In the general sense of the term, there have of course been workers present since the dawn of Russian history, including slave laborers and serfs. Viewed more narrowly to mean persons employed in industry and paid a wage, however, workers became important to the Russian economy only in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, especially during the reign of Peter the Great (1682 - 1725), who placed a high priority on Russia's industrial development. But even under Peter most workers employed in manufacturing and mining were unfree labor, forced to toil long hours either in privately owned enterprises or in factories owned by the government. The continued coexistence of free and forced labor at a time when forced labor, except for convicts, had virtually vanished from the European scene was a noteworthy and notorious characteristic of Russian society until as late as 1861, when serfdom was abolished and almost all labor was placed on a contractual footing.
A staff of office is a staff, the carrying of which often denotes an official's position, a social rank or a degree of social prestige.
Apart from the ecleseastical and ceremonial usages mentioned below, there are less formal usages. A gold- or silver-topped cane can express social standing (or dandyism). teacher or prefect in schools traditionally carried less elaborate canes which marked their right (and potential threat) to administer canings, and military officers carry a residual threat of physical punishment in their swagger stick. orchestral conductors have in their batons symbols of authority as well as tools of their trade.
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