Western European Specialists within the Technical Elite of Ural Region: Social and Cultural Adaptation (Early 19th Century)

The article deals with labor contracts, judicial and investigatory documents and clerical records relating to the problem of Europeans' adaptation to the life in Russian province and their integration into the social and cultural environment of Ural Region. The author points out the signs of the abovementioned specialists' belonging to the Ural technical elite and traces the complicated relations of the European workers with the local population., the basic forms of their interaction, the reasons for conflicts as well as the evidence of the foreign diasporas' desire for isolation.