Professions, like everything else in our world, are not eternal. The reasons for the fact that this or that profession has lost its mass character or popularity may be different. Most often this is the technical development of society. Fans have become a mass product, and windmills have disappeared from the mines, supplying air to the face with a manual fan. They built a sewer in the city - the goldsmiths disappeared.
Goldsmiths have been part of the landscape of any city for centuries
Generally speaking, it is not very correct to apply the term “disappeared” to professions indiscriminately. The overwhelming majority of those professions that we consider to have disappeared are not dying out, but transforming. Moreover, this transformation is more quantitative than qualitative. For example, a car driver does the same job as a coachman or a coachman - he delivers passengers or cargo from point A to point B. The name of the profession has changed, technical conditions have changed, but the work has remained the same. Or another, almost extinct profession - a typist. We will go to any large office. In it, in addition to variegated managers, there is always at least one secretary, typing documents on a computer, the essence of the same typist. Yes, there are fewer of them than in the machine bureau widespread 50 years ago, and it rattles much less, but still there are tens of thousands of representatives of this type of occupation. On the other hand, if the typist is not a dying out profession, then how should the profession of a scribe be called?
At the typing office
There are, of course, opposite examples. For example, lamplighters are people who manually lit street lamps. With the advent of electricity, they were first replaced (in very reduced numbers) by electricians who turned on the lights on entire streets. Nowadays, almost everywhere street lighting includes light sensors. A person is needed exclusively for control and possible repair. Counters - female workers who performed massive mathematical calculations - also completely disappeared. They were completely replaced by computers.
The following selection of facts about obsolete professions is based on a compromise. We will consider a profession that is outdated or disappearing, the number of representatives of which, firstly, has decreased by orders of magnitude, and secondly, will not undergo a significant increase in the foreseeable future. Unless, of course, global cataclysms like a meeting with an asteroid or a global war occur in the future. Then the survivors will have to become saddlers, chumaks, and scrapers with potters.
1. The barge haulers profession existed geographically located in the middle reaches of the Volga. The barge haulers were pulling up the river Rashiva - small, by our standards, cargo ships. With the light hand of the great Ilya Repin, who painted the picture "Barge Haulers on the Volga", we imagine the work of barge haulers as a terribly hard work that people do when there is no other opportunity to earn money. In fact, this is a false feeling from a talented painting. Vladimir Gilyarovsky, who carried the strap, has a good description of the work of the barge haulers. There was nothing supernaturally hard in work, and even for the 19th century. Yes, work almost all daylight hours, but in the fresh air and with good food - it was provided by the owner of the transported goods, who did not need weak and hungry barge haulers. Factory workers then worked for 16 hours, and the remaining 8 slept in the same workshops where they worked. Dressed barge haulers in rags - and who in their right mind would do hard physical work in new clean clothes? The barge haulers united in artels and led a fairly independent life. Gilyarovsky, by the way, got into the artel only out of luck - the day before one of the artel members died of cholera, and Uncle Gilyai was taken in his place. For a season - about 6 - 7 months - barge haulers could postpone up to 10 rubles, which for an illiterate peasant was a fabulous sum. Burlakov, as you might guess, was deprived of work by steamers.
The same painting by Repin. By the time it was written, there were already very few barge haulers.
2. Almost simultaneously with the beginning of the worldwide lament that humanity will die out due to the fact that it has too much influence on the environment and produces a lot of garbage, rag-pickers disappeared from the streets of cities. These were people who bought and sorted a wide variety of waste, from bast shoes to glass. In the 19th century, rag-pickers replaced centralized garbage collection. They methodically walked around the yards, buying up garbage or exchanging it for every little thing. Like barge haulers, the rag-pickers were always dressed in rags, and even from them, due to the specifics of labor, the corresponding smell constantly emanated. Because of this, they were considered the bottom and the dregs of society. Meanwhile, the rag-picker earned at least 10 rubles a month. The same pension - 120 rubles a year - was received by Raskolnikov's mother from Crime and Punishment. The resourceful rag-pickers earned much more. But the cream, of course, was skimmed by dealers. The turnover of the business was so serious that the waste was supplied under contracts concluded at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, and the weight of the supplies was estimated at tens of thousands of poods. Tryapichnikov was ruined by the development of industry, which required high-quality raw materials, and mass production, which made both goods and waste cheaper. Waste is collected and sorted now, but no one will come for it directly to your home.
Rag picker with his cart
3. Two professions at once were called in Russia the word “kryuchnik”. This word was used to name people who sorted garbage bought in bulk with a hook (that is, it was a subspecies of rag-pickers) and a special kind of loaders in the Volga region. These loaders worked at the transshipment of goods in the Volga region. The most massive work of kryuchniks was in Rybinsk, where there were more than 3,000 of them. Kryuchniks worked as cooperatives with internal specialization. Some handed out the cargo from the hold onto the deck, others, with the help of a hook and teammates, threw the sack behind their backs and carried them to another ship, where a special person - he was called "batyr" - indicated where to unload the sack. At the end of the loading, it was not the owner of the cargo that paid off the hooks, but the contractors who monopolized the hiring of loaders. Simple, but very hard work brought kryuchniks up to 5 rubles a day. Such earnings made them an elite of wage labor. The profession of hookers, strictly speaking, has not disappeared anywhere - they have turned into dock workers. Although, of course, the work of the latter is mechanized and not so associated with heavy physical exertion.
Artel of kryuchnikov for atypical work - it was more profitable to reload bags from a ship directly to another ship, and not to the shore
4. Three centuries ago, one of the most popular and respected professions in the south of Russia was the Chumak profession. Transportation of goods, primarily salt, grain and timber, by shuttle routes from north to south and back, not only brought a solid income. It was not enough for Chumak to be a resourceful merchant. In the XVI - XVIII centuries, the Black Sea region was a wild territory. They tried to rob the merchant caravan everyone who came into sight of this caravan. Nationality or religion played no role. The eternal enemies of the Basurman, the Crimean Tatars, and the Cossacks-Haidamaks, who wore the cross, also tried to profit. Therefore, a chumak is also a warrior, capable of defending his caravan from robbery in a small company. Chumak caravans transported millions of poods of cargo. They became a feature of Little Russia and the Black Sea region because of the oxen. The main advantages of these animals are power and endurance. Oxen walk very slowly - slower than a pedestrian - but can carry very large loads over long distances. For example, a pair of oxen freely carried one and a half tons of salt. If he managed to make three trips during the season, the Chumak earned very well. Even the poorest Chumaks, who owned 5-10 teams, were much richer than their peasant neighbors. The turnover of the Chumak business in the 19th century was measured in hundreds of thousands of poods. Even with the advent of railways, it did not disappear immediately, playing an important role now in local traffic.
The Chumak caravan was met by all the men of the village, and the women were hiding - a bad omen for the Chumaks
5. By the decree of Peter I of March 2, 1711, the Senate was ordered to "inflict fiscal on all matters." After another 3 days, the tsar made the task more concrete: it was necessary to create, in modern terms, a vertical system of control over the receipt of funds into the treasury and their spending. This was to be done by the city and provincial fiscal, over which stood the chief fiscal. The new civil servants received the broadest powers. You can't even tell right away which is better: receiving half of the amount that the fiscal will return to the treasury, or complete immunity in case of false denunciations. It is clear that with the permanent staff shortage of Peter I, people of dubious merits, to put it mildly, got into the fiscal department. At first, the actions of the fiscals made it possible to replenish the treasury and rein in the high-ranking embezzlers. However, the fiscals, who tasted blood, quickly began to blame everyone and everything, earning universal hatred. Their powers were gradually limited, immunity was abolished, and in 1730 Empress Anna Ioannovna completely abolished the fiscal institution. Thus, the profession lasted only 19 years.
6. If the prophet Moses is considered the founder of your profession, your colleagues were highly respected among the Jews and did not pay taxes in Ancient Egypt, then you are working as a scribe. True, the chances of this tend to zero. The scribe's profession can be called extinct with almost absolute accuracy. Of course, people with good handwriting are sometimes needed. An invitation or greeting card written in calligraphic handwriting looks much more attractive than a printed design. However, it is hardly possible to find a person in the civilized world who would earn his living exclusively by handwriting. Meanwhile, the profession of a scribe appeared in ancient times, and its representatives invariably enjoyed respect and privileges. In Europe at the end of the 1st millennium A.D. e. scriptoria began to appear - prototypes of modern printing houses, in which books were reproduced by hand by rewriting. The first serious blow to the scribe's profession was dealt with typography, and finally it was finished off by the invention of the typewriter. Scribes should not be confused with scribes. In the Cossack units in the Russian Empire, there was the post of a military clerk, but this was already a serious post, and the person who occupied it certainly did not write official papers himself. There were also civilian clerks in Russia. The person who performed this position was in charge of document flow in the corresponding structure of territorial administration.
7. After drinking the first glass of vodka in the apartment of a Moscow engineer, Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible from the play by Mikhail Bulgakov or the film “Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession”, asks the landlord whether the housekeeper made vodka. Based on this question, one might think that the specialization of housekeepers or housekeepers was alcoholic beverages. However, this is not the case. Key keeper or key keeper - the name of the profession comes from the word “key”, because they kept the keys to all rooms in the house - this is, in fact, the general among the servants in the house or estate. Only the owner's family was older than the housekeeper. The housekeeper was exclusively responsible for the master's table and drinks. Under the guidance of the key keeper, groceries were purchased and delivered, food was prepared and served on the table. The food and drinks prepared accordingly were of the highest quality. The question "Did the housekeeper make vodka?" could hardly have asked the king. As an option, dissatisfied with the taste of vodka, he could clarify, they say, whether it is the housekeeper, and not someone else. At least at home, at least at a party - Ivan Vasilyevich did not go to visit commoners - by default they served vodka made by the housekeeper. Around the 17th century, key keepers began to disappear from the homes of the nobility. The female part of the owner's family began to take an active part in managing the house. And the place of the housekeeper was taken by the butler or the housekeeper-housekeeper.
"Did the housekeeper make vodka?"
8. Two lines from the popularly known romance “Coachman, don't drive the horses. I have nowhere else to hurry ”surprisingly comprehensively describe the essence of the coachman's profession - he carries people on horseback, and is to these people in a subordinate position. It all started with the chase - a special state duty in kind. The purpose of the chase looked something like this. A police chief or other rank came to the village and said: “Here you are, you, and those two there. As soon as mail or passengers arrive from neighboring Neplyuevka, you must take them on your horses further to Zaplyuevka. Is free!" It is clear with what eagerness the peasants performed this duty. Letters were lost by passengers or were shaking in carriages for days, or crashed during a dashing ride. In the 18th century, they began to restore order, singling out the coachmen into a special class. They had land for cultivation, and they were paid for the delivery of mail and passengers. Coachmen inhabited entire urban areas, hence the abundance of Tverskiye-Yamskiye streets in Moscow, for example. On long journeys, horses were changed at post stations. The theoretical figures for how many horses should be at the station did not match the actual need for horses. Hence the endless complaints that there were no horses in Russian literature. The writers may not have realized that after paying the standard tax - 40 kopecks for the driver and for each horse and 80 kopecks for the station keeper - the horses were immediately found. The drivers had other tricks as well, because the earnings depended on the route, and on how many passengers traveled on it, and how many mails were transported, etc. Well, it is necessary to entertain passengers with songs, because it affects payment. In general, something like taxi drivers of the late Soviet times - they seem to carry it for a penny, but they earn quite well. Transportation speed (standard) was 8 versts per hour in spring and autumn and 10 versts per hour in summer and winter. On average, in the summer, they drove 100 or a little more versts, in winter, even 200 versts could travel on sleds. Coachmen were reduced only in the second half of the 19th century, with the development of railway communication. They also worked in remote places at the beginning of the 20th century.
9. Until 1897, the word "computer" did not mean an electronic computer at all, but a person. Already in the 17th century, the need arose for complex volumetric mathematical calculations. Some of them took weeks. It is not known who was the first to come up with the idea of dividing these calculations into parts and distributing them to different people, but already in the second half of the 18th century, astronomers had this as a daily practice. Gradually it became clear that the work of the calculator is performed more effectively by women. In addition, female labor at all times was paid less than male labor. Computing bureaus began to appear, whose employees could be hired to perform one-time work. The labor of calculators was used in the United States to design an atomic bomb and prepare space flights. And six calculators are worth recalling by name. Fran Bilas, Kay McNulty, Marilyn Weskoff, Betty Jean Jennings, Betty Snyder and Ruth Lichterman have buried the calculator profession with their own hands. They participated in the programming of the first analogue of modern computers - the American machine ENIAC. It was with the advent of the computer that calculators disappeared as a class.
10. Representatives of the organized thieves' community were not the first to “bother with the hairdryer”. The "fen" was spoken by a special caste of wandering traders in manufacture and other industrial goods, called "offen". No one knew and still does not know where they came from.Someone considers them to be Greek settlers, someone - former buffoons, whose gangs (and there were several dozen of them) dispersed in the 17th century with considerable difficulty. Ofeni appeared at the turn of the 18th - 19th centuries. They differed from the usual peddlers in that they climbed into the most remote villages and spoke their own unique language. It was the language that was the hallmark and hallmark of the organization. Grammatically, he was similar to Russians, only a huge number of roots were borrowed, so it is impossible for an unprepared person to understand the language. Another important difference was that they massively traded in books, which were rare in villages and towns far from cities. The Ofeni disappeared from rural life as suddenly as they appeared in it. Most likely, their trade became unprofitable due to the stratification of the peasantry after the abolition of serfdom. The richer peasants began to open trade shops in their villages, and the need for women disappeared.
