The whole history of mankind is inextricably linked with horses. In particular, horse-drawn transport has always been of paramount importance, in some regions it has retained its importance to this day.
The most important role was played by this type of transport in allcontinuation of the formation of our state, spread over vast expanses. However, what is meant by this concept? In this case, transport is the carriage of goods using the muscular strength of animals harnessed in carts. Historically, these animals are understood to be horses, but oxen, donkeys and mules were actively involved in transportation.
Horses were not only used in field work,but also in the delivery of goods from one end of the country to the other. The army especially depended on the transport supply, which, due to the huge spaces, was in dire need of not only the quick delivery of orders and command orders, but also high-quality and timely supplies. It should be noted that initially horse-drawn transport was always in charge of the driver, but the state was in dire need of supplying products that the peasantry soon became actively involved in this process.
A special role in the development of this transport inour country belongs to the Siberians. It is resource-rich Siberia for its development that badly needed a fully-fledged and well-organized transport system that could cover the gigantic needs of a large and rapidly developing country. However, this same circumstance gave a strong impetus to the development of animal husbandry, since a large number of riding animals annually took to the needs of carriers.
Especially in demand was horse-drawn transport onthe stretch between Tomsk and Irkutsk: several million pounds of cargo of various nature and purpose were transported here annually. Since the population of the region grew rapidly in those years, so did the demand for goods from the European part of the Empire. On the contrary, in the Central region, an increasing amount of tea was needed, the transportation of which to the early 1900s was carried out so rapidly that by that time the weight of the tea leaf transported across the Chinese border had already exceeded one million pounds!
However, due to the lack of large equestrianfactories used exclusively peasant horses. This gave all traffic a strongly pronounced seasonality, as the sowing life on the roads faded. The horse-drawn transport in our country began to hand over its positions only after the Great Patriotic War, when the production of trucks in the required quantity was established in the USSR.
