Urban Economy of Orlovskaya and Tambovskaya Guberniyas in the Late 18th-Early 19th Centuries (General Land Survey Data)

Abstract

The article poses a problem of a multi-style character of the urban economy in Russia in the late 18th - early 19th centuries and its reflection in the General Land Survey taken in European Russia at that period. These are the Economic Comments to the General Land Survey which recorded the main parameters of the urban economy within the framework of the unified description program that provide for comparing its agrarian, commercial and industrial components. The study uses the materials of the Economic Comments on 26 cities of two Black Earth Region Guberniyas of Russia – Orlovskaya and Tambovskaya ones. The specificity of the region is determined by its relatively late development and the formation of the urban network within the framework of large defensive projects of the Moscow state. Statistical analysis and GIS-mapping of the Comments data allowed one to come to the following conclusions. This region is commonly characterized by the formation of large agricultural complexes with large (more than 5 thousand desyatins) areas of arable and hay fields surrounding the cities during the General Land Survey. This circumstance significantly increased the area of the city within the framework of the "general urban boundary", but to a much lesser extent influenced the total size of its population. The industry of the cities of the region consisted almost exclusively of small "plants" while big manufacturing production was at its early stage of development and was not dependent on the processes of concentration of small enterprises in individual cities. The function of the cities of the region as centers of trade was much more pronounced. Fairs and/ or weekly auctions were held in most of them. The results of the Economic Comments statistics correlation analysis allow one to assume that further development of the Black Earth Region cities was mainly related to commercial and industrial branches of their economy.