The Role of Gendarme Staff Officer D. G. Ponomarev Overseeing Gold Mining in Western Siberia

Abstract

The gendarmerie supervision of private gold mining in Siberia appeared as a result of a large number of labor strikes at gold mines in Siberia in the late 1830s and early 1840s. The government believed that the presence of gendarmes in the gold mines would help reduce the number of workers’ strikes and be a way for the authorities to receive direct intel about all activities taking place in the gold mining industry. In Russian historiography, the gendarmerie supervision of the industrial sector of the economy has not actually been studied; this fact actualizes the research presented in this article. The key purpose of this article is to analyze the activities of gendarme officer Dmitry Gavrilovich Ponomarev, who had been supervising private gold mining enterprises in Western Siberia for 14 years - longer than all his predecessors and successors. The research aims were to reveal the reason for the appointment of Ponomarev to this position, identify his main duties during his time in service, analyze his documentation, and answer the question about the effectiveness of gendarmerie supervision as a whole, based on the example of Ponomarev’s activity. The first gendarme officers who supervised the gold mining industry, especially D. G. Ponomarev, treated their duties fairly responsibly, trying to delve into all aspects of the gold mining process. The remained documentation testifies to Ponomarev’s sufficiently high competence in the matters of gold mining. The gendarmerie supervision of private gold mining in Siberia was a fairly good source of information for the highest executive authorities in the region about the processes and events that took place in private gold mines. Therefore, it can be concluded that the gendarmerie agency had a sufficiently high degree of effectiveness in this regard.