Local Stories

🚂 The Railway Comes to Khashchevatoye

For most of the nineteenth century, the people of Khashchevatoye reached the outside world by horse and cart. The nearest railway was hours away. That changed in 1900, when a private company — the First Society of Access Railways of Russia (Первое общество подъездных железнодорожных путей), founded by engineers Bronislav Yalovetzky and Fyodor Yenakiev — opened a 465-kilometer narrow-gauge line running from Zhitomir south to Olviopol (today Pervomaysk). The line passed through Berdichev, Gaysin, Ziatkovtsy, Gayvoron, and Podgorodnaya. Khashchevatoye lay on the narrow-gauge line running between Rudnitsa (Vinnytsia region) to the north and Podgorodnya (Kirovograd region) to the south, with the junction town of Gayvoron serving as the main hub. It was this line that finally connected the village — and the whole Gayssin district — to the wider railway network. The construction began in 1890, with the line opening in 1900.   [1] With Gaysin — the district capital just a few kilometers from Khashchevatoye — now on the line, the village suddenly had rail access to markets across right-bank Ukraine. 

The effect on the region was immediate. By 1902, Gaysin had 23 factories and plants employing 631 workers, with a total annual production value of 656,y820 rubles. [2] For Khashchevatoye, lying on the historic Odessa–Kyiv road, the railway opened new possibilities for the export of grain and sugar-beet — the backbone of the local economy. 

But narrow-gauge access was not the only vision for the region. Documents in the Russian Imperial Historical Archive (RGIA, Fond 1009) reveal that in 1901–1902, Baron David Günzburg — the prominent St. Petersburg philanthropist and Jewish community leader — was negotiating a concession for a standard-gauge line from Kamenets-Podolsky to Shepetovka. In a letter of November 1901, he explicitly mentions the interests of Khashchevatoye landowners (хащеватские) in connection with this project, and asks whether lands from the "Khashchevatoye holdings" could be arranged for the railway's use. The line was never built — but the letters show that Khashchevatoye and its landowners were part of the major infrastructure conversations of their day. [3] 

(See also: Visitors to the Village — the Günzburg family connection.) 

Conversion of the narrow-gauge network to standard gauge began in the 1960s; by the 1970s, the wide gauge had progressively reached Gumennoye, Nemirov, Gaysin, and Ziatkovtsy. [4] A remnant of the original line — the Rudnitsa–Gaivoron section — became at one point the longest narrow-gauge railway in Europe. [5] The tracks still exist today, and tourist journeys are run along the very rails that once connected this region to the wider world: 

🎥  Watch a journey on the Gaivoron narrow-gauge line 

Sources

[1] Lyagushkin, A., Yankivsky, D., Wendelin, W. — "From the history of the Gaivoron narrow-gauge railway of the Odessa Railway" (Из истории Гайворонской узкоколейки Одесской железной дороги). Passazhirsky Transport, 15 February 2020. Detailed history of the First Society of Access Railways, its founders Yalovetzky and Yenakiev, and the full station list of the Zhitomir–Olviopol line.

traffic.od.ua/blogs/antonlyagushkin/1223485

[2] Wikipedia — Haisyn (Гайсин). Article on the history of Gaysin, including economic data for 1900–1902 and the impact of the narrow-gauge railway on the district capital.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haysyn

[3] RGIA (Russian Imperial Historical Archive, St. Petersburg) — Fond 1009 (Günzburg family papers). Letters N°108 and N°135: correspondence of Baron David Günzburg regarding the Kamenets-Podolsky–Shepetovka railway concession, November 1901 – March 1902. Photographs taken December 2022. 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_State_Historical_Archive

[4] Lyagushkin, A. — "The past, present and uncertain future of Ukraine's narrow-gauge railways" (Прошлое, настоящее и туманное будущее украинских узкоколейных железных дорог). Passazhirsky Transport. History of the progressive conversion of the network to standard gauge from the 1960s to 1980s.

traffic.od.ua/blogs/antonlyagushkin/1217387

[5] Tuchka Travel blog — "Ukraine can boast to tourists of the longest narrow-gauge railway in Europe" (Украина может похвастаться туристам самой длинной узкоколейной железной дорогой в Европе). Overview of the surviving Gaivoron network and its European record.

tuchka-travel.blogspot.com/2016/07/blog-post_6.html

Паровоз.com — Full network map and station list of the Southern Access Roads (УЖД Южного Общества подъездных путей), with construction dates and gauge-conversion timeline.

narrow.parovoz.com/yopp/

The Bazaar Controversy of 1911–1913

A Struggle for Economic Survival in Khashchevatoye

In the early twentieth century, the shtetl of Khashchevatoye in Podolia Province became the site of a classic conflict between the private interests of a wealthy Christian landowner and the collective survival of its Jewish and peasant inhabitants. The dispute ostensibly concerned public sanitation and town beautification; in reality, it was a struggle for control over the shtetl's economic lifeblood. The controversy escalated through multiple levels of government—from the Gaysin District Committee to the Provincial Zemstvo Assembly, and ultimately to the Imperial Senate in St. Petersburg, before reaching its final resolution in 1913.

A.F. Karel: The Landowner

Aleksander Philippovitch Karel was the son of Philipp Yakovlevitch Karel (1806–1886), one of the most remarkable figures in 19th-century Russian medicine. Born the son of a serf in Livonia (present-day Estonia), Philipp was freed as an infant in 1807, studied medicine at the University of Dorpat, and rose to become leib-medik (personal physician) to Emperors Nicholas I (from 1849) and Alexander II (1855–1881). He was elevated to hereditary nobility, received the rank of Privy Councillor, and earned renown for pioneering the “Karel method” of milk therapy, whose treatise was translated into every major European language. His extraordinary trajectory — from serfdom to the imperial court — was made possible in large part by the patronage of the very emperors he served.

This personal history sheds light on a telling detail from the 1911 bazaar dispute: Karel’s insistence on erecting a monument to Emperor Alexander II in the town center, and his desire to transform the surrounding area into a park, was not merely a patriotic gesture. Alexander II was the tsar who had emancipated the serfs in 1861 and who had kept Philipp Karel at his side for over two decades — the monarch to whom the Karel family owed its freedom, its nobility, and its fortune. The monument was an act of profound personal gratitude.

How and when the Karel family acquired their Khashchevatoye estate remains to be established. The property had previously belonged to the Potocki family (documented in 1785) and was purchased by the landowner Lopushansky in 1847. At some point thereafter, it passed to the Karels. By the early 1900s, the estate was held jointly by N. and A. Karel. A commercial almanac of the Podolia Governorate from this period lists two Karel landowners in the Gaysin district: Andrei Filippovitch Karel, holding 985 dessiatines (~1,075 hectares), and M. A. Karel, holding 600 dessiatines (~655 hectares), both in Khashchevatoye. Andrei was evidently a brother of Aleksander, while M. A. appears to belong to a separate branch of the family. Their combined holdings of 1,585 dessiatines made the Karels one of the largest landowning families in the district. 

Aleksander Philippovich Karel’s name appears across multiple administrative documents from Khashchevatoye, revealing his central role as a dominant landowner whose decisions shaped both the economic and religious life of the Jewish community. Karel controlled substantial property on which the Jewish community depended for both commerce and worship. Jewish merchants rented his central plots for their bazaar shops; Jewish families held chinshevaya tenure (a form of long-term rental common in Imperial Russia) on his land for their homes; and Jewish prayer houses stood on ground he legally owned. Under this arrangement, the land legally belonged to Karel while Jewish tenants held permanent tenure rights, owned their buildings, and could pass these rights to heirs, but could not sell the land itself and required the landowner’s implicit consent for major transactions.

This arrangement was typical of the complex, often precarious position of Jewish communities in the Pale of Settlement. While Jews could build prosperous businesses and vibrant religious institutions, they frequently did so on land they could never fully own, subject to the decisions of landowners like Karel.

Karel's Petition (1911)

In 1911, Karel petitioned the Gaysin District authorities to relocate Khashchevatoye's bazaar from the town center to its outskirts. His stated justifications were sanitary: the twice - weekly markets caused severe crowding, streets blocked with carts and livestock, and accumulations of manure that he claimed caused epidemics.

Karel also noted that at the end of the previous year, the peasant communities of Khashchevatoye and neighboring villages had decided to erect a monument to Emperor Alexander II in memory of the emancipation of peasants from serfdom. Since there was no suitable location, Karel donated part of his land in front of the Volost Administration building, where the monument was consecrated on February 19, 1911. The livestock and horse market now took place on that same square, with animals crowding around the monument and polluting the ground with manure. Karel could not proceed with his plan to create a public park around the monument at his own expense. He therefore agreed to allocate land on the outskirts for a new bazaar square and proposed to build shelters and wells there.

The Jewish Community Responds

The Gaysin District Committee reviewed Karel's petition and found it possible to approve, provided that the new bazaar square be no less than three desyatinas* and include at least three wells.

Five authorized representatives of the Jewish community: Nakhman Chechelnitzky, Mendel Lerner, Yos Myaskovsky, Yos Postolov, and Lipa Verbovitzky filed a formal complaint against the District Committee's decision. In their petition to the Provincial Administration, they declared:

"Khashchevatoye is populated exclusively by small craftsmen and traders who distribute goods of primary necessity for peasant life. Thanks to the fact that the shtetl is located on the Bug River and has convenient wells in the center (built at the expense of the townspeople's society) it is willingly visited on bazaar days by the surrounding population, who have a convenient place to stop with water access for selling their products and purchasing necessary goods for themselves."

The complainants explained that recently, hoping for approval of an earlier petition to allow bi - weekly bazaars in Khashchevatoye, the local population had leased plots from Karel at very high prices in the town center and built shops meeting modern requirements. With the transfer of the bazaar to the outskirts, to land where Karel proposed to move it, where there was no water supply and wells could barely reach water at ten sazhens* depth, those coming to the bazaar would have no way to water their livestock and would have to travel more than two versts* from the bazaar site to the Bug River.

They warned that such conditions would naturally cause dissatisfaction among the surrounding population, who would prefer to visit other, closer bazaars and this would completely undermine the commercial interests of Khashchevatoye's population, leaving the shtetl in an extremely critical position. Karel, they noted, would certainly not lose out, for there would always be people willing to buy land from him on the new bazaar square to build shops.

A separate petition arrived from twenty-eight other residents of Khashchevatoye, who stated:

"We find the Gaysin Zemstvo Administration's decision to relocate the bazaar from the center of Khashchevatoye to the hill beyond the shtetl to be incorrect and subject to reversal for the following reasons: (1) the absence of water at the new bazaar square, which is fatal for people and animals, there is no water supply, and even if the landowner builds one or two wells, the question arises whether the water will be fit for consumption, while the existing wells in the center supply abundant excellent water; (2) the distance from the proposed bazaar square to the trading shops and wholesale warehouses excessively burdens buyers and sellers, and the losses will be borne precisely by the peasants who bring goods for trade; (3) the adjacency of peasant plowed lands to the landowner's land threatens us with undoubtedly large losses, and the landowner deliberately sought approval for moving the bazaar beyond the shtetl — inevitably, cattle driven to the bazaar will end up on the landowner's land, and then there will be claims for damages, courts and reckonings. In winter, during frost or blizzard, one will have to leave carts, sleighs, and cattle with goods to the mercy of fate and run to the shtetl to warm up and shelter from snow and rain, even thunderstorms; the harm from moving the bazaar beyond the shtetl is obvious to everyone, therefore we have limited ourselves to the indicated reasons; one cannot list everything."

The Provincial Decision (January 1912)

The Provincial Administration, agreeing with the Gaysin District Committee's conclusion, found that the relocation of the bazaar square in Khashchevatoye to the outskirts was genuinely necessary for improving the sanitary condition of the shtetl. The protests from local Jewish residents and others were, in the Administration's opinion, unfounded, motivated mainly by the petitioners' desire to have bazaar - goers make all their purchases in the shops located in their homes and nearby, the value and profitability of which would obviously decline significantly with the bazaar's relocation.

On January 15, 1912, the Podolian Provincial Zemstvo Assembly officially approved the relocation of the bazaar square in Khashchevatoye, Gaysin District, from the center to the outskirts, with the condition that landowner A.F. Karel allocate a new bazaar square of no less than three desyatinas and construct no fewer than three wells in various parts of the square.

The Peasants Join the Fight (May 1912)

The opposition to Karel's petition was not limited to the Jewish community. On May 1, 1912, the Khashchevatoye village assembly convened to address the matter. The assembly noted that the existing bazaar square was located in the center of the shtetl, which was quite convenient for the peasant population of the Khashchevatoye volost in terms of trade, given the abundance of shops, warehouses, and water sources. They further noted that the proposed new bazaar square had no water supply, and wells would be expensive to build. The peasant assembly resolved to oppose the relocation of the old bazaar square to the new location and to file their protest. For this purpose, they authorized two peasants from the village of Khashchevatoye, Vasily Ozeryansky and Georgy Petrov, to represent them in this matter, instructing them to petition wherever necessary and to follow through on the appeal.

The resolution was signed by the Elder Yefim Ridchuk, with the official seal of the Khashchevatoye Volost Administration. The fact that both Jewish merchants and peasant farmers formally opposed the relocation underscores how broadly Karel's petition threatened the community's interests, this was not merely a conflict between a Christian landowner and Jewish traders, but a dispute that united the shtetl's diverse population against a common threat to their livelihoods.

The New Bazaar Square (July 1912)

While the appeals wound through the bureaucracy, Karel proceeded with construction. On July 9, 1912, a member of the Gaysin Zemstvo Administration arrived in Khashchevatoye to inspect and formally accept the newly allocated bazaar square.

The inspection revealed that the new square was located on the outskirts of the shtetl, measuring 122 sazhens in length and 97 sazhens in width, a total of over four desyatinas and 2,234 square sazhens, exceeding the required minimum. The land surrounding the square belonged to Karel. The terrain was level, with black-earth soil.

In the center of the square, three wells had been constructed, spaced 35 sazhens apart from each other. The wells were approximately four sazhens deep (about 8.5 meters), built of stone with oak above-ground frames, equipped with rollers for drawing water and troughs, each trough three sazhens long. A special sheltered structure had been built for the public scales. The official scales had not yet been installed.

Present at the inspection on behalf of Aleksandr Filippovich Karel was his representative, Reserve Guards Lieutenant Vilgelm Aleksandrovich Gmelin. The official act was signed by the Gaysin Zemstvo Administration member G. Baranovsky and Karel's representative Gmelin.

Appeal to the Imperial Senate (September 1912)

Despite the construction already underway, the peasant representatives Ozeryansky and Petrov pursued their appeal. On September 2, 1912, the Podolian Governor forwarded their complaint (Report № 3500) to the First Department of the Governing Senate in St. Petersburg, where it was registered on September 27, 1912.

The case was heard on November 15, 1912. By decree of His Imperial Majesty, the Governing Senate considered the case concerning the complaint of the authorized representatives of the peasants of Khashchevatoye volost, Gaysin District — Vasily Ozeryansky and Georgy Petrov — against the resolution of the Podolian Provincial Zemstvo Assembly of January 15, 1912, regarding the relocation of the bazaar square in the shtetl of Khashchevatoye from the center to the outskirts.

The Senate's Verdict (November 1912)

The Senate ruled decisively against the peasants. Having examined the case and taking into consideration that, on the precise basis of Point 5 of Article 63 of the Zemstvo Regulations of 1892 and Point 5 of Article 82 of the Provisions of 1906, the relocation of trade and bazaars from one place to another, as well as changes to the internal arrangement of such bazaars and markets within the areas designated for them, was entrusted, with the Governor's approval, to the authority of the Provincial Zemstvo Assembly.

The Governing Senate found the appealed resolution of the Podolian Provincial Zemstvo Assembly regarding the relocation in the shtetl of Khashchevatoye to the new location, a resolution confirmed by the Podolian Governor, to be in no way contrary to current legal provisions.

The Senate therefore ordered: the complaint of Ozeryansky and Petrov to be left without consequences.

The petitioners were to be notified, and in resolution of the Governor's report of September 2, 1912, № 3500, the Podolian Governor was to be sent a decree. The original was signed by the Governing Senate. The decree was sent for execution on January 30, 1913, and was executed on March 27, 1913, under № 4433.

Final Confirmation (1913)

On May 13, 1913, the Podolian Vice-Governor submitted a report to the Governing Senate confirming that the Senate's decree of March 27, 1913, № 4433, had been executed on April 18 of that year. The matter was closed.

Historical Significance

These documents illuminate a classic conflict of early twentieth - century Podolia: the private interests of a large landowner (a Christian nobleman) striving to redistribute commercial space in his favor under the guise of sanitary and landscaping arguments, versus the public interests of the shtetl population (peasants and townspeople, primarily the Jewish merchant and artisan class) for whom the central market was the basis of their economic existence.

Formally, the dispute was presented as a matter of sanitation and order. In essence, it was a struggle for control over the shtetl's economy, trade flows, and income — and a vivid illustration of how private land ownership in Podolia province directly conflicted with the interests of the local community.

The case demonstrates how limited the community's recourse was when provincial and imperial authorities sided with property owners over tenants, regardless of the commercial and practical arguments presented. A single landowner's petition could reshape the economic foundation of an entire community. Both the Jewish merchants and the peasant farmers united in opposition, carried their fight to the highest court in the land — and lost.

The bazaar was relocated to Karel's land on the outskirts, where he built the required wells and infrastructure as promised. Whether the dire predictions of the complainants came true or whether trade declined, whether the shtetl suffered economically, whether the wells provided adequate water — the archival record does not say. What it does preserve is the voice of a community fighting for its survival, and the bureaucratic machinery that ultimately silenced it.

Timeline of Events

February 19, 1911: Monument to Emperor Alexander II erected on land donated by Karel

1911: Karel petitions to relocate the bazaar; Gaysin District Committee approves with conditions

1911: Jewish representatives (Chechelnitzky, Lerner, Myaskovsky, Postolov, Verbovitzky) file complaint

1911: Twenty-eight additional Khashchevatayoye residents file separate complaint

January 15, 1912: Podolian Provincial Zemstvo Assembly approves relocation

May 1, 1912: Khashchevatoye peasant assembly authorizes Ozeryansky and Petrov to appeal

July 9, 1912: New bazaar square inspected; Karel has fulfilled all conditions

September 2, 1912: Podolian Governor forwards peasant appeal to Senate (Report № 3500)

September 27, 1912: Appeal registered at First Department of the Senate

November 15, 1912: Governing Senate rejects the appeal

January 30, 1913: Senate decree sent for execution

March 27, 1913: Decree executed (№ 4433)

April 18, 1913: Podolian Governor confirms compliance

May 13, 1913: Vice-Governor submits final confirmation to Senate

Note on Russian Imperial Measurements

The original documents use Imperial Russian units of measurement. Below are their approximate modern equivalents:

Sazhen (сажень) = 2.13 meters = 7 feet

Desyatina (десятина) = 1.09 hectares = 2.7 acres

Verst (верста) = 1.07 kilometers = 0.66 miles

Square sazhen = 4.55 square meters = 49 square feet

Examples from the documents:

• Wells "at 10 sazhens depth" ≈ 21 meters (69 feet)

• "More than 2 versts to the Bug River" ≈ 2.1 km (1.3 miles)

• "At least 3 desyatinas" ≈ 3.3 hectares (8.1 acres)

• New square: 122 × 97 sazhens ≈ 260 × 207 meters (853 × 679 feet)

• Wells "4 sazhens deep" ≈ 8.5 meters (28 feet)

• Troughs "3 sazhens long" ≈ 6.4 meters (21 feet)

Archival Source

Russian State Historical Archive (РГИА)

Ф. 1341 Оп. 409 Д. 414

Fond: First Department of the Senate (Первый департамент Сената)

Title: On the report of the Podolian Governor No. 3500 with a complaint from authorized representatives of the peasants of Khashchevatoye volost—Ozeryansky and Petrov—regarding the resolution of the Podolian Provincial Zemstvo Assembly about relocating the bazaar in the town of Khashchevatoye to a new location.

Date: September 27, 1912

Permanent link: https://fgurgia.ru/object/2517999738

The Myaskovsky Election Saga (1910–1916)

Six years of contested elections in the burgher community of Khashchevatoye

Source: Kamenets-Podolsky State Archive (DAKhMO), Fond 227, Op. 3, File 1363 and collection 1341, inventory 407, file 256. First Department of the Senate.

Podolia Province — Gaysyn District (present-day Ukraine) 

A note to readers: Over a century has passed since the events described here, and this account is shared purely as a fascinating glimpse into our shtetl’s history. The names that appear belong to a different era, and these events have no connection to families bearing these surnames today. That said, readers familiar with the Synagogue page will notice that Yosef’s father, Srul Yankelevich Myaskovsky, had his own memorable encounter with official rules in the 1870s — a story recounted there in full (see: Elections for the boards of synagogues in Khashchevatoye). It seems a certain creative relationship with authority ran in the family. If any descendants have memories or family stories passed down about these elections, we would be delighted to hear them. 

Background: One Man, One Community, One System

Yosef Srulevitch Myaskovsky — or Yos Srulevitch, as his name appears in the Russian documents — was a familiar figure in Khashchevatoye public life. He served as the town’s tax collector, a position that gave him both visibility and leverage in the tight-knit burgher (meshchanskaya) community. He was also, as the record shows, a man who liked to win elections — and who was not overly troubled by the means required to do so.

His father, Srul Yankelevitch Myaskovsky, had served as Elder of the Khashchevatoye Synagogue in the 1870s, managing the community’s vital records with what the authorities eventually described as “extreme negligence” before being removed from his post. Yosef appears to have inherited his father’s appetite for communal power, along with a similarly elastic approach to procedural requirements.

The Meshchanskaya Uprava was the council governing the local affairs of the burgher community. In October 1912, the Podolia Provincial Government issued a circular ordering elections for all positions of the Khashchevatoye Uprava for the 1913–1915 triennium. The circular was signed by Acting Governor Graf Ignatyev, Vice-Governor Chartoryisky, and Councillor Kozlovsky. The elections were presided over by Anton Pavlov Lopushansky, the incumbent Elder (Starosta).

What followed would surpass almost anything the town had seen in procedural complexity and judicial entanglement. But the saga had begun two years earlier.

Act I: The 1910 Election — Beans, Bribes, and a Prayer House (11/1910 – 10/1911)

On November 17, 1910, the burgher community of Khashchevatoye assembled to elect a new member of the Uprava. Myaskovsky won by a landslide: 103 votes in favour, 16 against. From the outset, however, nothing had gone quite by the book.

The election was held not in the official premises of the Uprava, but in a prayer house. No police representative was present, in violation of a gubernatorial circular from 1903. Voting was conducted not with the regulation wooden balls required by Article 231 of Volume IX of the Laws on Social Estates, but with beans — a method that, as it would later emerge, had been standard practice in Khashchevatoye for over twenty years. Two participants, Zelman Teitelbaum and Leyzor Shvetz, had not yet reached the required voting age of 25.

Two local burghers, Zus Kogan and Leib Schokhet, lost no time in filing complaints. Their grievances, submitted to the Podolia Provincial Administration in December 1910 and January 1911, painted a vivid picture of election-day chaos. Myaskovsky’s supporters had roamed the room directing how votes should be cast. Several voters had been offered two or three rubles to vote for Myaskovsky — an offer which Schokhet claimed, virtuously, to have refused. One witness reported considerable noise and agitation orchestrated by men named Brovarny and Verbovetsky, while others noted a remarkable number of drunk Jews in attendance. Two further witnesses confirmed the bean-voting and stated that they too had been offered three rubles.

On March 28, 1911, the Podolia Provincial Presidium for Municipal Affairs annulled the election, citing three violations: voting by beans instead of wooden balls, participation of persons under 25, and the absence of a police representative. There was one awkward detail: Myaskovsky had already been confirmed in his post by the Provincial Government on January 7, 1911 — two months before the annulment.

Myaskovsky’s supporters — Fayvish Faynberg, Berko Dorman, Yankel Kravetz, Huna Moshke Smolyar, Sukher Kremenchugsky, Leib Brovarny and others — were not prepared to accept this quietly. On May 1, 1911, they submitted a formal complaint to the First Department of the Imperial Senate in St. Petersburg, accompanied by two 1 ruble 25 kopek revenue stamps.

Their arguments were spirited. On the beans: for more than twenty years, every election in Khashchevatoye — Uprava members, deputies, members of the spiritual boards — had been conducted by dropping beans or nuts into urns, and the Presidium had never objected. The very method now cited as grounds for annulment had been introduced by the former Uprava member Shlem Krasnytsky himself. On the underage voters: only two people had voted without entitlement, and the tally was 101 to 16 discounting those two votes — the result was identical. On the absent policeman: this too had never been challenged before.

And then came the real argument. The entire affair, the petitioners charged, had been engineered by Krasnytsky, the former Uprava member defeated by Myaskovsky. Working through proxies — Kogan, described bluntly as a habitual prison inmate, and Schokhet, described as completely illiterate — Krasnytsky had manufactured a scandal using the very irregularities he had himself introduced. Moreover, the current Uprava president and all the elected deputies had been elected by the identical bean-and-urn method. If Myaskovsky’s election was invalid, so were all of theirs.

The Governor of Podolia forwarded the complaint to the Senate on May 18, 1911. The First Department heard the case on October 20, 1911. The Senate’s final ruling is not preserved in the file. But Myaskovsky was clearly not finished. 

Act II: The 1912–1913 Elections — An Impossible Count

First round: November 1912

In November 1912, 323 residents were registered as eligible voters — 15 Christian burghers and 308 Jewish burghers. On November 28, 1912, only 62 appeared. Myaskovsky was elected court deputy (pyatidvorny deputat) with 51 votes in favour and 11 against.

But the election ran immediately into a procedural obstacle: the oath for Jewish voters had been administered by Klaus 2nd N. Kremenchutsky, a member of the prayer house board — rather than by a rabbi, as required by Article 801 of Volume IX of the Laws on Social Organization. This detail would become the central legal ground for annulment.

Genealogical note: systematic cross-referencing of the 323 registered voters makes it possible to identify this Klaus Kremenchutsky. Among the five members of this family on the electoral roll, only Berko Nakhimov Kremenchutsky (no. 124, born c. 1879) has a patronymic beginning with N (Nakhimov = son of Nukhim). The designation “2nd” likely distinguished him from his father Nukhim (no. 123), who would have been the better-known Kremenchutsky in the community. The name “Klaus” is highly unusual — it does not appear anywhere else in the 323-person roll, suggesting it was a secular or civil name used in official dealings rather than his Hebrew or Yiddish given name.

Second round: January 9, 1913

Following complaints and a Provincial Government investigation, the November 1912 elections were annulled. New elections were held on January 9, 1913. This time, with 91 effective voters, nine positions were filled simultaneously. The result for the position of Jewish Uprava member:

Myaskovsky Yos Srulevitch: 68 balls in favour, 37 against (105 total — recorded as elected).

Lipovetzky Shmuil Refulev: 52 in favour, 38 against.

The problem was immediately apparent. With 91 voters, Myaskovsky could have received at most 91 balls. He had received 105 — fourteen more than there were voters. Lopushansky, elected Elder, had received two too many. The grand total: 821 balls, against a possible 813.

Competing accusations flew at once. Myaskovsky’s supporters claimed that Lipovetzky’s faction had secretly introduced extra balls to delegitimize the election — but since Myaskovsky had received fewer unfavourable balls than Lipovetsky, he should still be considered the winner. Lipovetsky’s supporters accused Myaskovsky of using his position as tax collector to withhold public funds for months, then deploying those retained funds to bribe voters.

The police investigation concluded that it was Lipovetzky’s minority faction — approximately 23 people — that had orchestrated the fraud, concealing extra balls under their little fingers during voting. The police recommendation was paradoxical: despite the fraud, the elections should be considered valid, since the manipulation had been designed precisely to invalidate them.

The provincial authorities saw things differently. The Podolia Provincial Assembly for Zemstvo and Municipal Affairs declared the January 9, 1913 elections entirely invalid, citing both the mathematical impossibility of the ballot counts and, once again, the irregular oath. New elections were ordered.

Meanwhile, Lopushansky had sought authorization to employ Myaskovsky as the Uprava’s assistant secretary at 80 rubles per year, explaining that no one else would accept such a low salary. Approved on September 4, 1913 by the Vice-Governor. This arrangement later became a central accusation in subsequent election disputes — opponents claiming Myaskovsky used his secretarial position to manipulate the electoral process. A criminal investigation was also opened, and both men were eventually committed for trial before the Vinnitsa District Court under Articles 338 and 341 of the Criminal Code — abuse of official power. But that was still to come. 

Act III: The February 1914 Elections — Fresh Chaos

On February 5, 1914, new elections were held under the supervision of the Gaysyn Ispravnik. Fresh controversies emerged immediately. Isidor Yankovsky had participated and was even elected as candidate for Elder — but he was recorded in community rolls only “for accounting purposes,” which under Articles 564–566 of the law made him ineligible to vote or hold office. Additionally, a shortage of voting balls required three separate rounds, creating confusion over whether Huna-Moshko Smolyar was standing as a full member or merely as a candidate.

In the first round, Myaskovsky was elected Uprava member by a majority (53 in favour, 51 against). In subsequent rounds, Smolyar prevailed: 58 favourable balls against Myaskovsky’s 53. His opponents immediately launched a character assassination campaign, alleging that he had attacked the spiritual rabbi with a knife, that stolen sacks had been found in his attic, and that he had filed improper complaints against local magistrates. The rabbi himself, Levi Kutsenogy, testified in Smolyar’s defense: the knife attack, he stated plainly, had never taken place.

The two factions staked out irreconcilable positions. Team Myaskovsky argued that Myaskovsky had won the first round legitimately and that the entire election should be annulled due to Yankovsky’s illegal participation — in which case Myaskovsky, as first-round winner, should be confirmed. Team Smolyar countered that Smolyar had won with 58 balls against Myaskovsky’s 53, that Myaskovsky was “a homeless and poor man, burdened with a large family,” and that Smolyar — owner of houses worth 3,000 rubles — represented far greater reliability. The Ispravnik ruled: Smolyar had been lawfully elected, and his opponents were simply trying to wrest power from him after losing a vote he had legitimately won.

Provincial Resolution No. 145 of June 27, 1914 settled the matter: the February 5, 1914 elections were declared valid. Smolyar, Yanovsky, Tsiruk, Lopushansky, Shapochnik, and Kravetz were admitted to their positions. As for Anton Lopushansky — who had also been re-elected Elder — his fate was handled separately: he was now facing criminal prosecution, and the Governor declined to confirm him. 

Act IV: Administrative Paralysis (1914–1915)

With elections in perpetual dispute, Ben Moshkovich Kravetz was appointed temporary acting Tax Collector Elder in December 1914. His report to provincial authorities captured the consequences of two years of political chaos with desperate clarity. In three months, he had managed to collect exactly 8 rubles and 50 kopecks. Residents refused to pay, telling him: “We will not pay, and no one can do anything to us.” Even community deputies owed back taxes. Police could not assist, lacking authority to seize property. Kravetz pleaded for emergency powers: “Under such circumstances, collection is impossible.”

In January 1915, yet another election was held — at 8:00 in the evening, an unusual hour, with only 50 voters present. Itzko Leizerov Samovol, over 60 years old, was elected Tax Collector Elder — the same position from which he had been removed in February 1914. Immediate objections were filed. The provincial authorities ruled that the law set no minimum number of participants, and 50 voters sufficed. However, Samovol could not stand for election: not having been confirmed in his post from the February 1914 elections, Article 119 of the Municipal Regulations barred him from seeking it again. His election was annulled. Provincial Resolution No. 94 of August 17, 1915 confirmed Leonty Lopushansky — Anton’s brother, with no criminal record — as the new Elder. 

Epilogue: Conviction and Closure (1915–1916)

The saga proved to have a judicial denouement that the archives preserved in precise detail. On February 17, 1915, the Vinnitsa District Court, First Criminal Division, delivered its verdict: Anton Lopushansky and Yos Myaskovsky were found guilty of abuse of official power under Article 343 of the Criminal Code.

The crime had a particular flavor. On June 23, 1913, both convicted men had refused to issue a certificate to a certain Shlomoh Krasnyansky — a Khashchevatoye meshchanin who had rented his house as the Uprava’s premises and was owed rent. Lopushansky, semi-literate, claimed he had not signed in Myaskovsky’s absence. Myaskovsky claimed he had never seen the document. The court found that Myaskovsky’s true motive was commercial rivalry: he competed with Krasnyansky in trade and had refused out of personal malice.

The sentence imposed was the mildest available: a strict reprimand delivered in the presence of the Court. Both defendants appealed. The conviction became final on March 27, 1915 for Lopushansky, and on June 2, 1915 for Myaskovsky — a delay suggesting that Myaskovsky continued to fight to the very end.

By this time, the Great War had begun to transform the Uprava's composition in ways that no election dispute could have anticipated. The December 1914 electoral roll already carried troubling annotations beside many names: “mobilized,” “deceased.” In August 1915, the Uprava itself sent an urgent letter requesting a military deferment for acting-Elder candidate Isidore Yanovsky: he was about to be called up, and without him there would be no one to run the local administration.

In December 1915, the Gaysyn District Ispravnik replied to an official inquiry: who was actually running Khashchevatoye? The answer: Isidore Yanovsky, serving as acting Elder. Tsiruk and Smolyar as Uprava members. Lopushansky (convicted) and Myaskovsky (convicted): absent from the official roster.

On March 7, 1916, a document signed by the acting Governor formally closed the file: the 1913–1915 triennium had ended, and the mandates of all persons concerned had expired. No further administrative action was required or would be taken. The file was archived on April 1, 1916. 

Postscript

Yosef Srulevich Myaskovsky had fought for his seat in Khashchevatoye’s burgher council for six years, through four annulled elections, multiple police investigations, at least one appeal to the Imperial Senate, and a criminal conviction — deploying beans, bribes, family networks, and legal arguments with equal resourcefulness.

He had been confirmed in his post before his election was annulled. He had received 14 balls more than there were voters. He had been hired as assistant secretary by the very Uprava he was supposed to govern. He had been convicted for refusing to sign a rent certificate. He had appealed that judgment. The war had finally absorbed the entire community.

His father Srul had, thirty years earlier, managed the synagogue’s vital records with a certain creative flexibility before being removed from his post. The Myaskovsky family’s relationship with official rules appears to have been, across two generations, one of cordial mutual awareness rather than strict observance. Some traditions, it seems, are more durable than any election result. 

Note on the Electoral Lists

This dossier preserves five complete electoral lists, representing several hundred names and constituting an exceptional genealogical source for the period 1912–1915. They are available as appendices:

Appendix A - Complete electoral roll, November–December 1912 (323 names)

Appendix B - Participants in the January 9, 1913 ballot (95 names) 

Appendix C - Complete eligibility roll, January 30, 1914 (311 names)

Appendix D - Participants in the February 5, 1914 ballot (105 persons)

Appendix E - Electoral roll, December 5, 1914 (with WWI mobilization annotations)

Appendix F - January 11, 1915 (53 names)