School at the Lukazsky Plant of Krasnoyarsk Mining District (1738–1746): Peculiarities of Opening and Activity

Based on archival documents, this article considers the activity of the first school on the territory of Krasnoyarsk mining district at the state Lukazsky Plant, which has never been done previously. The author examines the peculiarities of its opening in connection with the resettlement of all service class people from the Kolyvan-Voskresensky Plant after its return to A. N. Demidov in Krasnoyarsk Uyezd in 1737. A unique phenomenon was the beginning of its activity even during the construction of the Lukazsky Plant, two years before its commissioning. The article considers issues underlying the appointment of teachers, provision of the school with teaching aids, and composition of students. Also, the author examines the difficulties the school faced with teaching children from around Irbinsky Plant 95 versts away and from distant mining districts. It demonstrates the insufficiency of the state salary (3 roubles a year) which was not enough even to feed pupils due to the high prices in Siberia and their fathers’ low salaries. Most of them could not financially sustain children studying far from their homes and asked for schools to be opened at their places of residence. Forced expulsion of these children from school in 1740, assignment of state wages from 1743 only to orphans, children of retired men, soldiers, and recruits caused the number of students to shrink two times. The children of craftsmen and factory workers were enrolled in school only with the consent of their fathers to support them at their own expense. Additionally, the author describes the reasons for the transfer of pupils in 1746 to the school at the Nerchinsk Plant. She mentions the high indicators of spatial mobility of craftsmen and labourers who were transferred from Ekaterinburg with their families and at the will of their superiors in 1735 to the Kolyvano-Voskresensky Plant, from there in 1737 to the uninhabited territories of Krasnoyarsk Uyezd, and in 1746 from Lukazsky Uyezd to the Nerchinsk Plant; they covered a distance of 4,538 versts during ten years, including more than 2,000 versts to their final destination in Nerchinsk.