Istanbul in the 19th century
Cities, like people, have a lifespan - life path.
Some of them, like Paris, for example, are very ancient - they are over 2000 years old. Other cities, on the contrary, are still quite young.
In this article, with the help of old maps, reproductions and photographs, we will trace the life path of these cities - what they were then, and what they have become now.
Rio de Janeiro was founded by Portuguese colonists in 1565.
Guanabara Bay, the second largest bay in Brazil, beckoned with its magnificence.
By 1711, a large city had already grown here.
And today it is still one of the most picturesque cities in the world.
You may have heard that New York City was first called New Amsterdam, which is the name given to it by the Dutch settlers who settled there in the early 17th century. It was renamed in 1664 in honor of the Duke of York.
This 1651 engraving of southern Manhattan shows that the city was then called New Amsterdam.
Between 1870 and 1915, New York's population tripled, growing from 1.5 million to 5 million. This 1900 photo shows a group of Italian immigrants on a downtown New York City street.
A lot of money went into the construction of structures such as this Manhattan Bridge (photographed in 1909) in order to support the growing population of the city.
According to the 2013 census, New York, divided into five boroughs, is now home to 8.4 million people.
Archaeologists claim that around 250 BC. one Celtic tribe that called itself Parisii(Parisians), settled on the banks of the Seine, founding the city that now bears the name of Paris.
They settled on the Île de la Cité, where Notre Dame Cathedral now stands.
The Parisians minted such beautiful coins, now they are kept in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA).
By the early 1400s, when this picture was painted, Paris was already one of the largest cities in Europe, and perhaps even the largest. Pictured here is a castle on the Île de la Cité.
Now it is one of the most beloved cities on our planet.
Located along the Huangpu River in downtown Shanghai, the area called the Bund became the world's financial center in the late 1800s, home to the US, Russian, British and other European trade missions.
In this photo from the 1880s, you can see that the old part of the city is surrounded by a moat, which is left over from earlier times.
It was noisy and busy here. Commercial success turned the fishing town into the "Pearl of the East".
In 1987, Shanghai's Pudong area was nowhere near as developed as it is today. He grew up in a swampy area on the other side of the Huangpu River, opposite the Bund of the Bund.
In the early 1990s, Pudong opened its doors to foreign investment.
And skyscrapers immediately grew in place of inconspicuous high-rise buildings. The Shanghai TV Tower, the third tallest tower in the world, is also located here. It is also called the "Pearl of the East".
Today, the Bund is one of the most beautiful places in all of China.
And Pudong is one of the most futuristic. Here, anyone will feel like a hero of a fantastic blockbuster.
Istanbul (first called Byzantium and then Constantinople) was founded in 660 BC. Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1453.
It did not take long for the Ottomans to turn the city, which was a stronghold of Christianity, into a symbol of Islamic culture. They built richly decorated mosques here.
Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.
Since the 19th century, the city has been expanding all the time. The commercial center of Istanbul is located near the Galata Bridge, which has been rebuilt five times over the past five centuries.
Galata Bridge in the late 1800s.
Today, Istanbul remains the cultural center of Turkey.
The Romans founded Londinium (modern London) in 43 AD. In the picture below you can see the first bridge built over the River Thames.
By the 11th century, London was already the largest port in England.
Westminster Abbey, built in the second century, is included in the list of objects world heritage and is one of the oldest and most important buildings in London. Here it is depicted in a painting from 1749.
In the 17th century, about 100,000 people died in London as a result of the Black Plague. In 1666, the Great Fire broke out in the city - it took several years to restore.
From 1714 to 1830 new districts such as Mayfair appeared, and new bridges over the Thames gave impetus to the development of districts in South London.
Trafalgar Square in London in 1814.
The city continued to grow and grew into the global empire we know today.
Mexico City (originally called Tenochtitlan) was founded by the Aztecs in 1325.
The Spanish explorer Hernan Cortés landed there in 1519 and soon conquered the land. Tenochtitlan was renamed "Mexico City" in the 15th century because the name was easier for the Spanish to pronounce.
Beginning in the 16th century, Mexico City was built on a grid system (characteristic of many Spanish colonial cities) with a main square called Zocalo.
At the end of the 19th century, modern infrastructure began to develop in the city, including roads, schools and public transport - although this was most often limited to wealthy areas.
Mexico City shot up in the 1950s when it was built Torre latinoamericana(Latin American Tower) - the first skyscraper in the city.
Today, more than 8.9 million people live in Mexico City.
Moscow was founded in the 12th century. First the princes, and then the kings (from Ivan IV to the Romanovs) ruled here.
The city grew on both banks of the Moscow River.
Merchants settled in the area around the walled central part of the city - the Kremlin.
The construction of the world-famous St. Basil's Cathedral was completed in 1561, and it continues to enchant visitors to this day.
After the abolition of serfdom in the Russian Empire, there was a significant demographic growth. According to the census, by the end of the century, the population of the state reached 129 million. Since the 60s of the 19th century, Russia has occupied a leading position among European countries in terms of birth rates.
It was from this period that the migration of rural residents across the territory of Central Russia increased sharply. Most of the peasants, having freed themselves from the yoke of the landlords, went to the big cities, where it was easier to find work.
Part of the former serfs began to gradually populate the free lands of Siberia, since there was an opportunity to cultivate land for which it was not necessary to pay tax to the landowner.
City Growth
The development of railway transport, the modernization of industry, the liberation of the countryside from serfdom were the factors that led to the significant growth of cities at the end of the 19th century. The biggest settlements at that time, Moscow, Tula, Rostov-on-Don, Petersburg, Kazan, Odessa were considered.
With increasing levels of urbanization, the main problem of Russian cities in the late 19th century was the shortage of housing. Own apartments in industrial cities could only be purchased by wealthy citizens. About 5% of the city's population lived in basements and attics, where often there was not even heating.
During this period, gas lighting appeared for the first time on city streets. By the end of 1892, on the street. Tverskaya and st. Sadovaya in Moscow, the first electric lights are installed. In the mid-60s, the first water pipes were installed in big cities later, sewerage became available for the townspeople.
In the early 80s, Russian cities acquired the opportunity to use the first internal telephone line, and after a few years long-distance calls became possible.
City population
The population of the cities was made up of representatives of all classes of the nobility, merchants, workers and former peasants, who gradually assimilated with the workers of factories and factories. Characteristic of this period is that the standard of living of the middle class was not homogeneous, the work of workers with qualifications was adequately paid.
Over time, such representatives of the proletariat became the intelligentsia, because in addition to quality food and decent housing, they could afford a variety of leisure activities, going to the theater and libraries, and also provide education for their children.
In the second half of the 19th century, a new class of the bourgeoisie appeared - the third generation of the first commercial and industrial dynasties, whose lifestyle and education, in fact, made it possible to equate them with the noble elite.
Village in the second half of the 19th century
Despite the trend of peasants moving to cities, the majority of the population of the Russian Empire of this period were rural residents. The technical revolution of the late 19th century could not radically affect the life and spiritual life of the peasant society.
In Russian villages, as before, ancient traditions and customs were carefully preserved, and ethics remained unchanged. family relations, Special attention devoted to hospitality and mutual assistance. However, the new generation of peasants, born after the abolition of serfdom, more and more succumbed to the influence of new conditions and trends.
Representatives of the "enlightened" peasantry realize their ambitions at the beginning of the 20th century, becoming the main ideological leaders of new social transformations.
Village improvement
Peasant life remained difficult. The innovations that were actively introduced in the city hardly touched the Russian village. Rural huts were covered with thatch; rich landowners could afford iron roofs. For heating and cooking, as before, a stove was used.
Mass mortality was also characteristic of the village. Peasants were affected by smallpox, diphtheria, measles and scarlet fever. Some diseases that were successfully treated in the city turned out to be fatal for rural residents.
In the village, a high percentage of child mortality due to neglect remained: parents who were constantly busy with field work often left their babies preschool age alone.
The abolition of serfdom failed to provide the peasantry with economic independence: the lack of land forced former serfs to be hired by large landowners on unfavorable terms.
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The history of St. Petersburg in the 19th century includes important events for the whole country. In the middle of the century the city turned into a major industrial center. In 1825, guard officers attempted a coup d'état, and this event went down in history as the Decembrist uprising.
The assassination of the emperor
Paul I, son of Catherine II, ruled for only five years. But those years were remembered by Petersburgers for a long time. The very next day after Paul's accession, white German-style booths appeared in the city, which the emperor ordered to be brought from Gatchina. The life of the townspeople became strictly regulated. Officials, police officers ran through the streets, grabbed citizens dressed in French fashionable clothes and tore off their round hats (a symbol of the French Revolution). Paul ordered everyone to start the day at six in the morning, having lunch at the same time. After eight in the evening, he introduced a curfew in the city. The appearance on the street at a late hour was fraught with punishment.
Imperial palaces Paul I ordered to be called castles. He hated everything that had to do with his mother. The emperor did not want to live in the Winter Palace, and therefore ordered the construction of a castle, which was named Mikhailovsky. From the Tauride Palace he ordered to make a stable. But he did not live long in the Mikhailovsky Castle. On the night of March 11-12, 1801, Paul I was killed by conspirators. They killed him, of course, not because of the order that he established in St. Petersburg.
Relations with England worsened in the 19th century. This was a consequence of the agreement concluded by Paul I with Napoleonic France, and created unpleasant conditions for representatives of Russian business circles. Petersburgers, having learned that the emperor was killed, did not hesitate to rejoice and congratulate each other.
The history of St. Petersburg in the 19th century begins with the reign of Alexander I, who in his manifesto announced that he would rely on decrees issued by Catherine II in everything. The castles began to be called palaces again, and one of the most famous, Tauride, was no longer used as barracks.
May 16, 1803
An important event of the beginning of the 19th century in St. Petersburg is the celebration of the 100th anniversary. This city was founded by Peter the Great on May 16, 1703. A hundred years later, a parade took place in St. Petersburg, in which about twenty thousand soldiers took part. The little boat of Peter, who was called the "grandfather of the Russian fleet", was taken aboard the ship "Archangel Gabriel". The solemn event was attended by four contemporaries of the Great Reformer - the elders, who were personally acquainted with the founder of St. Petersburg.
Return of the Guards of the Semyonovsky Regiment
This is another important event of the early 19th century. In St. Petersburg, they met soldiers and officers who returned from the war, in which Russia won. The Russian guard defeated the French in 1812, triumphantly reached Paris, visited England, then returned to St. Petersburg. In the 19th century, wooden gates were built in honor of this significant event.
Narva triumphal gates
This design has become one of the architectural monuments of St. Petersburg. In the 19th century, however, the gates had little in common with those that can be seen today in the city on the Neva.
The construction existed until 1827, it was created according to the project. The gate was decorated with a chariot with six horses, which was controlled by the goddess of Glory. However, the wooden structure quickly fell into disrepair. Soon the mayors decided to build new gates, but from stone.
Russian architect Vasily Stasov kept the idea of his Italian colleague. On August 26, 1027, the first stone of the Narva triumphal gates, one of the symbols of St. Petersburg, was laid. At the end of the 19th century, the building was again reconstructed - copper sheets were replaced with iron ones.
Riot of the Semenovsky regiment
This is another important event in the history of St. Petersburg in the 19th century. The Semyonovsky regiment was the favorite regiment of Emperor Alexander I. Soldiers and officers treated their commander Ya. A. Potemkin with great respect. However, in the spring of 1820, A. A. Arakcheev succeeded in moving him. He introduced Potemkin to the emperor as a weak-willed chief, incapable of commanding a regiment. Fyodor Schwartz, Arakcheev's henchman, was appointed in his place.
Soldiers dissatisfied with the unjustifiably cruel treatment and exactingness of the new regimental commander, refused to go on guard. They wrote a complaint, which was taken by the authorities as a riot. The company was surrounded by the Life Guards of the Pavlovsky Regiment. The soldiers were put into the Peter and Paul Fortress, where they were led under escort in front of all Petersburgers.
The prisoners were supported by their comrades, showing disobedience to the higher authorities. But they soon found themselves in Peter and Paul Fortress. These events continued for four days. The emperor was at the Troppau Congress all this time. Semyonovtsy were transferred to remote parts of Russia. The soldiers were sent to the Caucasus or Siberia. Officers - to Ukraine. The four rebels were put on trial.
Life in St. Petersburg in the 19th century
The number of inhabitants of the city in this century has been continuously growing. In the history of St. Petersburg, the main phenomenon was the opening of huge factories and factories. With the creation of enterprises, the population of cities also grew.
At the beginning of the 19th century, 220 thousand people lived in St. Petersburg. In the fifties - about 500 thousand. Petersburg in the 19th century ranked fourth in terms of population in the list of capitals of the world after London, Paris, Constantinople.
It is worth noting that twice as many men lived in the city as women. The military and officials predominated among them. New factories were opened, in which exclusively male labor was used. From the villages people came to the capital who wanted to learn a new profession. The most demanded were masons, artisans, cab drivers, carpenters.
The death rate, just as in the 18th century, exceeded the birth rate - the population of St. Petersburg grew at the expense of visitors. Most of all were immigrants from the Tver and Yaroslavl provinces. And after the abolition of serfdom, peasants from all over Russia poured into the capital in search of work. Representatives of this social stratum accounted for 60% of the population of St. Petersburg. In the 19th century, this city was a gigantic labor market.
Putilov factory
One of the largest St. Petersburg enterprises was founded during the reign of Paul I. In 1801, the Kronstadt iron foundry was transferred to the capital. In the same year, the first one was cast here. The plant was subsequently renamed more than once.
The first leaders of the enterprise were foreigners. A flood in 1824 killed 152 workers. did not close even in the most difficult periods national history. So, he continued to act during the years of the siege of Leningrad.
Flood
In the history of St. Petersburg, the largest destructive event occurred in 1824. The second largest flood happened a hundred years later - in the year when the city was renamed Petrograd. In 1824, the Neva rose four meters above the ordinary. According to various sources, between two hundred and six hundred people died. Pushkin dedicated a poem to this terrible flood " Bronze Horseman".
Culture of St. Petersburg in the 19th century
The heyday of Russian literature came in the first third of the 19th century. Associated with the work of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. The poet devoted many of his works to the events that took place in the city on the Neva. First of all, the Decembrist uprising.
At the beginning of the century, few new buildings appeared in the northern capital. Except for the Mikhailovsky Castle, the construction of which proceeded at a rapid pace. Most of the country's resources at the beginning of the second decade went to the needs of the war.
Toward the middle of the century, several important events took place in cultural life Petersburg: the Russian Geographical Society was opened. In 1836, the construction of a railway between the capital and Tsarskoye Selo began. In the first half of the 19th century, the design of ensembles around the Senate or Palace Square was completed.
On October 1, 1811, the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum was established. This institution produced many students who later became well-known figures of culture and science. Among the famous graduates - A. S. Pushkin. Many people are associated with the name of the poet. For twelve years he lived on the Fontanka. Then on Voznesensky Prospekt. In 1836 the poet lived in the house of Princess Volkonskaya. This building is located on the Moika Embankment, today it houses the Pushkin Memorial Museum-Apartment.
Strauss in St. Petersburg
The fame of the Austrian composer by the middle of the 19th century had spread far beyond Vienna. In 1856 Johann Strauss visited the Russian capital. Here, by the way, even then lived a lot of famous foreigners.
The composer arrived in St. Petersburg at the invitation of the director of the Tsarskoye Selo railway, whom he met in Germany. A Russian official offered the musician a position as a conductor at the Pavlovsky railway station, with a salary that Strauss could not refuse. In addition, at that time it was considered very prestigious to perform in front of an exquisite St. Petersburg audience.
Johann Strauss signed a contract with the director of the Tsarskoye Selo railway and already on next year went the legendary city on the Neva. From the first concerts, Strauss managed to win universal sympathy. Women were especially fond of him. At first he was invited only for one season - for the summer of 1856. Over time, he became the permanent conductor of the Pavlovsk concerts.
This article is a logical continuation of my pseudo research handicraft activities. It was reflections on the theme of the heroic development of the far north in the 17th century that led me to think about the demography of that time.
To begin with, I will state the idea on which I ended the previous article, namely: And how quickly humanity breeds and whether history is too long compared to the rabbit agility of people.
I looked through many articles on the topic of the demography of the Russian family. I learned the following very important moment for me. As a rule, from 7 to 12 children grew up in peasant families. This was due to the way of life, the enslavement of the Russian woman and, in general, the then realities. Well, at least common sense tells us that at that time life was less suitable for entertainment than it is now. Now, a person can occupy himself with a wide range of things. But in the 16-19 centuries there were no televisions, just like the Internet and even radio. But what can we say about the radio, even if books were a novelty, and then only church ones, and only a few could read. But everyone wanted to eat, and in order to drag the economy and not die of hunger in old age, many children were needed. And besides, the very creation of children is international fun and does not lose relevance in any era. Besides, it's a godly thing. There was no contraception, and it was not needed. All this causes a large number of children in the family.
They gave in marriage and married early, before Peter, 15 years old was the right age. After Peter closer to 18-20. In general, 20 years can be taken as childbearing age.
Also, of course, some sources speak of high mortality, including among newborns. This is something I don't understand a bit. In my opinion, this statement is unfounded. It seems like the old days, no scientific and technological progress in terms of medicine, no institutes of obstetrics and gynecology and other things like that. But I take my father as an example, in whose family he had 5 brothers and sisters. But all of them were born in a rather distant village without these obstetric tricks. From the progress there was only electricity, but it is unlikely that it could directly help health. In the course of life, just as few people from this village turned to a doctor for help and, as far as I could see, the vast majority lived to be 60-70 years old. Of course, there was everyone everywhere who was hurt by a bear, someone drowned, someone burned in the hut, but these are losses within the limits of statistical error.
From these inputs, I make a table of the growth of one family. I take as a basis that the first mother and father begin childbearing activity at the age of 20 and by the age of 27 they already have 4 children. We don’t take into account three more, for example, they died suddenly during childbirth or then did not follow the rules of life safety, for which they paid the price, and some men were generally taken into the armed forces. In short, they are not successors of the genus. Each of these four lucky ones, for example, has the same fate as their parents. They gave birth to seven, four survived. And those four who were born by each of whom were born by those who were born by the first two did not become original and followed in the footsteps of mothers and grandmothers and each gave birth to 7 more children, of which four grew up. I apologize for the pun. Everything is clearer in the table. We get the number of people from each generation. We take only the last 2 generations and count them. But, since a man and a woman are needed for successful childbearing, we assume that only girls are in this table, and another identical family gives birth to boys for them. And then we calculate the birth rate index for 100 years. We divide the sum of 2 generations of people by 2, since we have to add a man from a neighboring family to each girl and divide the resulting number by 4, so many people we had in the conditions, in the first level of this pyramid. That is, dad mom from families where only boys and only girls are born. All this is conditional and only in order to present the level of possible birth rates for 100 years.
That is, under these conditions, the population would increase by 34 times in a year. Yes, this is just a potential, under ideal conditions, but then we keep this potential in mind.
If we tighten the conditions and assume that only 3 children get to the childbearing process, we get a coefficient of 13.5. An increase of 13 times in 100 years!
And now we take a completely catastrophic situation for the village. Nobody pays a pension, you have to milk a cow, plow the land, and all the children are 2 pieces. And at the same time we get a birth rate of 3.5.
But this is just a theory, even a hypothesis. I'm sure there's a lot I didn't take into account. Let's turn to the great Wiki. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_Reproduction
Returning to the topic of the development of medicine, which defeated high mortality. I can’t believe something in the great medicine of the designated countries, And in my opinion, the high growth in them is only in comparison with the low growth European countries before he was at the same level.
And Russia in the 19th century, judging by the same Wiki, was in 2nd place in terms of fertility in the world, after China.
But the main thing that we see is population growth of 2.5-3% per year. And a modest 3% per year, turns into an 18-fold increase in the population in 100 years! An increase of 2% makes a 7-fold increase in 100 years. That is, in my opinion, these statistics confirm the possibility of such an increase (8-20 times in 100 years) in Russia in the 16-19 centuries. In my opinion, the life of peasants in the 17-19 centuries did not differ much, no one treated them, which means that the growth should be the same.
We roughly understood that humanity can multiply many times in a very short time. Various reviews of the Russian family only confirm this, there were many children. My observations also confirm this. But let's see what the statistics tell us
Steady growth. But if we take the lowest rate of 3.5 times per 100 years, which is MUCH less than the 2 or 3% per year that some advanced countries have, then even that is too high for this table. Let's take the interval 1646-1762 (116 years) and compare it with our coefficient of 3.5. It turns out that the poorest demographic should have reached 24.5 million in 100 years, but did only 18 million in 116 years. And if we calculate the increase over 200 years within the boundaries of 1646, then in 1858 there should be 85 million, and we have only 40.
And I want to draw your attention to the fact that the end of the 16th and the entire 17th century for Russia was a period of great expansion in territories with very complex climatic conditions. With such an increase, I think it is hardly possible.
To hell with the 17th century. Maybe someone was missing somewhere or the quantity was compensated by quality. Take the heyday of the Russian Empire in the 19th century. Just a good 100 year interval is indicated in 1796-1897, we get an increase of 91.4 million for 101 years. Then they already learned to count and mastered absolutely the entire territory, at the maximum of which RI died. And let's calculate how much the population should have been with an increase of 3.5 times in 100 years. 37.4 * 3.5 is 130.9 million. Here! It's already close. And this despite the fact that Russian empire was the leader in fertility after China. And also, do not forget that over these 100 years, Russia has not only given birth to people, but in the number of 128.9, as far as I understand, the population of the annexed territories is also taken into account. And to be honest, then in general it is necessary to compare in the redistribution of the territories of 1646. In general, it turns out that according to a meager coefficient of 3.5, there should have been 83 million, and we have only 52. Where are there 8-12 children in a family? At this stage, I am inclined to believe that there were still many children, rather than in the statistics given, or whatever this work of Mironov is called.
But you can play around with demographics in the opposite direction. Take 7 million people in 1646 and interpolate back a hundred years by a factor of 3, we get 2.3 million in 1550, 779 thousand in 1450 259 thousand in 1350, 86000 in 1250 28000 in 1150 and 9600 people in 950 year. And the question arises - did Vladimir baptize this handful of people?
And what will happen if we also interpolate the population of the entire earth with a minimum coefficient of 3? Let's take the exact count of 1927 - 2 billion people. 1827 - 666 million, 1727 - 222 million, 1627 - 74 million 1527 - 24 million, 1427 - 8 million, 1327 - 2.7 million. ! And with a coefficient of 13 (3 children in the family), we get a population of 400 people in 1323!
But let's get back to earth. I was interested in facts, or rather, at least some official sources, information from which you can rely on. I took Vicki again. He compiled a table of the population of large and medium-sized cities from the beginning of the 17th century to the end of the 20th. I drove all the significant cities into Wiki, looked at the date of the city's foundation, and the population tables, and moved it to myself. Maybe someone will learn something from them. For those who are less curious, I recommend skipping it and moving on to the second, in my opinion, the most interesting part.
When I look at this table, I remember what was there in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is necessary to deal with the 17th century, but the 18th century is the development of manufactories, water mills, steam engines, shipbuilding, iron making and so on. There should be an increase in cities in my opinion. And our urban population begins to somehow increase only in the 1800s. Veliky Novgorod, founded in 1147, and in 1800 only 6 thousand people live in it. What did they do for so long? In ancient Pskov, the situation is the same. In Moscow, founded in 1147, in 1600 there are already 100 thousand. And in neighboring Tver in 1800, that is, only 200 years later, only 16,000 people live. In the northwest rises the capital city of St. Petersburg, with 220 thousand people, while Veliky Novgorod just over 6 thousand exceeded. And so on in many cities.
Part 2. What happened in the middle of the 19th century.
Regularly, "underground" historians stumble upon the middle of the 19th century. Many incomprehensible wars, great fires, everything incomprehensible with weapons and destruction incomparable to it. Here is at least this photo, where the date of construction is exactly indicated on the gate, or at least the date when these gates were installed, 1840. But at that time, nothing could threaten or harm the abbey of this gate, let alone destroy the abbey. There were skirmishes between the English and the Scots in the 17th century, and then quietly.
So I, exploring the population of cities on Wiki, stumbled upon something strange. Practically in all Russian cities there is a sharp decline in the population around or in 1825 or in the 1840s or in the 1860s, and sometimes in all three cases. There are thoughts that these 2-3 failures are actually one event that was somehow duplicated in history, in this case in the censuses. And this is not a drop in percentages, as in the 1990s (I counted a maximum of 10% in the 90s), but a decrease in the population by 15-20%, and sometimes 30% or more. Moreover, in the 90s a large number of people simply migrated. And in our case, they either died, or people got into such conditions that they could not give birth to children, which led to this effect. We recall photographs of empty cities in Russia and France in the mid-19th century. We are told that the shutter speed is long, but there are not even shadows from passers-by, perhaps this is just that period.
I want to note one more detail. When we look at the demographic gap, we compare it with the value of the previous census, the second minus the first - we get the difference, which we can express as a percentage. But this will not always be the right approach. Here is the example of Astrakhan. The difference between the years 56 and 40 is 11,300 people, which means that the city lost 11,300 people in 16 years. But in 11 years? We do not yet know whether the crisis was extended over all 11 years, or whether it happened, say, in a year, in 1955. Then it turns out that from 1840 to 1855 the trend was positive, and another 10-12 thousand people could have been added, and by the 55th there would have been 57,000 of them. Then we get a difference not of 25%, but all 40%.
I'm looking at this and I can't figure out what happened. Either all the statistics are falsified, or something is very confused, or guardsmen wandered from city to city and slaughtered thousands of people. If there was a catastrophe, like a flood, then in one year everyone would be washed away. But if the catastrophe itself was earlier, and then followed by a sharp change in the world paradigm, as a result of the weakening of some states that suffered more and the strengthening of those less affected, then the picture with the guardsmen takes place.
Below, for the sake of an example, I would like to superficially parse a couple of oddities from clippings.
City of Kirov. There, a very small decrease in the population in the years 56-63 is not great, only 800 people were lost. But the city itself is not great, although it was founded the devil knows how long ago, in 1781, and before that, too, it had a history dating back to the era of Ivan the Terrible. But to start building in the unremarkable city of Kirov, Kirov region with a population of 11 thousand in 1839, in honor of Alexander I's visit to the Vyatka province, a huge cathedral and call it the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, of course, is strange. Of course, it is 2 times lower than St. Isaac's, but it was piled up in a few years, not counting the time of collecting money. http://arch-heritage.livejournal.com/1217486.html
Moscow. 
It began to lose its population considerably at the beginning of the 18th century. I admit the possibility of an outflow of the population to St. Petersburg in the middle of the 18th century, after the construction of the road in 1746, along which, by the way, it took a month to get there. But, in 1710, where did 100 thousand people go that way? The city has been under construction for 7 years and has already been flooded a couple of times. I cannot accept that 30% of the population with their skardbo is not clear how they leave the pleasant Moscow climate, the inhabited city, to the northern swamps to the barracks. And where did more than 100 thousand people go in 1863? Are the events of 1812 happening here? Or let's say the troubles of the early 17th century? Or maybe it's all the same?
One could somehow explain this by some kind of recruitment or a local epidemic, but the process can be traced throughout Russia. Here Tomsk has a very clear framework for this cataclysm. Between 1856 and 1858 the population declined by 30%. Where and how did so many thousands of conscripts go without even having railways? AT central Russia on the western front? True, Petropavlovsk-Kachatsky can also defend.
It feels like the whole story is mixed up. And I am no longer sure that the Pugachev uprising took place in the 1770s. Maybe these events just took place in the middle of the 19th century? Otherwise, I don't understand. Orenburg.
If we put these statistics into official history, it turns out that all the disappeared people are recruits for the Crimean War, some of whom later returned. Yet Russia had an army of 750,000. I hope someone in the comments will appreciate the adequacy of this assumption. But, anyway, it turns out we underestimate the scale of the Crimean war. If they got to the point of sweeping almost all adult men out of large cities to the front, then they were also swept out of the villages, and this is the level of losses of the 1914-1920s, if as a percentage. And then the First World War and Civil War who claimed 6 million and do not forget about the Spaniard, which only within the borders of the RSFSR claimed 3 million lives in a year and a half! It is strange to me, by the way, why such an event is given so little attention in the same media. After all, in the world it claimed from 50 to 100 million people in a year and a half, and this is either comparable to or more than the losses of all parties in 6 years in World War II. Isn’t there the same manipulation of demographic statistics here, in order to somehow comb the population, so that there are no questions about where these 100 million people have gone, for example, in the same middle of the 19th century.
