Income, Housing and Inequality in Barnaul and Tomsk in the early 1910s. Based on the Materials of the Presence on the Apartment Tax

The study is supported by a grant from the Russian National Science Foundation, Project No. 21-18-00509 "The evolution of income and property inequality in Russia: from the Great Reforms to the "Great Turning point" in the regional dimension (statistical and geoinformation analysis)" (L. I. Borodkin)The degree of acute inequality of the population of pre–revolutionary Russia is one of the topics that continue to remain urgent in modern historiography ^{[1, 5, 11, 13, 14, 15]}.

Since this question is important for discussing such an All-Russian phenomenon as the revolution of 1917, the assessments given for the entire mass of the Russian population are of the greatest interest. Due to the simplifications inevitable at such a scale of measurement, these estimates are vulnerable to criticism, so the task of more private, but also more accurate estimates, is also urgent. This work has been carried out and is being carried out [for example: 2, 3], in connection with it, the problem of sources arises.

Income data is usually collected by officials in connection with income tax. A number of monographs are devoted to the history of Russian taxes in the second half of the XIX – early XX century ^{[6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 16]}. Researchers know that the income tax appeared in Russia only in 1916, so it provides few materials for studying pre-revolutionary incomes. But since the 1890s, an apartment tax has been in effect; it was aimed at taxing the personal income of citizens, determined by an indirect feature - the price of housing occupied by the taxpayer (whether it is owned or rented). The use of apartment tax data, rather than income tax, makes it possible to deepen the study of income tax inequality in the pre-revolutionary era. Following in the footsteps of the tsarist Ministry of Finance, and we can now estimate the incomes of citizens of the beginning of the XX century. according to the data collected for the taxation of apartment tax. Since poor citizens pay for housing takes up a larger part of their income than the rich, the assessment of income by the price of an apartment underestimates the actual stratification in society; this must be taken into account when understanding statistical results.

The disadvantage of the consolidated data on the apartment tax compiled by taxable officials is that only tax payers were taken into account in them, and they belonged to the wealthy part of society (the tax did not apply to the poor). Only the appeal to primary sources allows us to partially overcome this disadvantage. Tax inspectors drew information about payers from "Statements of homeowners on apartment tax". Homeowners were not just required to fill out these forms; they were interested in correctly showing the price paid by tenants. The part of the residential premises that they recorded for their tenants was deducted from their own tax base. It was not uncommon that due to the presence of tenants, the owner of the house was generally exempt from tax, since the amount remaining after deducting their payments turned out to be below the taxable minimum. Drawing up their lists of tax payers on the basis of these "Statements", tax inspectors discarded data on the poor; they can only be obtained through painstaking work with genuine "Statements". Even this does not provide information about all citizens, since "Statements" were not required from the owners of very cheap houses, which in their entirety cost less than the taxable minimum. This, again, requires corrections when interpreting the results.

The work discussed in this article continues the research, the first results of which were already stated earlier ^[8]. We can now compare the materials on Barnaul with the data on Tomsk. The database for Barnaul contains 514 rows, for Tomsk – 902 rows. The material on Barnaul is of higher quality: this is a complete selection of "Statements" for 1910 (GAAK. F. 52. Op. 1. d. 1906-1911). In Tomsk, in the special fund of the presence of the apartment tax, only collections on individual streets have been preserved (the most numerous are Gogol, Bolshaya Podgornaya, Voskresenskaya, Belaya, Belozerskaya, Belozersky Lane) for different years from 1909 to 1914 (State Archive of the Tomsk region. F. 190. Op. 1. d. 1-3, 6-8). Some residents are found in collections for different years, this makes it possible to make sure that rental prices in Tomsk have not changed significantly in these five years, which means that the connection of these records into a single database (with the exception of repeated records) does not give a significant distortion. However, the lack of a complete picture of all the streets gives some distortion, which will be discussed below.

One way to measure inequality is to calculate the decile coefficient for people's incomes. The higher the decile coefficient, the greater the gap between the poor and the rich in society. The decile coefficient calculated from our databases was: in Barnaul – 8.3 (upper decile – 500, lower – 60), in Tomsk – 7 (upper decile – 420, lower – 60). There is an explanation for this difference: the incompleteness of the Tomsk data already mentioned. Among the dozen streets for which we have data, there is no central avenue (Magistratskaya, Pochtamtskaya, Bolshaya Sadovaya Streets), nor Soldatskaya Street, famous for its architectural monuments. In the Tomsk database, there is not a single apartment more expensive than 1000 rubles per year; in Barnaul, the highest price was 1920 rubles. Consequently, the Tomsk selection was deprived of the top part of the list. This explanation is confirmed by the calculation of separate coefficients for Tomsk homeowners and tenants (for this calculation, only data on those houses of homeowners in which they live themselves are used; houses fully rented out do not tell us anything about the price of housing in which their owners live). In Barnaul, these indicators were almost the same: 7.5 for tenants, 7.25 for owners. In Tomsk – 7 for tenants (and the indicators of the lower decile of tenants coincide exactly: 60 rubles), 4 for owners. If we take into account that in the most expensive houses (judging by the Barnaul database), homeowners who are not inclined to let tenants into their homes live, then it is clear that the failure to account for the richest citizens should have had just such an impact on the indicators: the decile coefficient of tenants should not be affected, and the coefficient of owners should be underestimated (by lowering the figure upper decile).

In general, it can be assumed that, taking into account this error, the Tomsk data confirm the decile coefficient calculated on the basis of Barnaul data. But a more detailed examination of the same figures, taking into account the absolute (in rubles) indicators of each decile, allows us to see an important difference between the two cities. It has already been mentioned that the lower decile for tenants in both cities is the same – 60 rubles; the upper one is at least a little, but higher for Barnaul residents (450 vs. 420). That is, tenants in general in Tomsk are a little poorer. For homeowners, the comparison of the upper deciles does not make sense: the incompleteness of the database already mentioned significantly underestimates this figure; but it definitely does not overestimate the indicator of the lower decile, and it surpasses Barnaul residents among Tomsk homeowners: 120 vs. 96. Tomsk homeowners, unlike Tomsk tenants, are not poorer, but richer than a homogeneous Barnaul group.

Using the famous metaphor of the NEP era, we can call the gap between the standard of living of homeowners and tenants "housing scissors". Their ends in Tomsk did not diverge much more than in Barnaul; nevertheless, this difference definitely indicates that the stratification in "Siberian Athens", as publicists called Tomsk, was stronger than in Barnaul. This can be explained by the "more metropolitan" position of Tomsk in the life of Western Siberia: it was both a provincial center (and Barnaul was only the center of the Altai district of his Imperial Majesty's Cabinet), and a university center (there were no other universities in Siberia), and a major point on the Moscow–Siberian highway connecting European Russia with the Chinese market.

In the same plane, it is necessary to look for an explanation for the difference in the share of tax payers among all citizens taken into account by our databases. In Tomsk, only 49% of all those recorded in the "Apartment tax statements" were apartment tax payers, and in Barnaul -72%. This indicator is important because the apartment tax was created by the capital's reformers as a tax on the rich; the line separating taxpayers and non–taxpayers is a watershed between rich and poor (in the view of financial officials). However, the main part of the difference between Barnaul and Tomsk indicators is explained by the belonging of the two cities to different categories: in Tomsk, which fell into the 3rd class according to the general list of cities subject to tax, apartments were taxed at a price of 150 rubles per year; in Barnaul (4th class) - from 120 rubles. If we calculate the share of "rich residents" (who were subject to tax) at the Barnaul rate (120 rubles), then the share of the "rich" in Tomsk will rise to 66% of those included in the "Statements". The gap will thus be significantly reduced, but it will not disappear at all.

The division of cities into categories was based on the idea of legislators that cities differ in the degree of "high cost of housing": in some "apartments are expensive, and ordinary people are forced to spend a significant part of their budget on hiring them" (in such cities a "preferential tariff" of tax with a high taxation threshold is required), and in others housing is so cheap that even wealthy people "are limited to insignificant expenses on this subject" (for such – a low threshold of taxation) (4, p. 214).

The "high cost of housing" is one of the measures of inequality in the country, applicable to the study of different eras. The authors of the Apartment tax law made the distribution into classes more on formal grounds (population, administrative status) than on economic indicators (the amount of incoming trade fees) (4, pp. 214-215). Nevertheless, the fact that the legislators took this factor into account shows that they tried to be quite complex in their ideas about measuring inequality. In essence, the result we have obtained proves the correctness of assigning Barnaul and Tomsk to different classes of high cost, indicates the signs of this high cost, ways to measure it.

The smaller share of "rich citizens" in the Tomsk database logically fits in with the already known greater poverty of Tomsk tenants (compared to Tomsk owners), and with a larger share of tenants in Tomsk (compared to Barnaul). The latter indicator has not been mentioned in this article until now; meanwhile, its significance goes beyond the auxiliary; it is important for understanding the broader processes in Russia at the beginning of the XX century.

The numerical ratio of homeowners and tenants within each of the two cities differs dramatically. In Barnaul, housing tenants accounted for 64% of the persons included in our source; the rest were homeowners. In Tomsk, the share of tenants is much higher: 82%. In Barnaul, there are less than two tenants on average for each homeowner, in Tomsk – four and a half! (It must be remembered that each tenant can have his family behind him, unless he is a lone bobyl). The incompleteness of the database does not matter in this case, since the owners of luxury mansions are a small group. By itself, the fact of different specific weights of tenants and homeowners is already important for studying inequality, taking into account the already noted difference in the prosperity of these groups of the population. It can be seen that as the "capital" of the city increased, owning their own housing in it became more rare, a more significant part (than in cities of lower rank) lives in a rented apartment. From this point of view, we can say that the gap between rich and poor in cities of higher status turned out to be more acute.

Now let's try to understand why an increased share of tenants is obtained in Tomsk. There are two possible explanations: either in Tomsk, tenants are settled more densely, cramming several families into an apartment, or in Tomsk – larger houses where several families can be settled with the same quality of accommodation as in Barnaul. By themselves, our documents only as an exception allow us to assess the living conditions of tenants. But it is known that in Tomsk there are still many houses of pre-revolutionary construction with four, eight or more separate apartments, with common entrances, stairwells and separate entrances to each apartment. These were the Siberian "apartment houses" – not those multi-storey stone hulks that began to appear in the Russian capital in the second half of the XIX century, but still houses originally created by the owner in order to let tenants in, and not to live himself.

Apartment buildings are a sign of a developed rental market. Tomsk turns out to be noticeably ahead of Barnaul in this indicator. In the Tomsk "Statements" there are repeatedly houses accommodating from four to eight residential premises in which we can assume exactly these apartment buildings. There are almost no such documents in the Barnaul collection. With a few exceptions, Barnaul homeowners have 1-2 tenants each, which means that we are definitely not talking about apartment buildings.

Obviously, such a phenomenon, visible from the "Apartment Tax Statements", as empty housing is also connected with the rental market. Of all residential premises in Tomsk, 5% were declared empty, and the presence recognized these statements, exempting the owners from tax. Probably, in order to declare a room empty, it was necessary to clearly separate it from the rest of the house, otherwise the statement would hardly have looked convincing for a taxable presence. Even if it will not always be apartments in apartment buildings, we can still be sure that empty housing is a sign of the strong involvement of this building in the rental market. Renting out housing for the owner of such a house is not a random episode, but a regular phenomenon.

The high demand for rental housing is also illustrated by the wings often found in Tomsk, often as spacious as the main building. It is clear that an outbuilding of six or eight rooms is by no means an auxiliary building ("outbuildings", according to V.I. Dahl's dictionary), but a full–fledged building squeezed into the same plot as the main house, taking into account the shortage of housing in the city.

Finally, another parameter related to the state of the rental market is the share of rentiers among homeowners. In Tomsk, 33% of homeowners act as rentier entrepreneurs (rent the whole house to other people), 64% live together with tenants, and only 4% live in their house without outsiders. In Barnaul, 27% of homeowners are rentier entrepreneurs, 57% live with tenants, 16% live without outsiders. If in Tomsk homeowners without tenants are an exception, then in Barnaul they are a significant part of the group of homeowners. Life on the settlement is a standard for homeowners in Tomsk; in Barnaul, it has also already become a standard, but it has not yet remained the only standard.

What does this have to do with the issue of income and inequality? Life on the settlement is less pleasant than an independent existence. This obvious general consideration in the Soviet era will be reinforced by the ardent dislike of Soviet citizens for communal apartments. And our database confirms that the richest citizens in Barnaul lived without guests. The people of the beginning of the XX century, no less than their descendants, sought to have freedom from neighbors. But the clear majority of owners of housing "for the middle class" (and in Tomsk – almost all) tenants still let in. It begs the explanation that the income from renting out housing was too significant a factor in their lives. Thus, observations of the housing market not only give us an idea of certain life habits, but also indicate that owning your own house served as a significant material help even for a non-poor person. His own house acted as a kind of pension capital, from which a person who had passed the peak of financial success received a kind of pension. Owning urban real estate was not just a sign of wealth, measured by the amount of personal property, but an indicator of the level of monthly income. Therefore, for the beginning of the XX century, the presence of urban real estate can be taken into account as a factor that increases a person's place on the scale leading from poverty to wealth. It is hardly possible to accurately measure the magnitude of this displacement; rather, it is necessary to talk about factors that are taken into account in a discrete way: once there is a private house that is subject to apartment tax, a person cannot be considered a representative of a low-income population group.

These financial issues are important not only in themselves, but also in the context of the transition to a new standard of housing. The last decades of pre-revolutionary Russia brought ordinary citizens (those who cannot afford a luxurious lifestyle) the beginning of the transition from private houses to renting a room in a factory barrack or an apartment in an apartment building. By itself, renting an apartment, although it does not fit with exceptional wealth, is still not a sign of poverty. Life on the settlement is an inconvenience not only for the owner of the house, but also for the tenant. An apartment building allows you to significantly mitigate this inconvenience: the neighbors here, although nearby, behind the wall, but still each apartment is autonomous. An apartment in an apartment building is an indicator of a higher quality of life than with the usual rental of rooms in a private house. It is no coincidence that many apartment buildings of the XIX – early XX centuries are architectural monuments – not only in their formal status, but also in their architectural merits. After all, they were designed for respectable tenants. Among them is the "House with Firebirds" in Tomsk, built in 1903.

Let's summarize the results.

Calculations of the decile coefficient for the part of Siberian citizens that connects the middle class and the rich, based on the data of the Tomsk apartment tax presence, confirm the figure obtained from similar Barnaul data (8,3). When applying this indicator to the whole of Russia, it should be borne in mind that it underestimates the actual stratification. Thus, these data confirm rather the highest of the estimated figures given by B.N. Mironov (10.7) than the average (6.3), and certainly not the lowest (4.2). Most likely, even the highest of these indicators should be considered understated.

Data were obtained that allow us to compare the "housing scissors" (the gap in the price of housing used for personal needs between homeowners and apartment tenants) in different cities. It was found that the "housing scissors" in Tomsk diverged wider than in Barnaul. This can be explained by the greater attractiveness of the city for Siberians due to its administrative, scientific, cultural, and economic situation.

A significant discrepancy in the specific weights of tenants and homeowners was found – a higher proportion of tenants among the citizens in Tomsk than in Barnaul. This is one of the manifestations of a more developed housing rental market in Tomsk.

It was found that in both cities there is a high proportion of householders living "on the settlement" (with tenants), and in Tomsk, homeowners living without outsiders are almost not found. This can be explained by the high role of rental income in the budget of homeowners.

Thus, the study of housing conditions allows us to take the measurement of inequality beyond the calculation of coefficients, to raise the question of assessing the quality of life of people based on the description of living standards, including the standard of urban housing, which was just at that time transitioning to a new quality. Using the example of Barnaul and Tomsk, we see the formation of a new standard of urban housing in large cities with the abandonment of their own houses in favor of apartments in apartment buildings.