Houses of hard work. The history of the creation of workhouses and charity houses in the 19th century. Workhouses and workhouses Noah organization for the homeless

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“Noah Workhouse” for the homeless

Peter I, when starting to create city magistrates, thought to charge them with the responsibility of establishing orphanages, almshouses, hospitals, workhouses and straithouses “to provide work and food to everyone who can correct any work.”

The public charity system created by Catherine II provided for the opening, along with a hospital and an almshouse, of special institutions for employing the unemployed, beggars and vagabonds. In accordance with the Institution for the Administration of the Provinces, published in 1775, it was obligatory to create workhouses and straithouses. In 1785, a strait house was created in Moscow. Unlike the workhouse, which was intended to provide labor for volunteers, the straithouse was a forced labor colony where individuals were interned for antisocial behavior.

The workhouse and the straithouse soon merged and turned into a forced labor colony, on the basis of which a prison was subsequently formed. Since 1870, the restraint house began to be called the Moscow City Correctional Prison.

In contrast to them, one can name the emergence of houses of industriousness, whose activities were

aimed at solving the problems of the unemployed. Purpose of houses of industriousness

consisted of providing the poor with the opportunity to earn bread by honest labor - with the assistance of society. These institutions were created as a means of reducing beggary, preventing crimes often committed due to hunger, and to promote the development of national labor." Most often, the houses of industriousness did not have an "educational-correctional character.

The main reason for coming to the house of industriousness, according to Guerrier’s observation, was “reduced ability to work”; help from the house of industriousness could be needed, for example, by a woman with a child, an elderly person who has become lazy, an alcoholic or a teenager.

In 1882, the first house of industriousness opened in Russia. The idea of ​​its foundation is tight

associated with the name of the spiritual shepherd - Father John of Kronstadt.

At first, guardianship, not yet having a special home of diligence, was forced

It was possible to be content with what was made up of those in need of work in the artel, which were hired by the day for “menial” work. After collecting donations for the year to build the house of industriousness, the house was opened in 1882. The house of industriousness was designed for men; they were invited to pluck hemp. The house performed well and in 1896 alone it provided work to 21,876 people.

in 1886, the first house of industriousness appeared in St. Petersburg. At first, the financial situation at home was unsecured, because finding Good work it was difficult for men. And in 1892 the men's department was closed. This house was reserved only for women and girls.

In 1886, another house of industriousness opened in St. Petersburg. In the house there were accommodations for men who were considered the only ones to stay at home. In parallel with this, the house of industriousness could carry out one more task and stop issuing wages, which should go to support those in need, but meanwhile it is often spent on drinking and debauchery. Now those in need do not receive any wages, but are only given a small reward.

Due to the long period of stay in the house, those destined for him found him

type of work that is closer to them. The house had several workshops: carpentry, bookbinding, cartoning, shoemaking, tailoring, metalworking and others. The house provided training for those in need in their chosen specialty.

The internal regime is quite strict, but the main means to maintain it are

serve as persuasion rather than punishment. The most serious punishment is removal from the House, and the rest of the ladder of punishment consists of either a reduction in remuneration or the deprivation of certain general rights (eg the right to smoke for a certain period).

In 1896, at the Moscow workhouse, it was founded Women's House hard work. He had workshops equipped with sewing machines, where women who came could earn a living.

diligence: “In addition to the main task - to provide urgent,

short-term assistance by providing them with labor and shelter - this kind

institutions have a number of other functions: - food, overnight accommodation, care for workers' children, - finding employment.

In 1895, the Trusteeship of Houses of Industriousness and Workhouses was opened,

later (in 1906) renamed the Trusteeship of Labor Assistance. It helped set up and maintain various “labor assistance” institutions. Since anyone who wanted to work could find something to do in the Houses of Industriousness, they introduced

here are crafts “that do not require any special professional knowledge.” Among the unskilled jobs were: plucking tow, sponges, hemp; gardening and horticulture; gluing bags; cleaning the premises and caring for the house; chopping and sawing firewood; cleaning streets and squares; carrying and transportation of goods; cleaning and plucking of feathers. For those who had any qualifications, workshops were opened in the houses of industry.

Work here was paid more modestly than it would be in a permanent workplace. IN

permanent place. In most Houses visitors were provided with food, and in some

received full shelter.

Jul 08

The House of Hard Work “Noah” (a shelter for the homeless from the Temple of Cosmas and Damian in Shubin) invites people to stay who, for various reasons, find themselves in Moscow and the Moscow region without a roof over their heads and are ready to live an honest, working and sober life. For those staying with us, the shelter provides assistance in restoring Russian documents and finding employment. Doctor's appointments and legal advice are provided regularly. Three full meals a day are provided, there is an opportunity to wash and wear clean clothes. We prohibit swearing and assault.

We accept people who are sober and who have undergone (if necessary) disinfection treatment.

Contact phone numbers:

Sheremetyevo 89262365415

Yurlovo 89645289784

Yamontovo 89262365417

Khovrino 89263723872

Office 89262365415

Emilian (manager) 89262365415

11 comments to “House of Hard Work “Noah” invites you to stay”

1. Kovalenko Lev Nikolaevich wrote:
   

   “People who find themselves without a roof are invited to stay,” but for how long and what will they have to do?
   The fact is that just a week ago, a man being released from the maximum security penal colony IK-2 in the city of Engels approached me with a request to advise him on which monastery he could go to in order to move there for permanent residence, given that his left arm is paralyzed and leg. He is about 60 years old. I would like to know; could he count on permanent residence in the house of hard work “Noah”?
   If we recall similar cases, we remember that several years ago the Engels nursing home sheltered three people released from prison. But soon these guests were denied shelter, because... They persistently began to establish Zonov’s rules in the shelter. In this regard, the question is: how are “Noah” going to ensure conflict-free accommodation for quite problematic people?

2. Vladimir wrote:
   

   Good afternoon
   I have a difficult situation and will soon be homeless
   Could you tell me more about your living conditions?
   with respect Vladimir
   8926-496-81-47

3. Yulia wrote:
   

   How much money do your women earn per week? And what kind of work do they do?

4. Eremin Yuri Mikhailovich wrote:
   

   I am homeless and temporarily live in the Ryazan region. Caring people gave shelter so they wouldn’t freeze in the winter, but there was no food! I don't smoke or drink! I’m trying to get out of this situation, but I haven’t been in jail yet, not a drug addict, but a completely adequate person with useful skills, such as a tinsmith, a cook, making blocks for the economical construction of buildings and utility rooms, but my dream is to create an Orthodox radio station for residents who cannot attend services! And I can do this immediately upon arrival in Noah! Within a few days, all you need is the Internet and one assistant! Everything else will come with me! I will be glad to answer all your questions. Georgy.

5. Vitaly wrote:
   

   HELLO everyone!!)) Alena, Nikolai, Vladimir and others.

6. Vitaly wrote:
   

   I lived in your house for some time. I am THANKFUL for your support!!

7. Andrey wrote:
   

   My name is Andrey, I have arms and legs, I can work, I ended up in Moscow because of the war in Ukraine, I was left without documents and housing. I’ll send you help

8. marina. wrote:
   

   my name is Marina. A month ago I lost all my documents and money. The house in which I lived after the sale of the apartment is not suitable for habitation. I became a victim of realtors. Now I live with a friend. This will not last long. After restoring my Vryatli passport, I will restore the money, cards and similar. I’m thinking about the monastery, I don’t know how to get to obedience. Help. I'm 62 years old

9. Sveta wrote:
   

   Good day! By chance, on this site, I am ready to help Marina if she has not found shelter, or another woman who is in a difficult situation. The fact is that I live in Moscow, my mother is in the provinces, she lives in a large house, where there is gas, water, sewerage in the house, a large vegetable garden, outbuildings. She lives alone and is 70 years old, so that she doesn’t get bored, we are ready to accept a decent woman into our home for permanent residence, she will have a friend for her mother and she won’t be bored. Not for the sake of self-interest, if anyone thought so, we have everything. It’s just that the mother is bored alone; together they would plant a vegetable garden, keep chickens, etc. tel.89067044342

10. Andrey wrote:
    

    10329 02.01.2015

    Personal contributions about. John of Kronstadt in favor of the House of Diligence annually amounted to 50-60 thousand rubles

    About the House of Diligence of St. Everyone has heard of John of Kronstadt, but few know how he was built. Meanwhile, the holy righteous John of Kronstadt is the author of a completely revolutionary social technology for his time, and street social workers still appeal to his experience.

    Bourgeois homeless
    Kronstadt is located on Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland, 26 km from St. Petersburg. In the second half of the 19th century. it was a naval base and a naval outpost for the capital. Sailors and officers, members of their families, various merchant people and, as the Kronstadters said then, “philistines” lived in it... Today we call them people “without a fixed place of residence.” More precisely, the place of administrative exile - the city of Kronstadt - was determined by him, but no one took care of residence. So they lived in dugouts and dilapidated houses abandoned by trustworthy citizens. They lived closely - forty and fifty people together, in cold, hunger and hopeless need. In the summer they earned their bread by day labor in the port and on construction sites. In winter, when the port was closed by ice, there was begging and theft.

    In 1855, after graduating from the seminary, Fr. John Sergiev began his ministry in St. Andrew's Cathedral in Kronstadt. The young priest was perhaps the first to pay attention to the inhabitants of the Kronstadt slums. He visited the sick, bought them medicine and food, consoled them in their grief and tried to guide them on the right path. Father John spent all his income on the poor, often returning home without a coat or boots. Over time, he became known as an outstanding preacher, miracle worker and prayer book, through whose prayers the Lord granted healing even to the terminally ill. He had more and more opportunities to do charity, and the crowds of people in need around him also grew. Gradually he came to the idea that, although charity through alms is also necessary, it often corrupts people and deprives them of the incentive to work. In order to help the outcasts become respected members of society again, labor assistance is needed.

    Poverty classification
    In 1872, in the newspaper “Kronstadt Bulletin” Fr. John published two appeals, calling on residents to think about the reasons for the abundance of beggars in Kronstadt and about possible ways to solve this problem. Among the reasons, he cited “poverty from birth, poverty from orphanhood, poverty from various disasters - from fire, from theft, poverty from inability to work due to old age or illness, or disability, or being young, poverty from loss of place, poverty from laziness, poverty from addiction to intoxicating drinks and, in most cases, from lack of labor and lack of means with which to take up work: decent clothes, shoes, daily bread, tools or implements.”

    Father John called on all residents of the city to take care of “finding common housing, a workhouse and a vocational school for the poor” in order to jointly, firstly, help them, and secondly, help themselves, because the prospect of honest earnings can turn a person away from crime.

    Many townspeople were interested in the idea, but there were also those who argued that the workhouse was a punitive institution, and similar experiments in the past had not been successful. To this o. John objected that the establishment would certainly be charitable: “Isn’t it a good, humane thing to save people from laziness, idleness, apathy, and parasitism?”

    Predecessors. Homes “where they give work”
    Indeed, in the past there have already been attempts to accustom vagabonds and beggars to work.

    More Stoglavy Cathedral Ivan the Terrible decreed that healthy and able-bodied beggars should be involved in public works. Since the time of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, attempts have not stopped to eradicate beggary through the capture and sending of beggars to “restraint” or “workhouses”.

    For the first time the idea of ​​voluntary workhouses appeared in the “Institution on the Provinces” of Catherine II. Orders of public charity were to be arranged in homes “where they provide work, and as work progresses, food, cover, clothing or money.” However, workhouses invariably turned into institutions of forced confinement. For example, the Moscow workhouse, created under Catherine II, was first combined with a restraint house for “violent sloths”, and in 1879 it was converted into a city prison known as “Matrosskaya Tishina”.

    Another Moscow workhouse, created in 1839 for voluntary workers, could not keep its wards busy and turned into “a shelter where beggars detained by the police on the streets of Moscow spent their time in idleness.”

    Those closest in spirit to the idea of ​​Fr. John had projects of the Society for the Encouragement of Hard Work created in 1865 in Moscow, one of which, “Anthill,” he mentioned in his address to the Kronstadters. The “Moscow Anthill” was a society that helped poor Muscovites earn money by sewing and embroidering. The society's patrons made an annual contribution and pledged to order at least several items of clothing a year from their wards.

    Through the fire
    Through the efforts of Fr. Ioann Sergiev, with the support of military prosecutor Baron O.O. Buxhoeveden and led. book Alexandra Iosifovna, in June 1874 at St. Andrew's Cathedral, where Fr. John, the Trusteeship of St. Apostle Andrew the First-Called. Father John said this about this institution: “Church guardianship is the institution of the first Christians of the apostolic times, who, out of brotherly love, cared for each other so much that “not one of them was poor” (Acts 4:34). It is especially necessary here. God grant that it will be with us in the same spirit of unanimity and love.” People took part in the creation of trusteeship different nationalities, different religions, different incomes - from members of the imperial family to ordinary citizens.

    In October 1874, there was a strong fire in Kronstadt, which burned out a third of the city. Many townspeople found themselves destitute and homeless. The trusteeship and the committee for collecting donations in favor of the fire victims tried to provide the victims with the necessary things, but about 100 of the poorest families were forced to live in dugouts due to the lack of residential buildings in the city. Using part of the donations, the City Duma instructed the Andreevsky Trusteeship to build a wooden house for the fire victims. By the beginning of January, most of those in need of apartments were already able to move into it, and in March 1875, St. Andrew's guardianship under the leadership of Fr. John opened a free primary public school in the same house.

    When Emperor Alexander II was assassinated in 1881, Fr. John proposed to perpetuate his memory by building a House of Diligence under St. Andrew's guardianship. By that time Fr. John was already well known, and donations began to come from all over the country.

    By December 1881, the large stone building was put under the roof and construction was roughly completed. But in December, a fire broke out in one of the “fun houses” in the neighborhood. The police chief of Kronstadt refused to take timely measures, and everything in the new stone building of the House of Diligence burned out interior decoration, and the wooden building of the original house of St. Andrew's guardianship burned to the ground.

    The fire attracted new donations, in addition, an insurance premium was paid for the buildings, and a year later, on October 10, 1882, the House of Diligence opened its doors to the Kronstadt poor. In 1886, at the House of Diligence, the Church of St. was built, and in 1890, expanded and re-consecrated. good led book Alexander Nevsky. In 1888, a three-story stone overnight shelter was built, and in 1891, a four-story stone Hospice House.

    Under the same roof
    The House of Industriousness began with hemp plucking and cap workshops for men. It was work that did not require preparation, but could immediately provide income - small, but sufficient to not die of hunger.
    
    
    
    In the hemp trimming workshop, old ship ropes were torn into fibers and weaved from them into new twines, ropes, hammocks and nets. They also made mattresses from sponges and hair. In the cap workshop they glued envelopes, boxes and paper bags, which at that time were called caps. The average daily earnings in the workshops was 19 kopecks.

    Then a people's canteen and overnight shelter were opened. The combination of workshops, a canteen and a shelter under one roof became the first example of comprehensive labor assistance in Russia.

    In the folk canteen, a cup of cabbage soup or soup cost 1 kopeck, buckwheat or wheat porridge - 2 kopecks, a pound of ordinary bread - 2.5 kopecks, peeled, made from flour best quality– 3 and 4 kopecks, a bar of tea – 1 kopeck. and three lumps of sugar are also 1 kopeck. Hot boiling water and boiled water given for free. The canteen served 400-800 meals daily, and on holidays several hundred people ate for free there.

    You could spend the night in a shelter for 3 kopecks; every night 8 men were admitted for free. Women were not charged. During the early days of Christmas and Easter, overnight accommodation was free for everyone.

    Thus, for 15 kopecks one could spend the night, have lunch, and drink tea and bread in the morning and evening.

    Workshops for custom-made fashionable dresses, seamstress, embroidery and lingerie labeling were also soon opened for women. Women who had no skills could iron or comb yarn. When it turned out that in order to work in the workshops, most of the students first had to be taught cutting, sewing and embroidery, the next innovation of the House was evening courses in sewing and needlework.

    60-100 people worked daily in the men's and women's workshops. Their products - shoes, clothes, furniture, tablecloths and napkins, household items - were in demand in bazaars and shops.

    To help those wishing to enter the service, mediation for hiring servants was opened at the House of Diligence.

    In the House of Diligence they helped both Orthodox and non-Orthodox, without making any difference between them. There were also non-Orthodox members of the trusteeship: Baron Otto Buxhoeveden, who collected donations at the very beginning of the trusteeship, helped Fr. John of Kronstadt in organizing the work of the House of Diligence and then traveled half of Russia, talking about the Kronstadt and St. Petersburg experiences; he was a Lutheran by religion.

    “I will accept congratulations only in the House of Diligence”
    House of Diligence Fr. John of Kronstadt was the first center in Russia that simultaneously dealt with employment, educational work and charity.
    

    
    
    House of Diligence with chapel and house church

    
    Educational and educational institutions included a free public school (primary school) for 300 children, a carpentry workshop for boys for 60 people, a drawing class for 30 children with free training poor people, workshop female labor for 50 girls, a shoemaker's workshop for training boys and a children's library, which contained more than 3,000 volumes.

    For adults there was Sunday School for 200 people with classes for different levels literacy, lectures were held on religious, historical and literary topics, a free reading room and a paid library were opened (30 kopecks per month and a deposit of 2 rubles).

    At the House of Diligence there was a bookstore with literature for children and adults, and a small printing house, which published mainly brochures compiled from the works of Fr. John.

    Among the exclusively charitable institutions of the House of Diligence, in addition to the shelter for 108 people, rebuilt in 1888, and the people's canteen, there was an orphanage for 50 people with a “shelter” (kindergarten) for children of working mothers and a summer country house. An almshouse was opened for disabled women for 22 people. Its inhabitants, in addition to free accommodation, received a cash allowance of 3 rubles per month. Every year 2-3 thousand people passed through the free outpatient clinic of the House.

    In addition, by decision of the Andreevsky Guardianship Council, the House of Diligence could issue a one-time allowance from 1 to 20 rubles, with which a needy woman could buy a sewing machine from a mortgage, and a robbed or lost money traveler could buy a ticket to hometown. total amount Such benefits amounted to several thousand rubles a year.

    In two houses of the Andreevsky Trusteeship, apartments were rented out for those in need at a reduced rent; completely poor women and widows with children lived in them for free.

    In 1891, in order to accommodate those who came to Fr. John of pilgrims, a Hospice House was built with paid and free sections, which was also part of the complex of institutions of the House of Diligence.

    Father John, despite his busy schedule, visited the House of Diligence very often, and before his name day, Kronstadt newspapers published the following announcement: “I have the honor to inform my admirers - whom God will honor - that I will accept congratulations on Angel Day on October 19 only in the House of Diligence. The rector of St. Andrew's Cathedral is Archpriest John Sergiev." Personal contributions about. John in favor of the House annually amounted to 50-60 thousand rubles.

    Of course, an organization such as the House of Diligence could not exist on self-sufficiency. For the maintenance of the House, in addition to Fr. John, his numerous admirers donated, part of the expenses was covered by the profits from the rooms that were rented out - annually to Fr. Up to 80,000 pilgrims came to John to Kronstadt.

    Followers
    In 1886, Baron O.O. Buxhoeveden opened the Evangelical House of Diligence with funds from the Lutheran communities of St. Petersburg. Its difference from the House of Diligence of Fr. John was closed - the wards could not leave his borders, and the fact that most of the employees were from well-established wards.

    In 1896, Buxhoeveden founded the House of Diligence in St. Petersburg for impoverished educated women. The House opened in-depth language courses in French, German, English, Italian and Spanish with translation workshops, editing courses, accounting courses, secretarial courses, typing, folding and stitching of printed products, cutting and sewing according to the Bazarova system, fine needlework, painting according to glass, velvet and satin and even making dolls. Within a few months of opening, more than 50 women were working or studying there. For students who successfully completed secretarial or accounting courses, the administration found work in banks or offices.

    Three years later, the House of Industriousness opened for educated men; its wards compiled texts, accounting reports, wall tables and cartograms, rewrote texts and translated from foreign languages. Of the 200 people who asked for help in the first few months, 133 were nobles, 33 were burghers, and only the rest were peasants and artisans.

    From 1886 to 1898, Baron Buxhoeveden, with stories about the Kronstadt and St. Petersburg experiences, visited many cities in European Russia, convincing governors, clergy and eminent citizens to create houses of industriousness.

    The phrase “house of industriousness" became a household name for all institutions that provided work with the organization of product sales or training with subsequent employment, and provided the opportunity to earn money rather than beg for urgent needs. By the beginning of the 20th century. there were already more than a hundred such institutions. Under them, craft industries were opened - shoemaking, bookbinding, carpentry, baking, sewing and embroidery workshops; they made bags, smoking cartridges, matting, mats, mattresses, brushes, and wove baskets and bast shoes. Those especially in need were provided with shelter and food. As a rule, at the houses of industriousness there were primary schools for children and Sunday schools with practical courses for adults. Many of them opened nurseries for children of working women, shelters and outpatient clinics. Their budgets consisted of membership fees, charitable donations, proceeds from the sale of products and completed city works, charity lotteries and concerts, club collections and state subsidies.

    In 1895, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna established the Trusteeship of Homes for Industriousness and Workhouses. The Regulations on Trusteeship stated that its purpose was “an attempt at a more systematic further development and regulation of this form of charity, which in one way or another actually already existed.”

    The Trusteeship has developed a unified charter and rules for societies organizing industrious houses in Russia. In 1897-1917 it published the magazine “Trudovaya Pomoga”, published literature on the organization of employment and organized annual competition for the best research in the field of labor assistance.

    After the revolution
    After the revolution of 1917, all the houses of industriousness in Soviet Russia were closed “as unnecessary,” and helping those in need was declared the sole concern of the Soviet state.

    The House of Diligence under St. Andrew's Guardianship was closed in the 1920s. The temple under him was destroyed, its altar apse was destroyed, and the belfry above the third floor of the building was demolished. The buildings of the hospice and the St. Andrew's parish care house became residential buildings. The street where the buildings are located former House hard work, in 1909 was in honor of Fr. Ioanna was renamed from Medvezhya to Sergievskaya. In 1918, its name was changed to Zinoviev Street, and from 1933 it began to bear the name of Feigin, a Komsomol leader who died in 1921 during the suppression of the Kronstadt anti-Soviet uprising.

    In the 1940s in the building of the House of Diligence at st. Feigina, 7/9 housed a women's school, and in 1975 vocational school No. 48, which trains cooks, confectioners, auto mechanics and hairdressers, moved into it. Only exhibits from the school museum remind us of the past.
    

    Kristina Petrochenkova

    
    References:
    1. House of Diligence in Kronstadt. Encyclopedia of St. Petersburg. http://www.encspb.ru/article.php?kod=2809079597
    2. Lyubomudrova M.M. Father of Kronstadt // Glinskie readings: http://www.glinskie.ru/common/mpublic.php?num=848
    3. Father John of Kronstadt//Kronstadt Bulletin. -2005. – September 30. Popov I.V. Shrines of Kronstadt. House of hard work. http://www.leushino.ru/conference/1-9.html
    4. Speshilova O. Righteous John Kronstadt in the history of Kronstadt // http://www.rusk.ru/analitika/2007/11/13/pravednyj_ioann_kronshtadtskij_v_istorii_kronshtadta/
    5. Sursky I.K. Father John of Kronstadt. T. 1-2. - M., 1994.
    6. Timofeevsky F.A. A brief historical sketch of the bicentennial of the city of Kronstadt. -Kronstadt., 1913. http://www.kronstadt.ru/books/history/tim_25.htm
    7. Khraponicheva E.V. Houses of hard work. History of the creation of workhouses and charity houses in the 19th century // Moscow Journal. -1999. — No. 9. – P.42-47.

    Collection of information on the status of Her Majesty the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna under the Augustus.

    Report to the Trustee on workhouses and workhouses. - Vol. IV. - St. Petersburg, 1902. (Extracts)

    Institutions for labor charity

    Industrious homes for adults and mixed and similar institutions

    The growth and development of industrious houses clearly shows that institutions of this kind, if they are intended only for labor charity, do not satisfy many of the urgent needs of life and, solely under the influence of such, they take on forms completely different from those created for them theoretically.

    The survey of labor houses, undertaken in the reporting year at the direction of the Committee, gave quite definite confirmation of this.

    When they were established, the houses of industriousness were understood by the founders themselves as more or less simple, uncomplicated institutions, intended to provide temporary work to persons who had, but then lost it due to unfortunate circumstances. They did not undertake educational and corrective purposes, did not undertake general tasks of charity, and therefore in their pure form should be closed to professional beggars, children and the disabled.

    Meanwhile, as a review of industrious houses showed in 1901, this type of them in life has found only very weak use for itself: at present there are hardly many such houses that, proper development their activities, would not have turned to more complex institutions.

    This happened, on the one hand, because in a house of pure industry, under the influence of living conditions, it was necessary to open a number of auxiliary institutions, on the other hand, because in some areas an urgent need was discovered, along with able-bodied people - adults in need of temporary income - to accept disabled people, children and professional beggars, and, finally, with the third - that life has forced us to concern ourselves with strengthening the assistance provided in homes and making it preventive.

    A clear example of the complications of the original simple type of house of industriousness can be seen at least in the Orlovsky house, subordinate to the Trusteeship of houses of industriousness and workhouses. September 22, 1901 marked exactly 10 years since the founding of the said labor assistance institution, which was opened on September 22, 1891 for temporary charity for homeless poor people in need of work and food; It was designed for 50 people when it opened. In the same 1891, the Trustee Society filed a petition about him

    • 0 addition to the charter of the house of industriousness in the sense of granting the Society the right to open a night shelter at the house for the poor who do not work in the house, which shelter was opened to
    • December 1. At the same time, at the suggestion of the Diocesan Committee, established to collect donations for the benefit of those affected by the crop failure, a free canteen for 100 people was set up in the shelter premises. In 1892, as a result of the crop failure of 1891, the need for food and charity for the poor city residents and peasants arriving to work became even more urgent, therefore, in addition to the mentioned free canteen, 4 more cheap canteens were opened with funds from the Provincial Charity Committee, which were received under the jurisdiction of the Trustee Society. In the same year, the Society’s leaders saw themselves forced to open a children’s department at the house for temporary care of orphaned and generally street children. Due to the fact that the orphanage children, of whom 50 people were accepted at first, could not be placed in permanent positions due to their unpreparedness for work, there was a need to provide them with craft knowledge. The Trustee Society tried to pursue this goal, teaching children in the shoe, box and hosiery workshops, at home, in the kitchen and bakery, which was also already open by this time, and also sending them to printing houses, bookbinding and the city metalworkshop. In addition, the Trustee Society placed them in workshops of various workshops to teach children crafts.

    A school was established at the refuge, enjoying the rights of an elementary zemstvo school, under the direct supervision of a special teacher.

    In 1893, the activities of the Trustee Society expanded further, namely, in order to combat the cholera epidemic, a second shelter and a cheap canteen were opened. To combat beggary, the Society in the same year issued penny checks with a statement in them that for one a check gives a portion of hot food or half a portion of porridge, for 3 checks - hot food, one and a half pounds of bread, etc.

    In 1894, the idea arose about establishing an almshouse for elderly women, which was carried out the following year, 1895. This year, women's workshops received special development, which, in addition to fulfilling small orders from private individuals, also began to accept contracts for the supply of products for different institutions. Special craftswomen were hired to train those in need. For the sale of stockings produced in women's workshops, in addition to selling them at the workshop itself, a warehouse was opened at the store of the local merchant Vlasov. In May 1895, the Oryol Charitable Society for the House of Diligence made a proposal to transfer to its jurisdiction the charitable society of the “Nursery” shelter, with all its equipment; Moreover, the Charitable Society undertook to provide the House of Diligence with an annual subsidy of 150 rubles. Under these conditions, the “Nursery” shelter was accepted by the Trustee Society along with the three children who were in it. Actually, the nature of this shelter does not quite correspond to the generally accepted concept of shelters called “Nursery”; it would be more correct to call it a juvenile department of a children’s shelter due to the fact that children are left here not only for the daytime, but live permanently. In 1895, due to the cheapness of bread, the need for cheap canteens decreased so much that the board of the Society decided to close them until there was a new need. Nevertheless, the Society, in order to ensure that those in dire need were not deprived of the opportunity to receive cheap bread, established a branch of a cheap canteen at the House of Diligence itself.

    In 1896, the number of children cared for in the children's department of the House reached 80 children, and in the “Nursery” shelter it increased from 3 to 22.

    Due to the fact that the orphans, the poor, and the elderly living at the House of Diligence were deprived of the opportunity, due to the remoteness of city churches and the lack of sometimes warm clothes and shoes, to visit the temple of God, there was a natural need for the establishment of a home church at the House of Diligence, which was built with donations money and consecrated on September 15, 1897 by Fr. John Sergiev.

    In 1898, the activities of the women's workshop expanded even more; it brought net profit 2200 rub. In addition to the previous workshops, a brush room for awaiting men was added.

    In 1899, men's workshops received special development, producing for the first time, instead of the usual deficit, an insignificant profit; At the same time, they began to expand the bakery existing at the House of Diligence.

    In 1900, an intermediary office was established at the House of Diligence to find places and occupations.

    According to information from 1901, the Oryol House of Industriousness with its divisions is a series of buildings near the city center, on the river bank, surrounded by gardens and constituting, as it were, a whole colony of charitable institutions, which includes the following institutions: 1) church; 2) library; 3) the House of Diligence itself for temporary care of adult men and women with workshops: hosiery, seamstress, box, package, shoe, carpentry, metalwork and bakery; 4) shelter “Nursery”; 5) a refuge for boys; 6) shelter for girls; 7) school; 8) an almshouse for elderly women (one old man is also cared for in a separate room);

    9) a shelter for the incoming poor; 10) for them a cheap canteen and 11) an intermediary office for finding places and activities.

    Every day the House of Diligence cares for up to 225 people.

    The value of the Company's property exceeds RUB 75,000. The parish received 20,877 rubles in 1901. 94 kopecks, during the same time 23,002 rubles were spent. 50 kopecks

    The same - to a greater or lesser extent - complex institution of labor assistance is, for example, the Kronstadt House of Diligence (not subordinate to the Trusteeship), which has: 1) a church, 2) an orphanage, 3) an almshouse, 4) an overnight shelter, 5) dining room, 6) handicraft classes, 7) Sunday school, 8) bookstore, 9) cheap apartments, 10) intermediary office for hiring female servants, 11) hospital, 12) public school, 13) children's library and 14) organization of public readings . The cost of real estate of the Kronstadt house is 350,000 rubles, the amount of available capital is up to 490,000 rubles, annual income is more than 77,600 rubles, expenses are 59,580 rubles.

    Then, the 1st House of Industriousness of the St. Petersburg Metropolitan Trustee Society for Houses of Industriousness (subordinate to the Trusteeship) was also built with its workshops: sewing, weaving, carpentry, wallpaper, rope products, plumbing and foundry, painting, shoemaking and a workshop for making rugs and paths; it has: 1) a dormitory, 2) a kitchen, 3) a dining room, 4) a library, 5) a labor center (free sewing workshop), 6) a job search office,

    7) organization of external work, 8) laundry, 9) disinfection chamber, emergency room and first aid kit; It is also proposed to open a nursery and establish a bakery and overnight shelter. The Capital Trusteeship Society has property worth only 65,240 rubles. The Company's income for 1901 amounted to 24,611 rubles. 12 kopecks, consumption - 18,145 rubles. 65 kop. Total number the expected 1 house of hard work reached the figure of 30,907 rubles.

    Complex houses of industriousness and, moreover, significant in terms of capital and real estate (over 30,000 rubles) also include the following institutions subordinate to the Trusteeship of houses of industriousness and workhouses: the house of industriousness in Vilna, in Rostov-on-Don named after P. R. Maksimov, in Kyiv, in Nizhny Novgorod them. Mikhail and Lyubov Rukavishnikov, in Yelets, in Poltava, in Rodom, the 2nd House of Diligence of the St. Petersburg Metropolitan Trustee Society for Houses of Diligence, in Saratov, in Tula, in Kharkov, in Odessa and in Rybinsk, in total with the above two - 15 institutions.

    The same houses of industriousness, but not under the jurisdiction of the Trusteeship, are available: in Baku, Warsaw, Vyatka, Grodno, Kursk, Moscow named after N.A. and S.N. Gorbov, in Moscow, the Sergievsky House of industriousness of the “Moscow Anthill” society, Samara, Simbirsk , St. Petersburg - the Evangelical House of Diligence and the House of Diligence of the Petrovsky Society for Helping the Poor, in Tsarskoe Selo, Tver, Torzhok, Chernigov, Revel and Yaroslavl - a total of 19 institutions.

    From others existing houses Industriousness, some still remain simple and uncomplicated institutions for temporary income, but, apparently, most of them have already embarked on the path of complication. There is no doubt that the rest will follow these last ones, since life steadily directs them towards this. There is no doubt that in the future they all, or at least the vast majority of them, will turn to complex institutions and open the doors of their establishments not only to workers looking for temporary work in the workshops at home, but also to everyone who needs them - many facts convince us of this . That the houses of industriousness of the pure type are theoretical and that, on the contrary, houses of the complex type are practical, was concluded, among other things, by the heads of the designated labor aid institutions and their caretakers who were present at the Congress held from April 16 to 22 of this year.

    According to information from 1901, there are up to 130 trustee societies, circles and trustees for industrious homes (for adults and mixed ones). Of these, 77 labor assistance institutions operate on the basis of model statutes adopted for the Trusteeship of industrious homes and workhouses, the rest on the basis of special statutes, completely or not completely consistent with the exemplary ones.

    In the reporting year, five houses of industriousness were reopened: the Blagoveshchensky House of industriousness for disadvantaged women in St. Petersburg; house of hard work, established by the Society for the Care of the Families of Exiled Convicts on the island. Sakhalin; a house of hard work for women established by the Cross Charitable Society in St. Petersburg; the house of industriousness of the Menzelinsky Society for Benefiting the Poor and the house of industriousness of the Society for helping the needy population of Khvalynsky district, Samara province, in the village. Noble Tereshka, - the first three are subordinate to the Trusteeship, the last two act on the basis of special statutes. In addition, it is proposed to open: the House of Diligence in the city of Hungrov, Siedlce province, the draft charter of which, agreed with the approximate one, is now being approved; then the house of industriousness - in the city of Czestochowa, Petrovka province; in Cherkassy, ​​Kyiv province; in St. Petersburg, a house of industriousness for tailors and a house of industriousness in the city of Nikolaev, established by the Nikolaev Society for the construction of shelters.

    Of the listed institutions, the house of industriousness on the island deserves special attention. Sakhalin and the proposed opening of the house of industriousness in the city of Czestochowa.

    The rules of the Sakhalin House of Diligence were approved on December 5, 1901, but the institution itself actually began its activities in mid-September of the same year.

    The extremely difficult financial situation of part of not only the exiled, but also the full-fledged population of the island. Sakhalin, explained mainly by the insufficient local demand for labor, has long pointed to the need for private charity to intervene in this area to provide assistance at least to those in need who do not refuse to work to support the existence of themselves and their families.

    Imbued with the conviction of the urgent need for such intervention, the Society for the Care of the Families of Exiled Convicts decided to take the initiative in this matter, and since labor seemed to him the most rational type of assistance, the general meeting of members of the society on March 17 of last year decided to establish on the island. Sakhalin in Lent Alexandroven House of Diligence.

    The implementation of this resolution was started without delay, for which purpose the Board of the Society sent nurse E.K. Mayer to Sakhalin.

    During the first two weeks after the opening of the House, 150 people worked in it, but soon then the number of workers daily reached 150, and if it did not increase even more, it was only because the funds not only did not allow the Society to increase the contingent of workers, but also forced he subsequently reduced this contingent to 70-60 people. in a day.

    Work in the House of Diligence consists of sewing linen, clothes and shoes, weaving carpets, weaving nets, making mops and mattresses, etc. In addition, outsiders approached the House to hire people from it for work outside the House, for example, earthen. Orders for products and their sales were insignificant at first, although they amounted to 800 rubles in September and October. income, should, in the opinion of the Board and in the opinion of sister of mercy E.K. Mayer, increase significantly in number, as the House of Diligence gains greater fame among the administrations of prisons, hospitals, mines, etc.

    Sister Mayer, with the assistance of local officials who offered their services, Sundays People's readings with humane paintings are organized in the House, a gramophone and checkers are purchased. These readings are very willingly attended not only by the workers of the House of Diligence, but also by many of the residents of the Aleksandrovsky post. In addition to Sunday readings, the House organizes evening literacy classes (3 times a week).

    Since the majority of the workers who found employment in the House belong to the homeless and live in all kinds of dens, where there can be no question of maintaining any hygienic conditions, some of the workers were placed in a bathhouse adapted for housing in one of the rented houses. Over time, an overnight shelter will be set up at the House.

    In view of the urgent need for a recommendation office that would serve as an intermediary between employers and workers, it was proposed to open one in the city of Nikolaevsk, where every year, after the opening of navigation, a significant number of job seekers accumulate, and employers, taking advantage of the forced position of many exiles, exploit their labor until extreme limits.

    From the foregoing it is clear that the already six-month existence of the House of Diligence in question has proven the extreme necessity of this institution on Sakhalin and that its activities should develop in a very short time to very significant proportions. The Committee of Trusteeship of Labor Homes and Workhouses did not fail to come to the aid of this young and so attractive institution of labor assistance, which at the beginning of this year allocated to it, in accordance with its journal resolution most graciously approved by Her Majesty the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, a non-refundable allowance of 10,000 rubles. for the construction of your own building and 5,000 rubles. in a loan for the formation of working capital of the house of industriousness.

    The need for a home of industriousness in Częstochowa was explained by its founders, on the one hand, by the fact that in Częstochowa, as a large factory town, a mass of working people accumulate - men and women, many of whom, not getting to local factories and plants for various reasons, remain positively without a piece of bread and are forced to earn their living by begging and other reprehensible means. The projected labor assistance institution, which will be under the jurisdiction of the Trusteeship of Labor Homes and Workhouses, is intended to provide temporary income to the aforementioned persons. On the other hand, the need for the said institution is motivated by the very important indication that the house of industry in the said city can serve to prevent all kinds of social democratic teachings that are being spread in Częstochowa, as a border city, by workers coming from Prussia and Austria. The proletariat is especially sympathetic to the extremes of the said teachings, in whose midst an element is created that is politically unreliable. A house of industry in a given locality, providing shelter and food for the poor and thereby reducing the number of those suffering from unemployment, will undoubtedly be an institution that helps to suppress the spread of the mentioned harmful teachings.

    House of industriousness in the village. Noble Tereshka, Khvalynsky district, was opened with private funds collected by subscription. It produces matting and coolers for bark. Under the guidance of two masters, in 1901, 14 teenagers from local residents aged 12 to 16 years were engaged in weaving matting. Due to the lack of handicraft and factory crafts among the local population that could provide any assistance in the economy, strengthening the existence of the House of Diligence in the named village is highly desirable.

    Menzelinsky, Ufa province, the house of hard work was opened by a local society for the benefit of the poor in 1900, but the first information about it was delivered by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is in charge of the said society, only at the end of January of the reporting year. The House of Diligence in Menzelinsk is, in essence, an insignificant educational and demonstration workshop in terms of the number of boys it nurtures (only 5 in 1900). In order to teach local residents useful skills in their everyday life, weaving sarpinka on an aircraft loom, weaving carpets, matting, weaving napkins was organized, work from white and black tin was organized, and, in addition, the Board of the company intended to introduce carpentry and metalworking skills.

    The Annunciation House of Diligence in St. Petersburg aims to provide assistance and shelter to disadvantaged women and girls by training them as scientists and nurses.

    The rules of the First House of Diligence for Women in St. Petersburg, established by the Cross Charitable Society, were approved at the end of the reporting year. The said institution has set itself general tasks, haunted by the houses of industriousness.

    The charters of the remaining industrious houses proposed for opening are being developed by their founders.

    Following the example of previous years, the Committee for the Trusteeship of Houses of Industriousness and Workhouses and its bodies took a number of measures in 1901 that served to develop and strengthen the activities of houses of industriousness.

    Thus, some institutions, in accordance with the most mercifully approved journal resolutions of the Committee, were provided with benefits and loans from the funds of the Trusteeship; other institutions converted previously issued loans into non-repayable benefits, and others extended the payment of such loans in installments. From the first group of labor assistance institutions, 1,550 rubles were allocated to the Trustee Society for the House of Diligence in Yamburg for the construction of a bathhouse, laundry and disinfection chamber, to the Laishevsky Trustee Society for the House of Diligence for the needs of the weaving workshop maintained by this society, 413 rubles, to the Kyiv House of Diligence for expansion of the building he occupies 10,000 rubles, Dvinsky House for the purchase of an estate 1200 rubles, House of Diligence in the village. Isaklakh for expanding the activities of this institution 1000 rubles, the house of industriousness in the city of Khvalynsk, Saratov province, for the same subject 800 rubles. and according to Nezelenova’s will, the III house of industriousness was given to the St. Petersburg Metropolitan Trustee Society for houses of industriousness - 7967 rubles. 67 V 2 kopecks, so that this amount is converted into the untouchable capital of this institution and so that annual interest from it goes to the current expenses of the house. From the second group of institutions, loans were converted into irrevocable benefits: to the Oryol House of Diligence (3,000 rubles), the Volsky Society (3,000 rubles) and the Saratov Trustee Society for the House of Diligence from the amount issued to the society in the amount of 9,000 rubles. loan credited 2500 rub. The repayment of the remaining loan of 6,500 rubles was given as a non-repayable benefit. for three years, i.e. until 1904. In addition, the payment of loans issued to the Vitebsk House of Diligence in the amount of 2,500 rubles was spread over 10 years. and the Radom Charitable Society in the amount of 5,000 rubles.

    Finally, regarding the particularly successful activities of the boards and individuals who served for the benefit of the houses of industriousness, the Committee in the journals of the meetings brought to the Highest information of Her Majesty the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, and the August Patroness of the Trusteeship of the houses of industriousness and workhouses most graciously deigned to announce the full Her Majesty's pleasure to the Council of the Rostov-on-Don House of Diligence named after P.R. Maksimov, the Board of the Kyiv House of Industriousness, the leaders of the Odessa House of Industriousness and Mrs. Gorbova, the head of the house of industriousness she established in Moscow. In addition, Her Imperial Majesty was pleased to deign to declare gratitude on behalf of Her Majesty to Mr. Konstantinovsky for his fruitful activities for the benefit of the Pskov House of Diligence.

    Orphanages of hard work

    There were only ten purely industrious orphanages. Among them, two operated in villages, two in county towns, and the rest in provincial cities and in capitals.

    Among the largest institutions of this kind is the Galernaya Gavan industrious home for teenage boys in St. Petersburg. It employs 70-80 children aged 12 to 15 years, distributed between workshops: shoemaking, carpentry, bookbinding and metalworking. The latter is now closed. The most diligent and skillful boys receive a wage from 3 to 5 kopecks. per day, but the money earned is given to the children only when they finally leave the House of Diligence.

    The orphanage for industriousness in Riga is also relatively large, in which over 60 girls were cared for. The wages in this institution are assigned only from the 2nd and 3rd years of girls’ attendance at the home of diligence and, in general, are also small.

    Almost the same size is the house of industriousness in Kherson, maintained by a local charitable society. It consists of a school, workshops and a boarding school where up to 30 boys live.

    From the data on industrious orphanages it can be seen that their type can hardly be considered established yet. In theory, this is an open (without boarding school) institution, intended primarily to provide income to children when, instead of studying, they are forced to earn food for themselves by the labor of their own hands.

    In fact, it turned out that many orphanages for industriousness turn, on the one hand, into closed institutions, thereby approaching shelters, and on the other, into institutions for vocational training, reminiscent of educational and demonstration workshops in their organization. By providing only a small income or not providing it at all to those in orphanages for hard work, these institutions do not achieve their intended goal in this regard and, under the influence of living conditions, develop into institutions of a completely different, in turn, very useful type. It is very likely that in the near future, orphanages for industriousness will retain only their name, but in reality they will turn into shelters and workshops.

    Nurseries, day shelters and nursery shelters

    These institutions were intended not only to care for children, but also to free parents from caring for them in order to be able to freely devote themselves exclusively to work, at a time when work reaches its highest stress (for example, in time of suffering in villages), and therefore, in turn, can be considered as institutions of direct labor charity.

    The nurseries under the authority of the Trustee contain, firstly, societies and circles established mainly for the maintenance of other institutions, for example, educational and demonstration workshops, orphanages, etc.; secondly, societies and circles specially organized for the establishment of nurseries; thirdly, zemstvo institutions using subsidies from the Committee for these purposes, and fourthly, individuals.

    Societies and institutions opening nurseries as auxiliary institutions provide information about them along with reports on the main institutions they contain.

    Societies and circles specially established for the maintenance of nurseries draw up reports on forms drawn up for them, which are sent to them annually by the Office of the Committee. There were 11 such societies and circles in the reporting year, of which 3 were in cities (Simferopol, Akkerman and Syzran) and 8 in towns and villages. One of the district societies (Birskoye) opened 6 nurseries in the reporting year, another (Menzelinskoye) - 5, a third (Nikolaevskoye) - 3, and the rest one each, with the exception of the Buguruslan Trusteeship of the nurseries, which in 1901 did not open any nurseries at all.

    From the zemstvos, with the support of the Guardianship, in 1901 the nurseries were maintained by the Malmyzh, Vyatka province, district zemstvo. For the 400 rubles allocated by the Committee. the named zemstvo opened a nursery, which operated during the summer at 6 points.

    As for the nurseries opened under the authority of the Guardianship by private individuals, there were 22 of them in the reporting year. Of these, 3 were maintained exclusively at the expense of private individuals, who donated a total of 200 rubles for the nursery. 68 kopecks The remaining 19 nurseries were supported by private individuals who donated a total of 581 rubles. 39 kopecks, and for the benefits allocated by the Trusteeship of the Homes of Industriousness and Workhouses in the amount of 1925 rubles. 2 kopecks (including 156 rubles 46 kopecks remaining after the closure of the nursery in the summer of 1900).

    Each of the 19 managers of the nurseries, who had general supervision over them, received about 13 rubles for the entire period of operation of the nursery. 50 kopecks; each of the 41 nannies received about 6 rubles during the same time. 50 kopecks And each of the 23 cooks costs about 5 rubles.

    The nursery was located in one or two rooms, allocated free of charge in zemstvo, parochial schools or schools of the Ministry of Public Education; where there were no schools, a hut was hired or a barn was built for a nursery; For renting premises in peasant huts, about 4 rubles were paid. during the duration of the nursery.

    The cost of food for children and employees in each nursery shelter averaged 44 rubles. 71 kopecks, including donated products; the total cost for each nursery shelter (with donated products) was equal to 88 rubles. 70 kopecks The total cost per child per day was 10 kopecks, while food for each child was 5 kopecks.

    The required number of nannies for a known number of children cannot be established on the basis of average calculations for nurseries, because, as can be seen from the data for individual nurseries, there were cases when salaries were given to 4 nannies who had care for 11 children (s. B. Glushitsy, Nikolaevsky district, Samara province), but there were also cases when only 1 nanny was hired for 56 children (the village of Kamennaya Sarma, Nikolaevsky district, Samara province). Approximately, we can say that one nanny can cope with 20 or even 30 children, in the latter case, of course, provided that older children are involved in caring for the younger children.

    As in 1900, there were no nurseries, that is, institutions for infants, at all. There were either daytime shelters for children from 2 to 10 years old, or nursery-shelters, that is, mixed institutions for both the above-mentioned children and infants.

    Educational and correctional institutions for labor assistance

    Houses of hard work with educational and correctional character

    Among these, the most noteworthy are the Evangelical House of Diligence in St. Petersburg and the House of Diligence in Tver, then the Moscow and Mitavsky Workhouses.

    Hard workers come to the Evangelical House of Industriousness voluntarily, but the condition for entering the house (with a boarding school) is compliance with a fairly strict regime, reminiscent of the regime of a medical institution. For alcoholics, for whom this regime is not sufficient, there is a special hospital in Teriokki. Available own house costing over 50,000 rubles and over 7,000 rubles. in Terijoki. Annual income is 15,600 rubles, expenses are approximately the same amount. There are 326 men per year and 25 in the nursing department. The annual production amount is about 10,000 rubles, for which amount the products are sold; raw materials are purchased for the amount of about 6,000 rubles. 75 people work, about 25,000 working days.

    When opening the Tver House of Diligence, the local charitable society “Dobrohotnaya Kopeika”, which ran it, had the goal of eradicating or reducing beggary in the city of Tver, as a result of which various measures were designed in agreement with the governor. It was supposed to establish a registration of persons detained for begging in the city police department, those with residence permits would be sent to their places of registration, and those who did not would be treated like vagrants; urban beggars capable of work should be transferred to the Council of the Society for placement in a house of industriousness; the local governor expressed readiness to assist in the establishment by the Tver petty bourgeois Society of an almshouse for Tver bourgeois who are unable to work and are engaged in begging; the detention of beggars was supposed to be carried out not in the center of the city and not on church porches, and this measure should not be carried out suddenly, but on its outskirts, so as not to cause any disturbances on the part of the beggars; it was planned to ask the residents of the city of Tver to stop manually distributing alms and instead of this distribution to contribute a certain amount of money to the Society’s cash desk for the maintenance of the house of industriousness. These measures were introduced too hesitantly and did not meet with the expected sympathy from the residents of Tver. Almost exclusively people who were detained by the police for begging or beggars who did not have clothes for the winter came to the house of industriousness.

    Since March 1895, the said Society, recognizing that the purpose of the House of Industriousness is not so much to eradicate beggary, but rather to prevent it, that the House of Industriousness should provide urgent, if possible short-term, assistance to the destitute, released from hospitals, released from places of imprisonment, arrived in the city of Tver and could not find a place for themselves, residents of the city of Tver who do not have income, and generally fell into poverty - by providing them with work and shelter, pending a more lasting arrangement of their fate, took measures to attract such persons to the house of industriousness . To achieve this goal, the latter was divided into two departments: in one of them, various workshops were established, master managers were invited, and persons who were not engaged in begging, or, although they were engaged in begging, were admitted to this department for a short time and expressed a desire to leave this profession ; the second department accepted professional beggars and persons whose moral stability seemed doubtful; at the same time, some from the second department, in case of desire to begin working life and learn a craft and with complete moral behavior while in the second department, they were transferred to the first. Particular attention was paid to persons of the second department who had not reached the age of majority, who, if desired, were transferred to workshops and learned a craft. Simultaneously with the establishment of the workshops, a special building was built for the overnight shelter. An overnight shelter for visitors was transferred to the new building, while for those living in the House of Diligence, special rooms were allocated for overnight stays in this latter building, and in them, just like during work, those in need were accommodated in groups, depending on age, moral qualities and partly by origin and previous profession.

    The House of Diligence has organized workshops: carpentry, metalsmithing and blacksmithing, shoemaking, tailoring, sewing, suitcase bookbinding, weaving baskets, carpets, straw products, pouring rubber galoshes, gluing paper bags, cardboard, plucking drapes, feathers, containers, sponges, ropes and hair, dyeing, painting and painting, sifting ash, all kinds of work for laborers; in addition, if persons familiar with any special craft enter the House of Industry, the Society finds work for them that corresponds to this craft. For all these crafts, orders are fulfilled in the House of Diligence, and if they are not available, products are made for the store in the House of Diligence. Both craftsmen and workers are sent home to carry out orders in their specialties, as well as for chopping firewood, clearing yards of snow and debris, carrying things, unloading boats, for earthworks, etc. Due to the fact that most artisans and Those studying carpentry and plumbing in the house of industriousness are placed in a carriage building plant or factories near Tver, where all machines are driven by electricity or steam power; in the house of industriousness a kerosene engine is installed, with the help of which some machines - drilling, lathe, band saw etc. - are set in motion in order to thus accustom workers to handling tools set in motion by mechanical force.

    The Mitau House of Diligence largely implements the idea of ​​​​German workers' colonies. His use consists of the “Statthof” estate allocated by the city of Mitava, half a mile away from it (on a long-term basis), which contains about 1000 acres. Of this number, only 10 dessiatines are cultivated by the beneficiaries, and the rest of the space is rented out in small plots. General impression, produced by Stathoff, is quite favorable: there is order, and discipline in the spirit of religious and moral, and at the same time a loving attitude towards people who, through no fault of their own, are often involved in an abnormal lifestyle and have deviated from the common path of work. During 1901, up to 52 people stayed in the house. In general, the type of people who visit Stathof are workers with a weakened ability to work for some reason (including alcoholics, or pure alcoholics, or a special type of psychopath, so successfully described in the article by P.I. Kovalevsky “Poor in Spirit” // Trudovaya Pomoga , September 1901), a type of vagrancy possessed by the disease.

    His income is over 9,000 rubles, including from work expected to be over 7,000 rubles. Consumption over 11,000 rubles. for the maintenance of the building and administration, including up to 3,000 rubles. and for wages over 500 rubles. 148 people live in the institution. In the workshops, work is carried out only during the time free from agricultural work and in the woodyard. If we exclude the operations of the wood yard, then the cost of production is insignificant (barely exceeds 500 rubles).

    The Moscow workhouse, the only one that fully implements the idea of ​​forced labor, was established in 1837 to engage the poor in work and to provide income to persons who voluntarily turn to it for help. Until the end of 1893, the Workhouse was run by a Committee for the examination of alms-givers and was a relatively small institution, the organization of which was little consistent with its name and purpose; from the end of 1893 it was transferred to the jurisdiction of the city public administration. The latter took great care to organize various works for those in need, allowed a wide reception of volunteers, which was almost never practiced before, and significantly expanded the premises of the institution. Currently, the Workhouse consists of two parts, one of which occupies old premises in the central part of the city, and the other is located in Sokolniki in new premises acquired and adapted for the Workhouse by the city. In terms of the composition of those in custody, the Workhouse is a complex institution, consisting of: 1) a prefabricated department for the detention of persons brought by the police for begging, until their cases are examined by the city presence;

    • 2) departments for persons detained for begging;
    • 3) departments for volunteers. In addition, the Workhouse has departments for children and adolescents and a department for those unable to work. All deserving persons receive in the Workhouse full content. During 1900, on average, 1,434 people were kept in the workhouse for each day of the year, including 960 people capable of working. The work organized by the Workhouse is divided into 4 categories: external work, construction works, work in workshops and work for home needs. There are two types of workshops in the Workhouse: 1) craft workshops, which include blacksmithing, carpentry, shoemaking, bookbinding, wallpaper, saddlery, tailoring, 2) workshops of general production that do not require professional training, such as: box making, hook making, button making, envelope making. , bag and basket linen. In addition, an educational basket and furniture workshop has been set up for teenagers in the Workhouse.

    The cost of maintaining the workhouse in 1900 amounted to 171,342 rubles, not counting the cost of materials for work. Income from work extended to 564,552 rubles, including from external work 72,608 rubles, from work in workshops 73,049 rubles, from construction and asphalt work 413,442 rubles. and from work for the needs of the institution 5453 rubles. Of the total income from work, 48,717 rubles. given to those expected in the form of earnings, 70,696 rubles. remained for the benefit of the workhouse, and the remainder went to cover the cost of materials and overheads.

    These houses of industriousness and workhouses give a more or less definite expression of the idea of ​​​​corrective education underlying the institution. But besides them, there are several smaller houses in which this idea is not so clearly expressed, but which, in turn, strive to organize their lives in an educational and correctional sense.

    Artel of labor assistance

    The Yaroslavl Society, which has established so far the only artel of labor assistance in Russia, by the nature of the tasks it pursues, is, as it were, called upon to supplement the activities of industrious houses that do not pursue educational and correctional tasks in relation to that category of people for whom the assistance of these institutions cannot be exhaustive.

    As can be seen from the practice of such houses of industriousness, there is a fairly significant contingent of those who are left without a means of subsistence, not due to the conditions of the social system, i.e., the excess of the supply of labor over its demand, but due to their own moral weakness.

    These are free, walking people, known as tramps, goldenrots, zimogors, etc., who live for the moment and see the purpose of their life only in acquiring money for vodka.

    The composition of this relatively large group of people is extremely diverse. Among the tramps you can find landless peasants, workers, and, finally, quite intelligent people.

    Temporary material assistance provided to such persons, without systematic moral influence on them, does not achieve its goal, since, having taken advantage of the help provided to him, the tramp will drink everything he has and will still remain a beggar.

    The industrious houses of the prevailing type, to which the persons in question chiefly resort, are unable to lift them out of poverty, chiefly for the following reasons.

    Dealing with a large group of people, very heterogeneous in their composition and knowledge, these institutions, naturally, cannot pay special attention to the quality of the work they organize and, by necessity, focus it exclusively on providing income to the largest possible number of those seeking it, which in in turn, of course, is achievable only with the introduction of publicly available work that does not require either special knowledge and skills, or a relatively long stay in the institution. The latter, moreover, would contradict the purpose of industrious homes - to provide only temporary assistance to persons who, for random reasons, are left without income.

    The consequence of this peculiarity of the organization of industrious labor in houses, which is reduced mainly to pinching sponges, gluing boxes, sorting waste, and other less instructive activities, is the extreme unproductivity of this labor, both in the real and figurative sense. On the one hand, he is poorly paid, and on the other, he is completely deprived of that educational element, if present, work can have a beneficial effect on the moral side of a person. Thus, if the activities of industrious homes, which are not specifically intended for educational purposes, are necessary and useful for the numerous poor people left without work, who really need only temporary assistance, then it should be recognized as having little relevance in relation to that group of disadvantaged people who require no not only providing them with labor, but also moral support and guardianship.

    The establishment of special educational and correctional houses of hard work for them is not always achievable, first of all, due to their complexity and high cost. In view of this, in order to carry out the work of moral support and care for already fallen people, it is sometimes necessary to look for other ways.

    This is precisely the task that the Yaroslavl Labor Aid Society took upon itself.

    A feature of the activities of the Society in question is the organization of artels of people who are physically quite capable of work, due to their own weakness, lack of will and tendency to drunkenness, who have fallen out of the rut of life.

    People who are accepted into the artel are adults, able-bodied and who promise to fully obey the orders of the administration. Artel workers receive food and are obliged to go to all the jobs assigned to them. From earnings the following is withheld: 10% for the Society's expenses, the cost of food, the cost of clothing supplied to them in case of need, and money sent by some to their homeland. The remainder is handed over to the artel workers after 3 months. This 3-month mandatory period for staying in the artel is one of the features of its structure and is explained by the fact that three months of regular working life with good nutrition and the absence of drunkenness give a greater likelihood of correction for a drunkard and a sloth than a shorter period. It should, however, be noted that every week on Saturdays, the artel workers are given 10% of their weekly earnings for tobacco and other small expenses.

    Spacious wooden barracks were built to house the artel. The team members sleep on bunks, and they are located spaciously; right there they have dinner and immediately there are educational, scientific and religious readings for them in the evenings, to which the Society pays special attention.

    There is a doctor and a home first aid kit for patients' use. People who do not go to work without a legitimate reason and generally do not obey the orders of the administration are immediately expelled from the artel, and, however, the rest of the earnings due to them are given only after the expiration of the contractual three-month period.

    Each artel worker has in his hands a “contract and pay book” in which his earnings and expenses made for him are entered daily. In addition, the rules of the artel are posted in the barracks itself. The closest supervision of the artel is the headman, hired by the board of the Society from outside the artel. In the barracks of the artel there is posted a list of food supplies for each day of the week, calculating the quantity per person. Regardless of when the artel workers work away from the barracks, they are given 10 kopecks daily for breakfast. for everyone. Particular attention is paid to good and plentiful food, since, judging by experience, good food consists the best remedy fight against alcoholism. The team members themselves control the quantity and quality of supplies and hire a cook.

    This right of control, and especially of hiring, has an extremely beneficial effect on artel workers, raising their self-esteem.

    The work performed by the artel is different: such as, for example, unloading ships and wagons, sawing firewood, excavation work, carrying and transporting heavy loads, etc.

    There is usually no shortage of the named work, since employers willingly invite artel workers simply because they do not have to recruit workers one person at a time, but immediately and quickly receive a whole batch, without being forced to treat each one separately.

    From the brief data presented about the Yaroslavl Labor Assistance Society, it is clear that, thanks to the peculiarities of the artels it organizes, the contingent of persons protected by the Society lives not on charity, but on their own earnings. This is a very important condition that elevates a disadvantaged person in his own eyes and morally elevates him. The very issuance of a work book to each artel worker, the recognition, so to speak, of his rights as a worker, has an important educational value, giving him the opportunity to look at himself not as a worthless scum of humanity, but as a worker, and, moreover, a person equal in rights with other artel workers . The majority of artel workers, imbued with the conviction that they live on the funds obtained by artel labor, are ashamed of being the backbone of their own comrades and try to work hard. And by earning money through hard work, artel workers begin to value labor money, and they gradually develop frugality and competition with their comrades to save more money - especially since work books clearly show how little by little, but carefully, each artel worker’s amount increases earnings.

    Since September 1901, over the course of several months, 109 people have been in the artel, many of whom, having dressed with the assistance of the artel, have gone to work for a salary, while others have returned to their homeland. Most worked and were artel workers for 3-4 months. The number of artel workers, of course, fluctuates significantly depending on the time of year: in summer and spring, when there is a great demand for labor everywhere, there are fewer artel workers, but in winter and autumn the number in the artel is full.

    The wages of artel workers, depending on the time of year, start from 45 kopecks. up to 1 rub. and even more per day; On average, the usual salary of an artel worker is 60 kopecks. per day, or, minus absenteeism and unemployed days, 10-12 rubles. per month.

    Olginsky and other orphanages of hard work

    In the reporting year, there were 43 shelters of this kind under the jurisdiction of the Guardianship, and of them 5 in capitals, 6 in provincial cities, 19 in districts and 13 in villages.

    The largest of these shelters must be recognized as the St. Petersburg Olga Children's Shelter for Diligence in Tsarskaya Slavyanka, maintained at the expense of His Imperial Majesty the Sovereign Emperor.

    This shelter was the prototype of the Olga orphanages in Russia. The regulations on it were approved by the Highest on January 31, 1896. The buildings were built in 1897-1898. with funds most mercifully granted by His Imperial Majesty the Sovereign Emperor.

    52 dessiatines are allocated for shelter. 1621 sq. soot; the buildings are designed for 200 children of both sexes aged 6-15 years, left in the capital without supervision or shelter.

    The orphanage is a large complex institution with a church, general education and craft classes, an agricultural farm, a hospital, a boarding school, and a kitchen. The large number of buildings (24) was determined by the decision to place those in care according to the so-called family system, that is, several persons, headed by their teacher, in each separate house, as well as by the needs of the various departments of the shelter. The 140 boys in custody are housed in six separate houses, each of which is secondary school with the public school program. A female department of 50 girls and a juvenile department with 32 students of both sexes make up two more schools. In addition to general education subjects, carpentry, plumbing, shoemaking and tailoring are taught to boys in the orphanage workshops (the tailoring workshop is expected to be closed as it has a harmful effect on the health of children). Boys are also trained in ordinary agricultural work in the field, garden, barnyard, when threshing bread, etc. Girls learn handicrafts: cutting, sewing, mending, simple embroidery, etc. and, in addition, in the hospital to care for the sick, work in the kitchen of the women's department, in the laundry, ironing room and dairy. The shelter hospital, which is run by a woman doctor, satisfies not only the needs of the shelter, but also provides assistance to the local department; The hospital has an outpatient clinic for outsiders, who made 2,922 visits in 1900.

    The cost of buildings is estimated at 182,221 rubles. The shelter has an income of 4,745 rubles. from the farm and 2071 rub. from the works of the envied. The total amount of expenses is 58,470 rubles, of which 38,928 rubles. for building maintenance and administration. Food for one person in need per year costs 54 rubles. 90 kopecks, clothes and shoes - 17 rubles. The number of days spent was 81,252 and working days were 42,075.

    Similar to this shelter, others have arisen, although with less funds, as a result of which they cannot implement, for example, a family (in individual houses) system of charity. Nevertheless, many of these shelters deserve full attention, both for the organization of business in them and for their size.

    Of these larger shelters, Kazansky should be noted first of all.

    This shelter was opened in 1892 under the name “School of Children’s Hardworking,” but in 1900 it was renamed the Olga Orphanage, with the approval of the corresponding charter. For the benefit of 10,000 rubles received from the Committee of Trusteeship of Houses of Diligence. purchased a house that is currently being renovated.

    The institution was designed for 100 people; in 1900 there were 15 residents and 8-6 visitors. The company has a capital of 32,662 rubles. and has an income of 9395 rubles, including 568 rubles. from the works of the envied. The annual expense is 6,907 rubles, including 3,914 rubles for the maintenance and rental of the building and administration, and 280 rubles for materials and tools. Food per pupil costs 72 rubles per year, and clothing costs 3 rubles. 68 kopecks, not counting donations. Works include carpentry, turning, bookbinding, tailoring, wire work, shoe making, and for girls, handicrafts.

    The Eletsk orphanage for girls also deserves attention. He owns real estate worth 25,000 rubles. Annual income is 14,142 rubles, including 1,086 rubles from anticipated work, expenses are 8,673 rubles, including 1,606 rubles for the maintenance of the building and administration. and for material and tools 668 rubles. Food for children costs 22 rubles. 18 kopecks and clothes 5 rubles. 91 kopecks Permanently living children 65. Craft departments: sewing, hosiery, seamstress, ironing, blanket, lace, carpet.

    The data about the Omsk shelter is very interesting.

    At the end of 1891 and at the beginning of 1892, there was an intensified movement of peasant migrants from the internal provinces of Russia to Siberia, caused by the poor harvest of the previous two years and the almost universal harvest failure in Russia. During this difficult time, several thousand peasants appeared in the city of Omsk, who found themselves in far from favorable conditions here, since they encountered the same lack of food in Siberia and the districts of the Akmola region. Despite all the measures taken to alleviate the plight of the starving newcomers - in the form of setting up overnight shelters and free canteens - soon infectious diseases and mainly typhoid spread among them, as a result of which many peasant families found themselves orphaned children, left literally without shelter, clothing and food, to the mercy of fate. The wife of the military governor of the Akmola region, E. A. Sannikova, took care of the placement and care of these orphans, and at her initiative a shelter was set up in the premises of the Red Cross soup kitchen. This shelter was originally intended to provide charity only to the orphans of migrant peasants, and only during its continued existence was it forced to open its doors to orphans of other classes, to foundlings and, finally, to those young children whose parents were serving sentences in Omsk and other prison castles ( since the stay of innocent children in a prison environment cannot be considered comfortable).

    When it opened on May 1, 1892, the shelter had absolutely no Money and at first subsisted on the remainder of the sums allocated to support the starving settlers. But then donations appeared, of which 6,500 rubles were received in the first year. This year there were up to 40 people in the shelter; their maintenance cost 1,425 rubles, so more than 5,000 rubles remained free. The following year, the shelter's cash desk received 5,309 rubles. With the balance from the previous year, during the second year the shelter already had an amount of up to 10,500 rubles, which gave its administration the opportunity to take care of setting up a more convenient room, instead of a rented one. On the site where the shelter is now located, there was once a dilapidated, almost uninhabited wooden building of the clerk school of the Ministry of State Property. At the request of Governor General Stepnoy, the building was given over to the shelter and in 1893 it was completely rebuilt, which cost the shelter 7,297 rubles. In the following years, up to 4,000 rubles were spent on repairs and additions. Currently, the total cost of the shelter with all buildings and other household equipment is determined to be more than 16,000 rubles.

    In 1896, Secretary of State A. N. Kulomzin visited the shelter. Having personally become acquainted with the organization of the shelter and wanting to come to its aid, he, firstly, interceded annual leave 1000 rubles for running a shelter. from the auxiliary funds of the Committee of the Siberian railway and, secondly, in order to put the shelter in a stronger and more definite position, he proposed to place it under the jurisdiction of the Trusteeship of Labor Houses and Workhouses, which is under the August Patronage of Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. As a result of this, a special charter of the Trustee Society was developed for the Olginsky orphanage of industriousness for orphans in Omsk, which charter has already received approval; On July 11, 1900, on the day of the celebration of St. Olga, the official opening of the Olga shelter took place, which, according to the new charter, was called upon to provide broader labor assistance on an amateur basis.

    Currently, there are 80 children in the shelter, including 26 boys and 54 girls aged 3 to 17 years. The shelter's reserve capital reaches 13,574 rubles.

    The leaders of this institution believe that the task of every orphanage is not so much charitable as educational. The result of charity, as we know, is productive only if and under the condition that the fostered child develops into a useful and honest worker, and when the pet leaving the shelter can earn its own living through independent work. Therefore, the administration of the orphanage constantly strived to ensure that, along with religious and moral education and upbringing and literacy training, children were taught some useful skill.