Mobilization in the Russian Empire during the World War I was 12 million of people which led to the large financial commitments on just formed welfare system. The purpose of this article is to study the situation of soldiers' families during the War using the example of the Primorsky Region, one of the most remote provinces of Russia. Main sources are the documents of the Russian State Historical Archive of the Far East (Medical Department of the Primorsky Regional Government; Primorsky Regional Military Services Presence, Office of the Amur Governor-General, Committee of the Khabarovsk Union of Soldiers), State Archives of the Russian Federation (Police Department of the Ministry of the Interior) and materials of primorsky press during the war. By the military reform of Alexander I there was no subsidy for the conscripts and their relatives. Also, a mobilized person had to buy the uniform, got some food and sometimes even buy a horse (for example, Cossacks). It was a real problem for soldier's families to get their legal allowance which automatically made them almost paupers. Peasant's farms with the necessity to help a soldier lose more than 60 roubles a year. In these conditions soldier's wives had to use unofficial prostitution for earning more money. It was very actual for the Far Eastern cities where traditionally lived more men than women. Medical department of Primorskaya Oblast' was worried about this fact because of the venereal diseases spreading in the cities throw unofficial prostitution. Soldier's wives practiced unofficial prostitution even if they had a salary because its number was not enough for the good standard of living. Moreover, the society was waiting for it because a wife without husband became an easy victim. Situation became worse when mobilization in Primorskaya Oblast' started in 1914. Far Eastern newspapers and magazines fixed soldier's dissatisfaction, their anxiety for the families, subscribed problems which their wives, children and parents faced with. In the Russian State Historical Archive of the Far East were found letters of old parents who asked to return their children back and newspapers were full of stories about poor soldier's wives - legal and not - who did not have any money for living. The legislative base about welfare was conflicting. Organs of government and charitable organizations tried to improve economic conditions of soldier's families but their survival more often depended on the women's efforts. During the World War I women used different ways for surviving. They started to educate themselves, got more knowledge about their rights, worked out of home and got salary and opposed to their parents-in-law because the subsidy was paid only to legal wives. Women took part in the public life of their villages. In its turn it led to the changes in women's self-conscience: the eradication of illiteracy, apparatus employed, organizing of Soldier's wives Unions (one of them was in Khabarovsk under the presidency of Alexandra N. Greculova) and so called "Women's Riots" (Babi Riots) which became a prologue to the February revolution in 1917.
