Image of a Russian counterfeiter in the czarist Russia and abroad (1861-1917)

The article is related to depicting a typical image of persons involved in counterfeit of Russian banknotes and financial instruments in the Russian Empire and abroad in the second half of the 19th and in the beginning of the 20th centuries. The author examines general characteristics as well as peculiarities of counterfeiters’ activity and identity, based on insufficiently studied sources previously never introduced into scientific discourse. The article presents a classification of producers and distributors of counterfeits by their occupation, type of organization of criminal acts, as well as by geography, class in a society, motives and other aspects. According to the scale of production and sale of counterfeits there are defined groups of provincial, regional and mass scale counterfeiters. A detailed description of activities of identified criminal groups is proposed. The article claims such main representatives of foreign counterfeiting as emigrants (Jews and residents of the Kingdom of Poland), as well as Russian citizens who went abroad to produce counterfeits. It is concluded that there is a dynamic interdependence between socio-economic and political processes both in the Russian Empire and in other countries of the world with the spread and development of counterfeiting during the period under consideration.