The Limited Role of Subsidiary Occupations in the Livelihood System of the Semeiskie Old Believers in the Early 1920s (Based on the 1923 Census of the Okino-Klyuchevskaya Volost of the Buryat–Mongolian ASSR)

Based on data from the 1923 agricultural census, the article provides a detailed analysis of the place and role of subsidiary occupations in the livelihood system of the Semeiskie Old Believers of the Okino-Klyuchevskaya volost of the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Subsidiary occupations primarily included blacksmithing, the operation of mills, pottery, leatherworking, and shoemaking. In the pre-revolutionary period, seasonal labor migration to gold mining, railroad construc-tion, and employment in the forestry sector, as well as fishing, hunting, the gathering of pine nuts, willow bark, and other wild resources, were common in the region. Carrier's trade was also popular. All of these activities are examined under the general term subsidiary occupations. Unlike many regions of Siberia, where seasonal labor migration and non-agricultural pursuits were widespread, within this local group they played a marginal role: only about 2 percent of the population was engaged in them. The study clearly demonstrates that the economic structure of the volost retained a pronounced agrarian character. At the same time, a significant level of hired labor use within the community is observed, indicating internal stratification and the redistribu-tion of labor resources. The main conclusion of the article is that the weak develop-ment of non-agricultural activities was not due to the intragroup conservatism of the Semeiskie, but rather to a set of objective external factors. These included exception-ally favorable agroclimatic conditions for productive agriculture, the absence of a nearby resource base for the development of profitable forestry industries, and the deep stagnation of the gold mining industry — the key destination for seasonal labor migration in the prerevolutionary period — following the upheavals of the Civil War. Thus, the article makes a significant contribution to the study of the diversity of local models of economic adaptation of Old Believer communities to the socioeconomic realities of the early Soviet period.