Much has been said about what a nightmare serfdom sometimes turned into for the peasants who were completely in the power of their landowner. In the Russian Empire, there was not only the textbook Saltychikha, who tortured her serfs. The names of other monsters are also known. One of them is the Tambov landowner Mikhail Kashkarov.
Among the famous Russian tyrant serfs, the landowner of the Elatomsky district in the Tambov region (now the Ryazan region) Mikhail Kashkarov became famous. As a contemporary noted, his name is "glorified by extreme cruelty to serfs and the most unbridled cynicism in debauchery, and to this day it is too memorable for all residents of the Tambov province …" These lines were written in the late 80s of the XIX century.
A stick without a carrot
Kashkarov introduced the strictest rules on his estate. In case of the slightest offense, the peasants were punished immediately. They lashed with a whip 400 times. One of his serfs was carved by Kashkars 16 times during Lent. And each time 100 hits. The deceased were buried without any publicity in the local cemetery.
The landowner liked to mock his victims. After the section, one underage girl burnt her hair on her head, another disfigured her entire face with a lighted candle. Many of his peasants voluntarily went into recruits, others simply fled from the estate. As soon as Kashkarov appeared in his villages, the inhabitants, especially women, hid in panic fear who was where.
In his villages, the landowner introduced the "right of the first night." The scoundrel did not disdain even 7-8-year-old girls. For disagreement, he beat with a whip or rods, shaved their heads. All this the landowner did in front of his own wife, who not only did not resent, but herself brought young girls to her husband.
In 1844, the old lecher arrived at one of his estates in the Temnyakovsky district (now the Republic of Mordovia). He demanded the elder Akulina Pankova to see him and ordered her to bring young girls and women to him. The 70-year-old elder did not fulfill the order of the master. Then he subjected her to public punishment in the village square. The old woman tried to complain to the governor himself, but Kashkarov gave her only son to the army for this.
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Somehow, the provincial authorities nevertheless became aware of the landowner's "exploits". In 1845, an investigation was ordered. There was plenty of evidence against Kashkarov. The landowner was even subjected to imprisonment - house arrest in one of the rooms of his house. Day and night there was a guard near his office and bedroom. There was a rumor among the peasants that "the master will now be condemned."
In search of the “truth,” Kashkarov turned to the Noble Deputy Assembly: “These accusations against me represent an unprecedented case, for a blameless nobleman, who has lived to almost 60 years, is accused of violating the allegedly right granted to him by the supreme power. Does not my unblemished honor suffer from this? And where is the fear of God among my investigators?"
Mutual guarantee
The serfs wrote a detailed complaint, which stated the following: “Like an inhuman scourge, like a tyrant and a scarecrow, Koshkarov (in the documents of the investigation the surname is spelled that way. - Author's note) horrified even outside peasants, who call him freemason, I didn’t go to church, I didn’t pray to God, I didn’t fast and I didn’t partake of the Holy Sacraments. Only he is an extraordinary rich man and the local authorities cannot judge him. About 10 years ago, Koshkarov pinned one boy to death, and he got nothing for it. He also deprived of virginity 11-year-old Tatiana and 9-year-old Praskovya, and for this he had nothing. The lady herself with her own hand whips and whips people mercilessly, and no one will say a word to her either. And she whips truly without any pity: the peasant Vladimir Rumyantsev, not ashamed, whipped herself; woman Avdotya Sergeev, naked and pregnant,I took her to the bathhouse and there mocked her for a long time, changed three bunches of rods and beat her head against the wall."
This complaint was brought against Kashkarov. He began to assure the investigators of the "depravity" of his peasants. But the peasants did not stop saying: “They beat us for every little thing, they nagged at us and blamed us for not being served in the right way, entering in the wrong way, not so pleasing. The cattle were thin, for this the cattle were flogged. The cattle got fat - and they flogged for it. The master was out of sorts, he was out of temper; the master was cheerful - he tore for fun."
Kashkarov especially zealously pursued young girls. He tied one of them to the bed in the barn, then put it in the cellar. But from there the unfortunate woman ran through the roof and hid in the thickets of the pea field. The master found her, whipped her, raped and cut her hair. At this time, the girl's father worked nearby. Feeling trouble, he refused to work, but the lady began to drag him by the hair. The girl fled to no one knows where, and her father was mercilessly flogged for this.
The investigation established that in all the villages of Kashkarov there was not a single peasant who would not have been beaten or whipped. There was not a single serf girl who was not abused. A survey of neighboring landowners began. But most of the Elatom nobles spoke positively about Kashkarov: "A true Christian and performs all Christian rituals." Others assured: "Koshkarov is a noble man and we have not heard about his cruelties."
Only one nobleman by the name of Stokasimov revealed the truth: “I have not seen anything good and decent title of a nobleman in Koshkarov, I have never seen him at the liturgy, but we live with him in the same village. The cruelty of the Koshkarov spouses is inconsistent with the rights of landowners and has no boundaries; screams and screams in their house are constantly heard."
Despite all this, the leader of the nobility of the Elatomsky district, Karachinsky, reported to the governor: "The whole district is alarmed by the disasters of Mr. Koshkarov." The tyrant and libertine himself calmly appealed to the governor, referring to the fact that his "noble honor" was insulted. As a result, Themis was put to shame: Kashkarov was just taken under police supervision.
Apple from apple tree
The son of Mikhail Kashkarov was no less cruel. He tyrannized not only his own serfs, but also his wife. The first quarrel between the spouses broke out a week after the wedding. They were sitting at the table by the samovar. The enraged husband unexpectedly hit the samovar with his fist, knocking it over onto his wife. A few days later, Kashkarov Jr. began to pinch and twist his wife's hands and fingers. When he tortured his wife, he forbade her to shout, covered her head with pillows so that the courtyard people would not hear. Sometimes Kashkarov began to strangle his wife until the convulsions began.
In winter, the unfortunate woman, lightly dressed, was locked in a cold room, and in severe frost, they were taken around the courtyard of the estate and forced to “ask the master for forgiveness” in front of the entire courtyard. Even the tyrant did not spare his child. At night, he brought a candle to the child's face and opened the sleeping eyes. Over time, the child had seizures, from which he died. While his son was being buried in the church, the father was having fun in the people's hut. Subsequently, Kashkarova moved to her mother and soon died.
As it turned out later, the protector of the Kashkarovs, the district leader of the nobility, Karachinsky, was the same villain. His serfs complained: “The master moved us from place to place seven times and completely ruined and tortured us. When we begged him not to touch us, he tormented us with hunger and beat us with rods and whips, and ordered our huts to be scattered and burned."
Like Kashkarov Sr., Karachinsky was a lecher. The peasants Ivan Baldin and Lukyan Kurenkov testified: "The master took our wives from us the day after the wedding." Anisya Serina told the investigator: "Our lord was such that he did not give passage not only to us, young women, but also to our mothers and grandmothers." Even the landowner-neighbor Dyakonov testified: "The corvee in the Karachinsky estate is undoubtedly burdensome, the depraved behavior of the owner has passed all imagination and all the women of his estates have the right to laugh at each other."
On December 18, 1859, the chief of the gendarmes, Prince Dolgorukov, telegraphed the governor of Tambov Danzas: “The landowner Karachinsky has died. Take measures to protect his property from the plundering of the indignant serfs. " But the landowner did not "die", but was killed by his serfs. The peasants of the village of Rusanovo, Lukyan Kurenkov, Nikolai and Ivan Baldin, killed him. Agafya Nikitina participated in the murder of the master together with them. The peasants cruelly dealt with the landowner. Undressed him, "they swore at him and brutally castrate him." The murderers were given 100 lashes each and were exiled to Siberia in indefinite hard labor.
Victor ELISEEV