Division III. 3(b). Subjects of the department of the provincial chancellery: Police department

3. M 3373.— °) b. Z. No. 9573. Confirmed in 1719 and 1728. M 3418. 5299.— 3334.— ') P. S. Z. No. 5290. were also chosen from the nobility. In paragraph 5 of the said No., the duties of the voivodes in this part of the administration were defined: in their cities and uyezds they had to catch the appearing robbers, with the help of local inhabitants. If such parties appeared that could not be caught by local residents, then the voivodes wrote to the governor, who supplied them with a proper party of the garrison. But if the voivode was at a great distance from the governor, and army regiments were quartered nearby, then he demanded a party of soldiers from the regimental commander, informing the governor about it. Every inhabitant who found out about thieves and robbers was under the strict obligation to inform the governor, the voivode, and the colonel about it, and to assist in their capture. Landowners or their clerks and starostas, and in palace volosts and synodal estates the managers, had to take care that there were no thieves or robbers in their villages '). But all these methods of eradicating thieves and robbers turned out to be insufficient, and there was a need to send detectives again, who little by little became a permanent institution: thus in 1744 these detectives were sent to many cities and were given instructions ). After this, the capture of thieves and robbers gradually passed to the detectives, and governors and voivodes were supposed to provide them with assistance in this 3). Finally, in 1756, chief detectives were dispatched, to whom the previously sent detectives and detective teams were subordinated. Besides thieves and robbers, convicts were also assigned to the jurisdiction of the chief detective. Each chief detective was entrusted with several governorates: Kazan, Orenburg, Nizhny Novgorod, and Astrakhan — to Actual State Councilor Nikita Bolotov; Moscow, Novgorod, and Smolensk — to State Councilor Zuev; Belgorod and Voronezh — to State Councilor Zhitov-Borozdin; Archangelgorod — to Lieutenant Colonel Verevkin. Under the chief detective - - 7 P. S. Z. No. 8333.— P. S. Z. No. 9028.— were: the main detective chancellery and subordinate detectives. He communicated with the governorate chancelleries by means of promemorias, and sent decrees to the provincial and city ones. If these promemorias and decrees were not executed, then the chief detective wrote to the governor about the voivodes, and submitted reports to the Senate about the governor. Communications with subordinate detectives in the cities were carried out through reports. They communicated with provincial chancelleries by promemorias, and sent decrees to the city ones. Failure to execute promemorias and decrees was reported to the chief detective °. But soon all the disadvantages of this establishment became apparent: detectives interfered in matters not related to them °). Therefore, the government little by little began to abolish this establishment: in 1764, in all governorates, garrisons were subordinated to the governors °), and in the following year military commands were taken away from the detectives by the government, detectives and the mutual responsibility of communities were abolished, and the eradication of robberies and brigandage was entrusted to the voivodes, under the supervision of the governors. By the staff lists of 1763, special military commands were assigned to the regional chancelleries: to the governorate chancelleries — of 132 men, to the provincial ones — of 57, to the uyezd ones — of 99, to the city ones — of 14 '). Despite this, Count Sievers, appointed governor of Novgorod in April 1764, complained that in his governorate the police almost did not exist: In connection with the measures aimed at eradicating robberies and brigandage, there was the passport system. Until the 18th century, we only had foreign passports — the so-called travel charters, which both foreigners entering Russia and Russian subjects traveling abroad had to have. Internal communications — from city to city, from region to region — were carried out completely freely, without any restrictions. Exceptions existed only for the clergy, who could not leave the diocese without the permission of the diocesan hierarch, and for the peasants, who could neither be accepted nor kept without registration and without letters of leave. The Ulozhenie established the procedure for the issuance of travel charters by the voivodes *). This order continued until 1749, when governors and voivodes were ordered to ensure that there were no wandering people in their districts, and not to let anyone pass without travel letters 3 In the decree of October 30, 1719, we encounter the word passport for the first time: 'wherever on the way a rider or walker is caught, and he does not have a passport or a travel or transit letter — such people will therefore be recognized as unkind or outright thieves...' “) By the decree of December 20 of the same - See the book of staff lists.— ?) See the history of public law until the 18th century by Mr. Leshkov, pp. 848 -- 848.— year it was confirmed that everyone must have from their superiors a passport or a pass letter `). The system of internal passports established in this way took root even more as a result of the peculiarities of the then method of collecting taxes for the maintenance of the army. By the Plakat of 1724, rules were established for the issuance of passports to peasants: if a peasant was absent from his place of residence for no more than 50 versts and not to another uyezd, a passport was issued to him with the signature of the landowner, clerk, or priest, otherwise — with the signature of the zemstvo commissar °). The ease of forging handwritten passports prompted the decree of 1726, which ordered zemstvo commissars to issue only printed passports °). Passports were issued by various departments. Monks received them from the superiors of their monasteries *), and for travel to another diocese — travel documents were issued to them by the hierarchs themselves °), merchants received passports from the town halls, presenting them for information to the governorate chancellery °), coachmen — from the Yamsk chancellery from the managers assigned to the post stations 7); and to peasants from 1736 they were issued by governors and voivodes, together with the officers assigned to collect the poll tax *) etc. The very supervision over the observance of passport rules constantly belonged to the governors and the voivodes subordinate to them °).