There are not many cities in the world named not after heroes or rulers, but after the name of a peasant, moreover, a fugitive Old Believer. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Klintsy was in a severe economic crisis for a long time. The situation has improved slightly in recent years. But it is not yet clear how long the positive trend will continue.
General information
The small town is the center of the district of the same name and the administrative urban district of Klintsy, Bryansk region.
Klintsy is the second largest settlement in the region by the number of inhabitants. Together with the suburbs, 70,164 people live in it (2017 data). The city is the economic and industrial center of the southwest of the Bryansk region. It is located on the Moskovka River (Turosna Kartava), a tributary of the Turosna River.
The distance from the city to the regional center is 172 km, not far from the M13 motorway: Bryansk - the border of the Republic of Belarus. There is a railway station on the direction Bryansk - Gomel. Territory area 64 sq. km.
Pre-revolutionary history of the city
The first to settle on the banks of the Turosna River was a fugitive Old Believer peasant Vasily Afanasyevich Klintsov. Together with several other families, they rented land from the landowner Ivan Borozda. A small settlement was named after its founders.
The census book of 1729 records that the settlement was "settled in 1707" and that it was founded by the "Kostroma district of the Sovereign's Danilov volost, the peasant Vasily Afanasyev, son of Klintsov." Who became the first headman, later his younger brother Pavel replaced him in this post.
In 1715, Peter the Great by an imperial decree stopped the persecution of the Old Believers and secured the land on which they lived for the schismatics.
The main activities of the founders were trade and handicrafts, especially castor stockings. In the 19th century, the city became the center of the region's textile industry.
City in the 20th century
In 1918, according to the Brest Treaty, for about a year Klintsy were part of the Ukrainian People's Republic, and in 1919 they were reassigned to the Gomel province of the RSFSR. In 1921 the settlement became the county seat. Klintsy received city status in 1925.
During the Great Patriotic War, the city from 1941 to 1943. was occupied by German troops. And after his release, he continued to develop - new microdistricts and industrial enterprises were built.
Population before the revolution
Onthe moment the Old Believer settlement appeared in 1707, several families lived here. Some estimate of the number of inhabitants can be obtained from the data that in 1729 there were 17 households in the settlement, about a few dozen people, given the religion and at the same time the high infant mortality in that historical era.
Thirty-five years later, in 1764, the population of Klintsy was 1200 people. A significant increase in the number of inhabitants occurred not only due to the high birth rate. Most of the new residents were two waves of refugees after the "Vetka Distillations". This was the name of the defeat of the Old Believer community in the settlement of Vetka (nowadays a city in the Gomel region of Belarus, and in those days it was part of Poland). The first pogroms took place in 1735-1736, and the second expulsion took place in 1763-1764.
The development of the textile industry, starting around 1812, which became the leading industry of the settlement, also contributed to the rapid growth of the population of Klintsy. Former serfs from the surrounding villages quickly filled the new jobs. In 1866, 7,000 people already lived here.
In the subsequent period, the industry continued to develop rapidly, and by the end of the 19th century, 90% of the region's textile enterprises were concentrated here. In 1897, the population of the city of Klintsy was 11,900 people. This is the latest official data from the Russian Empire.
Population between the two wars
Firstdata on the population of Klintsy in the post-revolutionary period refer to 1920. At that time, 14,100 people lived in the county center. In 1926 the number of inhabitants had already risen to 22,300. During these years of Soviet industrialization, textile factories began to be re-equipped, machine-building, leather and clothing enterprises appeared. Due to the influx of labor resources from rural areas and other regions to new enterprises, the population of Klintsy has grown significantly.
In 1931, 27,000 people lived in the city, and in 1939 - 40,483 inhabitants. At this time, the Klintsovskaya CHPP was built and the mechanical plant was expanded. More than two years of German occupation and wartime in general were hard on the inhabitants. German repressions, participation in partisan struggle, then in the Red Army cost the lives of many Klinchans.
Population in the modern period
According to the first post-war census in 1950, the population of Klintsy decreased to 34,200 people, but by 1959 it reached the pre-war population.
In the early 1960s, an automobile crane factory was built and put into operation, which attracted additional labor from other regions of the country to the city, and the population increased to 52,000 people in 1962.
In subsequent years, the population of Klintsy increased mainly due to natural growth and the influx of labor resources to expanding production. The maximum population of 72,000 was reached in 1987.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the city fell into theprotracted crisis. Many industrial facilities were closed, and the volume of production at the city-forming enterprise dropped sharply. By 2013, the population decreased by almost 10,000 compared to the last years of Soviet rule, and reached 61,515 people.
Only in the last two years, the number of residents has been growing slightly, but this trend is still unstable. In 2017, the population of Klintsy was 62,832.
