The Survey's Summary of the County
According to the 1900 population register, Semipalatinsk Uezd contained 19,571 Kyrgyz households organized into 3,756 economic village communities. On average, each community included only about five households. This figure does not include 1,941 households living on rented land.
The economy of the local Kyrgyz population had not yet lost its nomadic character. Agriculture remained relatively weakly developed: fewer than half of all households practiced sowing, and the average amount of grain sown per household did not exceed three poods.
At the same time, the economy had already undergone significant change. The overwhelming majority of households, up to 90 percent, belonged to poor, impoverished, or low-resource groups. These households either had no horses or owned only between one and ten horses. Among these groups, nomadic life survived largely as a residual form and no longer had a firm foundation under contemporary conditions.
The overall economy of the Semipalatinsk Kyrgyz population was divided into a number of wealth groups. In the general table, households were classified according to the number of horses they owned, ranging across twelve groups: from horseless households to those possessing more than one hundred horses.
Wealth Groups by Horse Ownership
The following table shows how the survey organized households by horse ownership. Horse ownership was used as a practical measure of household wealth, pastoral capacity, and access to resources.
| Group | Number of households | Population | Population per household | Livestock units | Livestock units per household | Livestock units per person | Meat per person | Grain per person | Total meat and grain per person |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I–III: no horses, half-horse, 1–3 horses | 1,503 | 6,124 | 4.1 | 16,784 | 11.2 | 2.7 | 5.0 | 7.2 | 12.2 |
| IV: 4–5 horses | 609 | 3,027 | 5.0 | 8,419 | 13.8 | 2.8 | 5.2 | 6.8 | 12.0 |
| V: 6–7 horses | 424 | 2,567 | 5.6 | 6,823 | 16.1 | 2.9 | 5.5 | 7.0 | 12.5 |
| VI: 8–10 horses | 484 | 2,907 | 6.0 | 9,472 | 19.6 | 3.3 | 5.8 | 6.6 | 12.4 |
| VII: 11–15 horses | 385 | 2,549 | 6.6 | 9,537 | 24.8 | 3.7 | 6.2 | 6.9 | 13.1 |
| VIII: 16–25 horses | 228 | 1,578 | 6.9 | 7,399 | 32.5 | 4.7 | 6.9 | 6.3 | 13.2 |
| IX–XII: 26–100 or more horses | 85 | 638 | 7.5 | 4,443 | 52.3 | 7.0 | 9.2 | 7.0 | 16.2 |
| Whole county | 3,718 | 19,190 | 5.2 | 62,877 | 19.9 | 3.3 | 5.7 | 6.9 | 12.6 |
Livestock Composition of the County
The following table shows the overall composition of livestock in Semipalatinsk Uezd. Sheep made up the largest share of the county’s livestock, followed by horses and cattle.
| Livestock type | Number | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Horses | 173,069 | 19.7% |
| Cattle | 114,358 | 13.0% |
| Camels | 11,894 | 1.4% |
| Sheep | 528,056 | 60.2% |
| Goats | 49,674 | 5.7% |
| Total | 877,051 | 100% |