LAND SURVEY
LAND SURVEY, a complex of government events in Russia in the 2nd half of the 18th–early 20th centuries, aimed at the lands fund description and mapping, and the establishment and legal registration of land holding borders (ref. Land Policy).
The General L.s. in the Orenburg Gub. was executed in 2 stages: the 1st stage covers the 1797–1805 period, the 2nd – 1806–42. According to the results of the General L.s. and by the beginning of the 1820s, in the Orenburg Gub. Bashkir lands accounted for over 12.8 million dessiatines of land (45% of the Gub. territory). Individually, the Bashkir holders of patrimonial estates owned about 3.2 million dessiatines of land (11%). Over 9.6 million dessiatines of land (34%) were owned jointly by the Bashkirs and their Pripushchenniks. Nobles and mine owners (1,399 and 1,878 people respectively; 131,154 serf peasants lived here) owned over 3.6 million dessiatines of land (13%), State and apanage peasants (243,309 people) owned more than 6.4 million dessiatines of land (23%), service class people (72,897 people) owned about 4 million dessiatines of land (14%); the State owned over
1.3 million dessiatines of land (5%). According to the General L.s., by the 1840s in the Vyatka, Perm and Saratov guberniyas the total area of Bashkir lands was approx. 1.3 million dessiatines of land. About 32,500 Bashkirs lived on these lands. As a result of the General L.s., complete information was obtained on State Lands and the structure of land tenure and land use of the Bashkirs, nobles, mining owners and other categories of the population. The General Land Survey allowed to settle land relationship between the Bashkir holders of patrimonial estate and the nobility, the mine owners, and various categories of peasants.
In the 1830s, a Special Land Survey began on the territory of the Orenburg and Ufa guberniyas. Its main task was the division of land possessions inside the Bashkir dachas between the Bashkir holders of patrimonial estates (ref. Patrimonial Law of the Bashkirs) and the other categories of the population, incl. the Pripushchenniks. 157 Bashkir dachas (over 11 million dessiatines of land) out of 201 Bashkir dachas (over 14 million dessiatines of land), located in Orenburg, Perm, Vyatka and Saratov guberniyas, had to be delimited. By 1916, the Land Survey Commission’s activities on the Special Land Survey were completed. The area of Bashkir lands had decreased (the following figures are given in thousands of dessiatines): in Ufa Gub. – from 6959.5 to 5164.9; in Orenburg Gub. – from 4955.4 to 3499.6; in Perm Gub. – from 1479.3 to 468.3; in Samara Gub. – from 432.7 to 285.9; in Vyatka Gub., the area of the Bashkir lands increased from 30.9 to 61.1 thous. dessiatines. By 1917, the Bashkirs (1.3 million people) owned about 9,479,800 dessiatines of land. L.s. on the present‑day RB territory were also carried out during the Peasant Reform of 1861 and the Stolypin Agrarian Reform. After the nationalization of the land, the L.s. was replaced by the Land Boundary Survey.
