The urban society of Kazan and the sanitary and environmental problems during the second half of the 19th–early 20th centuries

A.O. Kislenko

Kazan Federal University, Kazan, 420008 Russia

E-mail: kisl.95@yandex.ru

Received March 23, 2021

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

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DOI: 10.26907/2541-7738.2021.3.213-225

For citation: Kislenko A.O. The urban society of Kazan and the sanitary and environmental problems during the second half of the 19th–early 20th centuries. Uchenye Zapiski Kazanskogo Universiteta. Seriya Gumanitarnye Nauki, 2021, vol. 163, no. 3, pp. 213–225. doi: 10.26907/2541-7738.2021.3.213-225. (In Russian)

Abstract

The attitude of the Kazan community to the urban environmental and sanitary problems during the second half of the 19th–early 20th centuries was discussed. The measures taken by the local government were analyzed. Based on the administrative sources and periodicals of that time, an ambiguous reaction to the governmental measures was noticed among the residents of Kazan, as compared with a similar situation in St. Petersburg. In Kazan, the residents intermittently violated the compulsory resolutions adopted by the local government to improve the environmental and sanitary situation: they kept the latrines dirty, failed to timely clean the street areas, and discharged their household wastes in the river waters. It was revealed that the residents tended to neglect the sanitary rules because of both irresponsibility and the difficult socioeconomic situation, i.e., sewage cleaning was expensive and complicated. Interestingly, the steps undertaken by the local government are quite confusing and questionable: on the one hand, the authorities did their best to prevent littering, deforestation, and sewage discharge; on the other hand, they were eager to solve the burning sanitary problems at the expense of the ecological well-being of the city.

Keywords: environmental history, city authorities, Kazan, environmental and sanitary problems, urban society

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