In the Russian Empire, the merchant class consisted not only of people engaged in buying and selling, but also industrialists and bankers. The prosperity and well-being of the country depended on them.

The largest entrepreneurs were Old Believers. The main wealth of Russia was concentrated in their hands. At the beginning of the 20th century, their names were widely known: the owners of porcelain production, the Kuznetsovs, textile manufacturers, the Morozovs, industrialists and bankers, the Ryabushinskys.

To belong to the merchant class, one had to enroll in one of the three guilds. Merchants who had a capital of 8 thousand rubles were assigned to the third guild. From 20 thousand rubles - to the second guild. Over 50 thousand rubles - to the first guild.

Entire branches of industry and trade were completely dependent on the Old Believers: the production of fabric, the manufacture of dishes, the trade in bread and timber.

Railways, shipping on the Volga, oil fields on the Caspian Sea - all this belonged to the Old Believers. Not a single major fair, not a single industrial exhibition was held without their participation.

Old Believer industrialists never shied away from technical innovations. They used modern machines in their factories. In 1904, the Old Believer Dmitry Pavlovich Ryabushinsky (1882-1962) founded the world's first institute of aircraft construction. And in 1916, the Ryabushinsky family began construction of the plant of the Moscow Automobile Society (AMO).

Old Believer merchants always remembered the words of Christ: “Do not lay up treasures for yourselves on earth, where worms and aphids destroy and where thieves break in and steal. Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither worm nor aphids destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Even having become rich, the merchants remained faithful children of the Old Orthodox Church. Wealth was not an end in itself for them. They willingly spent money on charity - on almshouses, hospitals, maternity hospitals, orphanages and educational institutions.

For example, the Moscow merchant of the first guild Kozma Terentyevich Soldatenkov (1818–1901) was not only a zealous parishioner of the churches of the Rogozhsky cemetery, but also a patron of the arts, a disinterested book publisher, and a generous benefactor.

He not only collected paintings by Russian artists and ancient icons, but also built hospitals and almshouses in Moscow. Soldatenkovskaya free hospital for the poor has survived to this day. Now it is called Botkinskaya.

The merchants kept the pious customs of their ancestors in their household. The book by Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev "Summer of the Lord" remarkably tells about the old testamentary life of a Moscow merchant family.

The great-grandmother of the writer, the merchant Ustinya Vasilievna Shmeleva, was an Old Believer, but during the time of the persecution of Nicholas I, she moved to the Synodal Church. However, much of the strict Old Believer life was preserved in the family.

On the pages of the book, Shmelev lovingly resurrects the image of his great-grandmother. Ustinya Vasilievna had not eaten meat for forty years, prayed day and night with a leather ladder according to a holy book in front of a very old reddish icon of the crucifixion...

Those merchants who did not renounce the true faith were a reliable stronghold of Orthodoxy. Old Believer churches, monasteries and schools were maintained at their expense. Almost every merchant's house had a chapel, in which a clergyman sometimes secretly lived.

A description of a prayer room in the house of a Moscow merchant of the first guild, Ivan Petrovich Butikov (1800–1874), has been preserved. It was set up in the attic and had all the accessories befitting a temple.

Archbishop Anthony often served liturgy here. And he served not for one merchant family, but for all the Old Believers. The entrance to the house church during the performance of divine services in it was freely open to everyone.

There were three windows on the western wall of the prayer room. The eastern wall was decorated with icons. Stepping back a little from the wall, a camp church was set up - a tent made of pink damask fabric with a cross at the top, with royal doors and a northern diaconal door made of gilded brocade with pink flowers.

Several small icons were hung on hooks on the sides of the royal doors. Banners stood on the right and left sides of the tent. In the middle of the tent stood a throne covered with a pink damask cloth.

However, the merchants, no matter how wealthy they were, did not have the opportunity to openly support the Old Believers. In matters of spiritual life, the rich were just as powerless as their simple brothers in faith, deprived of many freedoms.

The police and officials could at any time raid the merchant's house, break into the prayer room, ruin and desecrate it, seize the clergy and send them to prison.

For example, here is what happened on Sunday, September 5, 1865, in the house of the merchant Tolstikova in Cheremshan.

Liturgy was performed in the house church. The Gospel had already been read, when suddenly there was a terrible crack of breaking shutters and windows. Vinogradov, an official with five policemen, climbed into the prayer room through a broken window.

The official was drunk. With a dirty curse, he stopped mass. The priest begged to be allowed to finish the liturgy, but Vinogradov entered the altar, grabbed a cup of wine for communion, drank and began to eat prosphora.

The priest and the faithful were horrified by such blasphemy and did not know what to do. Meanwhile, Vinogradov sat down on the throne and, continuing to speak foul language, lit a cigarette from church candles.

The official ordered the priest and all those praying to be seized and taken to prison. The priest was not allowed to take off his liturgical vestments, so in robes he was sent to a dungeon. Prayer Tolstikova was ravaged by the police.

The only way to avoid blasphemy and disgrace was a bribe - a forced but inevitable evil.

It is known, for example, that it was precisely with a bribe at the end of the 18th century that the Moscow Fedoseyevites saved the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery from ruin. They brought a pie stuffed with 10,000 gold rubles to the chief of the metropolitan police.

However, bribes did not always help. You can't buy everything with money! For no amount of millions, the Old Believers could not buy the freedom to worship according to pre-Nikon books, to build churches, to ring bells, to publish newspapers and magazines, to legally open schools.

The Old Believers gained the desired freedom only after the revolution of 1905.

About salvation in the world (from a letter from the monk Arseny to the priest Stefan Labzin)

Most honest priest Stefan Fedorovich!

Your letter - a question for Anna Dmitrievna - I received only now, on July 13th. You asked for an answer by the 11th, but you didn't give the number when you sent it. I now remain in doubt that my answer was not ripe in time and, perhaps, will no longer be needed. However, I will answer just in case.

If Anna Dmitrievna was announced by such a sermon that no one in the world, let's say, a girl this time, cannot be saved, then I am this announcement, no matter who said it, and no matter what book it was written in, I can't take it for granted...

If, on the contrary, they tell me that in the world you cannot escape temptations, I will answer these: you will not escape them even in the desert. If there, perhaps, you will meet them less, but they are more painful. But still, the struggle against temptations, both in the world and in the wilderness, until our very death, must be relentless. And if they lure anyone here or there into some kind of pool, then with hope in the mercy of God there is a reliable boat of repentance to get out of here.

So, in my opinion, salvation for every person in every place cannot be denied. Adam was in paradise and sinned before God. And Lot in Sodom, a sinful city before God, remained righteous. Although it is not useless to look for a quieter place, salvation cannot be denied in every place of the Lord's dominion.

And if Anna Dmitrievna made a vow to go to Tomsk only because she recognized that she could not be saved here, then this vow is reckless. And if she decides to agree with this and wishes to remain in her former residence again, then read her a prayer of permission for her reckless vow and appoint several bows to the Mother of God for some time. And God will not exact this vow from her.

But if she wishes to find a more comfortable life for her salvation, then let it remain at her discretion. And you don’t hamper a lot of her freedom, no matter how useful she is to you. If you are worthy, then maybe God will time another servant, no worse ...

In the days of big church holidays A fair is gathering near the walls of the Rogozhsky cemetery in Moscow. The stalls sell fabrics and honey, children's toys and wooden carvings, vegetables and pickles. You can also find amazing things - old theological books of three hundred years. Miraculously preserved rarities. Where are they from?

Our contemporaries do not care much about the one who sells at the fair. Meanwhile, the Rogozhskoye cemetery is the traditional center of the Moscow Old Believers. Today, no one persecutes them for their faith, and no one is particularly interested in it.

Old Believer communities are slowly dying, modern Old Believers occupy a rather modest place both in the spiritual and economic life of Russia, and the fair near the cemetery wall is a distant echo of a powerful economic movement that once, without exaggeration, determined the fate of Russia.

Few people know, but at the beginning of the 20th century, the Old Believers owned about 40% of the economic capital of the entire Russian Empire. The followers of the old faith actually monopolized entire sectors of the economy, such as manufacturing and linen production.

What kind of old faith is this, who are the Old Believers, and how did it happen that a separate group of people found themselves in conditions that gave rise to an unprecedented surge in business activity?

The prerequisites for the greatest Russian tragedy were the intrigues of the Vatican and the ambitions of the Russian autocrats. The laurels of world rulers do not give rest to many powerful people of this world, they did not give it in the past either. The idea thrown to Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich to become famous as the defender and unifier of the entire Orthodox world fell on fertile ground. To do this, it was necessary to defeat the Ottomans, clear Constantinople of them and reign in Constantinople.

For Russia, with its inexhaustible resources, the matter is not the most difficult. A trifle interfered, it was necessary to adjust Russian church rites and sacred books to Greek standards. Patriarch Nikon, who carried out a church reform in the middle of the 17th century, took up the matter.

The reform split Russian society. A huge part of the population did not accept innovations. In 1666, the Great Council anathematized the discontented. Soon, unheard of repressions fell upon the adherents of the old rites, lasting for centuries.

Punitive detachments destroyed recalcitrant peasants and burned villages. Their bodies were floated down the rivers on floating gallows to intimidate the hesitant.

In search of shelter from persecution, thousands of Old Believers left their inhabited places. Many secluded places were found in Russia itself, even more on its outskirts and beyond. Human streams flowed in all directions, to the west - to the Baltic States and Poland, to the south - to the Caucasus and Turkey, to the east - to the Urals and Siberia, to the north - to the shores of the White Sea.

For eight years, the Solovetsky Monastery kept the siege of the tsarist army, where opponents of the reform flocked. Solovki was captured as a result of betrayal and brutally dealt with its defenders. The White Monastery, desecrated by vandals, has become a symbol of Old Believer resistance.

The fall of Solovki was followed by mass self-immolations of the Old Believers. Temples filled with people blazed across the north. Not wanting to accept and not seeing a way out, the Old Believers voluntarily passed away, practically depopulating vast territories.

Tsar Michael backtracked, sent a message to the Old Believers, in which he asked people not to burn themselves and moderated the persecution. Under Tsarevna Sophia, the persecutions that had subsided again intensified, and human rivers again flowed beyond the borders of Russia.

And yet they survived

At the beginning of the 18th century, wealthy families of Old Believers, fleeing repression, settled on the island of Vetka, at the confluence of the river of the same name with Sozh. Then these were the lands of the Commonwealth, where the power of Moscow did not extend, now - the Belarusian city of Vetka, the center of the administrative region of the Gomel region.

The settlement grew rapidly, soon 40 thousand people lived in it, and the dimensions reached as much as 50 miles in circumference. In a matter of years, the colony turned into a powerful trading center. Schismatic merchants sold in Poland, Belarus and Ukraine the products of local handicraftsmen: coopers, cap makers, tailors, furriers, saddlers, dyers, mittens. With the proceeds, the merchants supplied fellow believers with raw materials and provided loans.

Handicraft production expanded rapidly. Peddlers from Vetka pushed back Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian and even Russian merchants. The Old Believers monopolized trade over vast territories.

Seduced by the wealth of the Old Believers, Empress Anna tried to return them to Russia. Without guilt, guilty people were forgiven by the highest command, and they were given the right to freely choose their place of residence on the territory of the empire. But the community, firmly established on Vetka, was in no hurry to break the established way of life.

Anna Ioannovna had to act in a tried and tested way. In 1735, a punitive expedition burned the settlement to the ground. But the recalcitrant colony rose from the ashes, quickly recovered and began to live its former life. Human losses were restored by another wave of refugees. Catherine II dealt a crushing blow to Vetka. From the next punitive measures in 1764, the Vetka Old Believers were no longer able to recover. Some of the emigrants went even further, someone managed to take refuge in their homeland.

A purposeful and consistent policy of repression led to unpredictable consequences. Among the Old Believers, the ideology of relying solely on their own strength was firmly formed. Nobody helped them, on the contrary, they had to live in a hostile environment. To survive and keep the faith, people had to work hard, while limiting themselves in everything.

Money in the Old Believer environment was considered not as evidence of prosperity, but as a necessary tool for survival. A considerable part of the community funds was spent on bribing officials and priests so that they would not mention schismatics in their reports and leave them alone.

By the time the conditions for the development of capitalism were ripe in Russia, the schismatic communities were closed and close-knit groups of like-minded people who had serious social capital at their disposal. The Old Believers were better prepared for the coming changes than the rest of Russia.

By the end of the 18th century, the Old Believers took over almost all trade in Nizhny Novgorod region and the Lower Volga region. They owned grain marinas, shipyards and spinning mills. Competitors gave in to assertive and close-knit schismatics.

But for the Old Believers themselves, their trading successes turned out to be only a prelude; without exaggeration, great deeds awaited them ahead.

State within an empire

By the middle of the 19th century, the Old Believers, who actively and successfully earned money for the survival of persecuted communities, actually created their own separate state within a state, even if it did not have a separate territory. They had their own authoritative leaders and an informal system of government based on boundless trust in fellow believers.

Old Believer entrepreneurship was kept in the full sense of the word of honor. Business people always kept their promises and trusted partners from their midst, did not use the services of an intricate and hostile judicial system, and simplified documentary accounting to the maximum extent possible.

The solidarity of the schismatics became the key to their amazing success in the Urals. In 1736, a secret spy reported to Moscow: “Raskolnikov has multiplied in the Urals. At the factories of the Demidovs and Osokins, the clerks are schismatics, almost all of them! Yes, and some industrialists themselves are schismatics ... And if they are sent out, then of course they have no one to keep the factories. And in the factories of the Sovereigns it will not be without harm! For there, with many manufactories, like tin, wire, steel, iron, Olonyans, Tulyans and Kerzhentsy trade in all grubs and needs - all schismatics.

Huge capitals and impressive successes in the economy of the Old Believers forced the authorities to turn their anger to mercy. Catherine II issued a manifesto calling on the schismatics to return to Russia. All discriminatory measures taken earlier were cancelled. Repatriates began to return to their homeland and settled throughout the country, creating new business centers.

The largest Old Believer community was formed in Moscow. Of the current largest cemeteries in the capital, two - Preobrazhenskoye and Rogozhskoye - are Old Believers. About a third of the urban population of that time rests on them.

Formally, two Old Believer religious communities united around these cemeteries. Informally, within the framework of the communities, two large entrepreneurial centers were formed.

Moscow schismatic merchants, thanks to established ties throughout the country with fellow believers, were always aware of all prices in Russia, skillfully maneuvered their capital, making large bulk purchases on time. In the 19th century, they reigned supreme at all major Russian fairs.

The last attempt to break the powerful movement of the Old Believers was made by Nicholas I. The Tsar ordered the expropriation of all the property of the schismatics. But it was not possible to fully fulfill the will of the autocrat. Huge community capitals were securely hidden. It was with this money that large Russian factories were subsequently built.

Community capital was formed by generations of Old Believers. But in view of the fact that the communities were not legally recognized, the capital was always recorded in the name of figureheads. Money was entrusted to the most respected and enterprising members of the community.

With communal money, Moscow Old Believer merchants built the first large capitalist enterprises, which used exclusively the labor of hired workers. These were exemplary productions for that time, constantly improving technically. The latest foreign machine tools were used in paper-spinning and weaving factories.

The main thing in all matters among the Old Believers was still considered loyalty to the given word. It was so strong that it was trusted not only by co-religionists, but also by Western capitalists. For the construction of a weaving factory in the village of Zuevo, the now famous Russian entrepreneur Savva Morozov received more than 100 machines from abroad on credit, such was the reputation of an illiterate merchant.

sunset of power

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the largest Old Believer merchants gained unprecedented weight and influence in society. They were respected not only for their huge capital, but also for their amazing desire for innovation in industry.

With the money of the Old Believers, the first wind tunnel in Russia and the predecessor of the automobile ZIL, the AMO plant, were built. It is amazing how people who were ready to die for the ideals of the old faith, whose whole way of life was oriented towards the distant past, introduced the newest and most advanced technologies into the economy. A real paradox: fighting for the old, striving for everything new. For what and why?

Let us recall that since the time of the church reform of the 17th century, the Old Believers had to survive, being in a hostile environment, under pressure from the authorities, to resist repression, relying solely on their own strength.

Money gave a guarantee of the independence of the isolated world of the Old Believers. To completely secure it, more and more money was needed, which means that it was necessary to work better and better, to introduce the most advanced methods of production, to increase capital in order to better protect their faith.

In the rebellious year of 1905, the famous manifesto on religious tolerance came out. The revolution drew a line under the confrontation between the Old Believers and the official government.

The decree was followed by a period called the golden age of the Old Believers. In a short time, many Old Believer churches, the movement of priestlessness expanded, the business activity of entrepreneurs increased even more. For example, in the Urals, all private industry was in the hands of the Old Believers, and all state factories were under their control.

But the golden age was short-lived. Having got rid of the pressure of the authorities, having crept up to the very heights of economic power, the Old Believers lost their main unifying principle - a hostile environment, repressions that had to be fought. The Old Believers, who went through fire and water, gave in to copper pipes ...

At the beginning of the 20th century, most influential Old Believers looked and behaved like all the rest of the Russian rich. Long beards and merchant undershirts disappeared from everyday life, modern European clothes appeared. Religious restrictions were no longer enforced as carefully as before. Many felt the taste of dubious pleasures, and even began to smoke, which seemed unthinkable a couple of decades ago. Their world was no longer threatened, why then the empty chores and hardships?

Many of the rich "forgot" about the social origin of the capital they disposed of. Instead of directing them, as before, to things pleasing to God and beneficial to fellow believers, they built real palaces for themselves in Moscow, which aroused envy even among representatives of the reigning dynasty. And the breeder Guchkov, for example, simply embezzled the money of the Preobrazhensky community.

The history of the Russian Old Believer economic miracle, built on commitment and trust, ended in 1917. But even if the then tragic events had not occurred in the Russian state, it is unlikely that the “economy on parole” could have survived much longer.

School of Life.ru, Alexey Norkin

The other side of Moscow. The capital in secrets, myths and mysteries Grechko Matvey

Merchants-Old Believers

Merchants-Old Believers

If you walk straight along Bakuninskaya Street, under the bridge, passing Yauza, you can go to Basmannaya Sloboda and continue the tour of the preserved palaces. But Bakuninskaya Street is quite long, and historically unremarkable, and there are a lot of interesting things near the Elektrozavodskaya metro station. Therefore, for a while it is worth emerging from the Petrine era and transporting yourself to a slightly later time.

The Electrozavodskaya station is named after the existing plant. Its Gothic building was designed in the mid-1910s for the Riga partnership of Russian-French factories, which evacuated the enterprise from Riga (this was the beginning of the First World War, and the industrialists were afraid of occupation), at the same time the Rubber plant was moved to Moscow.

Initially, the factory building was conceived as a kind of medieval castle with rose windows and high towers, but because of the war, the project was cut down and retained architectural delights only from the side of the main entrance.

Previously, there was a “laundry pond” here - on the Khapilovka River, dammed along the entire course, for the most part enclosed in a pipe even under Paul the First. Now, in place of the pond, there is a narrow Zhuravlev Square, more like an ordinary street. On the square - several merchant houses of characteristic architecture. The most significant entrepreneurs here were the Old Believer merchants Nosovs from the Preobrazhenskaya community. Their factory is house number 1 on Malaya Semyonovskaya Street, actually located right there, on the square. The Nosovs also lived nearby - house number 126 on Lavrentievskaya Street, now Elektrozavodskaya.

The founders of the factory, the Nosov brothers, began to independently engage in weaving and dyeing in 1829, having founded a factory on the shore of the Khapilovsky Pond that produced dradedam shawls - that is, rather cheap shawls made of fine cloth, very popular at that time. This is exactly what poor Sonechka Marmeladova wore. The brothers themselves weaved, dyed and dried the scarves, and the wives decorated them with fringes. Later, the factory began to produce better quality thick and strong cloths - army, Caucasian (Circassians were sewn from this) ...

Vasily Dmitrievich Nosov was the head of the case for many years. He built the first house here. The son of Nosov, Vasily Vasilyevich, married the beautiful Evfemia Ryabushinsky, a girl, although brought up in the old faith, but educated and somewhat eccentric. Then the old Vasily Dmitrievich decided to move out, leaving the old house to the young. Probably, secretly wanting to wipe his nose at his excessively refined daughter-in-law, he invited the famous architect Kekushev, a master of the Art Nouveau style (it was he who had built the Nosovskaya factory, the Old Believer hospital and houses for the Grachev merchants, also Old Believers), and made an order, choosing a project from a foreign magazine. The mansion turned out to be a success: with all the achievements of comfort, water heating, hot and cold water. At the same time, the house was built not of stone, but of wood - as the owner wished, considering wood to be a healthier material. The house was divided into two halves: the lower, male, where Nosov himself and his servants lived, and the female, where his sister and female servants were located.

Now the house is occupied by a branch of the Russian Youth State Library, and you can go there, the interiors are partially preserved. Sometimes classical music concerts are held there.

Not wanting to lag behind her father-in-law, Evfimiya Pavlovna set up an art salon, where fashionable writers and artists were invited. The beauty Mrs. Nosova loved painting, following the example of her father, she collected paintings, and artists willingly painted her portraits. She invited the young architect Zholtovsky to rebuild the large hall, she was going to order Serov to paint it, but the artist died before he could finish the job. After the revolution, the Nosovs had to emigrate, leaving everything behind. Evfimiya Pavlovna went to Rome and lived there to an advanced age. Her house first became a museum of local lore, then a nursery ... Now it is occupied by a bank.

The Nosov merchants belonged to the Preobrazhensky Old Believer community and donated a lot to its churches. With the money of the merchants Nosov and Khludov, in particular, the bell tower of the monastery was built, which has survived to this day. The architect Kekushev owns the project for the building of the community hospital (now there is a tuberculosis dispensary).

Along Malaya Semyonovskaya and Ninth Rota Street (there are remains of old buildings on both), we exit to Preobrazhensky Val, which connects the Preobrazhenskaya Ploshchad and Semyonovskaya metro stations. It is here that the Preobrazhenskaya Old Believers Sloboda and the Nikolsky Edinoverie Monastery are located (once it also belonged to the Old Believers).

Now the Preobrazhenskaya Old Believer community is very closed, it unites the Bespopovtsy Old Believers, or Theodosians, who are considered by many to be sectarians. They themselves call themselves Old Orthodox Christians, who do not accept the priesthood, that is, they do not recognize any priests and, therefore, the sacraments performed by them: in their opinion, the Antichrist has already come into the world, the last times have come and the grace of the priesthood has been interrupted. Baptism and confession are performed by elected laity, and on matters of marriage there is a division: into those who accept and those who do not accept marriage, because the priest also performs the sacrament of marriage. One of the most significant preachers who did not accept marriage was Theodosius Vasiliev. His followers created the Transfiguration community in 1771 (after the plague). However, no one wanted to live without a family or in sin, and gradually even the Theodosians were inclined to recognize the marriage, and sometimes even the marriage performed by the Nikonian priest. You will not be allowed into the territory of this community under any circumstances: it is surrounded by a high wall and is completely closed to outsiders. You can go around it and go through the old Transfiguration cemetery - also formerly Old Believer, but now it has become common. Many ancient tombstones and chapels have been preserved here.

The Transfiguration Cemetery is located at approximately equal distance from two metro stations - Preobrazhenskaya Square and Semyonovskaya. Both of them are named after Peter's regiments.

Merchants Chikins and others ... Not far from the village of Chikino near Gatchina, the ruins of the former copper smelter of the merchant brothers Alexander Ivanovich and Ivan Ivanovich Chikins have been preserved. Not far from the ruins stands a miraculously surviving pedestal from the monument to Alexander II (emperor in 1860

Merchants, artists, poets... The story about the house number 10 on the Makarov Embankment, probably, should begin with a description of the surrounding area. The river is the Malaya Neva, the embankment is the former Tuchkov. Very close - Tuchkov bridge. Both the bridge and the embankment owe their names to the merchant Abraham Tuchkov, on

Goldfinches and Philosophers, Merchants and Kings Talking about Grimm, the bourgeois adventurer, returns to the problem of role masks, behavioral stereotypes that people of the Enlightenment followed. Our task is to correlate the behavior of adventurers with the generally accepted, to show what it is

Merchants Alekseevs The Alekseevs come from the peasants of the Yaroslavl province, the founder of the family is considered to be Alexei Petrov (1724–1775), married to the daughter of a groom, Count P. B. Sheremetev. He moved to Moscow and appeared in the lists of the Moscow merchants from 1746, trading together with

The authority of the Old Believer merchants was so great that they did not need confirmation of creditworthiness, contracts, receipts to complete a transaction, it was enough to have an honest word, sealed with the sign of the cross.

Here is the merchant Prokhorov... A merchant by birth, but in his soul he is higher than any grandee... Accept tribute from me, most respectable man Prokhorov, you have reconciled me with my beloved Fatherland... you are the beauty of the Russian people, friend of mankind. Continue your good deeds.

A. F. Bestuzhev-Ryumin

At the end of the century before last, Russia almost became Europe. Moreover, thanks to the most seemingly conservative and traditionalist category of the population - the merchants. But the fact remains: at the expense of the Morozovs, Soldatenkovs, Khludovs, Ryabushinskys, medical clinics, aerodynamic and psychological institutes were built, geographical expeditions were organized, theaters were created.

What do we know about merchants? "A couple of tea" for two kopecks, oiled boots, barn books, stinginess in everyday life and unprecedented generosity, bells and samovars, gypsies, charity, a headrest chest, ceremoniality and revelry, religiosity and a penchant for fraud. The Russian merchant got lost somewhere between the accusatory caricatures of Ostrovsky and the almost iconic faces of Melnikov-Pechersky...

In general, the merchant class should be considered as a complex architectural structure with many passages, outbuildings, ladders and secret rooms. The nobility, if we follow this architectural metaphor, was a much less interesting class.

In Russian literature, the merchant's ambiguity and inconsistency reflects the plot, migrating from one work to another. It can be found in Leskov, in Mamin-Sibiryak, and even (unexpectedly) in Blok's poetry. This story is about the fact that rich merchants or, in the second half of the 19th century, large industrialists and breeders do not know the restraint and do not know the limit to their whims, sometimes cruel, and how, after carousing, they also indulge in excessive prayers, rituals of purification. About how terrible orgies are going on in some rooms in the same house, and at the same time a service is being performed in the chapel.

Most likely, this merchant's house with orgies and prayers should be taken as a metaphor that reveals life inside the merchant class. As in any ethnic group, the upper floors of this house were inhabited by their saints, and the lower floors by cynical predators.

The representative of a well-known entrepreneurial family, V.P. Ryabushinsky, in the articles "The Russian Master" and "The Moscow Merchants", written by him in exile, identified five types of Russian merchant:

"Masters at heart, hard-working, thrifty, efficient. They are the organizers of labor, creators of values, accumulators of the world's wealth."

"Saints, selfless, unpretentious, undemanding. For them, worldly blessings do not matter."

"Envious people, embittered and barren people."

"Mismanagement people, careless, devoid of business sense and understanding, mediocre, wasteful, stupid, lazy. This also includes dreamers, theoreticians far from life and naive dreamers."

"Passive majority".

Ryabushinsky clarifies that these types are rare in their pure form, mixed are more common. For example, the combination of "saint" and "master" gave Russia the first abbots of northern Russian monasteries. And the combination of "owner" and "naive dreamer" is Savva Timofeevich Morozov, the richest homeowner, tough businessman, generous patron of the Moscow Art Theater and donor of huge sums to the revolutionary movement in Russia (financed the Bolshevik newspaper Iskra, the political Red Cross, as well as organized the escape of revolutionary figures).

Everything seems to be simple. But if you look closely, the construction turns out to be not only multi-storey, but also multi-tiered. Within the ethnos, another one is found, in which a special caste of entrepreneurs has settled, no less noble and decent than the nobles now commemorated with longing.

What immediately catches the eye is that almost all of them, the inhabitants of this half, the founders and heirs of famous merchant families, and later major merchants and industrialists - the Morozovs, Ryabushinskys, Prokhorovs, Nosovs - were Old Believers (they are also schismatics and Old Believers).

Now it never occurs to anyone to deny the exceptional role of the Old Believers in the trade in grain, timber, salt, in the modernization of the first and most powerful private capitalist sector of the economy - the textile industry. By the beginning of the 20th century, two powerful lobbies were active in the real sector of the economy of the Russian Empire: foreigners and Old Believer merchants.

Old Believer communities that appeared in the 17th century after the split of the Russian Orthodox Church, played almost the same role in the formation of Russian capitalism as the Protestants in the West. Historians like to compare Protestants and schismatics, emphasizing the similarity of their confessional and ethical systems - asceticism, diligence, frugality, honesty, thoroughness. But the similarity with Protestant ethics only at first glance seems indisputable. Unlike the Protestants, who regarded prosperity as a virtue, for Old Believer merchants, earning money was not an end in itself. Buryshkin, a Moscow merchant and public figure at the beginning of the 20th century, writes in his memoirs: "They said about wealth that God gave it for use and would require a report on it." The entrepreneur saw himself "as God's trustee in the management of property."

In the biographies of famous merchants, it is mentioned more than once that it was not power, fame and money that moved entrepreneurs, they were not the goal of life, but business. A business that became a kind of service. The Old Believers treated work and labor as seriously and zealously as they did the performance of religious rites. This gave their life a regimented, orderly nature that was almost uncharacteristic of the rest of the population. And if we add to this severe restrictions, the rejection of luxury, an almost ascetic life, it becomes clear why the Old Believer entrepreneurs got rich so quickly and easily outperformed competitors. "Everything for the cause - nothing for oneself" - such was the position of the founder of the Ryabushinsky dynasty.

It was the merchants-Old Believers who set the tone in the business environment. The authority of the Old Believers was so great that in order to complete a transaction they did not need confirmation of creditworthiness, contracts, receipts, an honest word, sealed with the sign of the cross, was enough. Timofey Savvich Morozov, going on business trips, never took large sums of money with him, he used his authority as a kind of credit. Anyone could give him a loan, knowing firmly that after returning to Moscow he would give everything in full and he would not have to be "washed into powder." By the way, this expression is directly related to merchant office work. The fact is that merchants usually wrote down the names of the debtors and the amount of the debt with chalk on the lintel, and if after the agreed period the debtor was not announced, the debt was forgiven (“as we leave it to our debtors”), and the inscription was “washed into powder”. This dealt a crushing blow to the reputation, so they were afraid to be "erased".

By the way, there is still an opinion that parole deals were distributed only within the Old Believer communities, that it was forbidden to deceive fellow believers, but "strangers" were not forbidden. This idea, which contradicts the main principle of business ethics of the Old Believers "unrighteous wealth is evil", most likely arose outside the business environment. The isolation and solidarity of the Old Believers evoked almost superstitious horror in the majority of the population, who were not accustomed to such an absolutely un-Russian serious attitude towards their lives, their work and their environment.

It seems that the Old Believers were hated not only by the authorities, but also by those for whom the introduction of a high business culture was unprofitable, since it created a tough competitive environment. What could oppose the Tit Titychi, whose main principle of trade was the ability to sell stale goods, to the Old Believer desire for quality ("if you don't like it, bring it back, I'll take it"). Only that they are "their own", Orthodox, and those - it seems like "strangers". But the client, of course, was little interested in the religious beliefs of the entrepreneur, he saw the result and went to a place where he would not be deceived, they would not try to sell him some rubbish.

How did it happen that in the midst of the eternal Russian laxity, mismanagement, a completely special caste of entrepreneurs suddenly arises, a unique combination of deep faith and a prosperous life? They don’t drink, they don’t play, they don’t debauch, they don’t cheat, they honestly do their job and at the same time make huge fortunes in front of those who justify their uncleanliness by saying that it’s impossible not to steal in Russia.

Usually, researchers of this phenomenon give two reasons - either it is explained through a stable ethical originality (according to Max Weber), that is, internal worldview attitudes, or through the "persecuted group effect" (according to W. Petty), due to external social conditions or the position of a "minority" in society.

From the moment of the break with the church, which occurred immediately after the liturgical reform of Patriarch Nikon, the Old Believers found themselves in the position of a "persecuted group" persecuted by the authorities until 1905, when Nicholas II's manifesto "On strengthening the principles of religious tolerance" was issued. Apparently, the feeling of being chosen, of a special mission (preservation of the true faith and traditions), comparable only to the chosenness of the Jews by God, gave strength and helped to exist worthily in a rather hostile environment.

In the Russian Orthodox tradition at that time there was no theologically grounded entrepreneurial ethic. A fairly stable opinion has developed that church life should be limited to the sphere of spiritual salvation, and everything else is "worldly fuss" unworthy of attention. Entrepreneurship was considered a kind of "risk zone" - the pursuit of profit, passionate immersion in business easily lead to the oblivion of genuine spiritual virtues. Even Russian proverbs warned that wealth is always fraught with the danger of death: "Let your soul go to hell - you will be rich", "Saved, saved, and the devil bought it."

The most religious Orthodox merchants pleaded for each of their "entry into the market", donated huge sums ("to the church"), atoning for their guilt for having to do "dirty business".

The historian Golubinsky wrote on this occasion: “Our merchants, so zealous in outward prayer, so devoted to churches and burning inextinguishable lamps in their shops, observe honesty in trade to such an extent that one might think that they are lighting lamps so that God helped them deceive people."

For Old Believer entrepreneurs, trade has ceased to be a "dirty business." The worldview of the Old Believers remained Orthodox, but the emphasis changed. In understanding economic issues, they often appealed to the Old Testament. Entrepreneurial activity was perceived by them (and in this the Old Believers are very close to the Protestants) as a sphere of direct service to God and self-realization of the individual. Only unrighteous wealth is evil, but blessed is he who makes wealth and feeds others. Trade, if you do not take too much, is legalized, "honest weights are pleasing to God."

The Old Believers were not only innovators and reformers in this respect. Although the core of their mentality and behavior has always remained conservative values, they were forced to adapt these values ​​"in the world." Thanks to the Old Believers, it was possible to preserve for future generations collections of ancient icons, books, many ancient Russian literary genres (pateric, martyrology, spiritual poems), the Byzantine tradition of singing on hooks. But economic and technological innovations are also largely their merit. The Old Believers, especially the generation of the late 19th century, did not shy away from scientific and technical achievements. For example, in the Ryabushinsky estate, the first small hydroelectric power station in the district appeared (which until the thirties provided electricity to the surrounding villages), they were also the owners of the first car in Moscow. In 1905, Dmitry Pavlovich Ryabushinsky, a graduate of Moscow University, founded a scientific aerodynamic laboratory on the estate (with the largest wind tunnel in Europe). Soon after the revolution, TsAGI was organized in Moscow and all the equipment was taken there. On the basis of another Ryabushinsky laboratory, hydrodynamic, in the 1930s, a branch of the VODGEO Institute was opened in Kuchino.

Sometimes the latest technologies were borrowed from Western Europe, but many industrialists, as their business developed, initiated their own scientific research. At the Trekhgornaya Manufactory Prokhorov, laboratories equipped with modern equipment were created, where scientists from Moscow University worked, and important discoveries were made here, for example, in the field of dyes.

The Prokhorovs were among the first to switch to the use of peat, coal and oil residues, they financed competitions for the best way to treat wastewater. Discharge of industrial waste into the river was not allowed, from the very beginning of the existence of the manufactory on its territory, at a sufficient distance from the shore, there were deep sedimentation tanks, the contents of which were once a week taken out far from the city.

Unlike many sects that fenced themselves off from the "world" with its vanity, temptations, especially from trade (God forbid!), Old Believers sought to transform this "world". The Old Believers not only wished for personal salvation, they strove for the arrangement here, on Earth, of all life in God's way, with earthly blessings, with "a prosperous and peaceful life." Therefore, the efforts of Old Believer merchants also transformed the social environment around them.

In places where there were Old Believer communities almost the entire population was literate. The prosperity of the local peasants was combined with an equally high cultural level. In almost all these settlements, "native" Old Believer schools were created.

The Old Believers cared not only about the cultural level of the locals, but also about their well-being. Melnikov-Pechersky writes about this: “Some peasants of the surrounding villages were made in factories as clerks, clerks, etc., others began to work in their homes on orders from factory owners. Looms appeared in almost every house, and the former poor farmers and foresters turned into prosperous industrialists. The rich supported them, gave them the means to make money, grow rich and become factory owners and millionaires themselves. But the Old Believer factory owners only gave earnings to those of the peasants, only helped those who stood with them under the same banner "

Melnikov-Pechersky emphasizes that the Old Believers helped only "their own". And here he is not entirely objective, since he judges the Old Believers in a rather biased way. Although they really took the selection of personnel at their enterprises very seriously and were much more willing to hire brothers in faith, the main criterion was not common faith, but the decency and good reputation of the worker. Many of them were engaged in the education of their personnel. And this is clearly seen in the example of Prokhorov's Trekhgornaya manufactory.

One of the most important factors that determined the success of Prokhorov's enterprises was many years of purposeful work to train specialists. At the manufactory, there was a private school for artisan students, which then turned into a manufacturing and technical school that produced hundreds of highly skilled workers and craftsmen. It was the first school of its kind, which became the basis of craft education in Russia.

The management of the Trekhgornaya manufactory was concerned not only with increasing the efficiency of production, but also to a very large extent with the preservation and revival of a healthy lifestyle. The factory had strict rules that prescribed sober and well-behaved behavior, prohibiting absenteeism and foul language, especially in the presence of young students. Failure to comply with these requirements inevitably entailed dismissal. Since such "cruel" demands deprived workers of the opportunity to lead their usual wild life, not everyone was satisfied with the "exploiters" Prokhorovs, despite the fact that the workers of Trekhgorka lived quite decently at that time, having good living conditions, a full "social package", a decent salary, old age pension. A good worker was given the opportunity to prove himself, the injured were helped. The factory first had its own paramedic, and then a doctor who came twice a week. A little later, an outpatient clinic opened. Since 1887, the manufactory had its own power station, which supplied light to the entire microdistrict, including hostels.

In 1900, at the World Exhibition in Paris, the manufactory received the highest awards: the Grand Prix for industrial activity, a gold medal for sanitary work and for caring for the life of workers, a gold medal for a school of artisan students, and personally Nikolai Ivanovich Prokhorov (the fourth generation of the dynasty) - Order of the Legion of Honor for industrial and charitable activities.

But what about those "inhuman working conditions" about which the Marxists spoke with such anguish? The most "inhumane" for the Russian proletarians, apparently, was the fight against drunkenness, so even such socially oriented enterprises as the Prokhorov factory had their own "critical mass" that organized strikes and attended rallies (everything is better than working). But it must be said that the workers of Trekhgorka did not actively fight the "exploiters", which caused dissatisfaction with the revolutionary-minded "comrades", they were called "Black Hundreds" for loyalty to the leadership and unwillingness to waste working time on rallies. There were also criticisms from the right. They accused the then owners of the factory of excessive "liberalism", arguing that by its unconditional fulfillment of all requirements, the administration corrupts the workers, who are convinced that they can get their way by "robber attacks."

The episode that happened in the winter of 1904 is very indicative. When the Baku and St. Petersburg labor movement initiated a number of strikes, the factories of the association of the Prokhorov Trekhgornaya manufactory also joined in them. Demands of an economic nature, developed by the Baku and St. Petersburg "comrades", were presented - they demanded the establishment of a school, a nursery, and so on. In relation to Prokhorov's manufactory, this was so absurd that it aroused laughter from most of the workers, since all this had existed with them for a hundred years.

Nevertheless, the Prokhorovka manufactory became the center of an armed uprising on Presnya. True, as it now turned out, this did not happen at all on the initiative of the factory workers, but solely due to a convenient strategic position in the center of Moscow.

The representative of the first generation of the Prokhorovs, Vasily Ivanovich, remained in Moscow during the war of 1812, protecting his production facilities and food supplies from looting. His courage and courage aroused a feeling of respect even among the French colonel who commanded the unit that occupied Presnya. Great-great-grandson Nikolai Ivanovich Prokhorov during the armed uprising and siege in 1906 remained at the factory day and night. None of the invaders dared to touch him. In the midst of the uprising, Prokhorov went to the mayor to deliver a letter from the workers with a request to send troops and free them from combatants.

The behavior of the Prokhorovs was natural for the Old Believer environment. Although at the beginning of the 20th century the Old Believer merchants, refined, European-educated patrons of the arts, did not much resemble their ancestors who wore rich beards, the main thing remained unchanged a century later - the same ethics of the "Russian master" and religiosity.

On Thursday, June 19, the cycle of lectures Homo religiosus, organized by the Yegor Gaidar Foundation, the Russian Economic School and the Dynasty Foundation, ended. As part of the lecture "Economics and Orthodoxy" Danila Raskov, Candidate of Economic Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Economic Theory and the Department of Problems of Interdisciplinary Synthesis in the Field of Social and Human Sciences of St. Petersburg State University, spoke about how economic relations were formed among the Old Believers and why they turned out to be so effective as entrepreneurs. Full text lectures can be read on the website of the Yegor Gaidar Foundation, and we abbreviated that part of it that is directly devoted to the analysis of the economic activity of the Old Believers in Russia.

I don’t know how much detail is needed and whether it is necessary to explain who the Old Believers are. Initially, the split, as you know, arose as a result of the reform of 1654-1666: there was a long process, since ritual differences gave rise to a fairly serious struggle, which resulted in one of the most big tragedies in the history of our country. It is no coincidence that Solzhenitsyn is credited with the words that "if it weren't for the 17th century, there would be no 1917." What we see here: well, let's say, two-fingered. Indeed, due to the advance of the Russian Empire towards Little Russia, Ukraine, it became necessary to bring the ritual part to a single canon. There was an idea to call the Greeks and stabilize the rite. In history, it must be said, they were baptized with three fingers, and with two. To XVII century on the very territory of Constantinople, they were baptized with three fingers, but later historians revealed that there is a Studian charter and there is a Jerusalem charter, they are just different, and there are different sign of the cross. But because of this seemingly small difference, it all started: how to draw - “Jesus” or “Jesus”, pray on seven prosphora or on five, according to the sun procession or against the sun.

The Old Believers set themselves the task of preserving unchanged not only the ritual side - this was connected with the entire liturgical rite. Then, of course, what is interesting, the original conservatism brought to life serious innovations. For example, the radical innovation of the Bespopovites: to completely abandon five of the seven sacraments, since this was the result of the rejection of the priesthood. In this sense, they are just compared, and partly rightly, with Protestants: there will be an instrumental similarity here. The second element of the picture of the world that can be identified among the Old Believers is the idea of ​​"Moscow is the third Rome" and, in general, eschatologism. It is generally inherent in Christian thought, and not only in Christian thought, both Babylonian and Egyptian. But when this becomes actual, it is difficult to understand why, at some point in time, eschatological feelings lead to self-immolation, and at some point, to hard work. This is one of the ambivalent elements that manifest themselves in different ways in different periods of time, and it is inherent in the entire Christian culture.

Well, the last thing I would note in the picture of the world is the desire to develop a practice that in more would correspond to a true, correct life. Because where is the Antichrist, he can be very close: maybe in the handset, maybe in the device; or maybe how I pick up the phone depends on whether he is there or not. Some today are convinced that you shouldn't keep your phone at home. Then such hooks appeared: you come to the house, to the sacred space, and hang up your mobile phone at the entrance. The TV is also taboo for the older generation, but if it is in the closet, it is already easier, sometimes it opens - to show cartoons, for example. In fact, these practices of salvation have interesting aspects in economic life too.

If we talk about economic ethics and practice, what do we see? Both missionaries and those who traveled around the country, for example Aksakov, who was sent to Moldavia and Bessarabia, were surprised, left notes that the Old Believer villages were more prosperous: it was cleaner there, more horses, cows, and so on. And so it is almost everywhere. Thrift yes, idleness no. No one should be idle - community interaction, help, trust. The institutions of trust could also be transformed into the area of ​​capital. When a community finds itself in a situation of persecution, these issues are quickly updated, any means of fighting for survival become important and significant.

By the way, what happened in the Old Believers: the spiritual elite itself initially blessed both trade and entrepreneurship. Moreover, the experience of the Vygovskaya Pomeranian Hermitage (this is still the beginning of the 18th century, that is, one of the very first experiments) showed that the kinoviarchs, that is, the leaders of such a secular monastery (secular, because there were no priests, there were no monks by definition, therefore correctly called - hostel or kinovia), they themselves led the trade and participated in it, took loans together. It's pretty much even described. Trading rules appeared: how to trade, how to keep records. According to some observations, even in the Soviet years, the Old Believers were more trusted with accounting. This issue requires a separate study, but is partially confirmed.

At the same time, we have a certain paradox: the paradox of conservatism and innovative potential. He, of course, is not the only one - here you can recall, say, Orthodox Jews, recently a lot of research has appeared on this subject, in America - the Amish, for example. The examples are local, but they are interesting.

How many Old Believers-industrialists were in Moscow?

How successful were the Old Believers in Moscow, in particular in textiles, what determined success, what was the dynamics? Actually, what has been done in historical and economic terms. There are two sets of data: one is industrial, the other is confessional, that is, associated with belonging to the Old Believers. Their union gives an answer to the question of how successful the Old Believers were. Of course, a lot of doubts arise here: if the head of the enterprise is an Old Believer, can we consider that this is an Old Believer business? Ambiguous. The question is even if he acts like an Old Believer, but has already converted to the same faith or official Orthodoxy, does the business cease to belong to the Old Believers or not? You have to answer somehow. I answer yes to the first question, and no to the second. If the head of the factory is an Old Believer, then yes, I believe that this is an Old Believer enterprise, although there are some reservations.

By the end of the 19th century, the situation became more complicated, joint-stock companies appeared - more impersonal forms of business management, which did not exist in the middle of the 19th century, or were extremely uncommon. But in textiles it still dominates private business. Even if a joint-stock company is being created, it is still known who the shareholder is: usually it is five families, five dynasties or someone outside, foreigners or from official Orthodoxy - at the end of the 19th century, this all changes.

In the 1850s, the question arose: how many schismatics do we really have? We began to look at what data they supply: every year - the same thing, with a slight downward trend. But if you look - who supplies? Bishops. But the bishops report: the struggle is going well, there are fewer and fewer of them. They sent a commission to the places, but there are no criteria here either. It got to the point of absurdity. For example, there was such a Sinitsyn: he came to the Yaroslavl province and wherever he found copper icons in the houses, he believed that they were Old Believers. It turned out that there are 18 times more Old Believers than according to the data of the bishops, which is also wrong, because if a person has a copper icon, then it can simply be folk Orthodoxy, he is not necessarily an Old Believer. Then a criterion was introduced: is there a rosary and how is it baptized. But a person can also be baptized with two fingers, and in church several times with three fingers, while one of the priests is watching. That is, the criteria were very difficult.

In the 19th century, we really see a lot of biographies, when a person lived, and then once - and suddenly he suddenly became rich. Ryabushinsky - it's only for the sake of marriage that he converts to the old faith, the founder of the dynasty, then he rises. We see: a lot of neophytes. The founder of the Preobrazhensky cemetery, Ilya Alekseevich Kovylin, is also a neophyte, and there are a lot of such biographies. People from Guslitsa are known - such an ancient place where people have never been engaged in agriculture, but where there were a lot of crafts - Gzhel is also included there. It was rumored that they were also good at forging banknotes, if necessary, passports.

Trumps of the Old Believers

What is the comparative context for this problem? On the one hand, ethics, on the other, the effect of the persecuted group. What interests economists in such topics? Economists are interested in the homogeneity of the group and the various characteristics of this homogeneity, and it is clear that this has certain advantages for trade. The possibility of private settlement of conflicts: if the legal system is not developed, and the community itself, for example, can discount bills or conduct some other operations, or generally guarantee property rights, that is, exercise parallel control. The same goes for the origin of the mafia in Italy, one of the theories is: the aristocracy is gone - the lords are gone, and who are the masters of the land? And then people appear and say: we know how to act.

With a strong legal and judicial system, this comparative advantage becomes irrelevant - institutions of trust, reciprocity, big debates on reputation mechanisms - how are they even measured and how do they affect trade and industry? And, of course, all this can be packaged into formulas such as human capital and social capital. For example, education or literacy: it is obvious that the Old Believers were generally more literate than the average peasantry, which is part of official Orthodoxy. Why? We had to conduct the service ourselves, copy the books ourselves. Literacy in this sense was expensive, not everyone could afford it. It took time, effort, and money to learn. Suppose the cow had to be given to the one who taught. Social capital is the relationships that are already formed in communities: an instrument of reputation, trust, and so on. All this can be packaged in different ways, as I said.

How do we know the numbers?

Now very briefly about the data - and move on to the results. In principle, revisions give a lot in terms of understanding belonging to the Old Believers in Moscow. The ninth and tenth revisions took into account religion. According to the results of the ninth audit, 624 families were registered as parishioners of either the non-priest community or the priest's community. Most of the priestly community, somewhere around 85% for this period. The difference between priests and bespopovtsy ranges from 70% to 90%. This is due, among other things, to the fact that the Bespopovtsy advertised their affiliation less, remained in the shadows, because they were officially recognized as more harmful, and feared reprisals.

Very interesting information is given by the synodics. We already know this for sure: since they pray in the church of the Rogozh community, it means that they are definitely Old Believers. There were observations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a very interesting document of 1838, in fact, about all significant merchants with a description of their activities. As for industry, they managed to take seven points - this is not so many, but not so few - and get hold of all the data on doing business. For processing, information was used only for six years, the cut-off level was from 10 thousand rubles, because the same accounting was not carried out for all years. Of course, we still need to figure it out, but in general we can say that there is still no more reliable information. For textile factories, there is data on turnover, the number of workers, and what they did. For 1871 - detailed information about the technical condition, but this has yet to be provided additionally.

This is what industrial information looks like: who and where is located, how many mills, workers, turnover, what it produces - by year.

This map shows how important Moscow industry was: we see that with a huge excess, twice, in 1870 Moscow industry is in the lead. Then factories appear in the Vladimir region, in the Ryazan region, of course, in St. Petersburg, but this is somewhat later. By 1832, as a result of this processing, we see that 18% of the textile industry belongs to the Old Believers. The next question is: is it a lot or a little? In principle, given that this is thoroughly confirmed, a lot. In this case, we are talking about 60, if we take the city and counties, and 76 enterprises. They are, of course, different in size. There is no exact data on the number of Old Believers, but estimates fluctuate, starting at 4%. The most optimistic figure is 16% for one of the years. From this you can judge what is happening.

These are general data, they are pro-cyclical, and we see that the upper blue border is the total number of firms, then the dotted pink dash is just the proportion of Old Believer firms. There is some stability, and then a recession. Stability is about 20-25%, then, at the end of the 19th century, there is a decrease. Accordingly, the number of firms remains roughly the same.

If we take the overall data for the textile industry, we see (share is the red line, green dotted line is the labor force) that at some periods there is a comparative advantage in the labor force, that is, they are able to attract significantly more workers. And the share of firms in the total turnover is also subject to such a single cycle. In this case, it is more than 20%, and after 1870 there is a decline.

More specifically, in the wool industry. In the first column here is simply the share of enterprises, then the share in turnover, the share in the labor force. In this table, it is interesting that the share of the employed labor force almost always exceeds the share of firms, that is, there are relatively more workers working there, while the output is relatively higher than the labor force indicator, labor productivity is higher. And this delta is the difference in the median value for the totality of Old Believers and non-Old Believers, Old Believers minus non-Old Believers. In this sense, their average labor productivity per worker is higher. It is clear that this is the “average temperature in the hospital”, because there are some very large enterprises, and there are small ones, but this will still tell us a lot, especially since we are taking not the average here, but the median, and this gives closer to reality.

We no longer have this in the cotton industry, and here it is clear that these are mainly small firms with low productivity, and the share will be much higher than the share in terms of turnover. Well, not significantly - depending on the years, sometimes significantly, sometimes the same. But here we no longer see the general dynamics. Moreover, by the end of the 19th century, the cotton industry partially left Moscow and the Moscow district, so we see such data. In any case, the Old Believers no longer have any weight here: the Morozovs are already working in the Tver province or in other districts, for example, in Borovsky.

In principle, what we found is that the Old Believers were overrepresented, they had an increased propensity for entrepreneurship, they hired on average more labor in the wool industry, and the enterprises showed high productivity. In general, until 1870 we observe a very stable participation in economic life, then a relative decline.

Waves of repression and cycles of economic activity

How to interpret the fall and how important are empirical data to us in this aspect? It is very interesting to trace the cyclical waves of repression. Some historians write that this is of great importance, because first there were harsh repressions, almost suffocation, and then weakening. And then moments of weakening, liberalization, respectively, form a special community, institutions appear, and this very moment of persecution leads to the fact that natural selection leaves these close-knit people, the strongest. I am joking about this: for a long time there was no persecution of the Old Believers, so now they are not so noticeable economically. But this is a joke, of course. In principle, already under Nicholas I, they set the task of solving the problem with the Old Believers, but they could not. At the same time, for example, they still awarded medals - there were persecutions and awards at the same time, because who will solve the problems? I came across a document: it is known that the sovereign will go there and there, and then they missed it, the road is broken, because military exercises or something like that took place along it. Who will restore? We turned to the Old Believer merchants. They have restored everything and say: we have only one thing - give us a state diploma that we are so good. Well, they did. Or in Petrozavodsk: the sovereign will arrive - but the embankment is not in order. Who will fix it? And a medal for that too. That is, the history of the appearance of the medal is clear here. There were different interpretations, I probably won't dwell on it.

A more interesting question is how to explain the decline. At first, we see the underdevelopment of market institutions, and then the role of the Old Believers is significant. In general, when personal relationships dominate, Christian ethics are in demand; when legal institutions grow, its role in any case decreases, it becomes marginalized. For example, honesty: it is clear that honesty is important in trading. By the way, while researching the Old Believer entrepreneurship, I saw that not everything is simple there. Sometimes siblings give each other money by receipt. It would seem: why on receipt - these are brothers. And so that the devil does not get stuck! That is, they gave a receipt - and you can live in peace.

The role of Moscow

In the second half of the 19th century, we see the development of joint-stock forms of ownership, that is, impersonal relations, the banking sector; growing number of foreigners. If you look at the St. Petersburg merchant guild, then 40 percent there will be Protestants and Jews, in some periods even more. This is a different picture in terms of the fact that the very nature of business is changing. The role of the state has changed: if in the first half of the 19th century it was not particularly active, then later it is more and more clearly indicated. Therefore, of course, the Old Believers in this sense consciously or unconsciously distance themselves. On the one hand, the state itself is not exactly eager to help them financially, on the other hand, they themselves are retreating. Other areas are developing: railway construction, metallurgy, mining. Well, in general, the role of St. Petersburg is important - as Ryabushinsky wrote, slow Russian peasants who measuredly make decisions, crossing themselves, die in the atmosphere of St. Petersburg. Here already other personalities come to replace.

Pros and cons of the Old Believer model

The last aspect that I will dwell on is that economic ethics itself has an ambivalent character. It would seem that hard work is good. But to a certain extent. Everything depends on the historical moment, on the ability to adjust and adapt. If at some stage this can contribute to high productivity, then at another stage it preserves labor-intensive production. We work hard and work and work instead of replacing it with machine labor.
Thrift – On the one hand, frugality has promoted self-financing. On the other hand, when it became possible to borrow at a low interest bank loans, frugality could slow down processes, because a habit was formed to live on one's own. When there was no capital market, it was very important.

Trust, but trust in whom - in the elect, in the same Old Believers. It is clear that there may be an interest-free loan, and the availability of labor, but the flip side is weak integration into the impersonal market process and even some kind of distrust in it. That also hinders development.
Finally, community. On the one hand, it ensures close economic ties, but they are self-contained, segregated. There is a well-known sociological work - "The Power of Weak Ties": the strength of weak ties among the Old Believers is no longer observed, because strong ties dominate. In this sense, one can show the ambivalence of economic ethics, which at different stages can either promote or hinder development.