Population dynamics of the merchant class in the Nizhny Novgorod province during the second half of the XIX century

Merchant population is the current issue either in the Nizhny Novgorod province or in Russian Empire as a whole. In the post-reform period there is a population decrease in the representatives of the merchant class and the population growth of the representatives of other classes who carried out trading activities as representatives of temporary merchants, officially being the members of their class. This leads to the fact that merchants gradually losing its importance in the socio-economic development of the state.