Development of post service in the beginning of the XX century in Gorny Altai

Theneed to get news from other districts and countries goes back to an high antiquity. Post service - a component of the nation-wide communicationsystem, one of economy branches. It satisfies requirements of the industry, agriculture, management personnel for information interchangeboth in the country, and with other states, and also some cultural and community requirements of the population.On the all-Russian materials the theme of history of post service is rather well investigated. On materials of Gorny Altai the designated problemhadn't become the object of complex and special studying: tendencies, features and specificity of creation and functioning of post service at varioushistorical stages aren't characterized. In Gorny Altai (Gorny Altai was a part of Biysk district of Tomsk province) it is formally possible to consider asdate of creation of mail the year of 1904, when in village Ongudai the Altay Gorny district of Tomsk province the post-cable branch has been formed.By 1916 the territory of Gorny Altai was served by five post-cable branches and five post-cable agencies.The main activity of post workers was delivery of letters and the documentation, parcels and material assets. However, being in department ofthe Ministry of Internal Affairs, and closely cooperating with the Ministry of Finance, post workers often had to be engaged in gathering of statisticaldata. The collected data concerned number of a livestock of cattle, quantity of crops and grain stocks. They were also engaged in drawing up of listsof government agencies, the officials evacuated on military circumstances from areas of operations in other points. The data about the former militaryranks that left service in connection with wound, and arrived on service in post-cable branches. There were also data about the geographical positionand the population of province, the factory and factory industry, trade, taxes and duties, state buildings. It also contained the information about nationalmorals, about number of prisoners, an amount of fires, hospitals, the working medical personnel, quantity of drugstores, maternity homes, psychiatrichospitals, ambulance stations, shelters, about smallpox vaccination, epidemics, about number of violent deaths, etc. All these data were usedin the annual report to the emperor and published in «Reviews of Tomsk province».The formation and development of post service was favorable to all categories of the population in the region. Among them officials ofdifferent level, peasants, dealers, travelers etc. Thanks to occurrence of such service the region population had an opportunity in rather shortterms to carry out sending and reception of correspondence, parcels, transfers, etc. Actually in 1904-1915 the foundation for development ofpost service and its infrastructure in the region was laid down.

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