The article reveals the specifi cs of rural religiosity as an important factor in the development of rural society in Russia. Sociological and historical material, related to the social life of the Tatars of the Middle Volga region in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods serves as an empirical base. New, previously unpublished archival documents have been introduced into scientifi c circulation. The connection is established between the level of religiosity and such factors as settlement size, socio-professional structure, intensity of atheistic propaganda and state-confessional relations at the local level, economic activity of the peasantry, and development of rural entrepreneurship. The authorities in the Tatar and Bashkir autonomous republics successfully solved the tasks of the Soviet anti-religious policy. However, in the other Volga regions, where the Tatars were an ethnic minority, there was a phenomenon of separate settlements with increased religious activity and informally economic active residents, which the authorities had to reckon with. In the post-Soviet period, this category of villages, in addition to high religiosity, is distinguished by a stable socio-demographic and economic situation. The article raises the question of the causes and conditions of the paradoxical situation, when the preservation of the patriarchal way of life and religious traditions accompanied the successful adaptation of rural communities to new economic realities. It is concluded that it is necessary to study the specifi cs of religiosity, since informal economic and social practices were built around national and religious traditions. The studied problem of the stability of rural religiosity is a part of a broader problem of preserving the Russian village as a stable ethno-social organism.