Chuysky Pack Path: the End of the XVIII - the First Half of the XIX Century
Article represents the first attempt to unite scattered and fragmentary data on this well-known Siberian road, which played a significant role in the development of the Altai Mountains, Tomsk Province, as well as Russian-Mongolian and Russian-Chinese relations. The purpose of this research is to analyze the origin of the Chuysky Tract as a trade route between the Russian and the Chinese empires at the end of the 18th and the first half of the 19th century (from the voluntary entry of the Gorny Altai and the first mention of trade in the River Chuya Valley until attention from the provincial and imperial authorities after the signing of the Beijing Treaty and the Chu-guchak Protocol in the 1860s). The research is based on several groups of historical sources. Firstly, there are the materials of ethnographers, travelers, officials and engineers of that time: M.A. Basov, M.A. Breshchinsky, E. Zamyatnin, V.V. Radlov, G.N. Potanin and others. Secondly, the materials of the archival funds: State Archives of the Tomsk Region. F. 3. Op. 1. D. 381. Decisions of the Biysk City Duma, State Archive of the Altai Territory. F. 65. Tomsk Gubernia Department and a number of other funds of these archives, which allow to assess the overall situation in the field of road construction in the Altai Region. The historiography of this topic can be divided into two groups. The first is the work of pre-revolutionary researchers - N.G. Chmelev, G. Ba-ov and others, which are of considerable value, because a significant part of the data they provide is not reflected in subsequent generalized works. The second group is the work of researchers of the Siberian road system and Russian-Mongolian trade relations - V.P. Zinoviev, A.V. Startsev, E.A. Grekhova, A.C. Kamzabaeva, A.V. Abakayeva, in which various aspects of road construction in Siberia and the Altai are revealed on the basis of archival materials and other evidence, where one of the prominent roles was assigned to the Chuysky Tract due to its strategic importance. In the course of the research, the author came to some conclusions. Firstly, earlier on the site of the Chuysky Pack Path, there was a very developed road, which was, apparently, much more advanced, as the remnants of man-made construction show. Secondly, the establishment of the border and the rules of trade between the Russian and the Chinese empires in the 1860s gave Chuysky Pack Path a significant impulse in development, as it was in the center of attention not only of Biysk officials, but also of provincial and imperial authorities. Thirdly, all the main difficulties of movement along the Chuysky Tract - mountain passes, crossings across the Katun and numerous bumps - had already required immediate development by the middle of the XIX century, but due to various financial and technical problems, the tract remained at the same stage of development until the beginning of the XX century, and that became a significant brake for the development of Russian-Mongolian-Chinese trade.