The first half of the XVIIth century
The second half of the XVIIth century

The first half of the XVIIIth century

The first half of the XIXth century
The second half of the XIXth century

Beginning of the XXth century

The capture of the Kolivan-Voskresensk works from Demidov's heires in state property was determined by high productivity in silver industry. The former mining region was considered to be the main source of russian precious metals. On edict of the 1st Mai 1747 the final extraction of silver was to be held at Barnaul works, vast forests and distant state borders favoured the stable work. In February 1748 the Kolivan-Voskresnsk mining authorities came there from St.-Petersberg with general-major A.V. Baer at their head. The Barnaul works became the centre of a new mining department, which was under control of the Tsar Cabinet and directly of Tsar.

In 1750-1780-s the extraction of silver-ore was mostly concentrated on the Zmejev mine. As soon as the sources there were exhausted, new sources in the Upper Irtish in Altai and the mines of the Salair were discovered. Till the middle of the 1760-s the smelting of precious metals was held at the metallurgical works, founded by Demidov (the Kolivan- Voskresensk and Barnaul works). At the end of the XVIIIth century the Tsar Cabinet had enough money to build the Pavlovsk (1746), the Alejisk(1775), the Loktev (1783), the Gavrilov (1792) silver smelting works, the Tomsk iron-instruments factory (1771) and the Suzun copper smelting works with the Monetary House (1765).

The remarkable achievement of this period is a construction of the mining officer Ivan Polzunov (1729-1766), who was the first in the world to constract and to build a twin-cylinder steam engine. Polzunov's engine was built in Barnaul and commitioned after his death. It worked several months during the year 1766 and it broke. In 1782 it was taken to pieces. The envention didn't face the practical needs in Russia. Later this engine was perfected by the outstanding english engineer James Watt.

To protect russian works, taken in state property in 1747, Elisabeth Ist decided to build the line of russian fortifications from the Ust-Kamenogorsk fortress on the bank of the Irtish to the Bijsk fortress in the Upper Ob. The building was held from the year 1748 till the 1750-s. The formed line is to be called the old Kolivan line, while the one built in 1760 is called the Kolivan-Voskresensk line.

The decision to build a new border line was connected with the changes in the foreign policy in the south of West Siberia. In the middle of the 1750-s the Dgungarian- China war was ended up by the complite defeat of Dgungaria.That powerful state ceased to exist. The China forces reached the southern borders of Russia in Altai. This made russian goverment at the beginning of the 1760-s order to build the new Kolivan-Voskresensk line. It was ended in the 1770-s.

In 1759 the territory under control of the Kolivan-Voskresensk Mining Office increased one more time because of the attaching people to the works. In 1779 on edict of Ekaterin IId within the boundaries of the mining departement the Kolivan region was founded (since 1783 - province), that was a part of the administrative-territorial division of Russia.

In 1796 Paul Ist organized a new reform in the administrative-territorial system in Russia, according to which the Kolivan province was abolished, and its territory became a part of the Tobolsk province. Another Tsar edict in 1797 was to change the borders of the Kolivan-Voskresensk mining departement: the territory, that was under control of the of the mining departement, due to the edict decreased because the population of the remote regions was not counted.