The First Necropolis of Chelyabinsk

Abstract

The Chelyabinsk fortress was founded on September 2, 1736. Its first settlers were peasants from various regions of the Russian Empire, enrolled in the Cossacks of the Orenburg Cossack Army that was being formed by order from above. The first church was Nikolskaya, built around 1739–1740. The first settlers, who dwelled in the frontier zone changing its area, could not imagine their life without a church. In the Orthodox tradition, it was also customary to arrange the last refuge of Christians who had passed to another world next to the church. This tradition made no exceptions for the frontier zone, where the Chelyabinsk fortress was located. There is no work in historiography devoted directly to the first necropolis in Chelyabinsk, as the fortress began to be called in official documents in the 1740s. The sources are: reports of archaeological excavations in the historical center of Chelyabinsk, which were conducted in 1993, 1996, 2001, 2004, 2010; studies of osteological remains; and the materials of the first census of the Chelyabinsk fortress of 1739. The synthesis method allows combining various methodological approaches to create a relatively complete picture and to look at the object of study from different sides of a multidisciplinary approach. This article contains methods typical for various bran­ches of human knowledge, and not only in the humanitarian sphere. The average life expectancy of those buried in the first cemetery, whose remains were excavated by archaeologists, gives a sad result. This indicator was due to high infant mortality. Despite the different racial affiliations of those who found their final resting place there, the first cemetery was a place where Orthodox Christians were buried. This can be stated based on a combination of the main characteristics. The indications in historiography of the influence and similarity of the burial culture of the Chelyabinsk necropolis with the graves of the Finno-Ugrians and Balts seem far-fetched and do not take into account the realities. The features of the burial inventory indicate, first of all, the absence of an established way of life in the frontier zone. The absence of metal crosses in the burial pits discovered by archaeologists indicates that the first settlers mostly wore wooden breast crosses.