The book was written by the famous Vitebsk ethnographer of the 19th - early 20th centuries. Nikolai Yakovlevich Nikiforovsky and published in 1895 in Vitebsk. The publication describes the everyday and everyday aspects of the life of Belarusian peasants in the Vitebsk region in the 50-60s of the XIX century. In the preface, the author points to a serious improvement in the living and living conditions of rural residents of the Vitebsk region over a 30-year period after the elimination of serfdom by Emperor Alexander II.