Feeding the Russian Fur Trade: Provisionment of the Okhotsk Seaboard and the Kamchatka Peninsula, 1639–1856

6 Performance

6 PERFORMANCE "The fact is that bread and salt are unquestionably items that the lowest beggar in Europe does not lack. The inhabitants of Kamchatka are poorer than this. Often they have neither bread nor salt." I. F. Kruzenshtem, Puteshestvie vokrug sveta, p. 226. Amounts of Shipment Despite the incompleteness of statistical data, enough figures are available to indicate that large amounts of provisions were transported overland-oversea from Eastern Siberia to the Okhotsk Seaboard and the Kamchatka Peninsula, and that the shipments gradually increased in amount. Irkutsk Province supplied the Second Kamchatka Expedition (1733-42) with 900 to 1,080 tons of grain/ or 90 to 108 tons per year. By 1753 it was reported that up to 270 tons of state provisions were sent annually to the seaboard and the peninsula.2 Probably in response to an Imperial order that provisions be sent to Okhotsk "every year without delay . . . ," 2861;2 tons of state flour were shipped to Okhotsk in 1754; and half this amount was shipped in 1755 and again in 1756.3 In 1758 the Yakuts delivered up to 360 tons of provisions to Okhotsk.4 Tables 10 and 11 illustrate the monthly amounts of state foodstuffs received and dispensed at Okhotsk in 1774-75 and at Gizhiga in 1784. Overland-oversea provisionment sharply increased with the formation of the Kamchatka Regiment in 1798. In that year alone 1,107 tons of flour and 90 tons of groats were shipped from Irkutsk to the seaboard and the peninsula just for the regiment.5 Around 1805 each of the region's 1,600 Cossacks, soldiers, and sailors received annually 671 pounds of flour for a total of 536 tons, plus 78 tons of groats for the sailors, making a grand total of 613 tons of flour and groats, which, in addition to many other goods ranging from canvas to bar iron, were imported.s The government was not always able to satisfy the huge food 105 106 OVERLAND-OVERSEA PROVISIONMENT TABLE 10 Monthly Inlay and Outlay of State Provisions at Okhotsk, 1774-75 Month Incoming Outgoing 1774 January otons, 82 lbs. 13 tons, 2241bs. February 0 0 14 297 March 0 103 14 302 April 0 195 16 1,243 May 0 1,420 13 172 June 0 508 0 653 July 195 1,181- 229 934b August 156 61 15 1,689 September 1 35 20 1,463 October 1 1,668 26 122 November 0 66 13 1,119 December 0 731 13 1,335 Total 356 50c 390 1,553b 1775 January 0 0 13 905 February 0 0 13 1,334 March 0 32 20 1,283 April 0 192 9 1,253 May 0 74 13 591 June 0 0 2 937 Total 0 298d 73 303 - All for Kamchatka. b Including 195 tons, 1,181Ibs. sent to Kamchatka. c Plus 107 tons, 1,357 lbs. left from 1773. d Plus 77 tons, 1,851Ibs. left from 1774. SOURCE: Timofey Shmalev, "Vedomost 0 nakhodyashchemsya proviante v Okhotskom porte" ["List of Provisions Found at Okhotsk Port"], TsGADA, f. 199, port. 528, pt. 1, d. 13, fol. 1. requirements of Kamchatka during the existence of the Kamchatka Regiment. In 1802 or 1803, for example, the regiment requested 209 tons, 572 pounds of provisions from Okhotsk but received only half this amount. A severe shortage of provisions resulted, with the soldiers receiving only half their grain ration, the other half being given in money, fish flour, and dried fish; but no more than 2 tons, 752 pounds of porsa were prepared and all the yukola save 1 ton, 1,600 pounds spoiled.7 In 1809-10 six shiploads of flour sent to Kamchatka from Okhotsk proved insufficient.8 Consequently, the peninsula's lower ranks received grain rations only three months instead of twelve months of the PERFORMANCE 107 TABLE 11 Monthly Inlay and Outlay of State Provisions at Gizhiga, 1784 Month Incoming Outgoing January 34 tons, 9201bs. 7 tons, 3601bs. February 0 1,006 0 36 March 0 0 3 1,546 April 0 0 3 1,474 May 0 43 7 902 June 0 0 0 144 July 0 0 2 1,724 August 0 0 3 120 September 0 0 2 1,688 October 0 0 2 1,904 November 0 0 0 72 Total 34 tons, 1,969Ibs. 33 tons, 1,970 lbs. (costing 3,206 ru- (costing 3,129...