Kyshtym Disturbances of 1822–23

disturbances of the workers of the Kyshtym and Kasli metallurgical plants, owned by the merchant Rastorguev, in Perm’ Province. Among the causes of the distubances were the rise in bread prices, low wages and delayed payment of wages, and the imposition of fines.

In February 1822 a group of 100 workers went with a complaint to the main office of the plants in Ekaterinburg (present-day Sverdlovsk). The administration punished the members of the delegation by sending them to the remote state-owned Bogoslovskie smelteries. There the workers formed an elective organ, the Mirskaia Izba (literally, “communal hut”), headed by the workmen Andrei Daibov, Aleksei Daibov, and V. Kurenkov. The administration responded to a second march to Ekaterinburg by putting four persons on trial and having 98 beaten by rods and then sent to the Bogoslovskie smelteries. The workers resisted the military units sent against them and arrested the government officials. The disturbances at Kyshtym spread to the nearby Ufalei plants and the Berezovka gold mines. In February 1823 the disturbances were suppressed by armed force, and the leaders were arrested; some of them were sent to the Bogoslov plants, and others were forcibly recruited into the army.