THE EFFECTS OF IN-MIGRATION AND MUNICIPAL REFORM ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF TOMSK
 
 
  
 		 By the year 1900, more than 100,000 persons per year were migrating across the Urals into Siberia (Fedor, 1975). This flow of migrants brought increasing economic prosperity to the whole area but nowhere in Siberia was this prosperity enjoyed more than in Tomsk. The population of the city had more than doubled from 20,202 in 1857 to 52,210 by the time of the all-Russian census of 1897, and by 1910 it was to double again. However, this growth was not founded on an industrialising economy, but rather on trade and commerce. In fact, this sector was the second largest in Tomsk in 1897, after domestic service, and comprised just under 20 percent of the city’s population (Bittner, 1994). Trade involved parties in Siberia, European Russia, and even in western Europe. Leather from Irkutsk, butter, tea and sugar from Semipalatinsk and Omsk, and manufactured goods from European Russia were the major commodities which made their way to Tomsk. Trade within the city was largely dominated by local shops (more than 500 in 1879), street vendors and the markets held every week on Tuesdays and Fridays (Bittner, 1994). 

As local trade grew, banking in Tomsk also prospered. When the city’s third bank, the General Bank, opened in 1873, it had a foundation capital of 85,714 roubles. By New Year’s day 1876, this capital had grown to 331,144 roubles and total turnover in the previous year had reached nearly 2,000,000 roubles (Economicheskoe sostoiane, 1882). Despite the magnitude of trade and banking in Tomsk, local production remained minimal. Total manufacturing production in Tomsk in 1900 amounted to a mere 2,170,905 roubles - only a fraction of the city’s volume of trade. This production was carried out in 236 small-scale factories and workshops; vodka and beermaking accounting for more than half of the manufacturing output at this time (Bittner, 1994). 

The Tomsk local government reforms of 1870 resulted for the first time in the active participation of the merchant class in municipal affairs. The vibrant trade balance meant that the city consistently ran budget surpluses from this time until 1902 and a proportion of the taxes raised were used by the Tomsk authorities in blagoustroistvo, or beautification of the city’s buildings. In architecture, this found its reflection in the construction of many fine stone buildings in the city centre and also the urge to create a new style based on Russian medieval prototypes. From this time onwards Tomsk developed its reputation for finely decorated wooden residential buildings, belonging to the merchant class. In the decoration of Tomsk mansions of the period can be seen the most diverse types and motifs in wood carving (Figure 11). But by 1902 the prosperity on which this development took place was drawing to a close. The adverse effects on trade of the city’s isolation from the Trans Siberian Railway, and the conclusion of a local gold rush at around the same time, started Tomsk on a slope of economic decline which persisted until Soviet times. 

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Figure 11: Detail of Carved Decoration 
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