In this paper, we examine the system of artisan sector functioning in Russia on the eve of the First World War. The study is based on an analysis of the Index of the Second All-Russian Artisan Exhibition in St. Petersburg of 1913, so far little used by researchers. The analysis was carried out using the Access DBMS program that makes part of the MS Office package. The author proposes a classification of artisanal production facilities and concludes that there were two types of artisan sector functioning in the Russian Empire before World War I. The first type was spontaneous, developing as part of the free activity of market economic forces. The second type was regulated and existed in the form of workshops and enterprises administered by state structures, or financed by them. By the beginning of World War I, the artisan sector functioned as an integral system making part of the Russian economy.
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