The article is based on published memoirs and examines socio-political events in the Yurinsky Volost of the Nizhny Novgorod province in 1917. By the beginning of 1917, Russia was experiencing a deep revolutionary crisis. The discontent of the population with a decline in the standard of living and the ongoing ruinous war turned into a revolutionary movement that led to the overthrow of the autocracy. The letters and the memoirs, perhaps, are the main points of reference in the reconstruction of the multidimensional picture of 1917. They convey the spirit of the revolutionary era to us. The written account of the memories reflects the feelings of the storytellers, conveys the acuteness of social contradictions, the dramatic nature of personal destinies. The actual material of these works is of some value in carrying out today's research on the history of 1917. Interesting materials characterizing the socio-political situation in Yurino in the spring of 1917 are presented in the memoirs. At the end of April, the Yurinsky workers were the first to establish a council in the Mari region. On the one hand, there was a local government (zemstvo) that carried out the orders of the Provisional government, on the other – the revolutionary power of the Soviet, created by the workers and soldiers re-turning from the front. One part of the population followed the zemstvo council, the other supported the Council. Two working organizations emerged simultaneously: Yurino Soviet of Workers' Deputies and a professional union of tanners. Despite some internal disagreements, the Council gradually began to influence the public life. The Soviet power was established earlier in the Yurinsky volost than in its district center - Vasilsursk. Participants in the events noted in their memoirs that Yurino actually turned out to be the center of the revolutionary movement in the district. The memories of eyewitnesses help to better understand the socio-political processes in 1917. Not all the facts of the past are reflected in the documents, this gap is filled with memories. In the presented memoirs, the socio-political events in which the authors of the memoirs took part are mostly covered. Some of the authors of memoirs had a low educational level, so sometimes they allowed simplified descriptions of events, and sometimes even naive judgments. Materials of personal origin – specific sources, where distortion of facts is possible and there is not always accurate estimates. It is important the mood of the hero himself, the particular details of his life, everyday worries, attitude to individual phenomena. The use of ego-documents in research contributes to a deeper scientific analysis of the socio-political processes of 1917.