Continental trade played a key role in establishing and expanding the power of the Moscow state, and then the Russian Empire, in the ethnically diverse Siberian borderland. Erica Monahan's book is an attempt to analyze the relationship between the merchant world and state building in the early modern period, as well as shed light on the social history of several merchant dynasties in Russia. The researcher focuses on several generations of three families who traded in Siberia for more than a century: the Filatyevs, who belonged to the merchant elite of Russia; Shababins, Muslim immigrants who mastered local and long-distance trade, while successfully combining private entrepreneurship with service to the Russian state; and the Noritsins, merchants of more modest status who were actively involved in the developing Russian-Chinese trade. The author of the book explores the lifestyle they led, the strategies they resorted to in relations with the state, as well as the social niches they occupied in the Siberian borderland. Erica Monahan is a historian, professor at the University of New Mexico, USA.