Imperial Russian cities were profoundly rural in character. While assigned to village communes and collective tax and land obligations, peasants from across the empire seasonally and permanently migrated to the capitals and other growing urban and industrial centers. These peasant otkhodniki (migrants) comprised a growing share of the populations of Moscow and St. Petersburg in the last decades of the imperial period. A defining feature of this mobility was the way that it was grounded within village-based networks linking potential migrants to their former sosedi (neighbors) now in the cities.

Journalist and prominent public historian of St. Petersburg, Lev Lurie, has written a fascinating and deeply researched volume documenting the workings of these village-based migration networks form the 1860s to the early twentieth century as they brought peasants to the capital, helped them find housing, acted as informal insurance and welfare providers, channeled them towards employment, negotiated their integration into social and institutional networks of the city, and even provided funding for entrepreneurial efforts. Lurie argues that the ties between specific rural communities, the migrants they produced, and particular occupations and types of businesses were key elements of the nascent “capitalism” bubbling up on the streets and in the neighborhoods of St. Petersburg.

After a short but useful introduction, the first seven chapters outline the geography and occupational distributions of otkhodnichestvo to and in St. Petersburg. The first five chapters offer an excellent quantitative accounting—down to even the village-level—of the locations of peasant migration to St. Petersburg in the half century before the war. The evidence presented in these chapters (and in the rest of the book) is generated from the city and national censuses and from a host of zemstvo, provincial (especially from Iaroslavl΄), and St. Petersburg statistical sources. Chapter 6 then describes the settlement pattern of migrants from different locations in specific neighborhoods of the city. Here and elsewhere in the book, Lurie emphasizes the co-location of work and residence to the new migrants in the face of a relatively weak internal transportation system. The long Chapter 7 then studies the occupations that these peasants took up and how they were distributed across St. Petersburg. It proceeds through a series of occupations, from shop owners and staff of all sorts; to bar and restaurant owners and employees; to construction, dock, river, and transportation workers; to various artisans and skilled craftsmen.

The second section of the book analyzes the importance of peasant migrants for business and merchant activity in St. Petersburg, emphasizing that the resulting socio-economic climate in the capital was much closer to what existed in Moscow (rooted in the countryside, prominence of Old Believers) than prior literature has asserted. Chapter 8 explores the mechanisms of business formation by otkhodniki and the geographic, personal, educational, religious, and formal networks and institutions that played a role in providing information, funds for investment, and product demand. Attention is paid to the changing social environment of many successful migrants who moved into the merchant class. Mining a host of previously unutilized material, Chapter 9 provides a pioneering analysis of the role played by zemliacheskie obshchestva, or formal associations of fellow countrymen, in the business environment of St. Petersburg. These societies collected dues from prior migrant members and used these funds to provide charity, some basic social services, and financial help to new arrivals. Lurie documents their workings and provides several annotated lists of members of societies that depict the involvement of many upper rank merchants and government officials. Chapter 10 then explores the particular importance of various Old Believer groups among St. Petersburg's new migrants, emphasizing the commonalities with their role in the Moscow business environment. A short third section (Chapter 11) then argues that the burgeoning manufacturing sector of St. Petersburg was less connected to the rural migrant networks than other sectors, with implications for our understanding of the roots of labor unrest and revolutionary activity among such workers.

Although a host of useful data is presented in tables throughout the study, a non-specialist would benefit enormously from the use of maps; unfortunately, the book provides none. However, the numerical evidence is wonderfully enrichened by the qualitative evidence from memoirs, reports, journalistic accounts, and other primary sources relevant to the migration experience. As a historian of St. Petersburg, Lurie is particularly good at presenting the urban social, economic, and even political environments that the otkhodniki generated. Thus, this study goes beyond existing scholarship that has tended to emphasize the perspective of the sending locations. The result is a major contribution to our understanding of the rural roots of imperial urban development.