This paper presents an overview of information about the everyday culture of the Russian population of the Irkutsk province, collected by European researchers – participants of scientific expeditions organized by the Russian state in the XVIII century – D.G. Messerschmidt, G.F. Miller, I.E. Fisher, I.G. Gmelin, P.S. Pallas, I.G. Georgi. At the beginning of the work, the definition of the concept of «everyday life» is given, which we relied on during the writing of this article. Next, a brief overview of the historical context in which interest in the history of Siberia was formed by the Russian and foreign scientific community is given, and the history of the penetration of the Russian population into the Siberian territories is briefly described. By means of the historical and comparative method, the article reveals: the interchanges of the Russian and aboriginal population of Siberia; traditions recorded during the XVIII century participants of academic expeditions and preserved in modified form to the present, which allows us to trace their retrospective development; changes in the descriptive approach of the authors of the studied works from the 20s to the 70s of the XVIII century are traced. The material presented in the article may be of practical importance for specialists engaged in the study of ethnography and ethnology of Russians in the territory of the modern Irkutsk region.