river transport. Sources also indicate that large river transport companies sought to diversify their capital by investing it in areas that had just taken shape in the Ob-Irtysh water basin. Of interest is the organization of passenger transportation both by the company itself and under contracts with the executive authorities of local routes in the Ob North.