The Russian approach in Bashkiria was similar to that in the Middle Volga; the goal was to displace the native landed elite and import taxpaying farmers loyal to Russia. Bashkiria was both strategic and productive. Metallurgy boomed: between 1699 and 1725 eighteen major metallurgical works were founded in the Urals, with more than 5,000 serfs forcibly moved to work them. In 1721 Peter allowed non- noble entrepreneurs to buy serfs to be used in these enterprises. Such workers went with their families, boosting non-native settlement in Bashkiria. Bashkiria also offered important trade depots on the caravan trade from Central Asia and fertile farming lands in northern and western Bashkiria. Southern Bashkiria, while also a target of in-migration, remained primarily nomadic grazing lands.
Fortification efforts in Bashkiria continued with many purposes: to pacify the trade route from Central and East Asia, to protect from nomad attack (Kazakh and Kalmyk), to prevent flight of Russian taxpayers to the steppe, and to undermine Bashkir political cohesion. The existing Trans-Kama line, constructed in the 1650s, had served its purpose and already around 1730 a parallel line had been constructed south of it, running southwest-to-northeast from Krasnyi Iar near Samara on the Volga to Menzelinsk near the Middle Kama River, cutting across northern Bashkir lands. At the same time the construction of a huge defensive arc across the Kalmyk- Kazakh steppe was initiated: a defensive line from the mouth of the Iaik River to Orenburg was built in the 1730s along the lands of the Iaik Cossacks, as well as the "Samara" line south along the Samara River from Krasnyi Iar on the Volga to Orenburg on the Iaik. The Samara line joined at Orenburg lines stretching to western Siberia. By the 1750s approximately 3,500 km of defensive fortifications extended from the mouth of the Iaik River to the Altais, an immense effort. The whole project was paid for by the newly imposed poll tax on the Mordva and Tatars of the Middle Volga.
Russia capitalized on divisions among the Bashkirs in essence to surround them in their own homeland. As a rule, the more settled northern Bashkirs, including many in Russian service, were less likely to spark revolts than the more nomadic Bashkirs of the southern Urals, but all were capable of uniting in response to common grievances, such as extraordinary levies and land grabs. Bashkirs revolted, for example, in 1705-11 in response to Russia's raising the iasak and the quotas of horses they were asked to provide for the Great Northern War; such higher exactions also sparked revolts in Astrakhan and among the Don Cossacks at this same time.
The Orenburg Expedition in 1734 on the surface looks like a scientific and cartographic mission, but it proved to be a powerful arm of political suppression. Led by cartographer Ivan Kirillov (1689-1737), it included scientists to map, study flora and fauna, prepare for more settlers, and, most significantly, to found fortress towns and fortified lines discussed herein, in the process encircling Bashkir lands. The Expedition founded Orenburg on the Iaik in 1735 in the heart of Bashkir grazing lands (it was moved downriver in 1741 and 1743) and commenced fortification work. Aggressive land seizures and a policy of cutting the number of Muslim elders and putting Islam under more direct Russian supervision prompted a Bashkir uprising (1735-7) that Kirillov put down with extraordinary brutality. Over 700 Bashkir villages were razed and about 30,000 Bashkir men, women, and children were killed, sent to hard labor, or enrolled in infantry service around the empire. This is estimated at 12-14 percent of the Bashkir population. In the ruins of revolt, Russia imposed tighter controls over Bashkir self-government and organized Bashkiria as a new province (Orenburg). In 1743 the city of Orenburg was named a preferred customs depot for Siberian commerce, shifting caravan trade to it from Astrakhan. Thereafter Russia systematically worked to undermine Bashkir autonomies and impose Russian control, using a variety of populationist, military, and bureaucratic strategies.
Not only were the Bashkirs surrounded in their own homeland by defensive lines; they were also being surrounded by non-Bashkir migrants. To guard the new lines, a Host of Orenburg Cossacks was created in 1742 and settlement of the Orenburg territory was promoted. Settlers were forcibly moved or lured here with privileges of land and serfs: retired Russian gentry, converted Kalmyks and Dzhungars, Ukrainian and Russian peasants, odnodvortsy (petty landholders) from the Hetmanate and Sloboda Ukraine, Polish noblemen from recently captured Polotsk. Voluntary in-migration proceeded as well. State peasants, odnodvortsy, and runaway serfs moved in, as did Tatars, Chuvash, and Mordva from the Middle Volga and northern Bashkiria. Tatar merchants from Kazan and Bukharan merchants from Central Asia were lured to Orenburg by trade privileges. Russian landlords moved in; from 1649 they had been prohibited from buying Bashkir land, but they purchased or seized it anyway, as is recounted in Sergei Aksakov's semi-literary memoir of his grandfather's settling in Bashkiria in his Family Chronicle trilogy (1858).
By the mid-1740s more than 50,000 East Slavic settlers had moved into Bashkir land and almost an equal number in the next few decades as the pace quickened. By the end of the eighteenth century, Bashkiria's population had risen 64 percent and it was ethnically diverse, home to Bashkirs, Russians, Tatars, Chuvash, Cheremis, Votiaks, Mordva, and Bukharans. Orenburg was a primarily ethnic Russian city by the end of the century. In landholding, Russian landlords outnumbered Bashkirs and Tatars more than two to one. By the end of the eighteenth century peasant cultivation in the northern and western parts created a vibrant export trade in wheat, while the southern Urals remained primarily an area of pastoral nomadism and animal husbandry (horses, sheep, cattle, goats, and camels) claimed by pastor- alist Bashkirs, Ural Cossacks, and Kazakhs. But in-migration of settled farmers proceeded there as well. While in 1719 Bashkirs accounted for 71 percent of the population in their traditional homeland, by 1795 that proportion had fallen to about 20 percent, with Russians constituting 40 percent of Bashkiria's population.
Bashkirs suffered directly from in-migration and the increasing Russian political, economic, and religious control. Russian religious policy exacerbated tensions. From 1731 to 1764 a commission for conversion to Orthodoxy in the Middle Volga and Urals pressured Muslims to convert; they found the most resistance from Bashkirs, but pressure continued. In Bashkir statements to the Legislative Commission of1767, a prominent demand was to allow construction for more mosques and religious schools.
Nevertheless, Bashkiria was not as integrated into the center as the Middle Volga was in this century, and various social groups enjoyed different status. Unlike many
Middle Volga peoples, poorer Bashkirs and others were not turned into state peasants (with poll tax and recruitment); they paid iasak at a lesser rate than other non-Russians and even teptiar laborers (non-Russians who tilled Bashkir lands) paid quitrent lower than that ofSlavic state peasants. Elite Bashkirs survived by acting as "middle ground" intermediaries. Russia allowed elite Bashkirs to preserve their status; some served as militia on the Trans-Kama line and enjoyed iasak-free status and the honorific title of "Tarkhan." So-called "loyal Bashkirs" served alongside Russian troops in Orenburg, joined by Meshcheriaks (Mishari), Tatars who had joined Russian service after the conquest of Kazan; many had settled near Ufa in the heart ofBashkiria. The Bashkir and Meshcheriak landed elite controlled local government with little intervention by Moscow officials.