Bobruisk District Historical Economic Summaries

Provided by
The Minsk Historical Genealogy Group
Oleg Perzashkevich, Director

Village of Porechye

by Oleg Perzashkevich

Porechye before 1917

History

Before 1793 - Porechye was a private village in Rechitsa District of Minsk Province of Great Lithuanian Princedom.

1793-1917 - Porechye was a village in Russian Empire.

Since 1801 - Porechye was a private village in Bobruisk District of Minsk Empire.

1840s - after the Emperor permitted Jews to live in the rural area, Jewish population appeared in Porechye.

Vital Statistics

Jewish Life

In 1840s, after obtaining permission to live in rural area, some Jewish families moved their business to Porechye. As far as there were no Jewish community or considerable resident Jewish population in Porechye, there were no special Jewish objects there.

Economic Review

Traditional activities of local population were agriculture chopping and river transport of wood and fishing. Since early time Ptych river was the main trade way and road for local inhabitants.

During Russian principality the authorities did a lot to develop the region because of military and fiscal reasons mostly. First of all, old road Igumen - Slutsk and old Porechye harbour were reconstructed there.

After abolishing of Serfdom (the law prescribing personal dependence of peasants from their landlords) in 1861 local peasants became more active in non-agricultural sphere, and local Jews (had obtained permission to live in rural area in the early 1830s-40s) moved their businesses (mainly taverns and trinket stores), mostly from the shtetles of Luban and Glusk, to big villages or to the regions of maximal peasant market activity. Porechye was interesting for Jews because of its harbour.

In XIX, because of development of the All-Russian Market, new types of communications appeared in the area in 1873. The Libava - Romny rail road appeared.

Construction of the railroad provoked new increase of development of local settlements. But it did not effect seriously Porechye itself, because river transport of wood on Ptych remained the main business anyway and the closest rail station was in Maryina Horka (40 km).

In 1884 there were 63 wooden houses in Porechye.

There was at least one big business enterprise in Porechye in 1902: DREYZIN Shender son of Ghershen was wood trader there.

In 1909 there were 77 wooden houses in Porechye.

General cultural information

At the end XX - beg. XX century in Porechye there was a small Orthodox church.

Closest post office and doctor were in Glusk (25 km).

Copyright 1997-1998 Oleg Perzashkevich
Reproduced for the web with permission. All rights reserved. Any use of this material is prohibited without permission from:

RETURN TO BOBRUISK SHTETL LIST

RETURN TO BOBRUISK HOME PAGE