“The Siamese twins”: an image of class alliance of merchants and bourgeois of the city of Saratov

The reason for the establishment of the executive body of bourgeois and merchants of the city of Saratov - the Trusteeship (Department) of Public Estates - was the formation of joint capital by donations earmarked for acquisition of income and use for public purposes. Initially the community had 100 plenipotentiaries (50 representatives from each class), but later the number was reduced to 60. The trustees of four people (two from each class) were engaged in financial reporting, keeping of receipts and expenditures cashbooks. One of the income items of the association was the shops renting. Besides, the association acquired the real property of the city, for example, in 1882 the public estates consisted of 5,647 dessiatins of land in the Saratov district, the old shopping arcade, stores at the Upper market, eight stone buildings. The money received were used primarily for charity (financial support of the orphan home, the soup-house at the cenoby), educational needs, and for keeping the Association and joint property (buildings’ insurance, salaries for the trustees and plenipotentiaries, tax payment). Following the adoption of the City Regulation of 1870, according to which the public property could belong to either the city or one of the classes, the Saratov association of merchants and bourgeois for the first time faced the need to divide the joint capital in order to prevent transferring of the acquired property to the jurisdiction of the municipal government. From the second half of the XIX century there was a radical separation of concerns of the mentioned classes: the merchants, who had no financial difficulties unlike the bourgeois, preferred to allocate funds for the education of children, while the bourgeois wanted to spend money to support their associates. Due to the joint financial interest associated with the Fund, the merchants and the bourgeois of Saratov showed their concern about the prospect of the abolition of social classes in the country in 1917. They sent a representative to the All-Russian Congress of the bourgeois in Moscow. In 1917 there was established the Society of Trustees of Educational and Charitable Institutions, to which the property of merchants and bourgeois was transferred.