State, scientific and technical interests of the gendarme supervision of the Siberian gold industry in the 19th century

A study is being conducted on the history of the establishment and implementation of gendarme supervision of the private gold industry in Siberia, which acted as a guide to the policy of the Government of the Russian Empire in the industrial sector of the economy. This study involves solving the following tasks: to establish mechanisms for the implementation of gendarme supervision; to identify the tasks that were solved during the implementation of gendarme supervision of the private gold industry in Siberia; to identify the aspects of gold mining that gendarme officers paid attention to; to answer the question why gendarme supervision was established only for the gold industry, and not for other areas of industrial production. To achieve these objectives, the following scientific methods were used: analysis, synthesis, narrative, historical-comparative and historical-genetic methods. The main sources for writing a scientific article were the gendarmerie records, which are kept in central and regional archives, some of the documents were first introduced into scientific circulation, as well as orders and orders for the gendarmerie department. In the course of the study, the following conclusions were drawn. Gendarme supervision of gold mining in Siberia is a unique phenomenon in the sphere of government policy. The gendarmerie officers who supervised them considered themselves to be the agents of the Government's economic policy. In their reports, the gendarme officers emphasized the national importance of the gold industry. The gendarmes initiated the development of the gold industry, highlighting its positive and negative sides both for the Siberian region and its inhabitants, as well as for the whole country. The gendarmes attached great importance to the technical and scientific aspects of the development of the gold mining process. Gendarme supervision had a positive impact on the development of the gold industry in Siberia: gold mining increased, the technical side of this process improved, and the number of workers' worries decreased. For this reason, the Government decided to gradually eliminate gendarmerie surveillance and switch the activities of gendarmes to other tasks, primarily conducting political investigation. Gendarme supervision was not extended to other areas of industrial production due to the lack of such a need. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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