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On the border of the XIXth-XXth century the hard crisis and abolition of the
Cabinet mining-metallu rgical industry were going on. The Cabinet stopped investing
the mining industry, it preferred to grant minerals deposits, mines and factories on lease to private companies.
Among the leaseholders the important capital and foreign companies predominated,
which were orientated towards gold extracting. The technical equipment of mines
and gold-fields increased considerably. In Zmeinigorsk the electrolytic factory was
built. Altai was among the advanced districts according to the level of the mechanical gold extracting.
But the local gold industry gave 3% of the precious metal only: in 1913 it produced
640kg from 23928kg siberian gold. The low level of extraction was conditioned by
the character of deposits in Salair and Altai. Besides the high rent delayed the development of private
gold industry: The main part of the gold deposits in Altai was situated outside the
present-day Altai territory, Salair and the Mining Altai.
The economical base in the district at the beginning of the XXth century was
the agriculture and another industries, connected with it, first of all manufacturing
and food industry. their rise was connected with the development of commodity-money
relations. Novo-Nikolajevsk (Novosibirsk) became at the beginning of the XXth century
the large centre of siberian trade. Here grain, flour, butter, wool and others from
districts of the Upper Ob-side were brought in.
Soon after the setting in motion Transsiberian railway the building of two
branch-lines began: Novo-Nikolajevsk - Barnaul - Semipalatinsk (the Altai railway)
and Tatarskaja - Slavgorod (the Kulunda railway).The building of the first branch was ended
in 1915, of the second - in 1917. The rail communication with the Europian part of the land
brought the local market to the nation-wide one and to the worldmarket too.
The other result of rail building was the rise of settlers movement. The main part of
settlers came here during the time of Stolipin reform (1907-1914). Almost the half of all
peasants, who were going to Siberia, settled there. The population in Altai
in 1915 increased two times in comparison with 1897 and made 2782 thousand men.
Among the regions, which were explored, the most settled were the fertile lands of Kulunda.
Peasants didn't get property rights to the ownership of land. It didn't stop them.
At the beginning of the XXth century the Altai district was a member of the Tomsk
province completly and it included 4 districts (Barnaul, Bijsk, Zmeinigorsk, Kuznetsk),
and southern districts of the Tomsk province. The XIXth century was comparatively stable conserning the
administrative system, at the beginning of the XXth century the question about the administrative-
territorial division became more important. The sharp rise of population and new economical
processes made difficult the operation of the Tomsk province, which population was
more than 4 mln in 1916. The question about the division was discussed since the beginning of the XXth century.
But it wasn't solved, because Altai lands were very important for Tsar and the IId World War began.
After the October Revolution the realization of the project was simplified considerably.
On the 17th of June 1917 the provisional government carried the low about the
"Formation of 4 new districts in the Tomsk province and the division into 2 provinces -
Tomsk and Altai." The Altai province contained the districts: Barnaul, Bijsk,
Zmeinigorsk, Slavgorod.
The formation of the Altai province coinsided with the period of revolutionary
changes and many administrative-territorial chsnges in Russia. The rapid repartition
of home and foreign borders of the Altai province had serious consequences for the history of Altai in the future.
The echo of that events will be heard in the XXIth century
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