From the history of Siberia’s zoning: formation of districts in Narymsky territory of Tomsk province

The article is devoted to the reconstruction of the poorly studied process of parish zoning in Narymsky County (uezd) of Tomsk Province in 1924. The main sources for the study were official and record-keeping documents (reports, minutes of meetings, correspondence) stored in the State Archive of the Tomsk Region in the funds of the executive committees of the Tomsk Province (Tomsky Gubispolkom) and Narymsky County (Narymsky raiispolkom). The traditional concept of division into districts in literature is limited to describing the decisions of the highest and regional authorities: the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Siberian Revolution Committee and the provincial executive committees. The role of the lower authorities remained unsolved. In addition, the view was proclamed that the zoning was carried out in accordance with the desire of the population itself and contributed to the coming nearer of the authorities to the population. The article describes in detail the process of drafting a decision on the consolidation of voles and the formation of districts in Narym County. The initial zoning project was developed in the provincial planning commission in 1923. According to this project, Narymsky County was to be divided into 4 large districts: Kargasok, Kolpashevsky, Parabel and Chainsky. The exact boundaries of the districts were not strictly defined, so Narymsky raiispolkom was instructed to organize a survey of the population about the desire to join an area. The article shows that the survey was formal, as the authorities tried to use it only as a confirmation of the validity of the zoning project. However, the population of the southern part of the county perceived this survey as an opportunity to influence the progress of the consolidation of the voles. For example, residents of Andarminskaya, Vargaterskoe and Parbinsky voles offered several options for zoning, alternative to the creation of a large Chainsky district with a center in the village of Podgorny. But Narymsky raiispolkom for various reasons rejected all these options. He supported only the decision to divide the Tiskin parish: it was in line with the intention of the district executive committee to include most of this parish in the Kolpashevsky district. The same decision was supported by Tomsky Gubispolkom: its members received distorted information from Narymsky district executive committee and were not inclined to deeply understand the situation of residents of the remote county. As a result, the initial zoning project was implemented with almost unchanged, and many settlements of Kargasok, Parabel and Chainsky districts were removed from the district centers by several hundred kilometers. Thus, during the zoning of Narym County, the county authorities played an active role, but they themselves took very little account of the views of the population. It is not surprising that the enlargement of the parishes did not lead to the declared coming nearer of the authorities to the population.

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