The Economic Position of Officials in the Provincial Ural Administrations at the End of the 19th and the Beginning of the 20th Centuries

In academic literature the question of the economic position of regional officials during the late imperial period of the Russian empire is little studied. This article has the two main tasks: first, to discover the typical salary of an official in the provincial Ural cities and their minimum standard of living; second, to divide the officials of the provincial administration into homogenous groups depending on their income, that is rank them according to their financial position. The paper concludes that officials of provincial Ural administrations during the late imperial period suffered from steadily worsening material conditions which were extreme for at least one-third from them. This situation made those officials want to create own trade-unions. The Government’s refusal to sanction the creation of such trade unions provoked the growth of corruption among local officials realizing coporate interests.