FISHERIES IN THE DAILY LIFE OF COSSACKS (SECOND HALF OF THE XIX – BEGINNING OF THE ХХ CENTURY)

The article, based on archival materials, periodical press data and descriptions of contemporaries, gives a generalized description of the fishing industry as one of the economic branches in the daily life of the Cossack villages of the Ural, Siberian, Astrakhan, and Kuban Cossack troops. The author comes to the conclusion that since the end of the nineteenth century there has been a decline in fishing caused by shallowing of rivers, predatory and uninterrupted fishing, and non-compliance with the rules of fishing by the Cossacks. These phenomena contributed to social change: the Cossacks, whose fishing was the main occupation, began to develop other economic sectors, but this process was also extremely slow.