FACTORS THAT SUPPORT THE DEVELOPMENT OF FUR FARMS: THE CASE STUDY OF GREECE

This study aims to discuss the key factors that can contribute to the development of the fur industry in Greece. The industry consists of two sub-sectors i.e. production and processing of fur skins (raw material), and the production of fur garments. The profitability of fur-bearing farms, considered from the perspective of investment and further international fur trade, and both these were examined in this study because these two sub-sectors are closely linked. The results obtained from the analysis of the two fur production sub-sectors showed that the investment of capital in the industry can expect positive returns while at the same time creating well-paid jobs. Although not presenting a comparative advantage, but the foreign trade of fur garments produced in the region can gain competitiveness if some of the strategies used by Greek fur companies are adjusted. Results of the current study can be concluded that despite the weaknesses that emerge from the results of this study, both sub-sectors of the fur industry can make a significant contribution to the development of the local community of Western Macedonia.

Solving or Not Solving Problems

The three articles featured in this issue may not appear to be related, but within their varying contexts, I found myself teasing out several chords that resonate throughout them, and one, in particular, struck me as notable. Directly or indirectly, these articles (as well as the report) all address the notion of problem-solving in some shape or form. Whether a historical account of protest as an attempt to solve issues of discontent among fur trade workers in Russian America, approaches to discussing climate change in northeastern Siberia, coping with failing infrastructure and the negotiation of corporate versus state responsibility—or dealing with COVID lockdowns and scholarly knowledge exchange at present—the articles in this issue all explore the confrontation of problems and how they might be solved.

Trapped?

This article re-evaluates the nature of Indigenous labor at Central California’s New Helvetia colony. The fur trade in Central California was not simply a vehicle for settler exploitation of Indigenous labor but a dynamic trade network shaped by Plains Miwok– and Valley Nisenan–speaking trappers and traders, Mission San José, the Hudson’s Bay Company, and white settlers. Analysis of the financial aspects of trade for the Indigenous trappers and ethnohistorical examination of their motives for engaging in the trade suggest that the fur trade was not a source of degradation and dependency, but a vehicle by which they creatively and purposefully engaged colonial forces and markets. This article orients the histories of Plains Miwok– and Valley Nisenan–speaking communities into the larger story of the North American fur trade and suggests New Helvetia and its fur trade can be better understood as what historian Lisbeth Haas calls “Indigenous colonial” creations.

The Role of Trade Customs in the Legal Regulation of the Fur Trade in the Russian Empire (Based on Materials from North-Eastern Siberia in the Second Half of the 19th – Early 20th Centurу)

The main purpose of the publication is to analyze the role of trade customs in the process of legal regulation of the organization of the fur trade in the north-east of Siberia in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries. Achieving this goal presupposes an analysis of the norms of the legislative sources of the trade law of the Russian Empire during the period of modernization. The analysis of trade customs is based on examples from previously unpublished and unreported archival sources. Analyzed cash, trade books of firms “N. D. Everstov”, “G. V. Nikiforov”, ‘G. V. Nikiforov and Co”, “I. P. Antipin and G. V. Nikiforov”, Joint Stock Company of Match and Fur Factory “N. P. Rylov and F. P. Lesnikov”, containing records of transactions concluded on the basis of trade customs. The topic is of theoretical and applied relevance. The article is of an interdisciplinary nature. To solve the set tasks, comparative, problem-chronological methods, as well as functional and comparative legal methods of jurisprudence were applied in the work. The author determined that the synthesis of the norms of customary law of the indigenous population of North-Eastern Siberia with the norms of general imperial laws led to the formation of a complex of trade customs in the industry. The article analyzes the practice of implementing such trade customs in the fur trade, such as: accrual of debt to fishers and its transition to the next fishing season, unequal exchange, fixing commercial information in personal correspondence. As the main conclusions, it was noted that the trade customs in the fur trade were superior to the norms of the Trade Charter and other legislative acts of the state. This was facilitated by the special historical conditions and specificity of the legal consciousness of society in the outskirts of the Russian Empire. The development of commodity-money relations and the state policy of legislative convergence of the legal status of the indigenous and Russian population of the outlying territories of Siberia contributed to a gradual decrease in the role of trade customs in the fur trade at the beginning of the 20th century.