Calvinist population of Saint Petersburg in the first half of the 18thcentury according to the registers of church parishes

The article presents the results of new study of the St. Petersburg foreigners’database compiled on the basis of register of Petersburg Calvinist parishes for the first half of the 18-th century. It identifies the national and social structures of Calvinist population, determines some demographic indicators (such as child mortality, national and religious parameters of kinship, the percentage of illegitimate children). The author believes that in the mid-1730s there were more than two hundred adult Calvinists of both sexes in St. Petersburg. The Calvinist population of the capital was approximately 40 % Dutch, 30 % Germans, 20 % French, and 8 % English. It was found that among the St. Petersburg Calvinists there were many people of intellectual professions, such as doctors, scientists, and teachers, who made up at least 7 % of all men in the parishes. The social composition of these parishes was not homogeneous, but it was balanced, because the main categories of city dwellers (artisans, merchants, and military personnel), judging by their minimal shares, were distributed evenly. The article suggests that interethnic and interfaith ties of the St. Petersburg Calvinists contributed to the large-scale Western European acculturation for many Russians without their traveling abroad.