Barge hauler phenomenon as a special socio-economic event in the history of Russia

The article is devoted to the problem of the barge haulers as a special socio-economicphenomenon of the 16th - 20th centuries. Barge hauler work or «ship work» wascalled a different kind of service on river ships and forest rafts. In general, thatlabor employment engaged ordinary ship workers, mainly barge haulers. By thenineteenth century, the Russian Volga River became a kind of world centre forbarge hauler activity. In the Russian Empire, the city of Rybinsk was called as the«capital of barge haulers». The barge hauler work gradually disappeared from thepractice of life, but it had a significant impact on the development of the economyof Russia at that time, leaving its footprints in literature and art works that remindthe descendants of this socio-economic phenomenon.