The paper is devoted to the analysis of the scientific activities of scholars from the Krasnoyarsk State Pedagogical University (Institute), specialists in the history of Siberia in the 17th – early 19th centuries. Based on the analysis of archival materials, published works of researchers, and interviews, the research path of scientists and teachers is shown. Since the late 1950s, P.N. Pavlov was the first in Russian science to begin an in-depth study of the fur trade and industrial colonization of Siberia. Pavlov's research is devoted to the 17th century, the heyday of the Russian fur trade and fur commerce. He studied materials on the Mangazeya, Yenisei, Ilimsk and Yakutsk districts, which constituted the main fur trade area; he showed the quantity and composition of the furs obtained, their prices, found out the origin of industrial hunters and other aspects of the fur trade. G.F. Bykonya began researching the topic of Russian settlement in the Prienisei region. The focus of his scientific interest was feudal relations in Siberia. He studied in detail the process of formation of the administrative and economic layer of Siberians, the social and class composition of serving people in Eastern Siberia. Bykonya is an active popularizer of historical science, preparing important sources on the history of Siberia for publication. V.V. Bulankov studied the history of Yeniseisk at the stage of "late feudalism". He determined the class composition and occupation of the inhabitants of the first capital of the Prienisei region. He showed that the main occupations of the Yeniseians were crafts (metallurgy, metalworking, stone construction, etc.) and trade. All three researchers - teachers of the Pedagogical Institute, methodologists, educators of history teachers - prepared textbooks, worked in the field of protection of historical and cultural monuments. The authors of the paper came to the conclusion that, with various interpretations of the concept of "feudalism" from the point of view of today's science, researchers have created fundamental, highly qualified works on the history of socio-economic relations in Siberia based on archival materials.