Ethnic Areas of Settlement in Transit Regions: Formation and Destruction (The Case of Tver Region)

S.I. Yakovleva

This publication emphasizes the issue of the impact of migration processes on the formation and destruction of ethnic areas of settlement in transit-type regions. The distinctive features of the ethnographic development of this category of regions are the multinational composition of the population and the constant increase in polyethnic diversity. The Tver Region is considered as a specific example. Its location between the Russian capital cities, in close proximity to Moscow (167 km) and the Moscow region, at the intersection of major federal and international transport corridors, is a historically stable factor for active migration flows of settlers to the Tver region, and thus a factor in reproductive processes and the formation of settlement.

In the depopulated Tver region with depleted demographic potential, population reproduction processes involve a significant number of modern refugees and migrants of various nationalities. Urban and rural settlements and areas of settlement in the region are territorial communities of mixed national composition. The share of Russians, as well as Karelians, Estonians, and Latvians, is decreasing among the current population of Tver Region. The share of Turkic peoples (Tatars, Azerbaijanis, Bashkirs, Chuvash, Nogais, Kazakhs); Abkhaz-Adyghe (Kabardians), Nakh-Daghestani (Chechens, Ingush, Avars, Laks, Dargins, Lezgins), and other groups is increasing [7]. National characteristics have not only socio-economic but also geographical significance (participation in settlement, formation of local settlement systems, ethnic areas of settlement) for regional development.

A powerful flow of migrants to Moscow, the so-called “Eastern Transit,” passes through Tver Region along the transport corridor Moscow – Saint Petersburg. Arrivals temporarily settle in roadside settlements, live for 2-3 years, and then move closer to Moscow.

The corridor Moscow – Saint Petersburg first showed positive dynamics (growth of +5%) in rural population from 2002 to 2006 (Fig. 1), which is associated with the mass registration of migrants arriving to work in Moscow (in the suburban areas and along the routes of the Moscow – Saint Petersburg corridor) [5, 8].

The strip of areas with positive dynamics (Fig. 1) is continuous and wide, located along the roadside and inter-road zones of the two routes – the railway and the highway Moscow – Saint Petersburg.

Fig. 1. Territories of roadside areas of the Moscow – Saint Petersburg corridor with positive dynamics of rural population in 2002-2006 [10]

The fluctuation of dynamics ranges from 93.5% (Torzhok District) to 123% (Konakovo District). The increased positive dynamics in the Bologovsky District is due to changes in the status of settlements: the urban-type settlements Vypolzovo and Berezaika became rural. The axis Moscow – Saint Petersburg, as the main strip of regional settlement, has expanded, interrupting the long-standing process of its dilution.

Historically, a significant number of settlers of various nationalities participated in the development of the transit Tver region. The forest lands of the border northwestern part of Tver Upper Volga (Toropetsky, Andreapolsky, Penovsky, Selizharovsky, Ostashkovsky, Firovsky, and Vyshnevolotsky districts) were actively developed by peasant settlers from Estonia [6, 9] (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Areas of settlement of Estonians in Tver Region

The very high rent for land to German landlords at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries became a tool for the “pushing out” of Estonian peasants from their historical lands; peasants were driven out of their farms under various pretexts. In search of land, they moved as families to the St. Petersburg, Pskov, and Tver provinces, to the Caucasus, the Volga region, Siberia, and other areas of Russia. A large tract of forest in Vyshnevolotsky District of Tver Province (on the territory of the present Firovsky District of Tver Region) was put up for sale by Estonian timber industrialist Brandtan at low prices specifically for settlers. These lands were purchased and developed by peasants from one of the Estonian colonies called Nurmekünde [2] (Fig. 3, 4).

Its location corresponds to the highest points of the Valdai Upland (height 347 m in the vicinity of the village of Répishche). A clear image of the virgin lands purchased by Estonian peasants can be obtained by examining the cadastral topographic map of Tver Province by A. Mende from 1853 (fragment – see Fig. 3). The Nurmekünde area of rural settlement of Estonians is not yet on this map, as development began in 1885. In the central part of the forested area, intersected by a network of small rivers and streams, there remained an abandoned, uninhabited area of the village of Skomorokhovo (where soon the Estonian village of Avintsevo was located – named after the Avinchinsky stream – a tributary of the small river Skomoroshki).

Fig. 3. The land plot of the future Estonian area of rural settlement Nurmekünde (since 1885) on the cadastral topographic map of Tver Province by A. Mende, 1853 (1:84,000)

The first 10 families of Estonian peasant settlers arrived by carts at the initial northern “point,” which they named Répishche (possibly from the Karelian “reppänä”[3]). The village of Pochinok soon became the center of the forest “virgin land” (Fig. 4). Constant clearing of land from forest and active urban planning and agricultural development of the territory were underway: in the valleys of small rivers, hamlets*[4]* (Madison, Shulbach, Kurkul, Avison, etc.) and villages – Répishche, Pochinok, Karmanovo, Kónakovo*[5]*, Zalesye, Ovinets/Avintsevo emerged. Residential log houses were built collectively by each family. Already after 7 years, the first school began operating. Cultural centers (Konakovo, Pochinok) were formed, schools and libraries operated, and musical groups (4 orchestras) were established. Gradually, a transport framework of the Nurmekünde area of rural settlement was created: a meridional axis of dirt roads (later – highways), including timber roads (with access to a narrow-gauge railway) combined with a capillary network of rural roads. Dairy and meat-dairy cattle breeding (and commercial butter production) became the main direction of agro-industrial specialization.

Demographic assessment based on direct and indirect data allows us to establish the volume of migration of Estonian peasant settlers at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century to the territory of the compact area of Nurmekünde. We start counting from 1959, when the census recorded 245 people (Tables 1-2, Fig. 5).

Table 1

Population of the Nurmekünde area

1885	1930	1959	1970	1979	1989	1996	2002	2006
50	about 1000	245	174	112	45	46	33	29

Before the mass departure of youth to their ethnic homeland in the 1950s, at least 500 people lived in the rural settlements of Nurmekünde (2-3 people left from each family). We do not know the human losses from mass dekulakization*[6], repressions, and wars accurately, but by analogy with losses in neighboring Russian and Karelian villages – up to half of the population of the early 1930s. We dare to assume that the total number of settlers by the beginning of the 20th century was no less than 1000 people. An indirect proof of this may be the fact that there were as many as 4 schools operating before the war. If at least 50 students were enrolled in each of them[7]*, that would total 200 children (about 20% of the total number of residents).

Table 2

Change in the population of the settlements of the Estonian area of rural settlement Nurmekünde in Tver Region (1959-2006)

Rural settlements	1959	1970	1979	1989	1996	2002	2006
Zalesye	27	28	24	1	1	0	0
Karmanovo	24	13	5	3	3	1	1
Konakovo	59	50	38	28	32	30	28
Pochinok	63	47	29	12	9	2	0
Répishche	44	25	16	1	1	0	0
Ovinets	27	11	0	0	0	0	0
Forest guard post Mayarkon	2	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total in Nurmekünde	246	174	112	45	46	33	29

Fig. 5. Depopulation of the Estonian area of rural settlement Nurmekünde (1959-2006)

Fig. 6. Cyclicity of settlement migration in the Estonian area of rural settlement Nurmekünde (1885-2006)

Thus, the migration cycle of the development of Nurmekünde by 2005 amounts to 120 years. This represents 6-7 generations of Tver Estonians. The third and fourth generations – the grandchildren, and less often the great-grandchildren of the first settlers from Estonia – continue to live and work on Tver land. Nurmekünde has depopulated (Tables 1, 2, Figs. 5, 6): only 28 permanent residents remain in Konakovo. During the resettlement of unpromising villages (1970s), some families moved to the central settlement of Zhukovsky rural district (Zhukovo) – more than 10 km from the northern outskirts of Nurmekünde (access via a dirt road or detour). The lands of Nurmekünde, once very well-maintained (including hayfields), continue to be used as distant lands of the former collective farm “Memory of Ilyich.” The forest is again encroaching on the villages, surrounding them with powerful trees and dense thickets of shrubs, occupying the agricultural lands that were once so laboriously developed for life. The rural settlement network and its transport framework have been destroyed. From all sides, centrifugal timber roads penetrate into the “body” of the forest zone of Nurmekünde.

Graphical analytical definitions based on modern topographic maps of the territory of Nurmekünde show that approximately 5500 hectares of land were developed: cleared of forest, plowed*[8]*, and built up 1500 hectares, for hayfields (now on maps this is sparse forest) – 4000 hectares. Probably, in agricultural use in the coming years, no more than 5000 hectares will remain – a linear strip of lands of former hamlets along the axis Répishche – Pochinok – Ovinets – Konakovo.

In this publication, we find it important to emphasize that geographical studies create an informational “field” for raising important organizational questions regarding the preservation of ethnocultural heritage. Referring to our first publication on Nurmekünde, the authors of the concept and map of cultural-landscape zoning of Tver Region [4] designated it as a forest and agricultural area with separate historical and cultural monuments and territories. An organizational form of protection for the cultural and natural heritage of Estonians on Tver land could be the natural and ethnocultural reserve “Nurmekünde” (for example, in collaboration with the Estonian society of settlers from Upper Volga “Nurmekünde” in Tallinn). This is undoubtedly an object of cultural and ecological tourism, as well as guest tourism (as relatives continue to visit from various places to Nurmekünde).

In conclusion, we emphasize the main point: migration flows lead to the formation of ethnic and polyethnic areas of settlement. However, their sustainability is determined by the ratio of living conditions in new lands and in the homeland of the settlers. As soon as conditions in the historical homeland become better or safer, people try to return there. In transit regions, this process is continuous, and currently, favorable conditions for the formation and development of new settlement areas exist in roadside territories [5, 8].

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