Russian Settlements and the Beginning of Agriculture in Southwestern Siberia Until After World War II

Abstract

In this publication, the main stages of settlement and land use development in southwestern Siberia since the eighteenth century are presented with a special focus on the Altai Krai. The Altai Krai was and is an important agrarian region in Russia. During the eighteenth century, Russians founded settlements along the river Ob. Migrating peasants from Russia’s European part began to populate the steppe in the nineteenth century. Due to religious freedom and governmental provisions like tax breaks and exemption from military service as well as the rising demand for agricultural products, number of settlements and agricultural land use grew rapidly. In the Altai Krai, a new epoch began in the twentieth century due to the usage of machinery, a developing infrastructure, and the Stolypin agrarian reforms. In the aftermath of World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the subsequent Russian Civil War, the yield of livestock farming and crop production decreased significantly. After the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, conditions for settlement development and land use changed. Important was the rising number of settlements during the 1920s, the reform of land ownership, and the increasing size of fields.