Secretaries of the Siberian statistical committees: officials, scientists and public figures

On the example of Siberia, the article presents the activity of clerks - secretaries of provincial and regional statistical committees in the 19th - early 20th centuries. The article reveals the transformation of the material situation, rights and duties of the secretaries of committees, and shows their contribution to the study of the Siberian region, organization of regional museums, interaction with scientific societies, city government bodies. At the same time, it states that scientific work was one of the so-called non-compulsory occupations of statistical committees, designed to ensure the correct maintenance of administrative statistics. In the second half of the 19th century top Siberian administration, despite legal restrictions, widely used the forces, knowledge and abilities of politically unreliable persons, allowing them to be occupied with science, provide legal and medical assistance to the population. The author notes that the secretaries of the committees had a special place in the system of the regional bureaucratic apparatus of the Russian Empire.