Abstract: The article discusses the debating urban dwelling area data as presented by the General Land Survey in the 18th century. The Russian city of that period was not mainly a commercial and industrial but an administrative center. Moreover, military and agricultural spheres played an important role as well. These factors predetermined rather free plans of Russian cities integrated in the landscape. An interesting opportunity for this comparison is given by the materials of the General Land Survey which recorded the state of most of the cities in European Russia before or during the urban planning reform of Catherine II in the 1770s-1780s. The article uses the materials of Economic Notes and city plans for four guberniyas of Russia's North and North-West: Vologodskaya, Novgorodskaya, Olonetskaya and Pskovskaya ones. The authors of these documents attempted to clearly define the boundaries of the urban dwelling area separated from various suburban lands. Thus, the ratio of the land "under a settlement" within urban dachas to a number of households can be an integral indicator describing urban dwelling area. On the basis of statistical analysis and data GIS cartography the authors conclude that the information about urban dwelling areas is better presented for old cities both in statistical and cartographic materials. As far as the cities founded during the gubernial reform of 1775 are concerned, the data are more likely to demonstrate the government's "projects" of the city development.

Keywords: Vologda province, General surveying’s plans, General surveying, historical geography, socio-economic history, historical urban studies, Novgorod province, Pskov province, Olonets province, administrative reform

Abstract: The article characterizes Soviet prisoners of NKVD/MVD special camps located in East Germany in 1945-1950. On the basis of a relational database created the author analyzes gender, age and nationality of Soviet citizens (special camp prisoners) as well as their distribution according to articles of conviction, sentences and places in the camps on the USSR's territory. The sources are documents of the fund of the special camp department stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation. First of all, these are the so called echelon lists of convicted prisoners. The main methods of the study are database methods and technologies. They are used to structure the archival information about Soviet special camps prisoners and characterize them. Until now the studies about the history of special camps have somewhat ignored Soviet prisoners who made up a big part of the total number of prisoners since the extensive German historiography mainly have addressed Stalinist repressions against the Germans living in the Soviet zone of Germany occupation. The article concludes that with regard to Soviet prisoners special camps were a place of temporary detention and preservation of labor balance demanded by Gulag economy.

Keywords: source analysis, archive, USSR, SBZ, SMAG, GULAG, Stalin's repressions, special camps in Germany, database, statistical analysis

Abstract: The article studies home crafts as an element of peasant economy within the framework of their general state before the Russian Empire’s fall in 1917. The author examines two main aspects. These are the number of home crafts in three volosts of Nizhegorodskaya Guberniya in 1889 and 1917 as well as the use of uezd 1917 census data collations to study the state of home crafts. Emphasis is laid on 1917 census data providing for home crafts state analysis on the basis of primary data. The author statistically analyzes the state of home crafts in three volosts (micro analysis) and cartographically analyzes the state of home crafts in the Russian Empire considering uezd 1917 census data collations (macro analysis). The main conclusions are as follows. Firstly, by the summer of 1917 not all home crafts but male ones (especially metalwork) had been in depression. Secondly, the uezd 1917 census data are a non-reliable source to study home crafts. The main author’s contribution is the introduction of 1917 census primary data (household cards for three volosts of Nizhegorodskaya Guberniya) into scientific discourse. The research novelty is the comparison of home crafts state within 28 year period from 1889 to 1917 that provided for portraying the state of home crafts in the last year of the Russian Empire.

Keywords: Balakhna district, First world war, statistical analysis, handicraftsman, handicrafts, All-Russian Agricultural Census, Nizhny Novgorod province, Russian empire, Gorbatov County, lace industry

Abstract: The article presents the results of modeling demographic strategies of 1.5 thousand Tambovskaya Guberniya rural settlements in 1959-1989. The authors consider methodological and tool aspects related to the formation of a fractal model and computer experiments based on it. They have determined the values of governing factors affecting the formation of collective goal-oriented ideas about the expected migration rate and the rate of population's natural increase or decline. The results obtained can arguably be extended to a few similar regions of Russia. This study is sequel to previous works where models for the period from the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century have been set forth. Modeling has demonstrated that there are two groups of settlements: migration donors and migration recipients. During the period understudy the rural population (when setting their life goals) relied mostly on migration which evidently was a depressing agent for natural increase. Nevertheless, the majority of peasant societies were open to a certain natural increase. .

Keywords: fertility and mortality, migration, late soviet period, fractal geometry, computer model, Russian peasantry, demographic strategies, historical demography, social simulation, Central Black Earth

Abstract: The article considers state elite of the Russian Empire in the 19th century consisting of civil servants of the 4th-1st classes. Special attention is paid to its interaction with the system of civil ranks promotion. The author studies the way the Table of Ranks and terms in office system favored inter-elite rivalry for the influence on the emperor. The latter is the main element of the civil ranks promotion system whose formal sanction influenced career dynamics of civil servants in the upper strata. The interactions between the monarch, top civil servants and the formal ranks promotion system formed the dynamics of annual promotion of some contenders to the 4th civil rank. This dynamic row is considered through the lens of self-organized criticality theory. The author hypothesizes that the actions of the state authorities aimed at filling the deficit of mid-ranking civil servants resulted in abundant numbers of civil servants of the 5th and upper classes and low control over the career dynamics of the upper civil servants and the system of top ranks promotion was in the state of criticality. Analysis of the dynamics of annual ranks promotion to the 4th class supports this idea.

Keywords: theory of self-organized criticality, political modernization, civil service, overproduction of the elite, Table of ranks, nineteenth century, the Russian Empire, officialdom, bureaucracy, mathematical methods

Abstract: The article addresses methodological and methodic issues concerning the study of historical urban landscape. The methodological basis of the work is a concept suggested by UNESCO. It is a developing field of contemporary historical urban science. Its methodic and technological basis is digital technologies, primarily 3D-modelling and 3D GIS. The article describes foreign and Russian studies reconstructing historical landscapes with the help of modern technologies. The research subject is a virtual reconstruction of Bely Gorod’s landscape in the 15th-18th centuries – a historical site in Moscow’s center. The author describes the interdisciplinary research project, its source base including different sources as well as technologies of their analysis and synthesis. The sources and methods used provide for the first virtual reconstruction of the landscape and the main objects of Bely Gorod which 3D models are “introduced” into the historical landscape being reconstructed throughout its three centuries of evolution. Additionally, laser scanning and digital aerial survey technologies providing for building 3D models of objects at their later time slices are used in the study.

Keywords: historical geoinformatics, 3D modeling, virtual reconstruction, digital technologies, historic urban landscape, historical and cultural heritage, history of Moscow, interdisciplinarity, Belyi gorod, laser scanning

Abstract: The article discusses an application of geographic information systems (GIS) to virtually reconstruct the historical landscape. The reconstruction of historical land surfaces is a necessary part of this big challenge. To solve this problem one has to use different and heterogeneous spatial data, interpolate heights on the basis of different geometries. Within the frames of geographic information analysis and mapping, algorithms and methods have been developed for creating digital elevation models (DEM) - digital representations of height fields which are considered to be relatively continuous (within a certain predetermined area). The paper considers the algorithms used to interpolate heights and create DEMs, the possibilities of two-dimensional and three-dimensional visualization as well as the solution of graphical and analytical problems. The author also considers the issue of comparing various sources of spatial information (archaeological and geological surveys) using GIS technologies and takes the case of the part of Bely Gorod ("White City") of Moscow (16th-18th centuries) as an example. He has demonstrated that the area understudy is characterized by a systematic difference in the surface heights of the natural ground as evaluated from these different sources. This factor, nevertheless, does not exclude the possibility of their joint use.

Keywords: historical data analysis, historical geoinformatics, historic earth surface, overlay, digital elevation model, interpolation, isolines, GIS, geoprocessing, Bely Gorod

Abstract: The article describes the results of the complex archeological studies in the northern part of historical Sindika which aimed at collecting and analyzing data on the elements of the ancient anthropogenic landscape in the region. The most importantsettlement in Sindika and Bosporan State was Semibratnee Gorodishche which developed and blossomed due to the proximity to navigable Kuban' River. Two kilometers away from the gorodishche there are Bol'shie Semibratskie Burial Mounds. To search for anthropogenic relief elements photogrammetry has been used. Site aerial photography provided for the necessary information about the relief. To get more precise and better data the authors carried out high-precision geodetic ties with the help of GPS receivers which provide for getting data on the plan and height location of objects with accuracy to centimeters. Digital aerial photography allows one to capture the modern landscape which changes in the region understudy are very rapid in the last decade. The effectiveness and the speed of archaeological research increases thanks to aerial photography. One can examine bigger objects within a short time period. At the same time, photogrammetry data processing provides for the demanded precision of work while the spatial super resolution attracts the researcher's attention to objects unseen during land surveys. Collection and visualization of data in GIS provide big opportunities to structure materials. Digital environment makes it possible to tie different and time heterogeneous sources thus often allowing a researcher to locate an object and its digital reconstruction within a lost historic anthropogenic landscape.

Keywords: anthropogenic landscape, visualization, ancient settlement, photogrammetry, Bosporus state, mounds, orthophotomap, Sindica, complex research, antiquity

Abstract: The article studies commodity-money flows in the Central Black Earth Region in the second half of the 19th century. To do this Network and geoinformation analysis are applied to the statistics of interregional payments of the Oryol Commercial Bank in 1874–1901. These statistics characterize, firstly, bank clients’ payments related to commodity sales to other regions (goods secured loan payments and bill discounting payments) and, secondly, clients’ payments for goods from other regions (transfers with locations stated). The network structure and geography of these commodity-money flows were analyzed in detail at three time points: 1874, the initial period, economically favorable for the region; 1885, the economic crisis in the area; and 1901, the last year when such payment statistics were published. The article concludes that commodity-money flows of the Central Black Earth Region served by the Oryol Commercial Bank were directed towards westward commodity railway exports. Initially it was Riga and Koenigsberg and by 1901 - many other settlements in western regions and along the western border of the Russian Empire near the railway. Backward commodity-money flows related to the import of goods into the Central Black Earth Region came from all the principal commercial and industrial centers of the Russian Empire. Such a commodity exchange model correlates well with the agricultural specificity of the Central Black Earth Region.

Keywords: Black Earth Region, Russian Empire, agriculture, agricultural trade, commodity-money flows, interregional payments, joint-stock commercial banks, statistical analysis, network analysis, geoinformation analysis

Abstract: The article studies the script as a material object that is the system of traces left by a writing medium on a writing material (paper or vellum). Traces of the writing medium are a combination of a relief and a dye (for instance, ink). The text understood as a combination of such traces is characterized by different dye thickness and its chemical composition on different text structure levels. Such differences are determined by varying aspects of the writing ability and can be used to characterize it. The article aims at presenting the advantages of a new electro-optical spectrozonal examination of historical inks to study handwritten scripts. It discusses the technology of digital visualization of documents in the near-infra-red region followed by computer processing of the image. The result of the work is the main research paths to study information potential of the text as a physical object (system of traces) by means of spectrozonal visualization. These paths are the study of writing medium traces to reconstruct the system of movements and the writing technique, the finding of zones written in different time and the search for corrections.

Keywords: historical technology, inks, Old Russian Цкшештп, textology, kodikology, multispectral analyzis, spectrozonal vizualization, historical grafology, paleography, history of skills