At the turn of the XIX - XX centuries, Petrozavodsk, despite the proud title of the provincial center, remained a small suburban city. The life of most of the city’s population was more rural than urban: Petrozavodsk was built with wooden houses surrounded by household buildings, gardens, bath houses and wells. Of great importance for all Petrozavodsk citizens had a subsidiary farm: townspeople kept chickens, goats, sheep, cows.
At the beginning of the 20th century, horticulture became very popular - many owners cultivated apples, cherries, gooseberries. Employees of Aleksandrovsky Zavod in search of additional earnings engaged in locksmithing, carpentry, and driving. Most of the city’s inhabitants were engaged in hunting and fishing: the shore of Lake Onega in the city and the mouth of the rivers Lososinka and Neglinka were crowded with hundreds of boats.
Life in the city was peaceful, quiet and monotonous. In autumn and winter, the wickets and the gates of the high fences that separated the houses from each other, were locked after nine o'clock in the evening. The city came to life in the summer, after the opening of navigation on the lake. Citizens of all ages and estates «walked» to the public marina - to see off passenger steamships departing to Petersburg.
In everyday life, the citizens arranged their lives in accordance with the way of their life: the few «upper light» (high society) sought to meet the requirements of the capital, the commoners were close to the village tradition of farming. In the living rooms of officials, it was possible to see elegant furniture of the company «Tonet», card-table for card games. On the «clean half» (guest room) of the commoner`s house - homespun flooring, Tula samovar and popular kuznetsovsky porcelain.
