The Stakheyevs' entrepreneurial dynasty in emigrant Harbin

The article examines the history of Russian emigration in Harbin through the biographical analysis of the life and entrepreneurship of the Russian entrepreneurial dynasty of the Stakheyevs. The personal records of three representatives of the dynasty were used as original sources. The files were made by an official body which was set up by the Japanese occupation administration to control Russian emigrants and emigrant organizations in Manchuria. Some members of the Stakheyev clan left Russia with the first and second emigration wave. Their biographical data show that the Russian emigration had to change their economic and social status. It was not common for them to carry on their business activities abroad. The money and valuables they had brought with them could keep them afloat but for a short time. As they searched for work they had to take up various low-paying jobs in service industry, transport, security, and trade. Girls and women, left without a breadwinner, had to earn their living by handicraft, private lessons of foreign languages as well as working as housekeepers and waitresses. Their skills acquired as an element of traditional in-family occupational training proved to be vitally important. An dramatic change in their social and economic status and everyday life affected the emigrants' physical and psychological state.