Lifetime edition. Volkov Nikolai Nikolaevich – scientific ethnographer, religious scholar. Participated in ethnographic expeditions, studied the peoples of the North, North-West, Crimea. In 1930 he prepared the monograph “The Sect of the Eunuchs”. The book explores the history of one of the most terrible and “savage” sects that existed in Russia before the revolution and in the first years of Soviet power - the sect of eunuchs. Eunuchs would usually be servants or slaves who had been castrated to make them less threatening servants of a royal court where physical access to the ruler could wield great influence. The evolution of their faith, methods of involvement in the sect, the life and ethnographic features of eunuchs, forms of castration, etc. are considered. The texts of sectarian chants and documents on the history of the skoptestvo are given. The book contains photographs of castrated sectarians(including the “royal seal” of a young man). The eunuchs believed that the path to saving the soul was to fight the flesh through castration. Castration is the removal of reproductive organs. Communities of eunuchs were called ships, prayers were called zeal. Sectarians were exiled to Siberia. Despite this, the sect was quite numerous: in the second half of the 19th century, there were about 6 thousand eunuchs, mainly in the Tambov, Kursk, Oryol provinces, in Siberia, where rich eunuch communities bought huge territories from the local population.The sect was banned in the USSR.