About the book: 2020 / John Bushnell's study of the marriage practices of peasant Old Believers of Spasov's consent in the Yaroslavl, Vladimir and Kostroma provinces changes our ideas about social history peasantry in Russia in the 18th–19th centuries. The number of Spasovites in the middle of the 19th century, according to the author, reached at least a million people, and they lived mainly along the Volga - from Yaroslavl to Astrakhan. Therefore, their mating behavior had a significant impact on village life throughout this large region. This influence, as the author shows, was sometimes destructive for the economy and demography. The author also connects the widespread prevalence of celibacy among the Savovkas with the beginning of nobles interfering in the marital behavior of their serfs, which enriches our knowledge of the development of serfdom. John Bushnell is a professor at Northwestern University in the USA.).