
To the end of the 17th century Kungur became a town of merchants.
The factories of soap, wine and leather became very important. All power in the town was
in merchants' hands. They organized different actions, gathered taxes.
Merchants were first
mentioned in the ancient russian documents about the 10th century. At that time
merchants was the word for the town people who worked in sale. Their main part was
so-called "guests". At the end of the 16th century they all got
together depending on their capital into three groups.
In 1865 merchants
with the town head Pilikin built the shopping place which was later called the Gostinyj
Dvor.
Gribushin, Gubkin
and Kuznetsov - these are three main merchants of Kungur. All of them sailed sugar and tee
which was a very good business for that time. |