Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Transportation and Communication in 19th Century Volhynia


Communication and transportation services increased in Volhynian Russia, as they did across the globe during the 19th Century.  By the late 18th Century, few Ukrainian roads were paved and most were impassable during spring and autumn.  No fencing or drainage existed either.  Serfs and fee-farmers were given the duty of maintaining these roads.  Roads tended to run from town to town rather than in a straight line, making travel a very roundabout proposition.  Government officials or magnates might have coaches regularly travelling between localities and free-men could purchase a fare on these coaches for an extremely high cost.  Many roads were marked by verst-posts; 10 foot high posts which roughly marked the route through the countryside.  But otherwise no structures contributed to the roadways which were basically just tracks roughly following the verst-posts.  Even important routes, such as the Moscow-Odessa highway, was little more than vague impression upon the land by the 1850s.  Military personnel travelling along roads in the Empire had the authority to appropriate horses or carriages leaving the original owner on foot.  Perhaps the most common type of passenger carriage in the Ukrianian and Russian countryside at this time was the tarantasse.

During the reign of Katherine II Вели́ка (the Great) (1762-1796), dedicated postmen (called a yamstchik [ямщик]) began to deliver mail along the roads of the Empire.  Dressed in red with a white belt, blowing a horn to signal his advance, the yamstchik drove carts pulled by 6 horses in the summer and sledges pulled by 4 horses in the winter, horses were generally hitched abreast to one another.  The Tsar issued legislation in the late 18th century decreeing that any municipality where it was proper should erect facilities to house horses for postal use and a special mail house for use as a post office.  Early post centers in Volhynia were Novograd Volyn and Zhytomyr.  Postmen had the right to bear arms in the support and protection of mail and cargo.  By the 1830s, rates had been put into place for the handling of personal mail and mailboxes for outgoing mail started to appear in provincial towns along busy streets or in big stores.  In 1858 Russia introduced the postage stamp along with corresponding postmarks.  Different classifications of stamps were available as were postcards.  Postcards with landscape or photography prints became popular by the 1870s and several postcard photographers began to specialize in this craft.  Advertising via postcards became popular as well.

Postal stations were built beginning in 1846 and stations were built in one of seven classes, depending on the location of the station.  Zhytomyr and Novograd Volhyn both had class 2 stations.  In the mid 19th century, postal stations were to be equipped with desks, benches and chairs, ink, paper and pens, kerosene lanterns, as well as living quarters for the postal supervisor and a supply of wood for the station’s heating, but many were nothing more than rude log huts.  By the mid-19th century, mail delivery may have been somewhat erratic, but probably arrived in provincial cities 3 or 4 times per week.  Stations housed up to 20 horses.  Postal wagons were forbidden to carry passengers, but oftentimes did anyway. 

Freight delivery, particularly crop freight, was delivered primarily via water – on the rivers of the area – until the early 20th century.  Waterways supplied revenue to cities by way of government-owned ferries.  This revenue was significantly reduced after bridges were built.  Neteshin, part of the Krivin Estate in the 19th Century, was the area’s major port on the Goryn River.

During the first 50 years of the 19th century, the Brest-Litovsk highway was being built.  From 1856-1865, telegraph lines were put in place along the highway with stations at Kyiv, Novograd-Volyn, Ostrog, Dubno and Brody.  A secondary highway ran through the forest from Ostrog to Zaslaw via Bilotin.  This highway had been established before the 19th century.

Stagecoaches began to run on the highway providing public transportation by the late 19th Century.  Coach travel was very expensive, but coaches were built that could hold up to 40 passengers.  The price of fare between Zhytomyr and Novograd Volyn was 5 or 6 rubles – equal to the value of a young heifer.  Poor passengers could ride on the roof but then suffered from bad weather.  Speed of the coaches was in the neighborhood of 8 – 10 miles per hour.  More speed would have not been desirable as the typical carriage had no springs and the roadway could be expected to be in deplorable condition.

A German-Polish Baptist minister, travelling in the vicinity of Sorotschin in the early 1860s, found that traversing the Volhynian countryside could be quite challenging.  Passage by horse and wagon was severly impeded by the poor condition of the roads, thick forests and deep swamps.  Sorotschin was located in the heavily German populated triangular area between Zhytomyr, Novograd-Volyn and Korosten, which included land in Zhytomyr, Novograd-Volyn and Ovruchs Counties.

In April of 1912, bus service opened between Zhytomyr and Novograd Volyn.  The price was less than 2 rubles and the 45 mile trip lasted about 6 hours.  By 1911, rules of the road had been established for motor vehicle traffic including speed limits.  A bus-route between Novograd Volyn and Rivne was established soon afterwards.

Railways began to expand by the second half of the 19th Century.  Lines began by connecting St. Petersburg to Moscow and to Warsaw and then gradually expanded from there.  Rail transport in Volhynia grew as the rail line was established in the 1870s.  Train travel was encumbered, however, by the amount of paperwork involved to acquire a ticket and by the long wait times at stations.  2nd class carriages carried about 50 people, and had seats on either side of the car with an aisle down the middle through which the conductor or passengers might pass.  1st class carriages were rarely used.  The Russian guage, it should be noted, did not match that of other European countries during this period of time. 

Telegraph lines began to appear in the 1850s and telegrams could be sent in French, German or Russian.  International convention caused these lines to be placed across borders with Prussia and Austria.  Locals developed the habit of placing their ears to these lines, endevouring to overhear conversations.  Who else could be speaking on these lines but kings?  Telephone service began in the early 1910s, but telephone and telegraph service development were severely impaired by WWI. 




According to an all-Volhynian calendar/almanac published in Zhytomyr in 1892, Postal stations in Ostrog County were located in Ostrog, Gochsha (Гоща), Korets (Корецъ), and Jampol (Ямполь).  Postal stations in Zaslaw County were located in Zaslaw, Shepetovka (Шепетовка), and Polonnoe (Полонное).  These locations also housed telegraph offices in 1892.



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