Figure 1.--Here we see volunteer fire fighters in an unidentified Russian town. Note the karge wooden buildings. The fire fifgters look to be adult men, but one boy was involved. He is wearing a black unifirm. Put your cursor on the image to see the entire grouo. This is an impage taken by Prokudin-Gorskii. about 1910

Fighting fires was a major concern in Russia. Most buildings were constructed from wood. Russia with vast firests had aplentiful supply of wood. It was the most inexpensive building material. Brick buildings were less common than in Europe. Only in the larger cities do you see stone buildings. We note some very large wooden buildings. This made many Russian towns highly flamable. As a result, fire fighting was an important concern. Large cities might have a full time fire department. Towns and villages would have a volunteer force. Some youths and boys might participate, most likely the sons of the adult members. We see European volunteer forces with quite a number of boys involved. We know less about the tradition in Russia.