Speaking about migrations, it is necessary to highlight another phenomenon that contributes to the movement of the population - seasonal work.

The temporary departure of peasants from their places of permanent residence to work in areas of developed industry and agriculture was called otkhodnik. The peasants themselves, leaving to work, were called "otkhodniki".

The main reason for the holiday was the lack of land. Allotments allocated to peasants after the reform of 1861 often did not allow them to feed their families.

First of all, the peasants of Central Russia were engaged in otkhodniki. In the non-chernozem provinces (for example, Tver and Novgorod) latrine trades were the main way of earning money for many families. However, small allotments of peasants in the Tula, Voronezh and other provinces also contributed to their leaving for work.

According to statistics of that time, in the 1880s. more than 5 million people annually engaged in side-trades (for comparison, the population of St. Petersburg, according to the 1897 population census, was 1.2 million). In different provinces, the number of migrant workers ranged from 10 to 50 percent.

The activities of migrant workers in cities were associated with several areas. First, they could be factory workers, who numbered from 10 to 35 percent among the migrant workers from different provinces. Secondly, peasants could engage in various types of work in construction (for example, be masons, plasterers, carpenters, etc.). Thirdly, the migrant workers could work as servants in taverns or (mostly women) in service in houses. Finally, most of the cabbies in the cities came from other provinces.

However, a significant part of the migrant workers worked in agriculture, hiring as farm laborers. The main directions of migration for such work: South Russia and the North Caucasus, Novorossia (Tauride, Kherson and Yekaterinoslav provinces).

The otkhodniks usually had regional specialization. For example, the tavern business in St. Petersburg was mainly associated with immigrants from the Yaroslavl province, and in the construction there were many people from the Nizhny Novgorod province. Local history literature will help to determine what your ancestors could have been doing.

A person could leave his place of residence by obtaining a passport. I will tell you about the history of passports in Russia later. Here I would like to note that, according to the Charter on Passports of 1895, there were two types of documents for peasants giving the right to leave: passport books issued for a period of 5 years to those who did not have debts in taxes and fees, and passports issued for a period of up to one years to those who had such arrears and debts.

It is rather difficult to trace the directions of migration by documents. So, in the confession statements, the absence of men might not have been recorded, and the very fact of such a record does not allow us to establish exactly where the person worked.

The most detailed information in this regard is provided by the materials of the 1897 census. It may indicate that one of the family members is a maid in St. Petersburg or works in a tavern in Moscow.

As for the search according to the documents of the place where the peasants worked, some searches are also possible here, although their result is very limited. First of all, if the whole family moved, the study can be carried out according to registers of births. Job search usually yields no results. However, in our practice there was a case when it was possible to identify the personal file of a janitor on the railway.

Thus, otkhodniki was widespread in rural areas. The study of archival documents and local history literature will help to determine what your ancestors were doing.

What was the share of migrant peasants in different regions of Russia? How did the migrant work affect the serf system? S.V. Chernikov.
The article was published in the book "Images of agrarian Russia in the 9th-18th centuries." (Moscow: Indrik, 2013.)

The problem of the formation of the capitalist structure in Russia has a fairly extensive historiography. Currently, the most widespread point of view remains that such economic relations developed in industrial production at the end of the 18th century. An important argument in favor of this position is the fact of the active expansion of the hired labor market. So, since the 60s. XVIII century and by the end of the century the number of hired workers in manufacturing and shipping had grown from 220 to 420 thousand people 1. A special place was occupied by light industry, which was served almost exclusively by hired labor. The products produced were in high demand, which created opportunities for capital accumulation 2.

However, no less important, in our opinion, is the other side of this process. After all, the main contingent of hired workers in various industries were otkhodniki peasants. It remains an open question how the spread of peasant industrial abandonment influenced the type of economic relations dominating in the Russian countryside - serf relations. The present work is devoted to this problem.

First of all, one should dwell on the reasons for the active growth of peasant withdrawal and fishing activity in general. The main one was the low level of agricultural production, which often did not meet the minimum needs of the peasant economy 3.

In historical literature, the generally accepted annual nutritional norm for an adult is 3 quarters (24 poods) of grain, which is about 3200 kcal. per day. If we include in the given "norm" the needs of the peasant household for feeding livestock, then if there are 1-2 horses on farm 4, from 12.5 to 18 poods of grain will remain per peasant. In this case, the daily ration of the farmer will consist of 1700-2400 kcal, that is, 50-75% of the "norm" 5. But a long-term decline in consumption rates (that is, constant malnutrition) under conditions of hard physical labor of the peasant is not possible. Consequently, if the cost of feeding livestock is considered in excess of the indicated 24 poods, then for one person (in a two-horse farm), a net harvest of 35.5 poods (4.4 quarters) of grain will be required.

Consider the possibilities of agricultural production in European Russia to meet the above needs. Table. 1 presents data on net harvests of grain per capita in the 1780-1790s. across 27 provinces 6.

Table 1. The level of agricultural production in European Russia in the 80-90s. XVIII century

As you can see, not a single province of the Central Non-Chernozem and Eastern regions could fit even into the lowest “norm” (3 quarters of grain per year per person). In the Northern region, net harvests of grain per capita reached 3 quarters only in the Pskov province 7. In the Chernozem region, out of 6 provinces, there was an insignificant deficit (0.2-0.4 quarters) in two - Kursk and Tambov. In the Volga region, out of three provinces, a deficit was observed in one - Simbirsk (1.2 th.). Only in the Baltic provinces (Revel and Riga) the surplus of bread was 2.5-3.0 ths. Average data for the districts indicate surplus of grain in the Baltics (2.8 quarters), the Central Black Earth Region (0.6 quarters) and the Volga region (0.5 quarters).

If we consider the rate of per capita consumption (including feeding livestock) 4.4 ths. grain per year, then a positive grain balance can be observed only in the Baltics, as well as in the Tula (surplus of 0.8 quarters), Penza (0.4 quarters) and Orel (0.2 quarters) provinces. The greatest deficit with bread was noted in the Central Black Earth Region (2.5 quarters), Northern (2.4 quarters), Eastern (2.7 quarters) regions, less significant - in the Central Black Earth Region (0.8 quarters) and the Volga region ( 0.9 th).

According to data for the 1750s - early 1770s. in European Russia, the most numerous category of farmers (landlord peasants), on average, was provided with bread below the norm in 3 quarters (24 poods). There were 21 poods per eater per year. Taking into account property groups, in the poorest group (35.9% of households) there was a shortage of 5.6 poods, in the middle (48.9% of households) - 4.1 poods. Wealthy peasants (15.2% of households) had a surplus of 3.1 poods. Differentiation according to the forms of rent was as follows: in corvee estates, the eater had a surplus of 2.6 poods, in quitrent, a shortage of 3.9 poods. In the regions, only the peasantry of the Chernozem region and the entire prosperous elite of the serf village had a positive grain balance (if we consider the “norm” 3 quarters per consumer).

Thus, it is obvious that the situation in the southern chernozem and Volga provinces was saved only by periodic high yields, and the regions of the center, north and east of European Russia as a whole (with average yields - 2-3 itself) were not able to provide themselves with grain even in peasant food and livestock feed.

This level of development of agriculture was typical for these territories and could be significantly changed only with the help of agrotechnical innovations. However, their implementation was extremely slow 9. We emphasize that the share of marketable grain (i.e., in fact, surplus consumption), according to V.K. Yatsunsky and I.D. Kovalchenko, at the beginning of the 19th century. accounted for only 9-14%, and in the middle of the century - 17% of the gross grain harvest. For the second half of the XVIII - the first half of the XIX century. labor productivity in industry has increased by about 8.6 times, and in agriculture - by only 14% 10.

Consequently, the only means capable of ensuring the survival of the peasant in marginal regions of European Russia (both at the end of the 18th century and in earlier and later periods) was to obtain income from non-agricultural crafts. However, legislative restrictions in the field of peasant industry and trade hindered the development of this direction of the economy until the second half of the 18th century.

The rise in this area was caused by a change in government policy from the early 60s. XVIII century The basis of the new course was the principles of free enterprise in trade and industry, monopolies and privileges were gradually abolished, which was caused by the needs of the country's further development and the fiscal interests of the treasury. " In the 18th century, a decrease in plowing is noted in many farms in this region, and a massive transfer of estates to quitrent takes place.

Landowners, seeking to increase the profitability of serf labor and receive the highest possible quitrent payments, were also interested in income from peasant crafts. We emphasize that the measures of strict landlord control and regulation of the activities of the peasants were combined with the patronage and encouragement of their initiative in the field of agricultural and industrial production, crafts and trade.

Among the main types of patronage activities of landowners in relation to peasants-migrants, the following 12 can be distinguished. So, in particular, they used the transportation of peasant goods under the guise of landowners, the issuance of preferential travel receipts and certificates that expanded the rights of peasants to wholesale and retail trade. Landowners opened fairs and marketplaces on their own estates, registered peasant enterprises, large farms and contracts in their own name, gave money loans to peasants, and provided otkhodniks with residential and business premises in cities. Influential landowners used personal connections to resolve litigation among their merchant peasants. Attention was paid to the study of the market situation: lists of specialties that brought high profits in St. Petersburg and Moscow were compiled, the search for the most profitable work for their peasants was made, the capital market prices and demand for commercial products were clarified.

There is also direct coercion of the peasantry into fishing activities during the period free from field work. So, in the instructions of the book. MM. Shcherbatov contains the following demand: "Once the peasant, having lived at home, cannot get a lot of profit for himself, and for this he can not only let them go, but also compel them to go to work, and whenever the peasants demand passports, give them to the clerk immediately." In the “order” of A.T. Bolotov, the basis of the landlord economy was the corvee system. However, "in the absence of work" the peasants should be "let go ... for hire with a profit sufficient for the master." The peasant withdrawal was clearly linked to the need for peasants to pay the per capita tax, which was a monetary tax, not a tax in kind (“This release of not only tax, but also tax is needed in autumn and winter to generate per capita money”). "Institution" gr. P.A. Rumyantsev for his Nizhny Novgorod patrimony (1751, 1777) contains a special section devoted to the organization of craft and trade activities of peasants, and in the instructions of the book. MM. Shcherbatov (in the Yaroslavl patrimony, 1758) and S.K. Naryshkin (on the Krapivne estate, 1775), we find provisions on teaching the peasants the skill 13.

The second aspect of the relationship between the landowner and the otkhodnik peasant, as already indicated above, was the detailed regulation of the life and entrepreneurial activity of the serf 14. The peasants could leave the village only with the permission of the patrimonial authorities, which was confirmed by the issuance of "written leaves" and printed passports. Usually, retreat was allowed only in winter after the completion of agricultural work, and in large trade and fishing villages, for one or two years. The landlords determined the time frame, the number of otkhodniks, the withdrawal of peasants was allowed only in the absence of arrears and the presence of guarantors (usually the closest relatives acted in this capacity - father, brother, father-in-law, son-in-law; less often - fellow villagers), who were responsible for the state and proprietary duties of otkhodniks. Penalties were established for the untimely return of the migrant workers to the patrimony. The hiring of passportless and fugitive workers from other estates was not allowed (although there were numerous cases of violations). Sometimes the involvement of any outside hired labor was prohibited at all. The landowner regulated monetary relations in the village, limited rental operations with land within the community and outside. Bans were practiced on the sale of peasant property, grain and livestock without the permission of the clerk. This was due to the fear of a decrease in the solvency of the peasants, their ruin and an increase in social enmity in the community. The landowners were also afraid of competition from their own serfs, in connection with which the peasants were prohibited from trading in certain types of products. For the Central Black Earth Region (in comparison with the Non-Black Earth Region), more significant restrictions in the sphere of peasant withdrawal are characteristic, since corvee farming in the South of Russia brought significant profits.

All of these measures mutually complemented each other and varied depending on the region and the specifics of the economic situation in a particular fiefdom. In general, there is no reason to talk about the "contradictory nature" of the landowner's relationship to peasant industries, since both encouragement and regulation served a single goal - to maximize income from the use of serf labor.

The level of development of crafts and peasant waste in various regions of the country was inversely proportional to the degree of profitability of the agricultural sector. The dependence of the peasantry on income in the non-agricultural sphere was most clearly manifested in the Non-Black Earth Region. So, according to M.F. Prokhorov (in the 1760-1770s), the share of migrant peasants in the districts of the Moscow and Volgo-Oka districts was the highest in European Russia (6-24.8% of the total male population). The leading place in the Non-Black Earth Region among the otkhodniks was occupied by landlord peasants - 52.7%. But in the proportion to the number of this or that group of peasants, the monastic ones were in the first place. The main reason for this was not "the inhibiting influence of the serf system on the retreat in the landlord village" (as MF Prokhorov believes), but the secularization of church estates, accompanied by the elimination of corvee and the transfer of economic peasants to quitrent 15. In the fertile Central Black Earth Region, these indicators were significantly lower: in the northern part - 1.8-4.4%, in the central and southern districts - 0.9%. The leading place here (given the absence of corvée in the state village, as well as the social composition of the region's population) was occupied by odnodvorets and newly baptized - 98% of the otkhodniks. In the Middle Volga region, the share of migrant workers was 2.3-3.8%, and in the Western and Northern regions - up to 6.2% 16.

For individual provinces, there is the following data on the intensity of the withdrawal. In the Moscow province in 1799-1803. the number of migrant workers (according to information on the number of issued passports to all categories of the population) was at the level of 45-65 thousand people, or 10-15% of the inhabitants of the metro station, in the Yaroslavl province in 1778-1797. - 55-75 thousand people or 15-23% of the male population. According to the "Description of the Kostroma governorship" (1792), there were about 40 thousand otkhodniks in the province (more than 10% of the residents of the metropolitan area). In the Kaluga province in the 60s. In the 18th century, according to the Senate questionnaire published in the Proceedings of the Free Economic Society, every third worker went to work. In some districts of the Nizhny Novgorod province in the 80-90s. XVIII century migrant workers numbered at least 8% of the total male population. At the end of the century, in the Tambov province in the spring, up to 25 thousand people were sent to the ship fishery (Morshanskaya pier), in the Kursk province the number of migrants reached 13 thousand 17

The bulk of the migrant peasants were engaged in transportation (usually in winter), ship fishing (spring-autumn), at industrial enterprises (primarily at textile ones), in construction in counties and in large cities. In the CCR, hiring is extended to agricultural work (haymaking, grain harvesting) and cattle grazing. More often otkhodniks were sent to large cities, mainly to Moscow and St. Petersburg. Annually in the 1760s-70s. up to 50 thousand people came to St. Petersburg and its environs, to Nizhny Novgorod - 25 thousand, Saratov - 7 thousand, Astrakhan - 6 thousand 18

The growth of fishing activity in the 2nd half of the 18th - 1st half of the 19th century undoubtedly influenced the differentiation of property in the serf village. However, there was no "capitalist stratification" and "de-peasantization" as a mass phenomenon in the pre-reform period. The dynamics of inequality among the industrial-agricultural and commercial-agricultural peasantry can be traced more clearly. However, the property status of the agricultural peasantry in its bulk has changed insignificantly. During this period of time, the group with an average income 19 continued to dominate among the landlord peasants as a whole.

The question of the role of commercial income in the peasant economy is extremely important. However, there is practically no direct evidence of this. Interesting calculations of the structure of the "peasant budget" were published in 1966 by I.D. Kovalchenko and L.V. Milov 20. The summarized information on the incomes and duties of quitrent landowners, contained in this work, is presented in Table. 2 21.

Table 2. Income and obligations of quitrent landlord peasants, late 18th - mid-19th centuries, silver rubles

Note: * Tolls include the amount of quitrent, poll tax and worldly dues.

The data presented here have a number of peculiarities. First, income from agriculture can be considered income only conditionally. This is an estimate of the cost of average yields at the provincial market prices. At the end of the 18th century. net harvests of bread per capita in the Moscow and Tver provinces were significantly lower than the "consumption rate" by 3 quarters per person, and in Oryol and Ryazan provinces they exceeded it by 1.6 and 0.3 quarters. respectively (see Table 1). In the middle of the XIX century. (taking into account the harvest of potatoes), approximately the same situation developed. Net fees in the Moscow province were 1.39 ths., Tverskoy - 2.5 ths., Orlov - 3.33 ths., Ryazan - 3.08 ths. 22 Consequently, “surpluses” (often very insignificant) for obtaining funds from agricultural production could only be in the Black Earth Region. In the Moscow and Tver provinces, there was not enough grain even for food and household needs, and the ability to pay the per capita tax and quitrent here completely depended on the peasant's industrial income.

Secondly, the incomes from the fisheries indicated in the table should be considered underestimated. This follows from the fact that the scope of fishing activity was assessed by the authors on the basis of the number of issued tickets and passports, that is, by the number of migrant workers. Thus, the calculations (due to the lack of the necessary data) do not reflect the income from the fishing activities of the peasants in the localities. In particular, spinning and weaving of flax, hemp and wool was widespread (like the female trade in winter). Although, apparently, taking these factors into account will not significantly change the general trends in the formation of the "peasant budget".

From the table it follows that agriculture at the end of the XVIII century. remained the main source of subsistence for the peasant. Even in the Moscow province, the share of fishing income in the peasant's budget was at the level of 35%; in Tverskaya and Ryazanskaya - 11-12%. It is quite logical that the lowest indicator relates to the chernozem Oryol province - 5%. Over the next half century, there has been a tendency towards an increase in the dependence of the serf economy on the non-agricultural sphere. In the Moscow province, income from crafts came out on top (56%), in Tverskaya and Ryazan - about a quarter of the total income of a peasant, and in Oryol - 12%.

It is extremely important that in all four provinces the growth rates of agricultural incomes lagged far behind those in the field of crafts. With the latter, only the growth rates of duties are comparable. About 80% of all peasant obligations were quitrent 24. Of course, the reserves for increasing the profitability of agriculture were not exhausted everywhere, but at the then level of agricultural technology, they were insignificant. Further intensification of the exploitation of landlord quitrent peasants in the Non-Black Earth Region in the first half of the 19th century. it was possible, first of all, by expanding their fishing activities.

In those regions where agriculture brought at least insignificant profits to the landowners, the corvee type of economy continued to develop (according to some estimates, corvee exploitation was twice as productive as the quitrent 25). By the middle of the XIX century. corvee prevailed throughout European Russia, except for the Central Non-Black Earth Region (67.5% of landlord peasants on a quitrent) and the Northern Region (83.5%) 26. Here, arable farming was primarily of a consumer nature, and that is why it was widespread in almost all counties (even under unfavorable climatic and soil conditions). The share of marketable bread was very low. The intensification of agricultural labor required significant financial costs. On the contrary, the income of the peasant in the non-agricultural sphere became for the landowner the most accessible source of increasing the profitability of the serf economy. It is also necessary to agree with the conclusion of I.D. Kovalchenko, that the weakening of the personal dependence of the peasant on the landowner due to the development of industries and withdrawal did not occur 27. Moreover, exploitation intensified, as follows from the data on the growth of quitrent and duties in general (see Table 2). It is possible to cite the generalizing calculations of B.N. Mironov, according to which in the XVIII century. the income of the landlords from each quitrent peasant (taking into account inflation and the rise in grain prices) increased by about 69%, and over 1801-1860. - another 70-90%. If we additionally take into account state taxes, the amount of serf payments will increase by another 14% and 27%, respectively 28.

Thus, in the non-agricultural sphere, the landowners found an additional way of making a profit from serf labor. And, from this point of view, the growth of the withdrawal and commercial activity of the peasantry in this period is an indicator of the viability of serf relations in the country. Given the low profitability of agriculture within the historical center of the Russian state, a constant decline in soil fertility and an increase in overpopulation, the peasant's otkhodnik activities actually financed the serf type of economy, making it more profitable.

The ability of the socio-economic system existing in the country to assimilate and use qualitatively new phenomena for its strengthening, while simultaneously changing their inner essence, was a feature of Russian society. The 18th century left many such examples. Thus, the growth of the manufacturing industry caused by military needs in the first quarter of the century led not to the development of capitalism, but to the conservation of serf relations and their spread to a new sphere of the economy. The transformation of numerous "ranks" of the 17th century into the estates of the 18th century. produced in the interests of the state, and the most important basis for the division of estates was the per capita salary. As a result, the created "estate system" was built into the social structure of the empire, but could no longer perform those progressive functions that were characteristic of its Western European counterparts 29.

Thus, the intensification of the peasant industrial waste in the second half of the XVIII century. should be seen not only as a symptom of the emerging new economic relations. There is no doubt that the growth of the labor market, the expansion of the share of free-hired labor contributed to the gradual formation of the capitalist structure in industry. However, the flip side of this process was the increase in the income of landowners from the use of serf labor. And in its essence, the fishing activity of the peasantry became another stone that strengthened the building of Russian serfdom.

1 Rubinstein N.A. Some questions of the formation of the labor market of the XVIII century // Questions of history. 1952. No. 2. S. 74-101.
2 Yatsunsky V.K. Socio-economic history of Russia in the 18th-19th centuries. Fav. works. M., 1973.S. 94-95; Milov L.V. The Great Russian Plowman and the Peculiarities of the Russian Historical Process. M., 2001 S. 550-553.
3 See: L.V. Milov Decree. Op.
4 According to M.F. Prokhorov, on average, one peasant household in Russia (1750s - early 1770s) had 2.2 horses, 1.8 cows, 6.8 heads of small livestock, 4.5 birds (Prokhorov M.F. The serf peasantry of Russia in the 1750s and the beginning of the 1770s. Author's abstract ... Doctor of Historical Sciences, Moscow, 1998, p. 31).
5 For calculation see: L.V. Milov. Decree. Op. S. 388-389.
6 Data on net harvest per capita contained in the table are averages for the period. Information on sowing and harvesting of agricultural crops by provinces for 1780-1798. see: Rubinstein N.L. Agriculture of Russia in the second half of the 18th century. (historical and economic essay). M., 1957.S. 444-453; I. D. Kovalchenko Dynamics of the level of agricultural production in Russia in the first half of the XIX century. // History of the USSR. 1959. No. 1. P. 63. We were forced to take into account the sowing and harvesting of grain in conjunction with industrial crops, since in the work of I.D. Kovalchenko, these data (at the end of the 18th century) are summarized. The use of information in this form has practically no effect on the accuracy of our calculations (verification was carried out according to Appendix II in the monograph by N.L. Rubinstein). In the case of accounting for crops and harvests of industrial crops, a slight overestimation of the net harvest of bread occurs only in 5 out of 27 provinces: in Kaluga, Smolensk, Pskov, Nizhny Novgorod - by 0.1 th. and Orlovskaya - by 0.25 Thursday. For information on the number of peasants by provinces, see: V.M. Kabuzan. Changes in the distribution of the population of Russia in the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. (based on the materials of audits). M., 1971.S. 95-118. For 1782 and 1795, data on the number of peasants according to revisions IV and V, respectively, were used.
7 In the Pskov province, a wide spread of corvee is noted, which is explained by the proximity of the region to St. Petersburg and other Baltic imports (Rubinstein NL Agriculture ... p. 101,116).
8 Prokhorov M.F. Decree. Op. Pp. 20, 30. To assess property differentiation, the author uses data on the number of horses in the peasant economy: horseless and one-horse - the poorest group, 2-3 horses - average, 4 and more - well-to-do.
9 Kozlov S.A. Agrarian traditions and innovations in pre-reform Russia (central non-chernozem provinces). M., 2002.S. 389.
10 Yatsunsky V.K. Decree. Op. P. 104; Kovalchenko Y.D. Russian serf "peasantry in the first half of the 19th century. M., 1967. S. 95-96; Mironov B.N. In the Central Chernozem and Volga regions, the marketability of agriculture in the middle of the 19th century was 21% (Kovalchenko I.D. Russian serf peasantry ... p. 95).
11 Complete collection of laws of the Russian Empire since 1649. SPb, 1830 (hereinafter: PSZ-l). T. XVIII. No. 12872, 13374, 13375; T. XX. No. 14275; Troitsky S.M. Financial policy of Russian absolutism in the 18th century. M., 1966.S. ​​177-178, 182-184; Prokhorov M.F., Fedulin A.A. Entrepreneurial activity of the Russian peasantry in the 18th century. M., 2002.S. 16-17.
12 Rubinstein N.A. Agriculture ... S. 79-91, 156-160, 365-367; Semevsky V.I. Peasants in the reign of Catherine II. T. 1.SPb., 1903.S. 49, 54; Shchepetov K.N. Serfdom in the estates of the Sheremetevs (1708-1885). M., 1947. S. 68.70-71; A.V. Milov Decree. Op. S. 174-175.
13 See: Prokhorov M.F., Fedulin A.A. Decree. Op. S. 17-19.
14 See: N.L. Rubinstein. Agriculture ... S. 84, 85, 88, 136, 138, 139, 142,198.
15 Prokhorov M.F., Fedulin A.A. Decree. Op. S. 19-24, 105; Rubinstein N.L. Agriculture ... S. 132-144; Tikhonov Yu.A. A noble estate and a peasant yard in Russia in the 17th-18th centuries: coexistence and confrontation. M .; SPb, 2005.S. 388-392.
16 PSZ-1. T. XVI. No. 12060, p. 551.
17 Prokhorov M.F. Decree. Op. S. 22-23.
18 Fedorov V.A. Landowners' peasants of the Central Industrial Region of Russia at the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. M., 1974.S. 198-204; Rubinstein N.L. Agriculture of Russia ... p. 310.
19 Prokhorov M.F. Decree. Op. P. 24; Prokhorov M.F., Fedulin A.A. Decree. Op. Pp. 66, 67, 86-95, 97, 99, 105, 107. According to N.L. Rubinstein, in the winter months the population of Moscow at the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries. increased by 150-200 thousand people. (Rubinstein N.L. Agriculture ... p. 373). However, apparently, these data are greatly overestimated (Cf .: Fedorov V.A., op. Cit. P. 219).
20 Yatsunsky V.K. Decree. Op. S. 286-288, 296-297; I. Kovalchenko - Russian serf peasantry ... P. 349; Prokhorov M.F. Decree. Op. P. 30; Mironov B.N. Social history of Russia during the period of the empire (XVIII - early XX century). T. 1. SPb., 2003. S. 125. In the latest research by Yu.A. Tikhonov singled out only two categories of the peasantry - "prosperous" and "poor". The stratum of farms of average income in the proposed classification, for an unknown reason, is absent (Tikhonov Yu.A. Decree, op. P. 335).
21 Kovalchenko I.D., Milov L.V. On the intensity of quitrent exploitation of peasants in Central Russia at the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. // History of the USSR. 1966. No. 4. S. 55-80.
22 See: I.A. Kovalchenko, L.V. Miloe. Decree. Op. S. 67. The poll tax has grown from 80 kopecks. at the end of the 18th century. up to 2 rubles. silver in the middle of the 19th century; secular taxes at the indicated time amounted to about a quarter and half of the poll tax, respectively (Ibid. p. 72).
23 Kovalchenko I.D.Dynamics ... p. 73.
24 According to the calculations of N.L. Rubinstein, the supply of yarn to manufactories throughout Russia involved labor in the winter of at least 40 thousand (in the 60s of the 18th century) and 120 thousand (in the 90s of the 18th century) spinners (Rubinstein N. L. Agriculture ... p. 305).
25 This situation was a consequence of the evolution of duties during the XVIII century. According to B.N. Mironov's estimates, at the beginning of the 18th century, the supreme power and the landowners almost equally divided the income from the peasants among themselves, but by the end of the century the landowners had concentrated in their hands 88% of the income from serf labor (Mironov B.N. welfare of the population of Russia in the 18th century // Domestic history. 2004. № 6. P. 29). Mironov's calculation does not take into account changes in the structure of the state budget: a decrease in the share of direct taxes and an increase in indirect ones. But the role of indirect taxation increased due to the state sale of wine, and its production was predominantly in the hands of the nobles (Troitsky S.M. Decree, op. Pp. 150-156, 215). Therefore, we agree with the thesis of B.N. Mironov, that in the XVIII century. the share of the state's income from the serf peasantry gradually fell.
26 Mironov B.N. Social history ... p. 394.
27 Kovalchenko I. D. Russian serf peasantry ... p. 61.
28 Ibid. P. 297.
29 Mironov B.N. Social history ... p. 394.
30 On the formation of the estate system, see: Freeze G.L. The Soslovie (Estate) Paradigm and Russian Social History // The American Historical Review. Vol. 91. 1986. No. 1. P. 11-36; Wirtschafter E.K. Social Structures: Commoners in the Russian Empire. M., 2002.

Waste, waste trades, otkhodnik - concepts that were outdated by the first third of the 20th century, have again become relevant today. At the end of the Soviet period of Russian history, where such a phenomenon could not exist in principle, otkhodniki reappeared in the country as a special form of labor migration. The new form, having some differences, has important signs of similarity with the one that existed a century ago, which forced researchers to return to the old, already forgotten name "otkhodnichestvo".

Otkhodnik is an amazing phenomenon of our social and economic life. First of all, it is amazing for its invisibility. Not only ordinary people do not know about otkhodnik and otkhodniki, neither the authorities, nor scientists know about them. And yet this is a massive phenomenon. According to the most approximate and conservative estimates, out of about 50 million Russian families, at least 10-15, and maybe all 20 million families live off the work of one or both adult members. In other words, a considerable share of the country's GDP is provided by migrant workers, but it is not taken into account by statistics and cannot be taken into account, because migrant workers as a subject of the market for economic science do not exist.

And for the authorities they do not exist even as an object of social policy. Otkhodniks are outside politics: as an object of management, they do not exist not only for state authorities, but also for local authorities, which do not know anything about them. But they are the very inhabitants for whose sake the municipal authorities are implementing one of the three well-known and worthy management sciences, about which the official ME Saltykov once wrote.

Othodniks do not exist for sociological science either: we do not know who they are, what kind of life they lead, what they eat, what they breathe and what they dream about. We do not know what the families of migrant workers are, how the socialization of children proceeds in them, how they differ from the families of non-migrant neighbors.

What is this - a new otkhodniki in Russia? Why suddenly - as if from scratch - was it revived in modern Russia?

Again, as a new mass phenomenon of socio-economic life, otkhodniki emerged in the mid-90s of the XX century. In the early 1990s, as a response to the economic turmoil in the country, “structures” began to quickly emerge - new models of life support for the population forced to independently search for means of survival. In addition to the creation of new models (such as "shuttle traders", however, quite akin to the "bagmen" of the 1920s), long forgotten ones were "remembered" and revived, the first of which were the return to subsistence farming and the revival of out-of-pocket crafts. In the early 90s, I was especially puzzled by the issue of identifying and describing various models of life support, to which the population of the country was forced to turn with the beginning of the "shock therapy" of the economy. To my surprise at the time, in the new circumstances, the provincial population en masse began to turn not to modern models of economic behavior (such as "shuttle traders" or "unemployment" - not for the sake of a meager allowance, but solely for the purpose of maintaining seniority for the sake of a future pension) , but to models that have long disappeared, forgotten, "archaic". Such turned out to be, on the one hand, subsistence farming, massive for entire villages and cities, on the other hand, the revival of out-of-pocket crafts as a model of life support, additional to subsistence production. Moreover, this new migratory movement began not from its historical center, from non-chernozem regions, but from the outskirts, from the former Soviet republics, to the center. Only after some time, this centripetal movement also captured the areas closest to it, which were once the main areas of withdrawal. Perhaps that is why the population of not only the regions of traditional “old otkhodnichestvo”, but also of almost all post-Soviet republics, as well as the eastern Siberian territories of Russia, is now involved in the latrine trades, which had never happened before.

Otkhodniki, a phenomenon widespread in the peasant environment of imperial Russia in the 18th, 19th and first third of the 20th centuries, had characteristic features that make it possible to classify it as a special form of labor migration of the population. Vacation was understood as seasonal return movements of peasants, mainly men, from their places of permanent residence and business to other settlements and provinces in order to search for additional earnings through a variety of trades (handicrafts) or hiring, offering their services on the side. Otkhodniki was a very large-scale phenomenon. By the end of the 19th century, from half to three quarters of the entire male peasant population of the non-black earth central and northern provinces each season (usually in winter) went to work in neighboring and distant regions, provinces, reaching the very outskirts of the empire.

Vacation as a model of economic behavior can develop only if there are two prerequisites: the relative or complete consolidation of a person and his family on the earth acts as a prerequisite, and the impossibility of feeding on the spot, forcing them to look for third-party sources of livelihood, acts as the driving force of the exodus. It was impossible to feed on the poor non-chernozem areas in central and northern Russia that were densely populated by the 18th century. However, the population, permanently attached to the land by the state, community or landowner, could not leave their place of residence without a good reason. Presumably, the state itself gave the first strong impetus to the population to develop latrine trades, which definitely existed in the 16th-17th centuries, by the massive forced displacement of peasants at the beginning of the 18th century to Peter's “great construction projects” (St. Petersburg and many other new cities) and to great wars. (recruitment set). The rural community also more easily begins to let some of its craftsmen go to work in the cities to earn money, which makes it easier for it to pay the sovereign taxes. By the beginning of the 19th century, the landowners, realizing that the quitrent is more profitable than corvee, every year they let more and more serfs go to trade, moreover, they contribute to their training in crafts. This is how otkhodniki gradually developed, capturing the central and northern provinces of the Russian Empire. From the middle of the 19th century, an even more rapid development of otkhodnik began, at first stimulated by the permission of landowners to mortgage estates, then by the liberation of 1861, and by the 1890s - by an industrial boom, as well as by overpopulation. The latter took place in no small measure due to agro-cultural underdevelopment caused by resistance to innovations on the part of the peasant community and the lack of interest of the peasant himself in increasing the fertility of the land in conditions of continuous land redistribution. By the 10s - 20s of the XX century, otkhodniki reached its peak of development, to a large extent stimulated by the cooperative movement in the provinces, which had a gigantic pace and assumed outstanding proportions in Russia in the 20s. But then, quite soon, the otkhodniki disappeared altogether due to the beginning of industrialization and collectivization. Both of these interrelated processes of the country's socio-economic development did not presuppose any free proactive forms of labor behavior, and this is precisely the essence of otkhodniki. What are its most important features?

The most important features that determine both the traditional otkhodniki XVIII - early XX centuries, and the modern turn of the XX-XXI centuries and distinguish it from other forms of labor migration of the population, are the following.

Firstly, it is a temporary, seasonal nature of a person's departure (departure) from his place of permanent residence with a mandatory return home. The otkhodnik, almost always a man, went into the field after the end of field work, in autumn or winter, and returned to the beginning of spring work. The family of the otkhodnik, his wife, children, parents, stayed at home and managed a large peasant farm, where the otkhodnik still played the role of owner and manager of affairs. However, many migrant workers (usually from the labor-abundant central provinces) also worked in the summer season, hiring as loaders, barge haulers or day laborers. However, these were mostly young, familyless and landless male beads, who were not kept by either rural work or family, although they were controlled by the community, which paid taxes for them. We see exactly the same seasonal character of departure from the family almost always of a male otkhodnik today.

Secondly, this is the forced withdrawal, since the natural conditions did not allow on the spot to provide the peasant family with food in the required quantities and to produce an additional product for sale in order to have money. Therefore, otkhodniki was most common in the non-chernozem provinces of the middle zone and the north of European Russia. In the chernozem provinces, in the south and beyond the Urals, it practically did not occur, with the exception of the special case mentioned above, but widespread by the middle of the 19th century on the Russian Plain, when the population density exceeded the “capacity of land”. Even within the limits of one province, the intensity of the withdrawal could vary greatly from county to county in accordance with soil fertility. The compulsion of modern otkhodniki in the provinces is due to the lack or low quality of jobs - in fact, the same lack of locally necessary resources for life.

The third distinguishing feature of the seasonal work was its hired and industrial character. Earning additional income on the side was provided through trades - making and selling products of various crafts, from felting felt boots and sewing fur coats to rafting timber and making log cabins, as well as hiring for various jobs in cities (watchmen and janitors, domestic servants) or in rich industrial and southern agricultural areas (barge haulers, porters, day laborers, etc.). Today's migrant workers are also often manufacturers of products (the same log cabins) or services (cabbies, including taxi drivers and truckers on their own vehicles), directly offering them on the market. But now there are many more hired workers among them, often performing unskilled types of work (guards, watchmen, watchmen, janitors, cleaners, etc.).

Fourth, and finally, the most important sign of otkhodniki was his initiative and amateur character. Each person, “having straightened his passport” or “having received a ticket,” could leave the place of residence for up to a year and offer services on the market in accordance with his professional skills, hiring or offering products of his handicrafts. The otkhodniks often went to the trades by family artels of several people, usually brothers or fathers with adult children. These artels were narrowly professional, representing one separate "profession" or type of activity, such as "katals" who felted felt boots, saddlers who sewed fur coats or women, Russian amateur "traveling salesmen" peddling icons, books and other "intellectual" products ...

The totality of the listed signs of otkhodniki makes it possible to single out this type of labor migration in a special form, which is significantly different from other modes of movement in the labor market. And precisely because of these specific features, otkhodniki could not exist in Soviet times. Not only mass self-employment of the population was impossible, but also massive seasonal movements of people around the country. The handicraft nature of the handicrafts gave way to the industrial production of "consumer goods", which destroyed the very soil for seasonal work. Forms of labor migration that were possible in the Soviet years, such as, for example, shift and organizational recruitment ("recruiting" and "recruited"), distribution after college and free settlement after imprisonment in camps and zones ("chemistry"), as well as exotic forms, such as "shabashka" and "scourging" did not have the above signs of otkhodniki and could not be put at least in some logical connection with this form of labor migration.

On the contrary, during the years of the systemic crisis, when the country's economy was “rebuilding” too quickly to fit “new economic structures,” new forms of labor migration began to develop. There was a renovation of otkhodniki as one of the most effective, and now the most massive model of life support. The condition for such a revival of otkhodniki was a new form of "enslavement" of the population - now it is an "apartment fortress", the absence of mass rental housing and affordable mortgages, which prevent families from changing their place of residence. I believe that without this form of "fortress" modern otkhodniki would not have arisen. What is it? Let us present an outline of the phenomenon, based on the results of our field studies of otkhodnik in 2009-2012.

Our main fieldwork was carried out in 2011 and 2012 with financial support from the Khamovniki Charitable Foundation. But episodic studies of otkhodniki were carried out by us in 2009-2010 as well. Thus, over the past four years, a group of young researchers under my leadership has been systematically collecting materials related to modern day-to-day work. Simultaneously with the collection of materials, the methodology of researching otkhodniki was also worked out. Due to the peculiarities of the object, we could not usefully apply routine sociological methods based on formal questionnaires and quantitative methods of describing the phenomenon. The emphasis was on quality methods, on conducting observations directly in small towns where migrant workers live, and on interviews with them, with their families and neighbors. Many additional materials, such as statistical and reporting data of local authorities, archival sources, were of secondary importance. The following general information about the current Russian otkhodniki and otkhodniki are based precisely on interviews and direct observations in two dozen small towns in the European part of Russia and some Siberian regions.

The development of modern otkhodniki, despite the short period of time - less than twenty years, - in my opinion, has already passed two stages. The first one characterized the actual emergence and growth of mass waste in small towns of the European part of the country, the second stage - the movement of sources of waste to the east of the country and “inland”, from small towns to villages.

The most important feature of the first stage was the rapid resumption (restoration) of otkhodniki in small towns, mainly in the same areas as in imperial times. This process in the mid-1990s was initiated by the predominant action of two factors. The first is the complete absence of a labor market in small towns due to the collapse of all production in them, the shutdown and bankruptcy of large and small state-owned enterprises in the early 1990s. The sudden lack of work and, accordingly, the means of living at once for many families in such cities was aggravated by the underdevelopment or even the complete absence of subsidiary farming, which, in turn, allowed rural families to survive the collapse of collective and state farms much easier in those days. In the early 1990s, I visited villages where they told me about cases of starvation. In those years, up to half and more of all schoolchildren ate mainly at school, because there was nothing to eat at home. This fact was widespread in small towns and villages, therefore it was not even considered as a social catastrophe. It was this desperate situation of urban families left without work and without a household that forced people to hastily look for new sources of livelihood, among which the out-of-the-box industry every year - as the labor market in regional and capital cities developed - became an increasingly widespread source.

But if this first factor was the driving force behind the withdrawal, then the second - the inability of the family to move closer to the place of work due to the well-known features of our housing system (despite, but rather even due to the very conditional privatization of housing) - was just the factor that determined the specifics of labor migration in the form of seasonal work. Without the "attachment" to the apartment, to the house, modern otkhodniki would not have acquired the current scale. Soviet people were sufficiently prepared to change their place of residence: after all, according to experts, in the 1990s, the scale of forced displacement in the first half of the decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union reached 50 million people - every sixth family was "put on wheels." But for most families, the costs of moving to a new permanent place of residence turned out to be higher than the costs associated with a long, but temporary absence of one family member.

The second stage in the development of modern otkhodniki has been taking shape since the beginning of the 2000s, proceeding before our eyes and is characterized by its shift from regional centers (small towns and villages) to the countryside. This was caused, in my opinion, by economic stabilization and growth, which led to the fact that old enterprises were restored in small towns and many new ones appeared. In addition to the new jobs that brought the former migrant workers back home, other interesting changes took place in the structure of employment of the population, connected, according to Kordonsky, with the "completion of the since March 2004. As a result, in the regional centers - our small towns and villages - the number of state employees has significantly increased, including employees of the regional and federal levels of government. Now the share of state employees in the employed population usually reaches 40, and in some places even 60-70% of the able-bodied population - and it is in the regional centers, which were a little earlier the main places of departure. These two reasons - the growth of local production and the development of the public sector - are at the very least, but they began to contribute to a decrease in the scale of migrant workers in small towns. But the trail had already been beaten, and “a holy place is never empty”: jobs left in capitals by migrant workers from cities have been replaced by migrants from villages. If earlier unemployed men from the countryside were looking for work in the regional center, now an increasing number of them, by the routes indicated to them by their colleagues from the regional centers, leave for the city (in the region) or in the suburbs and there they get means for living.

The process of shifting migrant workers to the east of the country stands somewhat apart, which coincides in time with the shift to rural areas in the west of the country, but is not conditioned by the action of the same factors. In imperial times, otkhodniki (with the exception of long-distance horse-drawn carriage) was completely alien to the rich villages and cities of Siberia. The population there did not need to look for additional earnings, being small in number, feeding on fertile lands and having sufficient funds from hunting, fishing, cattle breeding, logging, mining of precious metals and many other trades. Nowadays, the facts of obvious migrant workers are being discovered everywhere in Siberia. As far as I can judge, relying on so far episodic observations of this phenomenon, structurally otkhodnik in Siberia differs from European in the following essential details. First, it does not involve any massive population of cities; mainly residents of small towns and villages are leaving. Secondly, otkhodnik here, as it were, merges with the rotational form of labor migration. People are hired for construction sites and enterprises, mines and mines, responding to official announcements. But unlike rotational kits, they do it on their own, and brigades also complete on their own, often interacting with the employer at the level of the artel, and not an individual employee. It is the self-activity, the activity of a labor migrant that is for us an essential feature that distinguishes a migrant worker from a shift worker (recruited according to an organizational set). It is very difficult to isolate this feature during remote analysis.

Naturally, modern migrant workers do not always offer the products of their labor on the market themselves, as it was before, when a significant part of the migrant workers were artisans entering the market with their products. Nowadays, only a few can be considered such, for example, carpenters who make log houses, baths and other wooden buildings and offer their products in the abundant market of the Moscow region and regional cities. And part of the previously handicraft production of household items, necessary in everyday life, but produced by otkhodniks, has now shifted to a different, so-called ethnoform. The manufacture of felted shoes, wicker chairs, clay pots and other handicrafts is now offered in the structure of the tourism business. In some places where tourists gather, the number of migrant workers mimicking local residents is considerable.

The content of the otkhodnik's activity has changed in comparison with the imperial times: the otkhodnik became more a hired worker than an individual entrepreneur (handicraftsman). The main occupations of modern otkhodniks are very few. A survey of more than half a thousand people allowed us to record no more than a dozen types of activities, whereas a century ago in every large village one could count up to fifty different types of latrine professions. Now it is mainly construction, transport (there are those who are engaged in long-distance driving on their own trucks, but many are hired by taxi drivers or drivers in the organization), services (various types of utilities associated with construction), trade (like a tray in city markets, and in supermarkets). The security business is especially popular: the large army of security guards in offices and enterprises of large cities consists almost exclusively of migrant workers. Hiring to large enterprises for the production of various types of work is carried out by organized groups, teams made up of friends and relatives (artel principle). As a rule, such teams perform auxiliary, black types of work.

A fact that deserves special attention is the high degree of conservatism of the types of latrine trades in traditional otkhodnik territories. Modern migrant workers "remembered" not only their grandfather's crafts, they also reproduced the basic professions that were characteristic of these places a hundred years ago. Thus, the migrant workers of Kologriv, Chukhloma and Soligalich in the Kostroma region chose the construction of wooden houses (manufacturing and transportation of log cabins) as the main type of waste industry, and the residents of Kasimov, Temnikov, Ardatov, Alatyr, for the most part, are hired by security guards and go into trade.

The directions of withdrawal today are slightly different than a century ago, but if we take into account the factor of changes in the administrative-territorial division of the country, we will have to admit that conservatism is great in the directions of withdrawal. If before the Volga region was "drawn" mainly to St. Petersburg, now - to Moscow. In both cases - to the capital. The same is with the regional cities: when the regional center changes, the direction of departure from the regional cities changes accordingly. If earlier Mordovian migrant workers went to Nizhny, Penza and Moscow, now - to Saransk and Moscow.

The geography of the otkhodniki has expanded, but not radically. And in the 19th century, they went from Kargopol and Veliky Ustyug to Kronstadt and Tiflis to be hired as servants and janitors. And now they are going from Temnikov to Yakutia to mine diamonds, from Toropets and Kashin to Krasnodar to harvest beets. Since the speed of movement has increased by an order of magnitude over the century, the movement of the migrant workers themselves has become more frequent. Now, at distances from 100 to 600-700 km, they travel for a week or two, and not as before - for six months or a year. But structurally, the geography of the otkhodniki remained, probably, the same. As before, up to 50% of all migrant workers do not go far, but are looking for extra work in the vicinity of 200-300 km from home. At least 75% of all migrant workers leave for distances of up to 500-800 km (this corresponds to travel by train or car for about half a day). For longer distances, when travel time begins to make up a significant proportion of working time (more than 10%), already about a quarter of migrant workers leave. People calculate in great detail and accurately the economic components of their difficult activity - and not only time costs, but also the share of earnings brought into the economy.

How much money does the migrant bring home? Contrary to popular beliefs, on average, a migrant worker does not bring "big thousand" home. Outside earnings are highly dependent on qualifications and type of activity. Carpenter builders earn up to half a million per season, based on a monthly salary of 50 and even 100 thousand rubles. But in terms of a month, they will have 30-50 thousand. Those working in industry, transport and construction earn less - from 30 to 70 thousand, but they work almost all year round. Less qualified migrant workers earn up to 20-25 thousand, and security guards - up to 15 thousand (but one must bear in mind that they also work two weeks a month). For a year, it turns out 300-500 thousand rubles from a qualified migrant worker and 150-200 thousand from an unskilled one. This earnings is on average higher than if a person worked in his city, where the average earnings do not exceed 100-150 thousand rubles per year. In most small towns and villages, the salary of a state employee is now from 5 to 10-12 thousand rubles, that is, about 100 thousand a year, but it is almost impossible to find a job even for 10 thousand on the spot - all the jobs are occupied.

So it is profitable to be a otkhodnik. True, a highly qualified migrant worker, and even then in comparison with their neighbors - state employees or the unemployed. Because if you subtract the costs that the migrant worker is forced to bear during work, then in the end you will get not so much a sum. According to our data, despite the usually extremely poor living conditions of a migrant worker at his place of work, despite his desire to save as much as possible on his earnings and bring more money home, with an average earnings of 35-40 thousand rubles, he is forced to spend about 15 thousand rubles a month on his own accommodation in the city. Usually housing costs about 5 thousand (in regional cities and capitals they spend almost the same on housing, but in the capital they rent housing for 5-10 people and often sleep in shifts). The otkhodnik spends about the same amount on bad food with “instant food”. Transport and other expenses (extremely rare entertainment) take another 5 thousand from him. So the otkhodnik brings home not 50-70 thousand, as he says, but usually no more than 20-25 thousand a month. The migrant security guards with a low salary of 15 thousand have free overnight stay and live within a radius of up to 500 km from the capitals, so they manage to bring home up to 10 thousand a month.

What is the otkhodnik's home? Here he has a family, farm and neighbors. A very important fact: none of the migrant workers is going to move to the city or to the capital to live closer to work. They all want to live where they live now. And they also want to work here. But they are not satisfied with what they have or could have, since the needs of these people are higher than the available supply. It is this feature - higher material demands - that, by the way, distinguish the migrant workers from their neighbors, who do not want to leave. By the way, the migrant workers differed from their neighbors with the same quality a century ago.

Why do they need higher demands than their neighbors? The otkhodnik wants to spend additional income on very specific items of family expenses. He wants to ensure the well-being of the family at a decent level. Almost all migrant workers have the same basic expenses. There are four of them. This is the renovation or construction of a house (including the construction of a new one for adult children). On average, from 50 to 150 thousand rubles are spent on repair and construction per year. In the second place - a car (now often two), as well as a tractor, cultivator, truck, snowmobile and even an ATV. The usual spending on equipment is 50-100 thousand per year. Transport is necessary for the migrant worker to work - many of them now prefer to move in a team by car (train costs have become significantly higher than before). Transport is a means of additional income in the off-season (part-time driving of people and lumber, firewood and manure; a tractor in a small town and in a village is like a horse in previous years - plowing a vegetable garden, raking snow, etc. - these are all types of highly demanded jobs). Of course, a snowmobile and an ATV seem to be entertainment to a city dweller (this is so for himself), but in the provinces this transport helps people both in collecting wild plants (mushrooms and berries) and in hunting game (used in hunting). In the third place, the money earned is set aside for savings for the future or current expenses of the family, for vocational training of children and their living in the city. Since most of the children study in the regional city, the cost of education is also 70-100 thousand (about 30-60 thousand are the tuition fees and up to 40-50 thousand are spent on paying for fairly cheap housing, the rest is added by the working students themselves). Finally, this entertainment - vacation spending - many otkhodniks annually take their wife and children to foreign resorts, spending an average of 80-100 thousand on such a thing.

It is on these four main items of necessary and prestigious expenses that the migrant workers spend all their earnings. Thus, the structure of expenditures in the families of otkhodniks can be very different from that in the families of state employees or pensioners. Since on this basis otkhodniks stand out among their neighbors, this contributes to the development of envy and hostility towards them. This was the case in the 1990s (although shuttle traders to a greater extent caused envy and discontent), but in the 2000s the share of migrant workers among the population increased greatly, and now they have rather become trendsetters, their envious neighbors are looking up to them and trying to keep up with them. On the whole, the otkhodniks' relations with neighbors are normal, good; the neighbors have long understood how hard the work of the otkhodnik is; envy is shifted by pity. Yes, and the prestigious consumption of the otkhodnik is not visible to the neighbors: the stories about where they were and on what beaches they sunbathed are not luxurious cars and rich furniture, there is nothing to envy with your own eyes.

But the real social status of the otkhodnik is not the envy of the neighbors. A migrant worker in the local society often does not have many resources to which a public sector employee is admitted, especially a public employee in the civil service. In a small town, a person who receives a salary that is an order of magnitude lower than the earnings of a migrant worker has significantly greater opportunities for access to a variety of intangible resources, to power, to local deficits, to information, finally. The family of the migrant worker does not yet feel discrimination in the field of general education, but there are already signs of this, manifested in the availability of healthcare services, especially when it comes to complex surgeries and rare medicines distributed as a shortage. Differences in access to the “social feeding trough” are more pronounced: it is more difficult for a migrant worker to obtain various benefits, it is practically very difficult to obtain a disability (a very useful benefit that many dream of; therefore, in particular, there are so many “disabled” in our country). The families of migrant workers face more difficulties than their neighbors, for example, in such a specific area of ​​the household economy as the livelihood of the family at the expense of foster children: the chance to organize a family orphanage is lower. In other words, in a welfare state these people, by all indications indistinguishable from the rest, nevertheless find themselves farther from the "trough".

I see the reason for this in the "remoteness from the state" of people with such a way of life. Neither local municipal authorities, let alone the state, do not "see" these people either as labor resources or as an object for care worthy of social benefits. A significant part of the migrant workers do not register their activities, they provide services without going through the state. The state does not partake of the fruits of their labor. Their movements across cities and regions cannot be traced. They are uncontrollable, not “registered”, not “fortified”. Meanwhile, if we proceed from our assumption that almost 40% of all Russian families are involved in out-of-pocket trades, then the volume of “invisible” for the state (and therefore “shadow”) productive activity of such a mass of people seems enormous. But does the state really need this "huge invisibility"? He, almost excluded from social state programs, being outside the state control of the economy, is excluded from political activity. Although the migrant workers participate in the "electoral process" (although many argue that they do not go to elections), they are by and large not interested in the authorities as unimportant political subjects. Much more important for the authorities - and especially for the municipal ones - are those who wish to "receive a salary" and have regular and stable pension transfers. The well-being and tranquility of local officials depends on them, state employees and pensioners, and he pays primary attention to them. The otkhodnik is too aloof from the local authorities. He, probably, can be useful to her only because he is in the composition of the permanent population in the municipal territory and a share of grants and subsidies received by the local administration for the development of the entrusted territory is allocated to him. This "per capita share", as an accounting demographic unit, is only useful for the otkhodnik. True, they say, he brings in a lot of money and thus seems to stimulate the region's economy, increasing the purchasing power of the population. This is usually the only argument in favor of a migrant worker. But is it really that important for the local administration? Moreover, the main waste of the money brought by the migrant occurs not in the district, not in his city, but again in large cities - he buys both building materials and cars not in his city, he does not teach children here either, and his wife spends on vacation money is not here.

So we have the paradox of "invisibility" of the huge, albeit existing next to us, phenomenon of modern migrant workers. But the existence of otkhodniki as a fact of the country's social life forces us to discuss not only economic, but also social and political consequences that may or are already arising from it. How can these consequences be expressed? In fact, the situation of segregation interaction of local authorities with different groups of the local population, which is now observed everywhere, leads to a violation of the system of relationships between the institution of municipal authority and the local society. The local authorities are not guided by the active part of society, but by the “rent” groups of the population, state employees and pensioners, who, on the one hand, are entirely dependent on the resources allocated by the state, but on the other, they are actively involved in the electoral process. On the other hand, groups of the active population - primarily and predominantly the active amateur population, entrepreneurs and migrant workers - fall out of sight of local self-government bodies. Such a deep institutional deficit determines the imbalance of the entire management system at the local level, it ceases to be effective. Disruption of interaction between the authorities and the most active and independent part of the local society closes the possibilities of bringing local public administration to that higher level, which is characterized, in the general opinion, by such an important feature as inclusion in the system of civil society institutions. The participation of the “rental” population will never ensure the development of civil society. Moreover, the rent recipients are interested exclusively in distribution, distribution relations, and not in partnership relations, which are absolutely necessary for building civic institutions. So, without noticing and diligently avoiding those who alone can act as an ally of the authorities in creating a new political reality with developed elements of civil society, the authorities destroy the foundation of social stability. We see the first results of this destruction in various forms of alienation and disregard for power on the part of the active part of our society, which are more and more clearly demonstrated.

If we talk about the possible social consequences of dividing the local society into active and passive parts, then the following risks are seen. Russian local (provincial) society is highly solidary and has a significant potential for self-organization. A large proportion of active amateur people in it is in itself an important condition for stability and solidarity. However, if a factor that splits society and contributes to the emergence of confrontation between population groups begins to act in such an environment, the prospects for social development are unfavorable. The worst thing is that the institution of power is now such a factor. Its destructive effect is directed not only at public solidarity, it also suppresses the development of the institution of local self-government. Thus, a situation arises when otkhodniki as a new social phenomenon, formed to solve the problems of direct life support, in the conditions of quite routine actions of the social state, by its nature focused on supporting the passive part of society, can become a breeding ground for the growth of social tension and grow sprouts new relationships that split the traditional stability of provincial society.

Acknowledgments

Our empirical studies of modern otkhodnichestvo were funded from three sources. Fixed assets were allocated by the Khamovniki Charitable Foundation, partly in 2010-2011, and a special grant for the study of otkhodniki was received in 2011-2012 (Grant No. 2011-001 “Otkhodniki in Small Towns”). In 2011, financial support was provided by the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation to conduct expeditions on this topic (Grant No. 11-03-18022e). In 2012, studies of the interaction of the active population (including migrant workers) with the municipal government were supported by a grant from the HSE Science Foundation (Grant No. 11-01-0063 “Will the economically active population become an ally of the municipal government? ").

Significant work on the collection of field material in 2009-2012 was carried out under my leadership by a group of young researchers - Ya. D. Zausaeva, NN Zhidkevich and AA Pozanenko. In addition to these main researchers, 14 people, graduate students and students of the Faculty of Public and Municipal Administration of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, occasionally took part in the collection of materials. It is with great pleasure that I express my gratitude to all the research participants.

100 thousand rubles corresponds to approximately 3 thousand US dollars. With the current average salary of a public sector employee in the provinces at $ 200-300 per month, a tenfold higher salary for a migrant worker is a powerful incentive, despite any negative circumstances. In addition, people love to brag and somewhat overestimate their earnings when they share their successes with their friends.

A funny observation was made by us during our trips: the estates of many otkhodniks have a characteristic difference from the estates of neighbors in that they have many different buildings in the courtyard, and the house itself is covered with annexes, the walls and roofs of which are made of different materials. Naturally, the assumption arose that any repair and new construction begins when money appears, and they are irregular at the otkhodnik, and therefore the numerous extensions built at different times are so different in material and design.

Othodniks- seasonal workers (mainly peasants) who came to work in St. Petersburg. O. appeared in the city at the beginning. 18th century, participated in its construction. Among them were predominantly immigrants from Yaroslavl, Tver, Novgorod, St. Petersburg, Pskov provinces, they had regional specialization, which remained until the 1st World War 1914-18. So, O. from the Yaroslavl province. engaged in trade, construction, gardening, worked in taverns, O. from St. Petersburg. lips. (mostly women) were hired as servants, men went to construction work in the summer, and in winter they were engaged in carriage. With the development of trade and industry, the number of O. increased (among the people they were called "St. Petersburg workers"). Means. part of the earnings of O. were sent to their relatives in the village, having saved up money, they returned to the family. In order to alleviate the conditions of existence in a foreign city, O. created compatriots. By the beginning. 20th century Russians predominated among O., and there were also Finns from the environs of St. Petersburg. and Finland, Estonians, Latvians, Belarusians. In the 1920s and 30s. O. worked in L. ch. arr. at factories and plants, performing work that did not require qualifications. With the completion of collectivization, the collective farmers were deprived of the opportunity to engage in side-line trades, and the practice of organizational recruitment replaced O.

Notes (edit)

Lit .: Yukhneva N.V. Ethnic composition and ethnosocial structure of the population of St. Petersburg, the second half of the XIX - early. XX century: Stat. analysis. L., 1984.S. 142-163; Lurie L. Ya. "Petersburgers" in St. Petersburg // City and Citizens in Russia of the XX century: Materials of the Russian-French. seminar ... SPb., 2001.S. 86-91.

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Since the beginning of the 90s, the phenomenon of migrant workers has revived in Russia - a free labor force moving between big cities and outback. What does this social phenomenon look like in today's Russia? Is there a threat to the state in the growth of the number of migrant workers? Who are these people?

From 50 to 80% of residents of small towns in Russia are forced to go to work in large cities to support their families and educate their children. These people most often work unofficially, do not pay taxes, do not use free health care, do not count on a pension, and in fact live “outside the state”. Participants of the project, organized by the Khamovniki Foundation for the Support of Social Research, spoke about the social and economic roots of this phenomenon at a round table held on October 29.

Otkhodniki as a Phenomenon of Russian Reality

Sociologists call a holiday a special type of labor migration, when one of the family members leaves to work in another city or region. It existed in Russia for several centuries and disappeared only in Soviet times. The seasonal trades were an important source of income for peasants who left their native villages for a while to get hired to work in a mine, a construction site, a factory, barge haulers, etc. At the end of the XIX century. migrants were up to 98% of the working population of the Central Non-Black Earth Region.

At the end of the 1990s, when the mass closure of enterprises began, residents of villages and small towns once again remembered the seasonal crafts of their ancestors, which seemed to be a thing of the past. Over the past decades, a growing number of those who, in an effort to lift their families out of poverty, have gone to other cities and regions. Such people offer themselves as guards and builders, lumberjacks or carpenters, salesmen, servants, sometimes doctors, educators, teachers and drivers. Today we can say that there is a constantly growing stratum in Russian society, it is the most active part of the population - the migrant workers. The study was devoted to a special project "Otkhodniki in Small Towns of Russia", organized and financed by the Khamovniki Foundation for the Support of Social Research and carried out by the staff of the Higher School of Economics (NRU-HSE). Research within the framework of the project lasted three years. During this time, the project participants visited 16 regions, observed, interviewed according to a special questionnaire of the migrant workers themselves, their relatives and neighbors. The results of this work are presented in the book "Otkhodniki" by HSE professor Yuri Plyusnin and young sociologists Natalia Zhidkevich, Yana Zausaeva and Artemiy Pozanenko.

According to Yuri Plyusnin, modern otkhodnik is not some new phenomenon, but only the revival of what existed before. Although for the majority of migrant workers their way of life is forced, but among the respondents there were many who would prefer waste trades, even if they had the opportunity to earn relatively good money at home. “The otkhodniks will always be among us: the state follows the population, the population runs away from the state - this is the centuries-old history of the development of the Russian state,” Yuri Plyusnin believes. At the same time, children, as a rule, follow in the footsteps of their parents: children of state employees want to receive money in the public sector, and children of otkhodniks in the future are also ready to engage in waste fishing.

For a not very long ruble

The main reason for leaving for work is, most often, the desire not only to make ends meet, but to live with dignity - a little better than neighbors - and, most importantly, to educate children. Going on vacation with the whole family for many migrant workers is an almost unattainable luxury. Most of them, already tired of continuous travel, rest at home, go fishing, meet with friends.

At the same time, in ruble terms, the needs of the migrant workers are rather modest. They are ready to work at their place of residence if their earnings are only 3-5 times higher than the subsistence level, i.e. will amount to 20-25 thousand rubles - this is only twice as much as the employees of the public sector receive. The official salary of a seller in a store in small towns, as a rule, is 5-6 thousand rubles. In production, the wages are slightly higher - 10-15 thousand rubles, but it is impossible to support a family normally on it, since the prices for manufactured goods and food (with the exception of local gifts of nature) are actually comparable to those in Moscow.

In reality, migrant workers earn 2 times more than what they are ready to leave their home and family for, and 3-4 times more than they could get at their place of residence. All this allows them to feel more wealthy than their neighbors. It is interesting that the expectations of those who are hired for unskilled work - security guards - are much higher than, for example, among builders, while incomes, on the contrary, are lower. As the authors of the book suggest, it is possible that the guards watch too much TV, and under its influence, they form overestimated needs.

The price of the issue, on average, is:

At the same time, the migrant worker has to spend a significant part of the money earned on food and housing in a foreign land.

"Portrait" of a migrant worker

Otkhodniks are perhaps the most active part of Russian society. A typical migrant worker is a middle-aged man, well-socialized, highly motivated to work, unpretentious in everyday life and resistant to difficult living conditions. He is sociable, mentally developed, drinks little, has a positive outlook on life, has several children.

Unlike the residents of the capital, the migrant workers see the positive not in the West, not in the experience of other countries, the main value for them is their family, their own house, economy, a small estate that they equip, their work is inseparable from rest, the chairman of the expert council notes. Khamovniki Foundation, ordinary professor at the Higher School of Economics Simon Kordonsky.

This generalization is rather arbitrary, since different categories can also be distinguished among the migrant workers: according to the standard of living, qualifications and demands, Yuri Plyusnin believes. Low-skilled security guards, for example, are not particularly motivated to work, unlike builders or truckers. It is the latter who are more altruistic, ready to support relatives, neighbors, acquaintances, and it is on this group of people that society can rely.

Othodniks and the state

The othodniks find work themselves, usually through their acquaintances. In most cases, they hardly interact with the state: they work unofficially, do not pay taxes, do not enjoy social benefits and free medical care, do not count on free education for their children and on a pension for themselves. “There is a feeling that even if the state now completely closes education, health care, social protection and other socialist institutions, the population in these towns will survive due to seasonal work and will live peacefully without the state,” notes Simon Kordonsky.

Official statistics practically do not take them into account, and therefore the number of migrant workers can be judged only approximately. HSE researchers used several sources for this at once: official data on employment of the population, approximate estimates of local residents, data from the local press and even information from school class magazines, teacher polls and an amazing document that, it turns out, exists - the school's social passport. With the help of all these methods, it turned out that the total number of migrant workers throughout the country could be 15-20 million families. In most regions, migrant workers make up more than 50% of the working-age population, and in some regions - up to 80%. As Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets stated in April 2013, “out of 86 million citizens of working age, only 48 million work in the sectors that are visible to us. Where and what the others are doing, we do not understand. " Thus, according to indirect estimates of the government, the number of migrant workers could be about 38 million Russians - that is, 40% of the able-bodied population of the country.

“Today this entire huge labor market is in the shadows,” notes Simon Kordnsky. “Together with the new business, which, through the efforts of our government, is again turning into the shadows, a very powerful social group is being formed, active and capable of independent actions. Under certain circumstances, it may well prove itself as a political force.

The state does not yet notice the migrant workers and does not affect them, but it is very likely that soon it will nevertheless closely deal with them, says Evgeny Gontmakher, deputy director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “A few years ago, even without otkhodniks, there was a lot of money in the budget at the expense of oil and gas. If in the coming years there will be a decrease in rent flows to the budget, then every migrant worker will become an object of hunting.

It will be terror against this category, covered by talk of justice. Now all the money from the budget goes to the execution of Putin's salary orders. And sooner or later, the roofs of schools and hospitals will leak. Then the migrant workers will be forced to share by any means, including with the involvement of security officials. And nowhere they can not run away with estates, these are not Old Believers. "

Waste workers and the future of Russia

The purpose of the study was only to describe the otkhodniki as a phenomenon; it was not the task of scientists to give any assessment to it - this was done by Evgeny Gontmakher. In his opinion, otkhodniki is a forced phenomenon that directly contradicts both the needs of the country and the concept of a person about happiness. Contrary to persistently implanted opinions, the value is not just settledness. In countries where labor force mobility is high, people would like to have a home, live in one place and, if possible, not change jobs. Mobility and labor migration are just a myth. And therefore, the statement of the current Russian prime minister about the benefits of job cuts is highly irresponsible.

“Our seasonal work is a relic. Even in the 17th-18th centuries it was forced. This is the wear and tear of human capital that still remains in Russia. This is his most barbaric exploitation. The migrant workers tend to be in poor health and live potentially relatively shorter lives than the average citizen. Most of the migrant workers would like to live differently. " With all his personal sympathies and respect for these people, Evgeny Gontmakher evaluates the very phenomenon of otkhodnik very negatively - both from a social and economic point of view. “The existence of seasonal work speaks about the flawedness of our economic policy. A normal country is a country where there are growth points almost everywhere. The concentration of business activity in Moscow, St. Petersburg and in cities with a population of one million leads to the depopulation of vast territories. If otkhodniki in Russia continues to grow, it will mean its departure from a certain mainstream civilized way of development. "

Meanwhile, these tendencies are evident today. In particular, with the recently adopted regular pension reform, the state is actually pushing people out of the state pension system. People will not turn to her and will not even hope for her, because they will understand that they are not able to earn experience, points. We are going back to tsarist times, when the pension system was the privilege of a very small circle of people, the property of the military and a limited circle of skilled workers.

The fact that the current policy of the state leads not only to the destruction of the economy, but also to the degradation of the population is indirectly evidenced by the materials of the book. In the interviews collected, it is said about the closure of schools and hospitals, about the decline in wages due to the influx of cheap labor from Central Asia, about the fact that unskilled work in a foreign land is paid better than skilled work at home. “On the other side of the barricades,” entrepreneurs and local authorities talk about a change in psychology, about unwillingness to work and a shortage of qualified personnel. “With an equal salary, the work of a turner, a milling machine operator, a welder requires more physical and mental effort than the work of a security guard. Nobody wants to strain too much. Therefore, when a job is lost there, and a qualified job appears here, the people do not have a special desire to return and work here in their working specialties, ”said the head of the Kineshma city administration A.V. Tomilin.