“Under martial law”: trade in the Vladivostok Fortress during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905

The article examines the development of trade in Vladivostok during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. The main sources used in the study are stored in Russian State Historical Archive of the Far East correspondence, orders, circulars and instructions of the Manchurian armies Commanders, the Emperor's Viceroy in the Far East, the Amur Governors-general and military governors of the Amur and Primorsky regions, commandants of the Vladivostok Fortress, as well as reports prepared for the governor on the South Ussuri district, materials on the supply of the Primorsky region with essential goods for March-April 1904 and reports of the military governor of the Primorsky region for 1905 and 1906. The sources of personal origin were also used - the correspondence of E.L. Pray and the memoirs of Baron A.P. Budberg. The conditions in which entrepreneurs had to carry out trade activities, complicated by martial law, are studied. The factors that hindered the realization of commodity exchange and had a negative impact on the urban economy, including its trade sphere, are identified: difficulties with the delivery of goods, prohibitions on the import and export of certain categories of goods, price regulation to combat high cost of living, shortages and speculation. Under the state of siege and naval blockade, trade in Vladivostok was limited to insignificant retail turnover, as well as government contracts and supplies, and there was a quite natural decrease in the number of traders. After the end of the military conflict the rapid growth of cargo imports to Vladivostok as the main trade center of the region led to overstocking of the port, but not to a decrease in prices.

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