Activities of Ivan Ogarev as the first gendarme staff officer for the supervision of private gold mines 149 in Western Siberia

The article is devoted to the identification of some aspects of the establishment of gendarmerie supervision of private gold mining in Western Siberia in the 1840s. The aim of the article is to analyze the activities of Ivan Ogarev, the gendarme staff officer, who was the first to carry out this supervision. The objectives of the article are the following: establishing the circumstances and reasons for Ogarev's election to this post; a comprehensive analysis of Ogarev's activities in this position; an attempt to evaluate Ogarev's activities, and also to answer the question of the effectiveness of gendarmerie supervision of private gold mining. The main source for the study was the gendarmerie documentation (reports, records, correspondence), which is stored in central and regional Russian archives. During the research, the author came to the following conclusions. The gendarmerie agency and the highest executive power in the region had carefully considered the candidates for that post. As a result, the choice fell on the candidacy of Ogarev, who suited all parties because of his successful activities in other gendarmerie positions - primarily, the gendarme staff officer in Tobolsk Province. The activity of this gendarme officer in a new position demonstrated that gendarmerie supervision justified the expectations of the authorities who wanted to see an effective instrument of government control over the private gold mining industry in Siberia, which then was the main industrial sector in the region and brought a considerable income to the treasury in the form of mined gold. The dispatches and reports of Ogarev were a fairly reliable channel of information for the authorities about all events occurring in private gold mines where a large number of workers were located. All the participants in the gold mining process positively looked at the presence of the gendarme in the mines, seeing him as a defender of their interests. That is why it was not by chance that both the workers and representatives of administration of the gold mining enterprises turned to the gendarme staff officer with their complaints, petitions, denunciations, etc. Also, it is Ogarev's merit that during the two years he was in gold mines, there were no major unrests that occurred in the late 1830s and which actually led to the establishment of gendarmerie supervision of the private gold mining industry. Thus, the work of Ogarev on supervising the private gold mining industry can be highly appreciated, which was noted by the authorities who were directly interested in maintaining this supervision in the future.

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