Hi Helen!
Maybe you should have posted this under « Tsarskoe Selo Town »…! Anyway, I’m pretty sure I have read that (at least in the late 19th-early 20th century) a special permit was required to reside in Tsarskoe Selo…but I can’t remember where I’ve read it :-/. In any case, the Palace Police had agents all over the town and people who had no business there were probably escorted out of town.
According to the 1897 census, they were 22,353 inhabitants : 13,553 men and 8,800 women. The high number of males can be explained by the fact that Tsarskoe Selo was also a garrison town, as many regiments were stationed there to guard the Imperial Family. By 1914, according to Baedeker, its population had increased to 30,800. These numbers probably don’t include temporary residents who lived there only when the Imperial family was in town. I haven’t yet found statistics for earlier times, but in 1808 the population of Tsarskoe Selo must have increased dramatically following the annexation of the town of Sofia. Nevertheless, it seems to me that for most of the 18th century and a good part of the 19th century, the full-time population must have been quite small, as the Court was quite nomadic and didn’t spend much more than a few months there every year. Alexander II seemed to have liked the place quite a lot, but Alexander III prefered Gatchina and didn’t spend much time there. It must then have looked like a ghost town. At the beginning of Nicholas II’s reign it was still seen as a resort town and it wasn’t until the 1905 Revolution that the Imperial Family and the Court made Tsarskoe Selo their main residence. This undoubtedly brought more permanent residents to Tsarskoe Selo.
Who stayed there? Some other members of the Imperial Family had palaces or villas there (such as Grand Duke Paul and Grand Duke Boris). The Yussupovs and some other aristocratic families were also part-time residents. Obviously, courtiers and their families (at least those who had more than an honorary function at Court and who didn’t stay at the Palace), such as Dr. Botkin and his family (in their memoirs, both Gleb and Tatiana wrote about their youth in Tsarskoe Selo). And people who worked at the various Court departments.
As there was a number of military, educational and health establishments in Tsarskoe Selo, a good number of officers, teachers, doctors, nurses, etc also stayed there, as well as a great number of servants and people of various trades needed to keep a small town running.
