where the wooded steppe transitioned into steppe. Through thefirst half of the
century Russians and Middle Volga peoples had pushed into the Bashkir lands of
the northern and southern Urals; by the 1740s, from there settlement moved
east along the steppe border. To protect Russian settlements from Kazakh raids,
defensive lines eventually carved an arc around the entire frontier (Map 4). In
western Siberia in the 1740s a line was built north from Orenburg along the Iaik
River to Verkhne-Iaisk (renamed Ural River and Verkhne-Uralsk after the Pug-
achev rebellion). Into the 1750s this line was extended east to Omsk on the Irtysh
(founded 1715); from Omsk the Irtysh line followed that river southward to
Ust-Kamenogorsk (founded 1720) at the Altai mines, traversing the important
trade center of Semipalatinsk (founded 1719). This fortified line opened up space
for lively in-migration in the second half of the century. After the Qing empire
conquered the Dzhungars east and south of the Irtysh Line in 1755–7, Russia and
the Qing gradually incorporated some of their territory. By the end of the century
the estimated 39,000 Tatars native to this border were outnumbered by 400,000
East Slavs. Migration into the taiga of western Siberia was aided in the 1760s by the
construction north of the Irtysh line of a highway (Moscowtrakt) from Tiumen to
Krasnoiarsk on the upper Yenisei. The state forcibly settled peasants along thetrakt
to provide grain for officials (governors and their staffs, Cossacks and musketeers,
clergy); other settlers followed. In 1689 Peter I had announced plans to build a road
from eastern Siberia to Beijing, but construction began only in the 1730s and
dragged out over decades.
East Slavic peasants who immigrated to Siberia were never enserfed, but paid poll
tax and performed service as state peasants. They were not required to be con-
scripted, as the state was eager to populate Siberia, not deplete its population;
ethnic Siberians also were not conscripted. As in the center, East Slavic peasants
formed self-governing communes, reflecting the robust communal institutions of
the Russian north (Pomor’e) where so many came from; other groups—townsmen,
coachmen, merchants, and Cossacks—similarly lived as communes. East Slavs and
other non-natives living in Siberia developed a culture distinct from the center.
Here, without serfdom and landlords, far from county seats, life was free-wheeling,
government unintrusive, and populations reliant on their own instincts. Neigh-
borhoods were more ethnically and culturally diverse, and family economies were
mixed as émigrés learned survival strategies from native neighbors. In more isolated
settlements, particularly in the far north, East Slavs often embraced native lan-
guages and cultures, particularly in Iakutia, as we have noted. But conversely, in
larger East Slavic communities,“old”settlers calledstarozhilyretained Russian
customs and developed an independent character that was mythologized in subse-
quent centuries into an ethos of frontier freedom epitomizing“true Russianness.”
THE MIDDLE VOLGA, URALS, BASHKIRIA
The Middle Volga—a stretch of the right and left bank around Kazan where forest
meets steppe—witnessed dynamic population change from the sixteenth to
88 The Russian Empire 1450– 1801