In the 19th century, the village of Izhevskoye experienced a real economic boom: its coopers supplied the entire south of Russia with barrels. This trade allowed them not only to get rich, but to redeem themselves from serfdom long before its abolition and create elected bodies of self-government in the village. Why is this story important today? Read the article by Dmitry Ermakov, a photographer and one of the project participants, about the path of Izhevsk coopers along the rivers of Russia.