Vsya Rossiya Business Directory for Bessarabia

Background

This database contains nearly 4,000 entries of apparently Jewish names from editions of the Russian business directory, Vsya Rossiya (Вся Россия), for Bessarabia and Transnistria from the period 1897 through 1912.

Vsya Rossiya (“All Russia”) was a series of directories of the Russian Empire published on a yearly basis by Aleksei Sergeevich Suvorin from 1895 through 1923. Each directory includes detailed lists of government offices, public services, and medium and large businesses present in major cities across the Russian Empire.

This database includes entries for Bessarabia gubernia from all of the directories, and entries for the portions of Kherson and Podolia gubernias that are now part of Transnistria from all of the directories except for the 1897 directory.  We are in the process of extracting entries from the 1902 directory.

The directory is arranged by gubernia (province), followed by uezd (district) within each gubernia. The directory includes the following uezds, with the following number of apparently Jewish entries appearing in the directory for each uezd:

Within each listing, government officials appear first, followed by manufacturing trades (identified as Factories and plants) in alphabetical order, and then followed by retail trades (identified as Commercial and industrial enterprises) in alphabetical order. Most of the Jews identified in the directory were involved in retail trades. Among the most common businesses were bakeries, books, bread-grain, drug stores, firewood, flour, groceries, groceries and tobacco, haberdashery, ironware, kitchenware, leather, ready-to-wear clothing, textile merchandise, timber, and tobacco.

Surnames that did not appear to be Jewish were omitted, erring on the side of including people who might not be Jewish. 

About This Database

Each record in this database contains the following information:                      

• Last Name — Surname from entry                                                  
• Given Name – Given name from entry
• Patronymic – Father’s name in patronymic form (if given)
• Business – Type of business, in Russian followed by English
• Section – Class of business (Factories and plants, or Commercial and industrial enterprises), in Russian followed by English
• Year – Year of directory
• Town – Name of town (as of 1900)                                                  
• Uezd/District – Name of district
• Gubernia – Name of province
• Today’s Location – Current country
• Pages – Column number of entry
• Comments – Additional information (typically the address)        

Acknowledgements

The project manager was Jeff Wexler. Volunteer researchers for the project were Genny Imas, Alan Levine, Yuliana Murray, Jane Rollins, Fanny Rozenblat, Tsvika Rozenblat, Bena Shklyanoy, and Inna Vayner. Alexey Perminov provided the directories for extraction.

Searching the Database

This database is searchable via the JewishGen Unified Search, the JewishGen Romania Collection, and the JewishGen Ukraine Collection