The “Magnificent Age” - Catherine II TL

[alexmilman]

36. Piece of cake #3

“Mercy is unusual for fate, and if she decided to hit you, it will definitely do it. And the more you resist it, the stronger you get on the head in the end.”
S.Mysanif, ‘Shooter’s third rule’
“They can't think, they can't imagine. Most of them can't even spell. They just run things.”
Douglas Adams, ‘The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy’
“What the legislative, political, legal and similar institutions do? They correct the evil they have caused.”
P. Y. Chaadaev
“Bureaucracy consists of mercenary ministers, aristocracy consists of idols, and democracy consists of idolaters.”
George Bernard Shaw
“Anarchy always leads to absolutism.”
Napoleon I Bonaparte
“Freedom gives birth to anarchy, anarchy leads to despotism, and despotism returns to freedom. Millions of creatures died without achieving the triumph of any of these systems.”
Honoré de Balzac, ‘Shagreen leather’
“Anarchy under the monarchy is the best state structure. The monarch must be the guarantor of anarchy.”
Salvador Dali​

The confederation Sejm started on schedule, which was a pleasant surprise for the ambassadors involved but it would be too much to expect that it would not turn into the circus.

Descriptions of this historical performance are differ in the details and, while they agree on identity of the main performer, Tadeusz Rejtan, even his portraits (below) are differ (except for the mustaches part). So one can chose a preferred depiction based upon haircut, more or less heroic look or some other principle.

Anyway, there are (at least) two versions of what did happen:

• Version immortalized by Jan Matejko [1] shows Retjan laying on a floor at the entry to the whole where the event will have place (by a rather peculiar flight of a patriotic fantasy Matejko placed the Russian grenadier inside that hall as an allegory of the Russian oppression) offering to step over his, not dead, yet, body. It is not quite clear why it was necessary to bare his chest or why wouldn’t he just stand at the door with a sword (on painting he is laying on it). IMO, this would be much more effective, especially taking into an account that most of the depicted personages are either unarmed or not in a fighting condition. A big, well-armed guy laying on a floor begging “Kill me, pretty please!” looks rather pathetic, IMO, but who am I to prescribe to other how their patriotism must manifest itself. There is probably a technical possibility that he is trying to prevent them from getting out, thus creating a hostages situation, but a desperate crowd could just break through stomping upon him. This interpretation would make sense taking into an a count that there are viewers on a balcony (again, the Russian ambassador; implication that Russia was doing partition alone).
• An alternative version is no less entertaining (IMO): “But just now, the marshals of the crown and Lithuanian confederation entered the meeting hall and the first deputy of Kraków opened the meeting with the announcement of the confederation, as a huge Lithuanian, named Reitan, rose, and began to shout to the whole castle: "Nie pozwolam!" This cry lasted for three days, and the Sejm stopped. When the crown marshal of the confederation, Count Poninsky stood up to knock, according to custom, with a stick to restore order, Reitan grabbed another stick and, standing in the marshal's place, shouted: "I am the marshal myself and can be as good a marshal as another, chosen in darkness and mystery!"”

Of course, it is not difficult to reconcile both versions by assuming that after the deputies jumped over him and got into the meeting hall, he raised to his feet, brushed off the dust, entered and continued his performance inside the hall. The part about the incessant crying for three days (without the breaks for eating, drinking and relieving himself?) sounds incredible but let it be.

Well, anyway, the noisy three days long performance probably would be too much even for the admirers of the (not composed, yet) Wagnerian operas [2] and, while the deputies had a duty to attend, the ambassadors and other viewers did not. The Prussian Ambassador, Benoit, and especially the commander of the Prussian army, General Lentulus, offered Stackelberg to capture Rejtan; he replied that since his Prussian Majesty was an equal participant in affairs, he, Stackelberg, agreed that the Prussian hussars would seize Rejtan, but that he decided not to use violence, that they, the ambassadors of the three allied courts, had nothing to worry about the cries of the madmen and he undertakes to force the king to accept the treaty at his palace without entering the deputies hall. To fulfill this promise, Stackelberg summoned both chancellors and asked them to inform the king that if he will not enter into the treaty discussion within 24 hours, an order would be sent to move the troops. The king did not agree and invited Stackelberg to his place on April 11 and presented him with the inconveniences and slowdowns that would occur from his arrival in the Senate Hall if Rejtan and his comrades would come there, which will most probably happen. The king agreed to convene the Senate in the royal palace, ordered the chancellor to repeat Stackelberg's threat and summon the confederate marshals.
"All this is done," Stackelberg wrote in St. Petersburg, "the marshals made speeches, the king began the treaty, the senators signed separately, the chambers will join on the 13th, Rejtan and his adherents were frightened and ask for mercy, everything is calm."
But this was just the end of the beginning because the next step was discussion of the constitution and, while Stanislaw-Ausgust was OK with giving away the territory, giving away his own rights was a completely different story and he was fully intended to hold the ground and his position on this subject was much stronger because the ambassadors had to negotiate with the representatives of both the senators and the deputies and while the deputies were elected with the active ambassadorial participation and the proper representatives could be picked up, the senators were appointed by the king. And Stanislaw-August rejected the ambassadorial list even of it included his own ministers and relatives. The Prussians and Austrian brought, again, proposal about moving the troops but Stackelberg wrote to Panin: "I beg you to claim that, if you agree to this proposal, these troops should devastate the republic. I must throw poor Poland at the footsteps of our August sovereign and beg her for mercy. All Greater Poland has turned from a rich and inhabited province almost into a desert due to the occupation of Prussian troops, to which it delivers fodder and indemnities for 40,000 thalers per month, while its deputies at the Sejm do everything possible in our favor; it is not surprising that these people are beginning to retreat from us out of despair.”

Sejm sent to the ambassadors a note asking for participation of the neutral countries as the intermediaries in a dispute regarding the territorial concessions and got a response that proof of the claims was already given and the Polish counter-arguments were inadequate. The three states already defined an alternative for Poland: either the issue will be resolved by June 7 or sizes of the claimed territories will increase. It is a pity that Sejm is wasting time arguing about the wording and other non-issues while ignoring the deadline about which it seemingly does not care. The Polish spirit of the obstinacy produced internal revolt and caused a bloody and prolonged war between Russia and the Porte. So, if the Sejm within 8 days will not appoint the representatives for the talks with the ambassadors, it will be responsible for the consequences.
For the ongoing situation Stackelberg blamed personally the King who told the ambassadors “I can't oppose the partition, but I will never allow the Sejm delegation to decide on my rights and government form.” However, in the ambassadors’ view these two issues were inseparable and to the King’s complains about injustice and the bad state system which will result from their version of the constitution the answer was that there is no, yet, a final decision about his rights but the turmoil in PLC clearly demonstrated that the existing system id bad and that he can’t fear his domestic enemies because he will be appointing the whole Senate. Stanislaw-August answered with crying and making more speeches, the best phrases of which became immediately known in Warsaw.

Enough was enough and the ambassadors spread the rumor that they are planning to move the troops into Warsaw. The Prussian ambassador even got an order from Frederick to use the most decisive measures at any sign of a resistance but Stackelberg asked not to punish the whole nation for the King’s personal resistance. As an psychological measure the information was spread in Warsaw that the troops are ordered to move and, to hammer down the point, the Russain, Austrian and Prussian quartermasters had been sent to assign the places for the troops in the noble houses. This worked out and appearance of a Prussian squadron within half a mile from Warsaw completed the job.
On May 1 Stackelberg assembled the deputies in his residence and, in presence of the Prussian and Austrian ambassadors declared that it does not make sense for them to suffer the military occupation because even the king agreed with the partition and his objections are strictly about the domestic issues which are not decided upon, yet. During that meeting two Austrian and two Prussian squadrons rode along the streets. Warsaw was stricken by a fear and only the king, supported by his little private council, which consisted of his mistress, one Swiss and one Frenchman, called for the fight against three countries telling the deputies that the new constitution will result in the aristocratic rule of 12 tyrants. He came to the Sejm with his own act of the representatives election which was saying that representatives assigned to discussion of the internal affairs can’t make the decision, which would be left to the Sejm, which meant more delays.

Confederation’s Marshal, Poninsky, declared that only he, the marshal, has a right to offer the subjects voted by the majority. King and his party disagreed but Bishop Ostrowski in the strong terms explained to the king that he puts nation in danger. He was supported by a number of the senators who were saying that the king personally risks nothing while the people and their property will be endangered. King persisted but a vote came against him and the ambassador agreed to give the Sejm a postponement until May 3.

On May 2, the ambassadors used to secure a majority in the Chamber of Deputies and by common agreement spent 8,000 cherwontsy on this subject. At the same time, they explained to the king's relatives that the first consequences of the execution of the threats would, of course, fall on them if they did not find the means to turn his majesty away from perseverance, disastal and useless together. They also issued a declaration to the Sejm with the explanation that acceptance of the King’s proposal is impossible. King made more speeches in the Senate but this did not help: he was outvoted.

While this process was going on, the Austrian ambassador played the usual Austrian game telling one thing to his colleagues and another to the Poles. However, on May 8 the representatives were appointed: all available senators and 60 of the deputies, totaling 100. More delays was caused by waiting for the instructions from Vienna so the talks started only on May 22. The Austrian position now was to keep the royal power strong limiting “liberum veto”. Its ambassador, Rewitsky, declared that the Prussian share presented by its ambassador goes against the agreed upon convention and presented new Austrian plan, with a border by the river which nobody could find on a map, and demanded a further delay until Austrian map will arrive from Vienna. Of course, the Prussians replied with a statement that they’ll require more territory, etc.
Now, the Poles were requiring the speedy solution because the countryside was being destroyed by the Prussian occupying forces who did not pay for anything and, looking at them, the Austrians were doing the same.

As a result, the talks restarted only in August and it is not clear if what followed was a rehearsed performance or the impromptu [3] . The Polish representatives appealed to Stackelberg to ask for the protecting of their rights and territories to the Empress, their benevolent protector, and got an answer that certain malicious people managed to destroy these cordial relations and now Her Majesty can do nothing. On a cue, Bishop Ostrowski asked to name these malicious personages because they must suffer the severe consequences. His statement caused a wave of enthusiasm. To which Stackelberg answered that the first things must be dine first and when the treaties are signed, he will gladly help with all necessary investigations.

The unrest aroused by Ostrowski’s speech was predictably cannibalistic and terribly frightened the old man Czartoryski, the Chancellor of Lithuania. He turned pale when the bishop said the words: "If I'm guilty, let them throw me in the Vistula!" It seemed to Czartoryski that he would first have to experience this bathing. The Family had to endure humiliation, listening silently to reproaches and threats. There were voices that if the attempted assassins of of the king would have their heads and hands cut off, it would be unfair to spare the murderers of the fatherland.

This managed to scare not only the King’s uncles but the King himself and, after few more rounds of bargaining about his rights (with Austrian ambassador undermining actions of his colleagues), a compromise had been worked out. King retained a right of appointment to all Church and secular positions except for the bishops, voievods, ministers, and military and financial commissioners who would have to be picked out of three candidates presented by the Permanent Council. In the army King appoints officers in the selected Polish units and in the rest of the army the officers are appointed by a seniority. The king waives the right to distribute royal estates, the proceeds of which are used for state needs. The Saeima will appoint members of the Permanent Council by secret ballot. Four Guards regiments will be, as traditionally, under the state control but now the Hetmans will share power with the Military Commission and both they and commission will be subordinated to the Permanent Council. The King will be getting annual allowance for maintaining 2,000 troops which will be completely in his disposal.

The deal was done. On September 30, the partition treaties were approved by the Sejm, and on November 8, 1773, Stanislaw-August ratified them. Nevertheless, work on the border demarcation continued for several more years. Anyway, the Polish pie was cut to the pieces and it was now up to each of the recipients to consume his or her piece. Preferably, without getting an indigestion.

________________
[1] Painter who immortalized the most famous events of the Polish history, real and imaginable (like capture of Pskov by Stephen Báthory). Mostly in a size close to the natural (even the battle of Grunwakd) and, which definitely raised him above the average level, always managing to put into each painting pretty much all prominent personages who happened to be alive at that time even if they were not present at the specific event. As far as I can tell, on the painting above the main hero has a haircut different from those on his portraits but who cares?
[2] May be not. Personally, I could not bear them for more than 5 minutes but, AFAIK, some people (including at least one painter) had been attending the whole performances lasting for up to 6 hours. I doubt that a daily Sejm’s session lasted longer.
[3] Actually, the impromptus must be well rehearsed so the options are not mutually exclusive.

 

[alexmilman]

37. Domestic Affairs. #1 The Family

“To teach the pupil of the "female terem" that he is the future man and the Tsar.”
Instruction of Elizabeth I to F.D. Bekhteev
“Here [on a map] you see, sir, the inheritance that your glorious grandfathers spread with victories.”
Bekhteev to Grand Duke Paul
“If His Highness was particular peron and could completely indulge in mathematical teaching alone, he could be very possible in his sharpness by our Russian Pascal.”
S.A.Poroshin
“There is certain Semyon Andreevich Poroshin, and his student Pavel Petrovich Romanov, aren’t they mathematicians?”
Paul to Poroshin
“We have never had so much fun as in these nine weeks spent in Tsarskoye Selo, with my son, who is being made a good boy. My son doesn't want to lag behind me one step. He always wants to sit next to me at the table.”
Catherine, 1771
“My son has poor health and a bad soul, then the consequences of bad upbringing. It will be different with my grandchildren!” [1]

​

Grand Duke Paul was born in September 20 (October 1), 1754 in St. Petersburg. The first years after his birth, Pavel grew up under the supervision of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, who was going to make him her heir and did everything wrong. The child was kept in the overheated room, which seriously impacted his health. Up to five years old, the child was considered an infant who should only be protected. Then he became a “conditional adult” with all the necessary attributes, including adult clothes, wigs, jewelry and some government duties. For example, attending parades, receptions or imoortant church services, which could last for several hours. In general, nothing good for his health.

It was also a time to start his education and Elizabeth appointed F.D. Bekhteev as his governor. By background, he was a professional diplomat but turned to be a good pedagogue. During the classes, he used a special method that combined fun with teaching, and quickly taught the Grand Duke reading and numbering with the help of toy soldiers and a folding fortress "made for His Highness bone grenadiers and musketeers, who had French letters on bows and hats. They also made wooden dragoons, which had Russian letters on the bows. The Grand Duke studied the alphabet on these toys ". Similarly, the numbers had been studied using the toy fortress with the numbers on its parts. The method worked well but Bekhteev also was something of a fanatic of the military style with its clear orders, regulations, etc. Later, he was accused in making Paul too fond of the military things. Well, fortunately or unfortunately, he got seriously ill and in 1760 Elizabeth appointed to his place another diplomat, Count N.I. Panin, who came with an ambitious educational program.

The upbringing of the Tsarevich Panin, formally, led in the French spirit, since at that time the French language, French literature and French fashion dominated the cultural strata of European society. Pavel Petrovich had to be brought up as a French Dauphin, with the usual atmosphere of knightly characters, chevallerie, etc. Aesthetic impressionability, weakness of heartlessness, on the one hand, worship of knightly virtues: generosity, courage, desire for truth, protection of the weak and respect for a woman - on the other hand, were forever instilled in Paul's nature. But most of the invited teachers were Germans, and not of the best sort, with their pedantic boring style of the teaching that was boring the student (as a result, Paul was hating the German language). The two exceptions were religious teacher Hieromonk Platon and S.A.Poroshin who developed a real influence upon his student. This was one of the main reasons of him being removed from his position: Panin did not want anybody else’s influence. The second reason was that he fell in love (seemingly mutual) with the Countess Sheremeteva who was not just well above his social status but also Panin’s intended bride. Poroshin was made a regimental commander and on a way to his unit died from some mysterious illness.

Panin was hardly involved into that period of education limiting himself to the superficial performance of his duties and dumping most of the responsibilities upon the dumb "informant" Osterwald. According to Nikita Ivanovich's educational plan, Tsarevich's training in "state science" was supposed to begin only from the age of 14, when Pavel Petrovich was to become his more or less meaningful political tool.

And here the important part starts. Since 1762 Catherine was the Russian Empress but during the coup the Senate and the troops swore loyalty both to her and Tsesarevich Paul. The legal side of the situation was not clarified opening the field for various options. One of them being a scenario under which Catherine reigns until Paul’s adulthood (which also was not clearly identified and could be anywhere between 16 and 19). Panin (and he was not alone) was supporter of this interpretation but was too indecisive to voice it during the coup. So now he had to wait while in a meantime trying to make Paul his puppet in a future game. And an important part of the game was to drill down the idea that his mother is an usurper of the throne. This was pretty much the only item in the “state science” program that he was teaching.

Now, what about Catherine? For the first few years she was separated from her son and, seemingly, did not care too much being busy with her own love affairs and intrigues. After the coup she was too busy arranging herself comfortably on the throne and, while Grigory Orlov remained her favorite, an option of legitimizing their son, Alexey Bobrinksy, and make him a heir was a non-zero possibility. In general, she found herself in a peculiar position when her foreign policy and her son had been in the hands of her pretty much open political opponent and she could do little about the situation. Panin was considered #1 Russian specialist in the foreign affairs with no obvious alternative for his replacement. The only thing Catherine could do was not to make him a Chancellor: he remained just a President of the Foreign Affairs Collegium. With all the ongoing domestic and international affairs Paul remained almost off her radar screen [2] until he was 16, or maybe 17, even better 18 or perhaps 19 but this would be the “last ditch”.

But starting from 1770 Catherine faced a dilemma. She needed an alliance with Denmark to counter the French anti-Russian intrigues in Sweden and Denmark wanted implementation of the agreed upon territorial settlement in Schleswig-Holstein, which could be made formal only by the Duke of these territories, aka, by Paul. So far, the Danish foreign policies were not as firmly pro-Russian as Catherine wanted, for which her ambassador blamed Johan Frederik, Greve af Struensee, favorite of Caroline Matilda of Great Britain, sister of George III. Of course, Britain was formally a friend of Russia but there was a considerable ambiguity related to the rather stormy process of the negotiations regarding the trade agreement and a complete failure to come to the terms of the military agreement so it would be nice to strengthen the pro-Russian faction at the court.

Domestically, Catherine was somewhat squeezed between the two cliques:

• One was clamoring for the acknowledgement of Paul’s adulthood. Panin was a most prominent figure but there were numerous other and loyalty of the Guards was suspected.
• Another was for delaying the pronouncement. Bobrinsky’s candidacy lost any traction since G.Orlov ceased to be a favorite but he was still influential and Z. Chernyshov was his friend (or at least Panin’s enemy).

So in 1770 Orlov was seemingly in political favor again because he was still popular among the Guards but the first “red line” had been crossed without the problems except for a rather peculiar event. In 1771, the rebel exiles in Kamchatka, led by Moritz August Benevsky, swore an oath to Paul as emperor and swore to such an oath of all the inhabitants of the Bolsheretsky prison. Benevsky and Captain Stepanov, on behalf of all the rebels, wrote, announced and sent to the capital the "Announcement to the Senate", which spoke about the lawlessness committed in Russia by Empress Catherine, her court and her favorites.

Intemission: Benevsky and other exiles captured a ship on which they sailed to Formosa and then to Macao. From it they sailed to Canton and then, on then French ship, to Ile-de-France (Mauritius) and from it to France. The became quite popular at the French court and got an offer to led expedition to Madagascar where he landed in 1774 and founded a “capital” but after expedition was decimated by the diseases returned to France where Louis XVI made him a count and brigadier-general. Then he participated in a War of Bavarian Succession, for which Maria Theresa also made him a count, returned to France, sailed to America presenting George Washington with a project of creating a mercenary “American Legion”, sailed to Madagascar again, this time as a private person, entered into an agreement with the natives, expelled the French, founded a new “capital” and eventually was killed in a fight with the landed French troops.

The suspicions regarding the plot proved to be true but the plotters were absolutely inept and did nothing (Panin could be “a spiritual leader” but as a man of action he was below “pathetic” level). However, potential disloyalty of the Guards also proved to be correct and Catherine, without taking any outward action or displaying a disfavor, started moving some of the officers and noncoms into the army regiment and stopped adding new people to the Guards regiments to compensate for the losses.

With the first dangerous date safely over, Orlov was sent to deal with the revolt in Moscow and, while he was generously awarded for his performance, the days of his influence were over and, at least for a short while Catherine was playing a good mother taking Paul everywhere with her (and away from Panin). Finally, Paul ceased to be scared of her but that was it.

She even tried to teach him “state business” but her method of doing so proved to be mostly a waste of time: Paul was to be present when her secretaries were presenting her the state papers and she was signing them without making any explanation of her decisions. He was not present at the Cabinet meetings and discussions and generally kept out of the loop.

The only place where he was, so far, to get more or less directly involved, was Admiralty: at the age of 10 he was made Admiral-General, aka, a person responsible for managing all aspects of the Russian Navy. The appointment was purely honorary because the real power was in the hands of his deputy, Ivan Chernyshov. But he got interested and Catherine saw no problem expecting that Chernyshov will keep things under control and her son will be off her back. However, Paul got different idea [3].

In 1772 Catherine decided to kill two birds with a single stone declaring that Paul reached an adulthood:

• Territorial settlement with Denmark was signed.
• Panin ceased to be Paul’s governor.

______________
[1] Needless to say that those two in whom upbringing she managed to play a role grew up to be the total a—holes, each in his own way. So much for her pedagogical talents.
[2] The Russian science being, as it well known, always ahead of the rest of the world, there had to be at least one radar available. BTW, a famous sentence of Ivan the Terrible “I can see through you, traitorous dogs” is a clear indication that the X-rays equipment already was available at his time. 😉
[3] In OTL this function remained purely ceremonial and the Dearest Mommy was taking a good care that her son is not interfering in any aspect of the state business. So, as bad as the things are ITTL, in OTL they were worse.

 

[alexmilman]

38. Domestic Affairs. #2. Life at peace

“Business is a combination of war and sport.”
“A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.”
“Good business is business with profits for both sides.”
Various authors
“…During Tamerlane times, one Don Cossack named Vasily Gugnya, with 30 Cossack comrades and one Tatar, withdrew from the Don for robbery to the east. He made boats, went to the Caspian Sea, reached the mouth of Yaik and, finding its surroundings uninhabited, settled in them.”
P.A.Rychkov, recorded legend regarding foundation of the Yaik Cossack recorded in 1748
“… Where would he find those cossack criminals, order to torture, execute and hang them.”
Ivan IV (the Terrible), order to voyevoda Ivan Murashkin, 1577
“Possession of the Yaik River, with its rivers and tributaries, and with all the lands on the right and left sides, from the confluence of the Ileka River to the mouth.”
Tsar Michail Fedorovich Romanov, territorial grant to the Yaik Cossacks, 1615
“Let your name be known to the important people.”
Chinese curse.​

RIP - the end of the 1st constitutional experiment
Just in an unlikely case that somebody still remember or cares about Catherine’s first major attempt to do something good for her subjects, the Codification Commission officially never was closed. It just was slowly dying from an exhaustion. The heated arguments never produced anything and a task of codifying the existing Russian laws never moved from the level zero. From five meetings per week it went to four, then to seven per month, then, officially, to two per week, then, due to the war (many of the members were on active army duty and happy to exchange the meetings to something more exciting and not requiring the boring things like thinking and reading ), the general commission was temporarily put on hold (its meetings were postponed first until May 1, then until August 1 and November 1, 1772, and finally until February 1, 1773) and never resurrected. Agony of the special commissions lasted longer but they also died not producing any noticeable results. The only end product were the honorary titles granted to Catherine at the opening.

Well, it was definitely fun while it lasted and the lesson learned was that for doing something productive you need small committees of 3 - 5 people. But this discovery Catherine kept to herself.

The domestic affairs

Above is the administrative map of the Russian Empire before the Ottoman War and Partition. It was created by Peter I and survived into 1770s with the minimal changes. As you can see, to the East of the Volga and Yaik (Ural) Rivers there were few huge gubernias which, due to their sizes combined with the rudimentary communications, were pretty much unmanageable. Which was extremely unfortunate both because at least some of them started playing increasingly important role in the Russian economy and because situation on a map did not quite reflected situation on a ground.

“It’s economy, stupid”
Obviously, Tsardom and then Empire needed a foreign trade. Initially, it was the only source of the precious metals [1] and then, with nomenclature of the imports expanding, the volume and nomenclature of the exports had to grow. Fortunately, the state was well positioned on that account having something that the outsiders with the money not just wanted but could not live without.
Traditionally, Russia, had virtually a natural monopoly of hemp [2] and flax and retained this position as long as sailing ships navigated the world's oceans [3]. England was totally dependent on Russian flax and Russian hemp, taking more than two-thirds of Russia's hemp exports and half its flax exports. More than 75% of England's flax imports was coming from Russia, and so, as a rule, did 97-98% of its hemp imports. The greater part of all the flax and hemp moving through the Sound in the eighteenth century was coming from Riga, that traditional emporium for Russian flax and hemp, and partly from St Petersburg. The lesser but still very important traditional export items also were related to the naval needs, tallow, leather, timber; in these products Russia had a competition but a consumption market still had been big enough for all Baltic (plus Norway) producers.

But in the 1720s a new important export item kicked in, increasingly squeezing a traditional main producer, Sweden. It was iron. Bar-iron production recorded by the Russian Council of Mines was 6,200 tons in 1722, 14,100 tons in 1736-38 and 21,800 tons in 1750. Then followed a rapid increase to 37,200 tons in 1760, 52,200 tons in 1770. In 1773 export of bar iron from St.Petersburg was 41,900 tons and between 55 and 75% were going to England.

Of course, in terms of value, Russian bar iron represented about 10% of the total value of Russian exports, i.e. less than one quarter of the value of hemp and flax products.

Intermission. To get a general picture, of total Russian exports, England was taking between three-quarters and four-fifths of the iron, nine-tenths of the timber products, two-thirds of the flax and hemp, and four-fifths of the tallow. England's share of St. Petersburg's exports was nine-tenths of the iron, between two-thirds and three-quarters of the tallow, and between three-quarters and four-fifths of the flax and hemp. Grain formed only 8 per cent of Russia's total exports and so far it was mostly rye.

So, as an export item, iron was still remote third to flax and hemp but with a share steadily growing. For the domestic purposes it was extremely important, taking into an account the growing needs of the Army and Navy. Civilian consumption remained quite low.

On the map above the main metallurgical plants in the European part of the empire are shown as the black squares [3]. Understandably missing are metallurgical plants in Baikal area producing silver and led. Anyway, it is obvious that the great concentration of these plants was in the Ural region. It is also obvious that, due to the importance of that region the government was paying a growing attention to it, which was a mixed blessing, taking into an account that “attention” and “competence” are not the synonyms.

All enterprises, state and private, were under jurisdiction of the Berg Collegium, which was giving permissions to open the new plants, allocating territories for them (accessibility of the water sources and forests was critical), and collecting all needed statistics about their production for the taxation purposes.

“Unhappy, unhappy, very, very, very unhappy!”

Bashkirs (Башкиры), being the biggest local ethnic group, had been the most squeezed one. Their initial habitat was the whole region between the Kama and Yaik (Ural) rivers and it was a bad luck that at least its northern part became the center of the Ural mining and metallurgical industry.

The plants had been built on their lands, which were either bought or just grabbed and later the peasants of the private plants often tried a land grab of their own. There were regulations and some purchases were officially acknowledged as illegal but the process kept going on because, among other considerations, the metallurgy was run on a charcoal and needed a lot of wood. There already were few uprisings earlier in the century and the minor “adjustments” were not solving the fundamental need of a final clear definition of the territorial issues and Bashkirs’s social status within the Empire.

To be fair, while considering the plants and the people related to them as a major evil, some of the Bashkirs started adopting to the new situation, even going into the mining business by collecting the copper ore from the surface deposits, selling it to the plants and getting the officially confirmed mining rights.

Yaik (Ural) Cossacks lived in the region between the Bashkirs on the North and Caspian Sea (and Kalmyks) on the South, mostly along the Yaik River with the Kazakh Minor Juz on the other side of it.

With the exception of the Zaporizhian Cossacks, they were considered the least disciplined and obedient to the central power with the said power rarely missing a chance to screw things up even more. Since the 1720s they were under jurisdiction of the Military Collegium and if before Catherine it was mostly let them be, Zaakhar Chernyshov decided that this is a wrong attitude. Election of the local commanders-administrators were replaced with the appointments, which was the general practice, but, this being a relatively small and not critically important host, he let the local (appointed) leadership to run the show without any serious oversight.

The additional twist had been added by Catherine when she established state monopoly on the salt. On the second map you can see a small empty square slightly to the left from the lower Volga. It is Baskunchak lake, one of the major places of the salt extraction.

For the Yaik Cossaks, who lived by fishing and selling the salted fish, the resulting increase of the salt’s cost was a serious hit on a pocket made even more serious because their leaders were buying from the state distribution rights thus adding more to the already raised price. Besides, by the uncontrollable appointments of their relatives to the previously elective position, they were also managing to squeeze the ordinary cossacks from the best fishing areas.
Then, there were coming the minor lapses from Military Collegium, which were adding to the irritation. For example, the state was supplying the host with the lead and gunpowder but, in his zeal to achieve uniformity, Chernyshov ordered to send them the ready cartridges, which would make sense for the troops with the uniform firearms but not those who had them of all imaginable calibers and systems. Then there was a rumor that the Cossacks sent to the fighting army are going to have their beards saved. True or not, it caused a loud uproar among the Old Believers amounting to a big part of the host.
All complaints to the Collegium were, so far, ignored and Catherine was provided with a picture of an unruly mob disrespecting her authority, which produced a predictable reaction.

Management of the plants
The state plants had been run by the managers who, most often, had been the mining or metallurgy specialists combining professional and administrative activities. Their ranks within Berg Collegium were not incorporated into the Table of the Ranks leaving them in a social limbo, which made this service unattractive to the noble class and most of them belonged to the taxable classes. Typically, they did not possess any land assets and had to exist on their salary so, as a result there was a tendency to pass position from father to son as a guarantee of family’s income and quite understandable attempts to squeeze some “extras” to augment their salaries.

For the state plants there were strict regulations regarding use of the work force, which were routinely violated causing regular problems warranting direct involvement of the government ending up, quite often, with the dismissal of the local administrators. So, basically, administration on that level had been squeezed between their superiors and the workers (for whom they were enemies #1) while, their job was very complicated and not too rewarding socially or financial.

Workers of the state plants were state peasants, aka personally free people who were, however, under obligation to perform certain amount of work for the state. Each state plant had villages assigned to it by Berg Collegium, often without too much attention being paid to the trifles like distances. With the low-skilled labor force being on something like rotation or simply allowed to get back to home for ploughing and harvesting seasons, these people sometimes had to travel hundreds versts in one direction.

Their pay was not too bad. For example, an apprentice was getting 12 rubles per year (3 1/3 kopeck daily), skilled worker - 18 (5 kopecks) and master - 30 (8 1/3 kopecks). In a daily purchasing power in Ekaterinburg it meant, correspondingly, 10 - 12, 16 - 20, 27 - 32 kilograms of rye. But it also involved the working day of 11 - 15 hours, depending upon a season. Officially, there were 248 working (for the state) days per year with the breaks for the religious holidays and 20 days for “vacations” to attend to their households.

Needless to say that there were numerous fines cutting into the official income and administration always could cheat the illiterate workers in other ways so, regardless their attitudes toward specific administrator, they tended to see the office with its books as the evil incarnate.

The surroundings were not too friendly and quite often the plants had been built as the fortresses with their own artillery. On a lower level, the Bashkir raids of the villages were rather routine and so were the clashes over the land.

Workers of the private plants were the serfs with no rights whatsoever and their only advantage was that they tended to live close to the plant. However, the mandatory religious and other holidays were enforced and the owners were not interested in their workers dying from starvation so there were allowances for the agricultural work.

Local Government. A need to keep the huge areas under control was not well backed by the administrative structure. The governors resided far away from the potentially troublesome areas living too much to the local low level officials or garrison commanders who did not have in their possession too much in the terms of enforcement. Most of the military force available in the peripheral gubernias were the small garrison units of the border forts. These garrisons usually were packed with the elderly or handicapped officers and soldiers or the officers sent there as a punishment. For the communication purposes each of them had a small Cossack unit and the Cossacks considered this a burdensome duty from which the rich ones tended to buy themselves out.

Basically, this was a dead end career-wise, the living conditions and supplies were not too good and the forts were holding mostly due to a fear of the retribution, or just inadequate military skills of the potential assailants rather than their real military value.

A governor had in his disposal some higher quality troops but not too much and in the case of something serious would need an outside help. As with the garrisons, a great importance was in prestige and advantages of the “regularity” over “irregularity”. Also, it was convenient to have numerous hating each other groups ready to help in suppressing rebellions of their enemies. But if these groups managed to get together, there would be a big trouble.

What will get first, the problem or the reform, was anybody’s guess.
______
[1] In a complete absence of the domestic sources of gold and silver, Tsardom was buying the silver thalers, melting them, making something like a silver wire out of which the tiny sliver kopecks had been cut. The bigger foreign silver and gold coins had been used as the state awards.
[2] Tempting as it is to insinuate, no, the Brits needed it not as a recreational drug but for the ropes and cables used by their navy. Weren’t they rather weird and boring even then? Missing such a great chance to have a happy nation.
[3] This environmentally-friendly wind-powered transportation was being destroyed by the greedy Anglo-Saxons. 😢
[4] I don’t think that this is in any way related to Malevich or that he got inspiration from a similar map. It is just that the good ideas may come to many people independently.

 

[alexmilman]

39. Domestic Affairs. #3. Intrigues.

"Intrigue sooner or later ruins the one who started it."
“Politics is the art of creating facts, jokingly subduing events and people. Benefit is her goal, intrigue is a means... Only decency can defeat it.”
Pierre de Beaumarchais
“It is a crime when one person plots against another.”
Justinian I
“Why weave intrigues when they are woven? All that remains is to pull the necessary threads in time.”
“The world of intrigues is very similar to the territory of archaeological excavations. The main difference is that the corpses still stinky.”
“Conspiracy is a terrible thing. Especially when you're in the epicenter!”
“There's always the same trouble with intrigues. When there are so many secrets, you can't be sure who's on whose side until the game is over.”
“If you want to be above all the forces and intrigues here, don't let anyone dictate to you what to do in this or that case.”
“There were no innocents at the courts of the imperial aristocracy - there were, as the saying goes, only fools and those who use fools to their advantage.”​

Admiral-General, the Grand Duke Paul Petrovich found himself being squeezed between two parties.

Catherine.
Taking into an account that his was in a care of Panin, it was reasonable to expect that he is going to be brought up as Catherine’s political opponent in a form of Panin’s witless tool. So his “loving mother” was fully intended to keep him as obscure as possible with only purpose of his existence being to produce a male offspring whom she will bring up and educate to be a perfect ruler of the Russian Empire. Somebody like herself. Of course, she did not consider “perfection” in the terms of “lying hypocritical a—hole lacking any moral principles” [1] which would make a teaching process rather tricky because it would have to be along the lines “follow my actions, not my sayings”. Anyway, he was given a honorary position of the Admiral-General, the top administrator of the Russian Navy, in expectation that his activities will be limited to the purely ceremonial ones with the real work being done by Vice-President of the Admiralty, Count Ivan Chernishov. The idea could work out but this specific VP, besides being incompetent in the area (court, diplomatic service, failed attempt in manufacturing, made lieutenant-general not serving in the military, then made commander of the galley fleet with no previous experience, then promoted to the VP of Admiralty, a rather typical career of a properly born person at that time), was pathologically lazy. But his brother was at that time Catherine’s personal friend [2] so after the Ottoman War he got Orders of St. Andrew and St. Alexander Nevsky “for bringing fleet into the good shape”, which was a rather optimistic description of the fleet’s condition. So, by that reason and because he and his brother were Panin’s friends and Panin was still considering Paul as his tool, he did not prevent his nominal superior from taking a greater interest in the naval affairs than expected. The timing was good because in the 1770-74 the British Admiral Sir Charles Knowles was working in St.Petersburg on the plan for modernization of the Russian Navy and, besides, the Baltic Fleet was just returning from its Mediterranean expedition with a lot interesting stories to tell. Catherine was too busy with the things important (war, Poland, situation in Sweden) to prevent Paul’s activities and perhaps even happy that he is occupied with something seemingly harmless so she did not mind his hobby.

Now, with him being officially adult, it was important for her to find out if he is still Panin’s toy; hence the touchy “family reunion” during which she found her son quite loyal but perhaps a little bit too honest and impulsive to her taste.

Panin was taking a good care of surrounding the Grand Duke with the members of his party expecting, not without a good reason, that conversations of the grown-ups will influence Paul in a right direction: a dominant subject was criticism of the existing regime and the vague hints to the suffering true patriots, what could go wrong? The youngster had to digest the propaganda and believe accordingly. When he becomes an adult, he can be persuaded to act openly claiming his throne or at least a right to be a co-ruler. Of course, Panin himself will stay out of danger but then become a power behind the throne.

Well, propaganda is a tricky thing. Criticism of the current regime would be a good idea if the critics did not belong to the top tier of the said regime. It was rather difficult to see Panin or Chernysov brothers as the victims of anything and even less so as the fighters against injustice and one could easily develop serious doubts about the moral values of Sandern who openly bragged about routinely conducting the complicated intrigues. Not to mention that behind each other’s backs they often referenced the absentees in rather unflattering terms. In general, as far as the brainwashing goes, it can be successful but it also can produce the reaction opposite to desirable, especially if it is done in the excessively overbearing manner [3].

But Panin was so assured in his mental superiority that he never considered such a possibility and, after all, he was not professional in propaganda area. The missing part of the Panin’s schema was educational aspect in which he was absent. The indoctrination was happening during the meals and not too frequent occasions of a social chat at which Paul was present. His German teachers, whom he disliked, were politically neutral and so was his Italian music teacher, whom he liked. His teacher of the religion was talking about the high moral virtues and had much more authority than von Saldern, and Paul’s extensive reading, which nobody bothered to control, also was conductive to developing his own views regarding the right and wrong (obviously, there was not too much of a potentially “inflammatory” literature available). And one of the fundamental points was that the subjects must not plot against a sovereign.

Paul by 1772 was fed up with an idea of being anybody’s puppet. During his, now frequent meetings with Catherine he quite openly told her about what he heard and from whom. Catherine, as was her habit, did not take any punitive measures but did not forgot. Paul’s loyalty was appreciated and … nothing happened. He was encouraged to perform his duties as Admiral-General but not invited into Catherine’s Council because she still was not quite sure about his future behavior as a political figure and, not without a reason, feared that his straightforward and impulsive remarks could be interpreted as a criticism of her policies. With the opposition of Panin & Co still being a factor, such a behavior could cause problems.

However, within framework of his official duties, he was requested to exercise an oversight of the naval developments on the newly acquired Black Sea coast. Even on the top level, this involved a huge volume of work and this should keep him busy for quite a while and then it will be clear what to do next. Well, actually, one thing was quite clear: Paul must be married and the sooner the better. The Old Fritz, as a reputable matchmaker, had been contacted and made himself busy looking for a suitable candidate among the German princely nobodies.

Moving the “chess figures”
Catherine did not, yet, fill herself comfortable in completely removing Nikita Panin from his position of a top Russian diplomat. While his strongly pro-Prussian position was speedily getting obsolete, he still was a great specialist in a complicated diplomatic routine and, in this area irreplaceable. For the time being.

However, he was removed from his position near Paul and replaced by the Count N.I.Saltykov, a person who “gave himself a trouble to be born”. Besides being connected to the Romanovs (extinct branch but nonetheless), his family was related to most of “who is who” top aristocratic families, which guaranteed a fast promotion during the 7YW (he was sent with a report about the victory at Kunersdorf and promoted into the colonel as a messenger of the great news) where, among other places served under Rumyantsev’s command during the siege of Kolberg. Later he took an active part in fighting in Poland, being made lieutenant-general, and played a noticeable role in Golitsyn’s Khotin campaign. After this (with the war still going on), he asked for a prolonged leave for improving his health and travelled abroad for three years. In the early 1773 he was back and the “interesting times” started.

Getting a little bit back in time, in 1771 the Cossacks of Yaik had been engaged in an act of what administration considered as an open rebellion: almost half of the Kalmyks (estimated, approximately 125,000) fled to Dzungaria and the Cossacks refused to follow order of the governor-general of Orenburg to chase them. As a result, the investigative commission decided to find more than 2,000 Cossacks guilty of "disobedience", of which 43 people were the main trouble makers. A sentence was sent to the Military Collegium in St. Petersburg for approval, which stated that 43 leaders should be punished by spitzruten [4] "a thousand people ten times each and sent to the army," which could actually be recognized as the death penalty. The rest of the Cossacks found guilty "sent to the remote outposts outside their turn three times."

The remaining Cossacks decided to sent to St. Petersburg a deputation of twenty Cossacks led by sotnik Ivan Kirpichnikov. On June 28, 1771, the Cossacks managed to file a complaint with Catherine II. Waiting for an answer was delayed for months. The Cossacks then got a reception from the President of the Military Collegium, Count Z. Chernyshev who hit Kirpichnikov on a face and ordered to whip the rest. At the time Catherine sided with Chernyshev claiming that the complaint is full of lies but ordered to soften a punishment: the 43 leaders would “have their beards shaved” and sent to the 2nd Army. Then, a military force had been sent to the Yaik-city but during the talks its commander ordered to open artillery fire with a resulting fight and defeat of the government’s troops. The process kept going back and forth with few more rounds of talks but eventually the government troops went on the offensive and defeated the rebels. The Yaik host was reorganized: from now on, it was divided into 10 regiments of 533 Cossacks each, the new staff established the ranks of colonels, esauls, sotniks , khorunzhi and uryadniks. As a punishment, many Cossacks were deprived, for this year, of the spring and fall fishing. Everything was seemingly under control.

Back to 1773. Panin had been dealt with but this left the Chernishov brothers. Ivan was not a problem and Paul’s greater involvement in Admiralty’s affairs was making him not too influential secondary figure but Zakhar was a different issue and had to be dealt with quietly but efficiently. It would be nice to have an excuse and events in the Yaik could be safely blamed on him but really bad was the fact that he allowed himself to hit an officer on the face: sotnik was and equivalent to the army lieutenant and, as such, a noble. And you can’t do this to a noble. Of course, Chernyshov was acting upon the …er… old perception by which only the top ranking Cossacks were a nobility but this made things only worse: as a Minister he must know the new regulations and behave accordingly. So, there was a scandal which, if made public, could become very unpleasant and now it was quite reasonable to make him responsible for the events: not only did he behave in a grossly inappropriate manner but also misrepresented the facts, thus causing numerous deaths.

Of course, none of the above meant that Catherine was planning to create a public scandal but this was a good leverage. Besides Chernyshov was a good administrator and it would be a pity to lose him over something rather insignificant. He was removed from his position and made governor-general of the newly-acquired Belorussia. In this post, he expanded the roads, built administrative buildings and encouraged the transition of the Uniate peasantry to Orthodoxy.

The general amnesty had been issued to the former rebels (“good empress, bad minister”) but Catherine ordered to change “Yaik” to “Ural” to completely erase memory of the incident.


Position of the President of the Military Collegium became vacant but for a short time N.I.Saltykov was made its Vice President. To Paul Catherine wrote: “You will have at your service a significant person and not only to give importance to your public apoearances, but also to keep in order the people assigned to your court... Through him the foreigners and other persons will introduce themselves to you, he will be in charge of your table and servants, take care of the order and the necessary appearance of your court. This man, full of honesty and meekness, and wherever he served, everyone was satisfied with him. I give you Saltykov, who, without being called the Marshal of your court, will perform this position, as you can see from the attached note outlining his duties.”

Paul was initially somewhat suspicious of this assignment but Saltykov knew how to adapt perfectly to the most difficult circumstances: "he never openly sought anything, but always achieved what he secretly wanted". He ended up being on good side of both the empress and her son while managing to maintain the good relations between them.

Now, with eastern territories finally being brought to the government’s attention, it became obvious that something must be done to defuse one more time bomb, the Bashkirs issue. And it had to start with defining their status within the empire. The territory of settlement of the Bashkirs, Mishars, Orenburg and Ural Cossacks was divided into cantons. These groups of the population were considered military estates and were entrusted with the protection of the Orenburg border line. This line, which ran from the Tobol River up the Uy River and further down the Ural River to the Caspian Sea, was divided into five distances. The Bashkir and Mishar cantons were to serve annually at the first four distances, sharing this duty in part with the Orenburg Cossacks. On the fifth - from Uralsk to Guryev town there were Ural Cossacks. In total, 21 cantons were formed on the territory of our region by decree: 11 Bashkir, five - Mishar and five - Orenburg Cossacks. The cantons were divided into yurts, or teams, the number of which depended on the size of the territory.

Not all cantons had a contiguous territory. The Bashkir and Mishar population lost freedom of movement even within Bashkiria. Officials of the cantonal management system were recruited from representatives of the Bashkir and Mishar feudal elite: yurt officers were appointed by cantonal chiefs, who in turn were appointed by the Orenburg military governor. They had the right to wear officer uniforms, were exempt from corporal punishment and did not personally bear any monetary and natural duties. In addition to them, only the local clergy - mullahs and ahunas - were exempted from the taxation.


__________
[1] Which may sound offensive but wouldn’t it be at least a part of the qualifications for a good ruler? Of course, it is highly debatable if AI was a good ruler but OTOH the same question can be asked about NI who did have principles. So I’m somewhat at odds on this account.
[2] In this case “friend” means “friend”.
[3] As was the case, for example, with the Soviet propaganda machine.
[4] “run the gauntlet”

 

[alexmilman]

40. Domestic Affairs. #4. Mostly the Governorate Reform of 1775

“"Article 1st. Any reform is already inherently harmful. What does the reform contain? The reform involves two actions: 1) the abolition of the old and 2) the putting something new in its place. Which of these actions is harmful? Both are the same: 1st) by sweeping away the old, we give space to the dangerous curiosity of the mind to penetrate the reasons, why one or the other is swept away, and make such conclusions: something unsuitable is swept away; such an institution is sweped away, so it is unsuitable. And this should not be, because this is encouraging freethinking and a legitimizes a challenge to discuss something that is not subject to discussion….2nd) by supplying the new, we make a kind of concession to the so-called spirit of time, which is nothing but a fabrication of idle minds"
A.N.Ostrovsky, ‘Enough stupidity in every wise man’
“The God is high above, the Tsar is far away and I’m right here so I’m your judge. How do you like to be judged: by the law or by my whim?”
A.N.Ostrovsky, ’The hot heart’
“Instruction to the governors ‘How to violate the law’, … instruction ‘How to find in the laws justification of their violations’…”
Saltykov-Schedrin, ‘The modern idyll’
​

Handling the “issues”
Bashkirs and Ural (former Yaik) Cossacks had been only a part of the troublesome situation in the Eastern provinces even if potentially the most dangerous ones by the virtue of both being the military people.

• Cantonment settlement put the Bashkirs into a protected category with an assignment role of the border protectors (and protectors against potential “domestic enemies”) guarding them against the further infringements and even allowing to a certain degree benefit from the ongoing mining boom: some villages had been recognized as the owners of the copper sources with the exclusive rights of the extraction. [1]
• The salt cost issue, which was one of the main driving issues behind unrest on the Yaik, had been addressing on a broader scale: the state cost of the salt sold to the fishing “industry” everywhere was lowered comparing to the main price and the measures had been taken to control the costs charged by the resellers.
• In all Cossack hosts promotions to all officer ranks had been taken out of the hands of local “starshina” and passed to the Military Collegium thus at least somewhat decreasing the “paternalistic” practices, which also were a big source of irritation.
• The state peasants working on the industrial plants had, once more, some of their complaints addressed and the most discredited managers were removed so the things had been back to the regulations. Until the new managers will start to violate them again.
• The work had been started on amending Table of the Ranks to include the ranks of the Berg Collegium into it. This would put its employees on an equal footing with other state employees in the terms of a social status, including elevation into a nobility, and, with this service field being made equal to other, would attract the members of nobility, which was supposedly (this was still XVIII century) a good thing, especially if they manage to get a proper education.
• The serfs working on the private plants got nothing besides the general recommendation to their owners not to push them too hard.

The Bashkir experience made it tempting to extend similar organization on the Nogais who settled along the Kuban River defending (at least this was an intention) border with the Circassian tribes who lived to the South of the river. But, taking into an account that the Nogais had been noticeably different from the Bashkirs in their social organization and that there was also a very touchy issue of their relations with the nearby Kalmuks, any modification of their existing organization had to be done slowly and carefully.

Anyway, the first necessary step was construction of the long fortified line protecting the newly-acquired border and eventually stretching all the way from the Kerch Strait to the Caspian coast. The Eastern parts of the line already existed so it was mostly an issue of building up “Azov-Mozdok line”. These lines were not something like the old anti-Tatar defensive lines, practically uninterrupted field defenses of various types, they were just series of the forts located at the critical points (convenient river crossings) with the garrisons of the regular troops.

The irregulars (Cossacks, Bashkirs, Nogais, etc.) had their settlements along the border and inland and were taking care about the small-scale looting raids across the river (and being engaged in the similar activities of their own). In the case of something serious, they would either search protection of the nearby forts or joining their garrisons in the expeditions across the border.

The Governorate Reform
However, it was clear that something serious has to be done to the administrative structure to make reaction to the potential future unrests more fast and effective because the existing system, only slightly changed since Peter’s time, was quite cumbersome and slow in its actions. These requests had been requested by the many members of the Codification Commission and now, with the commission being dead, Catherine and her inner circle came with something combining the western political theories with the realities of the Russian life of which the most important were nobility interests.

By the time of the palace coup of 1762, there were about 16,500 officials in Russia. This was slightly more than in Prussia, whose territory was about 1% of the territory of European Russia. The Russian Empire chronically suffered from a lack of governance. Already the instructions to the deputies of the Commission revealed quite understandable shortcomings in the system of local government. All classes complained of red tape, arbitrariness and lack of justice away from St. Petersburg. It was pointed out that there were no doctors, pharmacies, hospitals, almshouses, orphanages, state bread barns, banks, post offices, schools, etc. which, of course, was not good but even worse was a need to either rely upon the whims of the local administrators (who combine all types of power) or to rely upon the very long process of appealing to the Senate and waiting for its decisions: the Senate was overburdened with all types of the cases, down to the level of the family disputes and minor quarrels.

Catherine issued “Regulation for the administration of the provinces of the Russian Empire” based upon which the cardinal reform of modernization started. The main goal of the reform was to adapt the new administrative apparatus to fiscal and police affairs. Until 1775, the gubernias of the Russian Empire were divided into provinces, and the provinces into uezds. According to the new decree, the gubernias will be divided only into uezds (districts).

Of course, the merits of underlying principle of the new division could be disputed because the division was made out without taking into account geographical, national and economic characteristics; it was based solely on the quantitative criterion - the population. According to the new decree, from 300 to 400 thousand souls lived on the territory of each gubernia, about 30 thousand souls lived on the territory of the uezd.

The gubernia was headed by a governor appointed and deposed by the monarch. In his activities, he relied on gubernia’s government, which included the provincial prosecutor and two sotniks. Finance and economic affairs were handled by the gubernia’s State Chamber. Schools and charitable institutions - Department of Public Well-Being, in which elected representatives of the estates met under the chairmanship of an official. Supervision of legality in the province was carried out by the provincial prosecutor and two provincial notaries.

The executive authority in the counties was the lower Zemstvo court headed by a captain-enforcer elected by the local nobility. In the uezd cities, the power belonged to the appointed mayor.

The leadership of two-three gubernias was entrusted to the Governor-General, who was under the direct control of the Empress and the Senate. The Governor-General controlled the activities of the governors of the provinces and regions under his jurisdiction, exercised general supervision of officials, and monitored the political moods of the estates. Both governor-general and governor had troops in their disposal which created a double chain of command.

The reform also included change in the judicial system. Each estate, the nobility, state peasants and city dwellers, had two sets of its own elective courts: on gubernia and uezd lelevs. The only exception were the low level courts for the state peasants, which were appointed by the governor. The highest judicial body in the country was the Senate, and in the gubernias - the chambers of the criminal and civil court. New for Russia was the classless Conscientious Court, designed to stop quarrels and reconcile quarrels.

Number of the gubernias increased from 23 (plus “areas”) to 50 and, as a part of this reform, all old Collegiums, except for Military, Naval and Foreign Affairs, had been abolished with their functions transferred to the local administrations. Which proved to be not a very good idea. But in general the reform was mostly beneficial for the empire. First, for the first time, clear borders between provinces and counties were defined and detailed maps were drawn up. Secondly, many cities for the first time became the centers of gubernias, or at least one of the 493 uezds. Previously, there were simply not so many cities in Russia, so some of them were created from scratch or "upgraded into cities" from villages. Since 1775, such cities as Perm, Yekaterinburg, Saransk, and many others. Which meant that all these new administrative centers needed the state officials and their number increased to 27,000 creating demand for the educated cadres and sharply increasing expenses on the apparatus. [2]

Not only has the number of provinces increased, but the principles of their management have also changed. For the first time in Russian history, local financial and judicial functions were separated from the executive branch. As before, the power in the gubernia was concentrated in the hands of the governor, but the establishment of the gubernias emphasized that he could not be a judge. Finances were managed by the vice-governor, who headed the state chamber, and the court was carried out by a complex system of judicial bodies.

The new were the Departments of Public Well-Being which were engaged in the maintenance of schools, hospitals, almshouses and correctional houses. The treasury issued 15,000 rubles for the needs of these departments and gave special instructions on the maintenance of subordinate institutions. In addition, the nobles had the opportunity to gather for noble meetings, which could solve local urgent needs and represent them to the central authorities. The governor was understood not just as an official, but as carrying high European culture to the province. They were allocated special amounts for the purchase of appropriate furniture and dining sets, and their duties included holding balls and organizing leisure activities of the local nobility.

From now on the administrative structure of the Russian Empire looked like that:

The creation of new governorates took place in three stages:

• First, on the basis of the instructions prepared in St. Petersburg, the governor made a tour of the territory and identified promising cities - future administrative centers.
• The second - upon completion of the registration of the new city network and the list of uezds resulting from them, the training of administrative bodies began. At this stage, the gubernia was officially announced.
• The third was the official opening of the new gubernia, which was accompanied (as a rule) by a mass celebration in the new gubernatorial center. Especially if it also acted as the "capital" of the general-governorship.

Immediately after the opening of the gubernia, the process of functioning of its bodies tied to the gubernia and uezd cities began. Openings and the beginning of administrative functions were carried out strictly according to the hierarchy: first in gubernia, then in the uezds.

The creation of an urban and administrative network of new gubernias involved a number of difficulties. First of all, the compliance of the settlement with the requirements: the regional market, in the center of the future uezd, the availability of water, the presence of urban settlements or the ability to perform their duties, etc. The establishment of new administrative centers was not a paper act, but was hard work, for timely correction, which often required both creativity and the ability to find a way out of the deadlock. The greatest difficulty (even in the center of the empire) was represented by the former border territories. In particular, the Kaluga and Tula provinces, which grew up on the site of the so-called Wild field, which was associated with a large number of fortresses, and a small number of, so to speak, "full" cities.

One of the most prominent figures in this process was A.P.Melgunov, the governor-general of Yaroslavl. He was distinguished by his detailed approach in relation to the tasks assigned to him. He personally even drafted projects for future transformations. In financial matters, the head of the region enjoyed the unconditional trust of Catherine II, who, in fact, allocated him as much money as he asked. It was he who began to sound the alarm, warning of the predatory extermination of forests in Russia. A. P. Melgunov organized creation of bread reserves to stabilize prices and prevent discontent, showed initiative and great activity in the development of cities. Sometimes, using almost violent methods (enforcing paving the streets with stone, fire-fighting measures, seizure of funds from the nobles for an all-state school), he caused such great indignation from part of the residents of Yaroslavl that this unhappiness became known even in the "northern" capital.

However, Catherine II highly appreciated this man (despite his connection with her hated husband Peter III) and Melgunov was entrusted with the creation of a number of provinces (Yaroslavl, Vologda, Arkhangelsk) and the leadership of extensive general-governorship. Despite all the complaints that came to St. Petersburg about this person, the Empress awarded him Vladimir of the 1st degree and the highest order of the empire - Andrew the First-Called.

Initially, the reform, which lasted for a number of years, did not extend to Ukraine and Baltic provinces but not for long. Catherine II was not going to continue to maintain their autonomous state. "These provinces [...] should be caused by the easiest ways to make them russified and stop looking like wolves to the forest."

__________
[1] Not to overestimate fairness of the government, in the said areas the copper ore was lying on a surface (or close to it) in pieces so there was no real mining: the locals were collecting these pieces and selling them to the local metallurgical plants. However, they did have an exclusive right to this business and, the copper still being a rather rare and highly needed commodity, could negotiate the price.
[2] And paving the way to turning the empire into a “perfect bureaucratic state” in which even monarch was somewhat lost.

 

[alexmilman]

41. Domestic Affairs. #5. Functioning

“Russian Empire had two major problems: the fools and the roads.”
Presumably, Nicholas I
“Now it's fashionable to say not "fools," but "enthusiasts."- Yeah, we now have two problems - enthusiasts and landscape...”
“Spring showed that there was one less trouble in Russia! There are no more ROADS!!!”
“In the German news:... the Russians came up with a car... that can drive through any swamps... forests and fields... What only Russians won't come up with... just not to build a road.”
“Why do Russians like to drive on the road drunk? - Because on the road you need to drive in the same condition as it was done!”
“In Russia, the driver must be able to dodge two things: dodge holes, and dodge those who dodge pits.”
Unknown authors and anachronistic quotes
“Before we argue, let's count.”
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
“I know you can't have everything at once, so I'll start small - money.”
Janusz Vasilkovsky
“They say that money is the root of all evil. The same can be said about lack of money.”
Samuel Butler
“State finance is the art of transferring money from hand to hand until they disappear.”
Robert Sarnoff
“When it comes to the budget, everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die.”
Unknown author​

Moving things
Just to give an idea, below is the map with the routes of the Russian iron exports from a point of production to the point of export. The solid lines are the water ways, rivers and canal systems. The doted lines are the overland parts of the routes on which the cargo had to be carried by the carts. As you can see, these overland stretches were quite short: 1st - from the plants to embarkments on the Chusovaya River, 2nd - from Kolomna to Moscow (160 km), and the 3rd - from Moscow to an embarkment on Vyshnevolotsk water system (120km). Alternative route bypassing Moscow did not have 2nd and 3rd parts. In other words, comparing to approximately 4,000 km by water, the overland part was minuscule.
Of course, iron was just a fraction of the goods carried by these systems. In 1777, 12,620 thousand poods (about 202,000 tons) of various goods (with iron amounting to approximately 60,000 tons) were transported for shipment abroad through the Vyshnevolotsk system.

Which were both the good and bad news. The bad news was that the state had to maintain these water systems, or rather their canals and sluices parts in the operational conditions, which cost considerable amounts of money, and the traders had to maintain a big fleet of the barges and …er… “propellant” to move them along the route. In an absence of the steam engines, there were two options, horses and people; out of which the second option wad cheaper in the terms of maintenance and endurance and easier available. Of course, the landscape also was important. The Volga above Rybinsk, as well as the Vyshnevolotskaya and Mariinskaya water systems had a good coastal strip (bechevnik), which allowed the use of horses for ship traction. On the lower Volga, the water level changed significantly during navigation, there was no permanent bechevnik and reliance was mostly on a human power. Similar considerations applied to the smaller rivers [1].

The good news was that this water-based route was allowing to minimize reliance upon the second major Russian problem (see above). However, these good news were actually a part of the bad news because the roads in the Russian Empire were generally lousy, to put it optimistically. The road laid between the two capitals in 1723-1746, although called "perspective" [2], was unpaved and by the end of the century for the most part fell into disrepair. The construction of a new one with a hard surface was supposed to be completed in 1780 but so far this looked more as a good intention than a realistic estimate. So, depending upon the weather and other factors, the roads could look anywhere between on on the left and one on the right (with the right not being the worst case) [3].

Well, of course, this was not due to the shortage of the instructions coming from the government. Almost all roads were administered by regional authorities and the government demanded to keep them in a good order. This was spelled out in the regulations of the Chamber-Collegium of 1731: "Governors and voivodes should make sure that large carriageways in the counties were in good order, so that there was no obstacles for travellers and all kinds of people."

However, the roads were repaired by local residents. There was an excellent explanation of this practice in the reasoning of the Chamber-Collegium of 1741: if you build the road with state funds, the inhabitants will not protect it, and if it is built by ordinary people themselves, then they "will treat the road with all kinds of care". At the state expense, in the middle of the XVIII century, only those roads that led from St. Petersburg to the suburbs (Tsarskoye Selo, Peterhof, Shlisselburg), to the Baltic Provinces (St. Petersburg - Narva) and to Moscow ("Perspective Road") were built and repaired. The monarchs and VIPs regularly drove along these roads, so they had to be kept in a better condition than the rest of the country's routes.

The road construction technique used in the middle of the 18th century was inherited from ancient times. The roads were paved with fashins - bundles of firewood, which were folded in several rows and leveled with the help of sand, and in the swampy places - with logs. The technique of their repair was simple, and the road could be repaired by any peasant. The exception were bridges over large rivers - they were usually built at the expense of gubernia and uezd authorities. And although the officials responsible for road repairs constantly lamented that the fashins were quickly rotting, the government was in no hurry to order the paving of roads with a stone because it was much more expensive and required more skill.

It should come as no surprise that in the case of war moving troops and supplies to the front was a long and complicated process even for the relatively short distances.

Finances. As created by Peter I, system controlling the Russian finances was based upon three “collegias”: Kamer, State-control and Revision. When she became an empress, Catherine found that Stats-control Collegium collects information about all expenses while two other are doing nothing. Collecting money was done by the numerous non-financial entities. Catherine started with restoring Kamer Collegium in 1764 and from 1765 it President was P.A. Melgunov (who later distinguished himself during gubernia’s reform) but his proposal regarding its modernization was not realized. Starting from 1768 pretty much all financial control was in the hands of Procurator-General of the Senate, A. A. Vyazemsky who created Department of the State Income and Treasury for the payments. The administrative reform of 1775 moved financial issues to the gubernia level with the State Chambers being subordinated to the Kamer Collegium and responsible for collection of all types of taxes and also oversight of the roads and bridges. Things had been put in order but the process carried a price tag of 30,000,000 rubles and the data about income and expenses still were extremely imprecise.

However, the state income kept growing in a rate higher than during the previous reign both due to the growth of taxable population and a greater efficiency of collecting income. The only bad news was the fact that «недоимка» (inability to collect all expected taxes, mostly applicable to the poll tax ) also kept growing. The poll tax remained the main source of state income and its burden kept growing, partially because the headcount was very imprecise: the revisions had been happening with the intervals of 5 - 7 years and the taxpayers’ lists included dead, recruits and incapacitated people all of whom had been “covered” by a communal system of responsibility. Traditionally, this tax was very convenient to the state because raising it just for few kopecks per capita was helping to deal with a budget deficit making it unnecessary for the state to look for other sources of the taxation like growth of trade and manufacturing. To address this issue at least partially, the merchants had been exempt from the poll tax and had to pay a guild tax of 1% of the capital but it strongly looked like the whole approach needs a modernization.

By various measures Vyazemsky managed to increase the raised taxes by 20%. Slowly but steadily role of the indirect taxes, especially one on the alcohol (which grew to 20% of the total income), kept growing. But just raising its costs would result in the unrests and the same applied to the cost of the salt so these two items had to be treated with a great caution. Owners of the metallurgical plants had been paying 10% of the production but this amounted only to 2% of the state budget. Taxes on the small businesses, their commercial transactions and any activities requiring interaction with the state, however small, had been producing more money than the heavy industry. The custom dues also had been bringing up to 9%. Total state income by 1775 was approximately 30,000,000.

The main expense items were army, navy, diplomatic services, administrative apparatus (during Catherine’s reign this item grew 8 times amounting to 20% of the budget) and imperial court. While the military expenses grew approximately 4.5 times, their percentage in a budget actually was declining from 64.5 to 37%. Maintenance of the imperial court kept growing but so far its weight as a percentage of a budget was relatively modest, approximately 11%. Expenses on the infrastructure were small. In 1775 on the bridges and river crossings - 70,000, on canals - 900,000 , schools - 800,000, orphanages and hospitals - 105,000, Academy of Sciences - 50,000, Moscow University - 15,000, Academy of Arts - 60,000, state theater - 5,000 but payment to the invited foreign actors and theaters - 128,000. But the military and court schools were a different issue: the Noble Corps - 200,000, the Naval Corps - 188,000, Artillery and Engineering Corps - 124,000, Corps of the Pages - 80,000. Smolny Institute (school for the noble girls) - 100 - 122,000.

The Ottoman War cost 47,500,000. To cover it, 20,000,000 had been received from taxes in coin, 15,000,000 from savings and reserves and 12,500,000 by emission of the paper money. There going to be considerable expenses on building up infrastructure of the Crimean Peninsula and construction of the Black Sea Fleet but even in the mid-term they were expected to be mostly compensated by the taxation of the new territories received from the Partitions of the PLC. However, it was clear to Catherine that the expenses must be kept under a strict control [4], which was an extremely novel idea in the whole history of the Russian state going all the way back to Gostomysl. Probably, the people on the top levels of the state service heard about such a thing but suspected that this is some kind of an allegory or just a pure fantasy invented by Catherine’s French buddies and completely unrelated to the Russian realities. Those on the bottom levels of the court service never heard about anything of the kind and considered most of the movable palace goods, except for the jewels and the imperial personal items, pretty much as their own property…



___________
[1] In OTL in 1830, there were up to 15,000 ships on the Volga, about 6,000 on the Oka, about 1,800 on the Kama, 1,150 on other tributaries of the Volga. Thus, the total number of vessels on the rivers of the Volga basin was 23,950 ships in 1830 and a number of the people moving them was in a range of 300,000 - 600,000. Of course, in the 1770s the numbers were lower but so was the general population of the empire.
[2] Which meant “first class” in a contemporary Russian.
[3] Actually, one on the right is a photo of the Germans in the SU during ww2; there are much worse cases but they either involve the soldiers in distinctively not-XVIII century uniforms or quite anachronistic vehicles with the huge swastikas painted on them. Anyway, what was good for the 1941, definitely was even more so for the 1770s. 😉
[4] This is a complete and unashamed BS without any link to the realities of the Russian Empire of the XVIII century. If somebody declares that penny-pinching CII is not just alternative history but a pure ASB, I would not argue. But there should be some serious difference from OTL so here we go and I’m already making plans for Potemkin operating on a tight budget (which is just oxymoronic as “military intelligence” or “business ethics”). 😂😂

 

[alexmilman]

42. Domestic Affairs. #6. Catherine goes frugal

“There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no independence quite so important, as living within your means.”
Calvin Coolidge
“Industry is fortune’s right hand, and frugality its left.”
John Ray
“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.”
Woody Allen
“The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket.”
Kin Hubbard
“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”
Oscar Wilde
"The only way to get people in Russia to comply with the laws is to legalize theft."
M. N. Zadornov
“But in theft, they find a lot of subtlety that would not shame even London scammers.”
I.A. Goncharov, ‘Frigate Pallada’
“Almost every day they caught him in theft, but since the thefts were small, and moreover the Russian man does not like to sue at all, it rarely came to police and ended with beating.”
”If I fall asleep and wake up in a hundred years and I am asked what is happening in Russia now, I will answer: they drink and steal...”
”When and which bureaucrat was not convinced that Russia is a pie that can be freely approached and eaten?”
”The Russian government must keep its people in a state of constant amazement.”
”In order to steal with success, you only need to have agety and greed. Greed is especially necessary, because you can get on trial for a small theft.”
”.... Words that were completely insignificant were printed in large letters, and everything essential was depicted in the smallest print.”
”Enlightenment must be implemented with moderation, avoiding bloodshed as much as possible.”
A.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin
“Children, write down the conditions of the task. Ignat had five apples. According to the documents. In fact, three, and seven under the contract. Question: how many apples will the one who checks Ignat's business activities have?”
Modern Russian joke​

As was mentioned in the previous chapter, after the glorious Ottoman War and less glorious but still profitable partition of the PLC Catherine found out that the Russian finances are not in a good shape and something has to be done on this account. There were two ways of doing so:

1. Get more money. Traditional implementation of this solution was just to raise more revenues by raising the taxes. The method was as old as the first Russian principalities and, with the few unfortunate exceptions, like one of Prince Igor of Kiev [1], it worked quite well. However, within the existing reality the government could not fully collect even existing direct taxes and, as far as indirect ones were involved, while even greater drinking would raise amount of the collected excise taxes in a short run, there were certain disadvantages in having all subjects of the Russian Empire permanently drunk (who would be carrying food and other necessities to the noble houses and imperial residences?). Another way to get more money was to make more of them but resources of silver copper were not unlimited and both had other important use (silver for making tableware and copper for the artillery) so Catherine chose a modern way and started printing the paper money. But a number of people who had at least some idea on the subject beyond a “night-table” paradigm [2] started warning her that the more money you are printing, the less they worth. The most irritating thing was that even her own son had been blabbing something to this effect. Did this mean that he is more intelligent than herself? Anyway, she decided to proceed with a moderation. The third was was to borrow and actually she was borrowing the small amounts from the Swiss bankers but “you are borrowing other people money and returning yours” and after all she came not from the Versailles but from an impoverished minor German princely family with no proper background in “behaving as the princes” [3]. So these sums were too small to make a difference. [4]
2. Spend less. The idea definitely had merits but the question was “how?”. Well, a less responsible and more egotistical person would start with her own household (which, in this case included all state apparatus) but Catherine was officially declared “Mother of the country” so she started with taking care of her subjects who, by all accounts, were not frugal at all. This was nothing new, she was always considering care about well-being of her subjects as the top priority. She already issued decree ordering the state officials to be honest [5] and another degree forbidding high stakes card games so now it was a time to regulate the frugality. It did not her too much time to write a manifesto against excessive luxury. Of course, principle of defining what is and what is not “excessive” in each specific case had to be formulated but what in other European countries could be a problem, in the Russian Empire was a piece of cake: everybody's status within it was clearly defined by the Table of the Ranks.

Manifesto was printed in a form that later became the official tradition: the meaningless words were printed by the big letters and the meaningful part in a small font [6].

In its practical part the manifesto was regulating the carriages and numbers of horses permitted to each group within the Table and dress code for their lackeys. The local administrators were put in charge of the enforcement.

Intermission. This may look silly but it was not: the manifesto was once more underscoring the main principle of the Russian Empire: person’s place in it was defined (at least formally) not by ancestry or wealth but by his place on the service ladder. No matter how aristocratic or rich one was but if he was just a junior officer, he could use carriages and sledges with to horses while the people of the higher service ranks had been entitled to 4 or 6 (the top being entitled to 6 horses with two postilions). And if a noble did not have an officer rank or its civic equivalent, he was entitled to a single horse carriage with no adornments on a harness. The same for the livery.

With the well-being of her (noble) subjects being attended to, it would be reasonable for Catherine to start taking care about her household and administration.

At home. To give a general idea of the situation in the imperial household, here are some historical anecdotes:
”Walking through the garden, Empress [Catherine II] replaced that the lackeys carry peaches, pineapples and grapes from the palace on porcelain trays. In order not to meet them, Ekaterina turned to the side, telling others:
- I wish they would at least left to me the trays!”
“And another time, faced, so to speak, with these trays, she said to those who carried them:
- Well, you'll be in trouble if Torsukov [Hoff-Marshal] sees it!
- He's still sleeping, Mother Tsarina! - was their answer.”

On some occasions she even was helping the thieves to escape being caught. Tendency to play a good master extended to her never ordering to punish any of the servants or even to fire the incompetent ones: one of her cooks was very bad and when it was his turn to prepare the imperial dishes there was a “diet time” but he never was fired.

The basic principle of the court employees was to steal everything that could be defined as a petty theft (aka, not jewelry, pieces of furniture, certain pieces of a table service, etc.). There was a joke about a person who asked to find him any place at the palace staff explaining that even position of a care taker of Empress’ canary bird will provide food for him, his wife and his children. One of very few cases when Catherine did something was when she found in the palace documents that every day a poud (16 kilograms) of a hair powder was allocated for her. “Did something” meant that she let it be known that she is unhappy. Nobody was punished but the practice stopped. But role of a good master was too appealing to abandon it and Hoff-Master was doomed to play a bad cop or at least a scarecrow. The palaces, and especially their personnel, remained a big money-sucking black hole.

Which was rather funny because her personal life style was rather modest. The decor of her interior rooms in the Winter Palace was much more modest than the situation of the rooms of many nobles of that time. She usually woke up at seven o'clock in the morning and, without disturbing anyone, put on her own clothes, dressed and ignited the fireplace, in which they put firewood in the evening. After washing herself in a small bathroom and putting on a house dress the empress went to the office, where she was immediately served a cup of the strongest Levantine coffee and a plate of toasts. Slowly sipping coffee, Catherine studied the papers, wrote letters and in moments of rest fed her favorite dogs with toasts [7]. At nine o'clock she moved into the bedroom, which by that time was hastily put in order. There were two tables. Catherine was taking a seatbehind one of them and then the capital’s chief of police and state secretaries with the reports had been admitted one by one. When the state secretaries done with their reports, the rest of the persons to whom the reception was appointed had been invited. At twelve o'clock, the reception stopped, and her senior hairdresser Kozlov would come to the empress to comb her hair. Then Catherine went to the ceremonial dressing room, where everyone who reported on that day and some close friends were gathering for the morning greeting. Here she was putting on an official dress.

Before lunch, which was appointed at two o'clock, the empress studied again. Only the closest persons were invited to lunch on weekdays; it lasted no more than an hour. The empress was distinguished by her abstinence in food and drink: she never had breakfast or dinner, and at lunch she took small portions of three or four dishes; from wine she drank a glass of rhine wine or Hungarian.

At 6pm there were social meetings officially defined as small ( for the inner circle), medium (bigger number but still reasonably “inner”) and big ones (all high-ranking people, and foreign diplomats; opera, dances, supper) . Catherine had to maintain reputation of the imperial court as the most luxurious court in Europe. A mandatory feature of the entertainment was a card game. For the small and medium parties the empress had permanent partners but in the big ones she may invite somebody else as a token of her favor. With the high stakes games being forbidden, she and her partners had been using the “modest” ones, one imperial (gold coin of 10 rubles; for comparison, the annual poll tax was 70-80 kopeks).

In May, Catherine moved to Tsarskoye Selo, where she remained until late autumn. All court ceremonies and receptions were canceled here, reports and invitations were shortened. On a painting above Catherine is painted with one of her favorite Italian greyhounds, which in 1770, the English doctor Dimsdale (who introduced smallpox inoculation in Russia) presented her, Sir Tom Anderson (died in 1784) and Duches (died in 1782). These dogs became the ancestors of a large family. Tom Anderson lived for 16 years and left many descendants. Catherine loved her dogs very much and gave puppies - "young people", as she called them, to the Volkonsky, Naryshkin, Orlov families; two puppies were sent to Versailles. “At the head is the ancestor, Sir Tom Anderson, his wife, Duchess Anderson, their children: the young Duchess of Anderson, Mr. Anderson and Tom Thomson; this one settled in Moscow under the care of Prince Volkonsky, the Moscow Governor General. In addition to them, who have already won a position in the world, there are four or five young people who promise infinitely much: they are brought up in the best houses in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as, for example, Prince Orlov, Mr. Naryshkins, at Prince Tyufyakin.”

Catherine's personal servants consisted of one chamber-frau, four chamber-medchen and five valets, two of which were with her person and two at the Hermitage. The duties of each were precisely defined; for example, one valet was in charge of the wardrobe and received an order from the Empress what exactly and on what day should be prepared for her; another supervised the inner rooms; the third, Catherine's favorite old Popov, was in charge of her office and "pantry", where precious things, brocades, velvets, matter, canvases, etc. were stored. It was his duty every Saturday to submit to her a statement of handouts made from the pantry during the week, not excluding even trifles, such as ribbons and ribbons, and the empress herself noted on the statements: "Write down in the expense". But the total staff of the imperial court amounted to over 3,000, including a personal of the palaces which she rarely visited but expenses on which had been billed on a “full scale”. Obviously, nothing could be saved there and nobody even tried seriously. Expenses of the court kept growing and if in 1730 they amounted to 360,000, now they were over 2,000,000 and kept growing. Income of the “cabinet” (an office serving the imperial family) had been formed by salt tax (a guaranteed million), gold and silver production in the state lands of Altai and Nerchinsk, fixed allocations from the Treasury, fixed allocations from the custom dues, yasak (furs) from the Siberian tribes and some smaller items like salary as a colonel of the Guards regiments.

But expenses also kept growing including, besides the mandatory items, pensions and various gifts of money and jewelry. The last category was important because it was a demonstrable sign of the sovereign’ personal benevolence and their cost varied in a wide range. For example, the most popular gift, a snuffbox, could cost anywhere between 150 and 6,000 rubles, gold watch with the diamonds - 150 - 3,000, female jewelry - 150 - 5,000, diamond rings - 200 - 4,000. And in the case of, God forbid, a war, the expenses grew to include the bejeweled and gold swords and various types of the non-standard military awards. To cut significantly on these expenses would hurt Catherine’s image as “gift-giving mother” and while she was not anymore “sitting” on the Guards’ bayonets, she still cared greatly about being surrounded by the happy faces.

Getting back to the subject, of course she found how to save money: when her son asked for 20,000 to cover his debts, he eventually got 5,000 and a valuable lecture on importance to be frugal. And as a birthday gift he got a cheap watch.

Administration was not much better: Catherine strongly believed in a force of the moral factors ignoring …er… historical realities of the Russian culture by which any official considered himself entitled to a piece of the state pie size and specifics of which depended on his position. As a result, the ongoing administrative reform, which moved most of the functionality and reporting down to the gubernia level, made the “historical practices” easier because the increased part of the collected taxes of all types had been now officially consumed on that level without going to the government.

Catherine’s usual approach was pretty much the same as with the thieving servants, try to appeal to what neither them nor the state officials typically did not have, the conscientiousness. Her predecessor in “Greatness”, Peter I, tried all methods of a persuasion, from delivering beating personally and all the way through knout, and rack to the gallows. Well, presumably the last item on the list was at least a temporary deterrent [8] but in general his pedagogical attempts failed. So, what chance Catherine had without these tools? An assumption that separation of powers within gubernia will solve the fiscal problems proved to be optimistic as well: representatives of each branch of the provincial government just had been “operating” each within his own sector. However, while her system of governing may sound a little bit naive, it was based upon the solid traditional Russian assumption that it does not make sense to replace one thief …oops… administrator with another because the new one will be stealing even more expecting that his tenure will be short.

The military and naval administration probably could introduce some money saving practices but the Military Collegium now did not have a President and its Vice-President, Saltykov, besides being incompetent in the military affairs, had a full time job administering the household of Cesarevich Paul and acting as intermediary between him and his mother so Catherine was looking for a suitable replacement.

In the Navy, Paul started to assert himself with the increasing authority and competence at the expense of his VP, Chernyshov but, besides being very (and sometimes annoyingly) honest himself, he was seemingly trying, with a competent help of the Vice-Admiral Greig, to introduce the style of a discipline and efficiency throughout the whole Russian Navy. Taking into an account that the new Black Sea fleet and the needed infrastructure had to be built almost from the scratch and that so far cooperation of the Admiralty with the regional naval commanders had been going smoothly, Catherine did not mind this burden being taken off her shoulders.

Fortunately, the newly-incorporated territories started adding income to the state coffers, replacement of the poll tax with the income tax for the merchants proved to be a good idea and the increasing exports also were providing growing surplus. Annual extraction of silver in Netchinsk region reached 629 pouds, metallurgical plants on Altai based mostly on Zmeinogorsk mine were producing over 1,000 pouds of silver annually and annual extraction of gold in Ural reached 2,000 pouds [9]. So, in an absence of some drastic expenses on a level of a major war [10] , what was passing for the Russian budget (officially, there still was none) was going to produce a steady and growing surplus even on the existing level of thievery and inefficiency.

Then there were relatively small (comparing to the total) but not negligible future savings by the Foreign Collegium. With the demise of Panin’s “System” the enormous amounts regularly spent on the bribes and subsidies came down to a pure minimum.

In Sweden an attempt to maintain the existing form of a government (absolutist Russian Empire fighting against the absolutist party in Sweden sounds rather strange) cost, within couple years, close to a million and ended up being a waste of money when King Gustav III in 1772 staged a coup and became an absolute monarch thus ending the Age of Liberty, which was quite costly for Russia without producing any visible benefits. The goal of the Russian policy, as per Panin, was to keep Sweden weak thus preventing its attack on Russia. The key element in this scenario were the French subsidies to Sweden because France was the Ottoman ally and, as a result, anti-Russian. But, being a theoretical construction, the “System” was not reacting to the changed geopolitical landscape: even before 1772 France run out of money and the end of the Ottoman war made the whole “stabbing at the back” scenario a mute point, anyway. Panin could keep pontificating but Catherine decided that, at least for a time being, maintaining friendly relations with a fellow absolute monarch is going to be cheaper than keep wasting huge some of money on now powerless opposition. She offered to sell Sweden a big amount of grain at the discount price, which was accepted with a gratitude, and relations had been patched. Anyway, with Denmark, after the land swap and removing the Queen from a political scene, being a firm Russian ally and Russian Empire having at its disposal a naval base in Kiel (and quite a few experienced local sailors willing to serve in the Russian navy) and Prussia as an ally as well, Sweden probably would not risk a military confrontation unless Gustav starts getting some mental problems.

The second money pit of the “System”, the PLC, became almost insignificantly cheap. Catherine kept giving small amounts of money to Stanislaw-August but the big expenses for promoting a now unimportant earlier agenda had been gone. In the newly acquired territories most of the lands which belonged to the active members of the Bar Confederacy had been confiscated and, after distribution of the awards, the rest had been turned into the state lands: being personally free, the state peasants had been paying a higher poll tax.



_____________
[1] Leo the Deacon writes that in 945 the unhappy subjects captured Prince Igor and executed him by tying to the tops of bent trees and tore his body apart.
[2] The source of money is night-table, the source of electricity is a socket and of a gas is fueling station.
[3] Don’t remember which top family it was but when a son returned from a travel still in a possession of some money, the angry father told him: “I see that you did not learn how to behave as a prince” and threw the purse with the remaining money out of the window.
[4] Highly idealized picture. In OTL she was printing paper money and borrowing abroad as if there was no tomorrow saddling her successor with a devaluated paper currency and huge foreign debt.
[5] This decree was accompanied by the raise of the bureaucrats’ salaries in a somewhat idealistic expectation that this would remove a need foe stealing and taking bribes. Contrary to the expectations, this did not work out as expected. Personally, I can’ imagine why. Perhaps the part emphasizing the moral side of the issue contained words which the intended audience was not familiar with, like “honesty”.
[6] Unfortunately, I could not find the contemporary document. Below is the recent replica with the modern orthography but presumably in the same format.
[7] Not a very good food. I mean, for a dog.
[8] It can be argued that if those subjected to this educational method did not have a tendency to die in a process of being hanged, they would continue their practices. With an absence of the necessary data, this theory can’t be convincingly proved or disproved.
[9] I did not quite get how the whole system worked. These plants were on the lands which belonged to the imperial family. Gold, silver and part of copper had been going to the Mint to make coinage. Was all that coinage going to the “cabinet” to cover the court expenses (unlikely) or was there some kind of a more complicated arrangement? So far, I found nothing on that account. Anyway, until Nicholas I created Ministry of the Imperial Court with its own budget, a line between the sovereign’s own money and state money was somewhat murky.
[10] In OTL activities of Grigory Potemkin probably amounted to a very big war. “Probably” because he did not bother himself with a paper work. When auditing the 55 million rubles allocated to him for the army, he found very difficult to “justify” (with a very lenient attitude of the auditors) spending 41 million, and the report on the rest dragged on to infinity and were forgiven. And the expenses for ”civilizing” Novorossia, as I understand, never were audited. Grigory Orlov never was asked how exactly he spent 20 millions assigned to the Mediterranean expedition and he seemingly “appropriated” a big part of the trophies. Well, at least he was a bona fide war hero, which Potemkin was not.

 

[alexmilman]

43. Raise of Novorossia #1

“When you feel that the goal is unattainable, do not change the goal - change your action plan.”
Confucius
“The more brilliant your plan is, the fewer people will agree with it."
Sun Tzu
“Don't make modest plans - they can't excite the soul."
Niccolò Machiavelli
"The best strategic plan is useless if it can't be implemented tactically."
Erwin Rommel
"No business plan can stand the reality test. Reality is always different from the picture presented in the plan."
Jeff Bezos
“I make plans in the morning and do stupid things in the afternoon.”
Voltaire
"The plan was simple: break the door lock, eat all the sausages in the buffet, take all change from the cash register and flee."
Fazil Abdulovich Iskander
“It's good that everything is going according to plan. It's bad that the plan is shit.”
”He was clearly a quite capable person. What exactly he was capable of was a big question.”
Unknown author
”…She starts: "Oh, he loves me!" Who is this, "he" - I almost never ask: because the answer is one, stereotypical: "My fiancé, he's handsome, smart, educated!"”
A.N. Ostrovsky, ‘A handsome man’
​

Russian Empire, from 1775.
With all fighting and most of the diplomacy being done with, the obvious task of the top priority was how to digest what was swallowed, especially where the former Ottoman territories were involved. Obviously, these territories needed influx of the Russian (or at least loyal) population, developed agriculture, infrastructure and many other things. There was also a need to provide for their defenses, which meant creation of the coastal defenses and building up a powerful fleet.

Catherine’s initial plan was to assign the whole “package” to a single person in expectation that this will provide the best way to coordinate the efforts, perhaps may save some money and will relieve her of a need to get involved in a process and and inter-departments squabbles. Of course, a potential candidate had to be a man with a vision, capable of designing the great plans and personally loyal to her. An idea that “designing a plan” and “implementing the plan” were not always the same thing was not quite there, yet: if a person knows what he wants to do, surely he should know how to do it. And she found someone who looked as a perfect fit of her list of the qualifications. Just as years ago Grigory Orlov supposed to be: in some cases, especially when not only her head was involved, stepping once on a pitchfork was not quite enough.

Jack of all trades.

Grigory Potemkin was, at the time of a coup, a non-commissioned officer of the Horse Guards who was noticed by Catherine. His further career was rather fast: first he was promoted to the 2nd lieutenant, then, almost immediately to the 1st, than was made a chamberlain. When the Ottoman War started he volunteered to go to it and, his court rank being converted into a military one, joined Rumyantsev’s army as major-general. Rumyantsev did not like the “court people” but his new subordinate was eager to serve, brave and quite good in performing the assigned tasks. All of which Rumyantsev honestly communicated in his letter to Catherine when Potemkin was sent to report about the course of a war, which he did in the terms flattering to the Fieldmarshal and army in general. Catherine was pleased with the report and even more so by a messenger.

He was tall, handsome (just as Catherine liked them) and, unlike the …er… “experiments” starting with Orlov, quite an intelligent and imaginative speaker. After being made adjutant-general [1] he was sent to the Crimea to report upon the status of affairs after not too brilliant performance of Prince Dolgoruky during the Ottoman landing and Tatar uprising. He returned not just with a report but with a whole plan for the proper integration of the peninsula into the Russian Empire. Impressed Catherine promoted him to lieutenant-general and appointed governor-general of a newly created “Novorossia” with a task to “civilize” and develop the territory and eventually conduct its administrative division into 2 or 3 gubernias. Extensive financial backing was promised and her “Grishenka”, after being appointed Vice-President of the Military Collegium (he promised to reform the Army in his spare time), departed in conquest of a glory and further promotions.

He started with the most troublesome part, the peninsula. Recent mass uprising demonstrated that population is not, in general, happy with the Russian rule and one of his first order had a purpose to calm it down by a mild behavior “The will of her imperial majesty is that all the troops staying in the Crimean peninsula should treat the residents in a friendly way, without hurting, in which the administrators and regimental commanders have to set an example.”

Judging by his letters to Catherine, Potemkin was quite captivated by a natural beauty of the peninsula and fertility of its lands. However, despite the heavenly appearance of the area, there was a lot of work ahead - it was necessary to develop villages and small settlements, as well as to build new cities on vast uninhabited lands, create maps, build roads and the ports.

But as the first steps it was necessary to set the administrative structure, which would suit both sides involved and Potemkin accomplished this with a noticeable success. The land rights of the local owners had been reassured, the local mosques and their clergy got confirmation of their right to function, only the lands abandoned by the emigrated owners had been made subject to the distribution among the newcomers. The measures had been taken that the trade of the coastal port cities would not be harmed and exports of the goods produced in the peninsula (minus the slaves) into the Ottoman Empire will go on: with a shortage, so far, of the land roads, a direct trade with the Russian territories was rather cumbersome, unless it was coming via the Azov Sea, but at least some of it started keeping the locals busy and with the money.

As the capital of future Tavria gubernia Potemkin choose Ak-Mosque renamed into Simferopol. A relatively small town was semi-deserted due to the war and plague but it was located practically in the center of the peninsula which made it well-suited for the purpose. Construction of the road to the North started immediately and so did construction of the new administrative and private buildings which, soon enough were supposed to make the site at least “half-European”.

The next important task was to set up new port and a wharf on the Black Sea, which was Catherine’s direct order. The decree on its construction was caused by the desire to have a new harbor and shipyard closer to the Black Sea, as the previous ones, such as Taganrog, presented significant inconveniences due to shallow water. In 1775, the empress ordered to finally choose a place for the harbor and shipyard on the Dnieper and call it Kherson. Potemkin chose the Alexander-Schants tract. The work was entrusted to the descendant of the famous black man and godson of Peter the Hreat, general V. Hannibal, 12 companies of masters were assigned at his disposal. A fairly large area was taken away for the future city, and 220 guns were sent to the constructed fortress.

The management of this case was entrusted to Potemkin, who wanted to make the city as blooming and famous as ancient Tauric Chersonesos. He expected to arrange an admiralty in it, a warehouse, as Peter I did in St. Petersburg, with Ochakov serving as its “Kronstadt. The construction did not cause difficulties: the quarry was located almost in the city itself, timber, iron and all the necessary materials were brought along the Dnieper. Potemkin distributed the lands lying around the city for the construction of country houses, gardens, etc. This was a reported situation. The real one was a tiny bit different. The climate was not healthy due to the nearby swamps. The area was practically completely void of the trees so the dried reeds and bushes had been used for a fuel. Transporting materials down the Dnieper was quite problematic due to the rapids and even after few of the boulders were blown away, the travel downriver was so risky that a whole brand new social class of the hereditary “rapids pilots” had been established, with its own social privileges. The city sight was too far upriver, which was too shallow at its level to allow access for the major ships and putting limitations on the size of the ships which could be built and sent down the river. All these trifles had been ignored and Catherine was getting reports about a completed admiralty and other official buildings and the merchant ships already arriving. The construction had been moving fast because there was no shortage of money and, besides the budgeted sums, more than 500,000 rubles were granted upon Potemkin’s request.

The first alarm sounded when the representatives of the Admiralty severely criticized the first ships built on the local wharf: they were badly constructed, and the low quality timber had been used. The first ship built there was rejected by the Admiralty and construction of the second one took three years. Going a little bit ahead of time, four years later Hannibal was fired and Potemkin who came to see the situation complained to Catherine “I'm tired like a dog, and I can't make sense to the Admiralty. Everything is ruined, there is no decent record. Other works are also defective, the high cost of contracts and the malfunction of contractors spent a lot of money and time... None of those who were supposed to watch were in their business... everyone was removed, and everything was in the hands of the secretary of Hannibal... whom he took with him, leaving no timber or money here.” Not that his own paperwork was in a better shape. [2]

But Catherine was so excited that the complaints had been ignored except for a granted permission to look for a better site for a wharf somewhere nearby. Soon enough the sailors found a much better spot on the Ingul River (Bug’s tributary) where the settlement called “Nikolaev”, was established and construction of a new wharf started. However, for the few following years the Admiralty and all relevant services remained in Kherson and a slow construction of the questionable quality ships there continued even if on a dwindling scale.

Location of a nearly ideal port had been found when two Russian frigates sailed into the Akhtiar Bay to stay there for the winter. The bay was researched and described and detailed plan of the area with bays, outlines of the banks and depth measurements was prepared and delivered to the commander of the newly-founded port of Kherson. The report was saying “…I have the honor to present a map made by Akhtiar harbor <...>, in which up to 50 warships and other vessels can be placed without any problem.”
In few months the first buildings had been constructed and the base of the future Black Sea Fleet founded. All construction had been done by the sailors who began to build wharfs, residential buildings for officers and barracks for sailors. The buildings resembled "Little Russian huts" made of wicker, smeared with clay and whitewashed, with a reed roof.

At this point certain administrative problems started to appear. As per new administrative reform, the military were ending up with a dual chain of command because they were subordinated to both the Military or Naval Collegium and to the local administration. Which brought the obvious questions of who has a final say regarding the plans for construction of a new naval base and who is responsible for supplying the things needed for its construction and functioning? Even greater looming questions were who will be in charge of the naval construction and where will it going to happen? And, of course, who is going to pay for the expenses?

With Potemkin's urge to be in charge of everything, including the issues in which he was grossly incompetent, the issue was which side is going to get an upper hand. As a VP of the Military Collegium and governor-general Potemkin had a clear advantage “on the land” but OTOH, he was grossly over-ranked on the issues related to the navy by Admiral-General. Of course, taking into an account that Catherine’s relations with her son were on a tepid side at the best times, “Grishenka” had serious reasons to expect that the Empress will make a decision in his favor. However, by that time Paul already established himself as a acting head of the Admiralty and had a strong support of the leading naval figures like Greig, Senyavin and Chichagov and even of his own VP, Ivan Chernishov. All of them had been insisting that the naval works on the Black Sea are not being done properly notwithstanding the already huge expenses and that in the case of a new war with the Ottomans Russia risks to have the inferior Black Sea fleet and this time may not be as lucky as it was in the last war.

When it was coming too a really serious business Catherine could get over her sentiments and act an as empress. The Navy was put in charge of the naval issues including the related constructions. In the areas of supplies and other administrative arrangements both powers had been ordered to cooperate as befits the true sons of the Fatherland. For a short while “Grishenka” was considering throwing a tantrum but then, being a very intelligent person, reconsidered. “Opposition” looked too powerful and its leader demonstrated an unexpected grace making it possible to “share credit” by being in charge of supplying the necessary materials for the constructed base at Akhtiar, which was ambitiously renamed to Sevastopol, with an open invitation to be responsible for establishing the whole town around it. Paul, as the Tsesarevich, did not even think about someone outside the imperial family to be competing with him on anything so Potemkin’s quest for glory did not bother him (for as long as he did not interfere with his own actions) and his mother’s new favorite was clearly trying to be useful to the empire even if Paul did not approve of his style. Indeed, as soon as the issue was settled, Potemkin started active work on organizing the supply process, which was not an easy task. Not only the timber, iron and other materials had been brought from outside the peninsula by land but their transportation across the peninsula had to be arranged in a way, which would not cause the excessive burden to the natives, thus triggering an unrest. The local administrators had to distribute the duty judiciously and provide decent payment for the services granted. The process required a very diligent oversight because none of the people involved on any level could be considered trustworthy.

_________
[1] For certain category of the males this rank mean that his company was found quite agreeable.
[2] In OTL he could provide some documentation on approximately 40+ millions out of more than 50 he spent.

 

[alexmilman]

44. Raise of Novorossia #2. “How to cure pain in the butt”

“You see a problem, I see a potential.”
‘My blue heaven’
“The empire is a power, the main and perhaps the only goal of whose policy is to make all external enemies internal!”
“When the only tool at your disposal is a hammer, then everything around seems to be nails...”
“Anyone who points out your shortcomings is not always your enemy. The one who talks about your merits is not always your friend.”
“It is not so much enemies that prevent easy life as the idea that it is enemies that prevent easy life.”
“Nothing distracts from global problems more than solving small problems.”
“I always forgive my enemies and treat them with love. All people have their own problems, and my enemies also have me.”
“It is better to solve problems not as they arrive, but before they appear.”
“In Russia, problems are not solved, but new ones are invented, which will eclipse the previous ones...”
“When he was sitting on the bank of the river and waiting for the enemy's corpse to swim by, the enemy sneaked up from behind...”
“Purchased loyalty is more dangerous than undisguised hostility. You know what to expect from the enemy, and the one who was bought can always be bought.”
“While we're sleeping, the enemy doesn't sleep... Sleep more - wear out the enemy!”
“If someone has what you need, declare them an enemy and take everything.”
“The Holy Scripture teaches us to forgive our enemies, but nothing like that is said about friends.”
Unknown authors​

Russian Empire, 1775. What was supposed to be “Novorossia”. When Catherine and her “Grishenka” made their plans for turning the newly-obtained region into a prosperous part of the Russian Empire, they somehow missed something, which both of them knew quite well: that implementation of their ideas will be impossible without elimination a problem called “Zaporizhian Sich” (blue on the map below) [1]. It was just in between the “main” empire, cutting communications between them, and new lands and, even under the most modest scenario, a big part of it had to become Novorossia. Which meant that the planned development, which involved large scale migration from North to South and secure communications, was going to be problematic at best.

The Sich was a rather unique social entity. Its territory was populated exclusively by the males [2] who were not engaged in agriculture or any manufacturing activities unrelated to production or repairs of the weapons (not sure if production of a booze qualified as a “manufacturing”).
The main sources of income for the Sich were: looting and robbery during campaigns, foreign and domestic trade, wine sale, tribute from transportation, grain and monetary salaries coming from the government. At the time of peace they were doing fishing and hunting. Well, and looting of the merchants passing through their land (in the cases of the foreign merchants, the state was ending up paying the compensation).

Another considerable part of their peace time activities was litigation with their neighbors (territories of “Novaya Serbia” and “Slavyano Serbia” ) over who is entitled to which piece of land, which did not make them darlings of the Military Collegium forced to deal with the never ending complaints and a volume of a demagoguery rather unexpected from self-proclaimed “simple warriors”. These conflicts, besides the litigious component, included regular raids (on both sides) and even armed confrontation with the regular troops stationed on the borders to keep things under at least some control.

Allegedly, they were not even beyond a slave trade, which would be rather unsurprising taking into an account that the popular folklore personage, Cossack Mamai, has Tatar name.

Their “self-assessment” was as one of the semi-independent state entitled to its own political maneuvering. As far as the demographic was involved, obviously this purely male entity could not maintain its numbers by the “conventional means” and relied upon influx from outside of the new people of all (Jews excluded) ethnicities and backgrounds. Procedure of acceptance, as presented in a highly idealized description of Sich habits involved a simple interview conducted by one of the Sich officials:
Q: Do you drink vodka?
A: Yes, I do.
Q: Do you believe in God?
A: Yes, I do.
At that point candidate was accepted and could chose the unit (“kuren”) to serve in.

Their man claim to the usefulness was defense of Tsardom’s/Empire southern borders but throughout the time record on that account was rather checkered because their raiding activities not always (to put it mildly) were taking into a consideration existing peace treaties thus often causing political embarrassments and a need to apologize. Usually, these were relatively minor accidents with no major consequences but this changed recently: the Ottoman War had been triggered at a moment very inconvenient for Russia by Zaporizhian raid on Balta. To add cherry on the top of a cake, finding out about the coming Crimean raid (the 1st major operation of the war), Sich made a neutrality agreement with the Khan thus guaranteeing security of his right flank. Taking into an account that during that raid Rumyantsev (governor-general of Malorossia) had huge problems with turning the Ukrainian Cossacks into at least some meaningful force [3], the raided area was left practically undefended, except for few small garrisons of the regular troops, and more than 1,000 people had been captured by the Crimeans, not to mention stolen cattle, destroyed property, etc.

To be fair, when after this fiasco the Zaporhizians joined Rumyantsev’s army, he managed to use them very effectively by creating the mixed detachments of the regular and Cossack troops operating under command of the competent Russian generals (Weisman, Suvorov, etc.) and used for the raiding operations. On the numerous occasions the Cossacks were performing great and Rumyantsev was never forgetting to compliment them, provide the monetary awards and to ask Catherine for the “moral” one, the commemorative medals (for the leaders, the gold and bejeweled ones). At the same time, their regular commanders had been under the orders to keep a close eye on their out of a battlefield activities and prevent looting and violence against the local population. Policy of an iron fist in a velvet glove worked quite well during the war but now the war was over and the Cossack were back to their business as usual.

Well, initially, things were seemingly going well. Governor-general of Novorossia had numerous and rather friendly contacts with the Cossacks during the war and immediately after it the relations remained visibly cozy. Potemkin even got a Zaporhizian “Cossack name”, “Gricko Nechesa” (“Gricko” - “Grigory” and “Nechesa”, if I understand correctly, referenced to his favored disordered hair style), was routinely pestered with the standard requests for some favors, exchanged some jokes, etc.

However, all these niceties did not change two fundamental facts:

• Geographically and administratively the Sich was an obstacle to the imperial policy in the region.
• With the borders moved and Crimea being absorbed, the Sich ceased to be needed. And no one was going to feed this "villous" pseudo-state within the Empire for free.

Zaporozhye Cossacks, together with their pseudo-state, created mostly for robbery, simply did not fit into the new Russian province. They did not want to work for the benefit of the state, they did not want to go to a specific tsarist service with its strict discipline either, they had no thoughts of moving anywhere - and what was it necessary to do with such "freethinkers", especially, well-armed and aggressive? Add to this that this pseudo-state was ruled by its own laws, mostly contradicting to the imperial ones and its freeman are completely uncontrollable, and, moreover, insatiable, accustomed for several centuries of its existence only to raid and take away everything that can be taken away from others. And given the innate tendency of the Cossack leaders to violate the oath, or even direct treason, how could the centralized authorities maintain at least some harmony here?
Not that the internal situation in the Sich was all peace and harmony. The leadership (starshina) was not an example of integrity - the theft of state money sent to maintain the army was systematic. This led to uprisings of the Sich poor. Koshevoy Kalnyshevsky was forced to flee the Sich twice and suppress the uprisings with the help of regular troops. One of the instigators of the uprising, Kalnyshevsky personally whipped to death. Many of the starshina managed to make giant fortunes: only the scribe Globa (not the most important face in the Sich) had 14 thousand heads of cattle. The leadership was getting rich, the fighting capacity of the Cossacks was falling, then Ataman Kalinishevsky entered into secret negotiations with the Turkish sultan.

The last straw was a new decision of the Sich’ leadership to coerce the married serfs from the neighbor areas to settle on the Sich territory (without becoming the Cossacks) and start ploughing land. Was this a plain stupidity, arrogance or expectation of the government’s stupidity, nobody knows but from the Sich “statehood” point of view this was a very creative form of a suicide.

Catherine, slightly later, wrote in her Manifesto:
“Starting their own farming, they dissolved the basis of their dependence on Our Throne and of course expected to form a completely independent region, under their own erratic management, in the hope that the tendency to depraved life and robbery would, with inner abundance, constantly renew and multiply their number.”

Drinking with Potemkin did not produce the desirable result: he was too intelligent and knew Catherine's phobias quite well. So it was he who spelled out the need to deal with the unruly entity. The trend towards liquidation of the Sich caused the strongest concern of the senior Cossacks. General Judge Anton Golovaty appealed to Potemkin with a proposal to preserve the Sich by reorganizing it in the style of the Don Army. However, Potemkin was so tired of sorting out the complaints and disputes of the Cossacks with his neighbors, that he replied in his hearts: "You can't stay; you’re too unruly." Realizing that it was useless to expect mercy from the Governor-General, the Cossacks at the end of 1774 sent a delegation to St. Petersburg headed by a popular starshina member Sidor Bily. Catherine graciously accepted the delegation and... immediately sent an order to liquidate the Sich.

On June 5, 1775, for the Trinity week, the troops of Lieutenant General Peter Tekeli, together with the Wallachian and Hungarian regiments of Major General Fyodor Chobra, consisting of five regiments of lancers cavalry, hussars, Don Cossacks and ten thousand infantry, approached Zaporozhye at night.

The Cossacks celebrated green Christmas, the sentry slept, the Oryol infantry regiment with a squadron of cavalry passed unnoticed through the entire suburb and occupied the Novosechensk retranchement without shots. The sudden action of the Russian troops demoralized the Cossacks. Tekeli read out an ultimatum, and the kosh Peter Kalnyshevsky got two hours to give an answer. There was a heated meeting in which the ordinary Cossacks demanded to resist but starshina and and local clergy convinced them to surrender. Four companies of infantry entered the inner settlement and put guards at the powder cellar and at all military installations.

Tekeli reported: “For tomorrow, starshina, atamans and Cossacks were gathered outside the fortification in the field, and when the declaration of Your Supreme Imperial Majesty of their people was written, they put down their guns.”

Treasury and archive had been confiscated and fortifications leveled to the ground. Tekeli on the spot issued not only passports for the right to go to work, but also protective certificates to the starshina and rich Cossacks, so that to their estates, and personally to them nobody "make any insults with ruin and anger". Most of them got nobility status and estates. Some of the Cossacks fled immediately, some disappeared and went by the Dnieper to the Turkish possessions. Beyond the Danube, the former Cossacks formed the so-called "Unfaithful Zaporozhye Army".

Historic Intermission. 85-year-old Kalnyshevsky with some of the starshina were arrested and exiled to Solovki. There he sat in the casemate for 12 years. He was released three times a year - for Easter, Christmas and the Savior. Then he was "allowed to go to church and talk to others." It went on for another 13 years. In 1801, the former ataman was released but refused to leave the monastery and lived there until his death in 1803 at the age of 112. It should be noted that the God-fearing koshevoy, in order not to get bored, took six carts with property into exile, including many valuable things like the silver-bounded Gospel weighting 34 pounds. The daily ration of the ataman was 1 ruble from his own brought treasury, which was more than hospitable for the Solovetsky hermits.

However, a number of Cossacks expressed readiness to serve. Under the leadership of Sidor Bily they were relocated to the Bug-Dniester border area to form “Faithful Zaporozhye Army”. So there were the former Sich members on both sides of a border. Other had been permitted to serve in hussar and dragoon regiments.

Territory was now open to colonization…
_____________
[1] Disclaimer: Coloring on the map (probably) has nothing to do with the current politics, even if the map is Ukrainian. Anyway, it is absolutely irrelevant to the issue. The same goes for the proper English spelling of the name: the used is seemingly one to which Google does not object and I don’t care beyond that. 😜
[2] They could have families outside but females were not permitted on Sich territory.
[3] On paper, the Ukrainian Cossacks Host should provide something close to 20,000 experienced and well-armed warrior. After Rumyantsev’s reports about the real situation, the Council lowered the number first down to 16,000 and eventually to 6,000 with a wise provision “or as many as you’ll manage to assemble”. Rumyantsev eventually managed to raise between 2 and 3,000, mostly inadequately armed and definitely inadequately trained, so he had to address these issues during the campaign, which he did with surprising success. A byproduct was a complete reorganization of the whole system.

 

[alexmilman]

45. Raise of Novorossia #3. Potemkin at large

“The peasant is always going to get rich next year.”
“What are the main obstacles to agriculture? There are four of them: spring, summer, autumn and winter.”
old sayings
“When Potemkin came into power, he remembered one of his village friends and wrote him the following poem:
Dear friend,
If you have time,
Come to me:
If it's not like that,
.........
Lie in .....
A dear friend hurried to come for an affectionate invitation.”
Pushkin, “Table Talk”
"It is now impossible to destroy the bureaucracy, because the same bureaucrats will have to destroy it. But even after destroying the old bureaucracy, they will immediately give rise to a new, even more voracious, more hardy and tenacious..."
Potemkin
"Sometimes he [Potemkin] displayed the genius of the eagle, sometimes the frivolity of a child"
Count de Ségure.
“The Empress is in admiration for such an increment of Russian forces. Prince Potemkin is currently omnipotent, and you can't imagine how everyone takes nice to him.”
Emperor Joseph II
"I owe everything to Prince Potemkin. I hope no one will call him lazy now."
Catherine II
“In addition to fools and roads, there is another trouble in Russia: fools indicating which way to go.”
Boris Krutier​

Catherine was extremely pleased with how Potemkin handled the Sich problem: the refuge of the dangerous elements was liquidated without a shot being fired and disloyal part of its population fled to the Ottoman Empire sparing a need of dealing with them while the loyal segment went on the government’s service on the conditions defined by the government, giving up their old privileges. With a huge territory of the former Sich is now open to colonization and communications between the old imperial territory and “Novorossia” became secure.

Now the decisions had to be made about two main questions:

• With whom to populate the new lands?
• What to do on these lands?

Answer to the first question will, cynically speaking, define who is going to be the dominating power in the region, the state or the noble landowners. As was already demonstrated by the old gubernias, the landowners with their legitimized assemblies, could do a lot to push their wishes through and/or to sabotage the government’s decisions which they did not like. Of course, the sabotage would be camouflaged with the assurances of a never-dying loyalty and admiration but the things would not move and what are you supposed to do? Sending troops against the Noble Assembly? Not funny. The governor could talk to the nobility’s elected representatives trying to convince them but that was it. And, powerful as they were, the top gubernia’s administrators would not like to be socially ostracized by a noble society part of which they and their families were. The best solution of the problem was to minimize it at the very beginning. The easiest way to do so was to organize resettlement of the state peasants from the inner gubernias. At least formally, this was a voluntary program but with some temporary taxation benefits attached. Another big group were personally free peasants from Malorossia. Due to the fact that its integration into the imperial framework only started, their social status was not quite clear beyond the fact that they had a legal right for migration. Upon the arrival to Novorossia they had two options: settle on the allocated land as a state peasant or to go to a land granted to a noble landowner in which case it was up to two sides to negotiate their legal status. As a result, in 1776 out of 108, 684 male “souls” 81,381 or 74.88% of the population were state peasants.

The second question was economic orientation of these lands and so far Catherine still was sticking to the same mantra she had at the time of her Codification Commission: the most important thing is to have more peasants working on the fields producing more exportable agricultural products. She was not approving the “obrok” practice by which peasant could work somewhere or even, a complete horror, create his own business, on condition of paying the owner agreed upon amounts of money. On the top of all of the above she did not like the “machines” in manufacturing and, while encouraging creation of various manufactures, held a firm opinion that the fewer of these evil contraptions are being used, the better.

However, at least as far as “obrok” issue was involved, a growing percentage of the landowners did not share her views because “obrok” provided them with the ready and reasonably stable cash flow while traditional “barschina” was giving only agricultural products which they had to sell at the fluctuating prices.

Anyway, as initially intended, Novorossia would have to become a big breadbasket with some showcase cities which Potemkin would have to build from the scratch. The agricultural part was not too easy because the newcomers had to adjust to the conditions seriously different from those they had been accustomed to. Here is some statistics: In 1778, 115,209 quarters [1] were sown in the region and 796 quarters of different bread were harvested; in 1779, 148,200 were sown, 365 were harvested; in 1780, 125,187 were sown, 236,816 were harvested; in 1781, 195,215 were sown, 241,45 were harvested and in 1782, 146,804 were sown, 677,187 quarters harvested.

The showcase part was definitely Potemkin’s strong point and he got a lot of applause for it.

Kherson - some of the contemporary impressions:

I.I.Henmitzer (popular poet of that time):
“You can't imagine that so much could be done at the space of three years. Imagine a perfect steppe, where no twig, not to mention a home, could be found. Now it's a fortress, and a fortress is important, such as what of the best we've seen in the Netherlands. The structures in it is mostly made of hewn stone.”

K.G. Razumovsky (former Hetman):
”On the terrible desert of the steppe, where in recent times barely scattered huts were found, along the Kherson way, starting from Kremenchug itself, I found big villages in versts 20, 25 and further, mostly near abundant waters. What belongs to Kherson, imagine multitude of the stone buildings, which numbers are growing every hour, a fortress that closes the citadel and the best buildings, the Admiralty with ships under construction and already built, a vast suburb inhabited by merchants and various burghers. On the one hand, the barracks to accommodate 10,000 soldiers, on the other hand, in front of the suburbs a pleasant island with quarantine structures, with Greek merchant ships and with canals carried out for the benefit of these ships. I still can't get out of bewilderment about that imminent return to the place where only a winterer [2] was found so recently. This city will soon flourish with wealth and commerce, as you can see from the enviable beginning of it...”

It was definitely impressive to see a reasonably big city built practically out of nothing within a short period of time. Of course, none of these travelers had a crystal ball and none of them was a specialist in any applicable area to make a judgement based upon anything but the emptions. The fortress was a huge waste of money because it proved to be useless. Mentioning of a bare steppe was correct, but it meant that there was no adequate fuel nearby, and the town did not become either a shipbuilding center (transportation of the materials there was too costly and Dnieper too shallow for building the big ships) or a major port (too far upriver). Huge money were wasted on the things which eventually had to be transferred elsewhere. However, it became a capital of the Kherson gubernia.

Ekaterinoslav - had an ambitious destiny to become Russia’s “third capital”.

On April 23, 1776, the Azov governor submitted a report to Potemkin, where he reported: "In pursuance of the command of your lordship, I [send] a project to build the provincial city of Ekaterinoslav on the river Kilchene, near its confluence with the Samara River, with the attached plan, profiles, facades and estimates... I believe that the construction of the provincial city, as estimates can be, one hundred thirty-seven thousand one hundred and forty rubles thirty-two kopecks and a half..." [3] February 2, 1777 G. A. Potemkin issued a warrant in the name of V. A. Chertkov, where he pointed out that the plan of the provincial city was approved by him and sent to the construction site. The city was to occupy the entire coast of Samara and its small tributaries. The fortress was supposed to be built at the mouth of the Kilchene, where the territory was the most protected; the same document stated: "...continue construction of these buildings, trying to ensure that no unnecessary costs would be followed in excess of the assigned amount." The first buildings were the governor's house, the provincial government, military barracks, wooden and adobe houses. In 1778, the Holy Spirit Church was consecrated. At the same time, the city fortress began to be built. On July 20, 1778, the Government Senate issued a decree on the transfer of the management bodies of the Azov province to Ekaterinoslav.

Potemkin, planned to build the city with buildings in the Greek and Roman style, to establish a university, a conservatory, and a theater, and of course chambers for the sovereign. It was also planned to develop the industry - cloth and silk factories. But, after the first surge of an enthusiasm, Catherine decided that even for the huge Russian Empire two capitals are more than enough and funding dwindled. However the city was already functional. In 1781, there were more than 200 houses in the provincial city and there were "270 merchants, 874 burghers and shopkeepers; 1,050 people of different ranks, a total of 2,194 souls." In 1782, doctor Schengofel arrived from St. Petersburg to Ekaterinoslav, who in his reports called this area "harmful to human health, inconvenient and disastrous for the well-being of residents". Also, navigation in Samara turned out to be very difficult, and the waterway was then the most profitable for supplying various goods and food.
On January 22, 1784, Empress Catherine II issued a decree on the transfer of Ekaterinoslav to the right bank of the Dnieper River. Big part of the population left and the process lasted all the way to 1794. Of course, Potemkin took the task with a great enthusiasm producing even more ambitious plan for the new city. “A court like ancient basilicas, a semicircle shop like Propylaea or the eve of Athens with a stock exchange and a theater in the middle. The chambers of the sovereign, where to live and the governor, in the taste of Greek and Roman buildings, having a magnificent and slot canopy in the middle... Cloth and silk factories. The university in combination with the Academy of Music or the Conservatory." Ekaterinoslav was to occupy an area of 20 versts in length, 15 versts in width, total 300 square versts. It was assumed that the main streets of the city would be 60-80 meters wide. The plan was prepared by a famous French architect and looked great on a paper but was missing some trifles. For example, there were no traditional market, cathedral, hay and other squares. The project also did not take into account the anhydricity of the mountain chosen for the construction of the central part of Ekaterinoslav. Water supply was supposed to be used with wells, water lifting mechanisms, pools and fountains. The next project, prepared by the Russian architect, was making city even bigger and a water supply uphill was organized by a series of the underground canals feeding a pool 30 meters deep (in which quite a few citizens fell while walking during the night). To make that logistical nightmare possible, 12 regiments had been deployed on the city construction. But the system did not work well, anyway. However, in 1780 the city became an official center of Novorossia.

By 1796 a cloth factory was already operating in the city, 11 stone houses were erected, among which the jewel of the city was Potemkin's palace, 185 wooden houses, the population was 6 thousand people. The city kept growing in a natural pace adding the candle, leather, bricks and soap factories and eventually a brewery.

Sevastopol.

Unlike two major projects listed above, this one was not screwed up and fully grew up to the expectations. Well, strictly speaking, it did not because the initial idea was to make it both a naval base and a commercial port. Both Catherine and Potemkin just loved the great ideas but of what use the place could be as a major commercial port if it was on a far end of a nowhere? Even before Catherine got it, Potemkin opted for the practical part of the task. “To Sevastopol for the fleet it is necessary to transfer from Kherson 50 thousand poods of wood; I believe this transportation will be carried out by ordinary carts. Residents of Oleshkin will deliver the mentioned timber to Perekop, and from there to Sevastopol to make transportation on the local carts, which make an outfit and dispose of it in such a way that one does not have an excessive burden in front of the others. I ordered to pay 20 kopecks per pood, which will have to be divided by calculating the payment by distance.”
He also ordered colonel Korsakov to make a detailed study of the Crimean coast and present recommendations regarding its defenses. Regarding Sevastopol Korsakov wrote: “In Sevastopol, the place under the fortress is the most advantageous, which your lordship yourself appointed during your time. It is touched by the very course in the harbor, battery or blockhouse on the opposite side of the strait is closer to it and you can defend the Kherson harbor, which you have determined for merchant ships. This place can be protected from bombing and inside it can be placed the docks for the retipped ships, as well as all the main stores, water in it, although through a remote distance, but it is possible to bring, and on top of that, I do not lose hope not to obtain it within city walls through the wells. Where there is old Chersonesos, there may be a merchant district, both for the convenience of unloading goods and supply in fresh water.
In Balaklava, in order to protect the harbor, there is an need to build a battery of eight cannons.”

All this well qualified Sevastopol as the main fortress on the peninsula. The price tag of the planned construction, which included the fortress, Admiralty, naval stores, sea wall, and three outlying forts was 4,628,474 rubles and 37.25 kopecks. [4] The whole construction was expected to take 9 years and, rather not typical for the Russian grand projects, its “zero stage” consisted of building housings for the workers (soldiers commandeered for the job) and the brick-making facilities.

However, in a quite ”traditional“ style Potemkin had been busying himself not just with the main projects but also with the countless minor issues which in a better organized administrative apparatus should not even reach him: fishing permissions, monetary requests of the low-ranking officers and non-coms, minor supply contracts, etc. Of course, bureaucracy was an evil but why the top-ranking state official had personally handle the issues which could be resolved by a low level bureaucrat? Small wonder that the paper trail of the expenses tended to be below any imaginable standards and the things had been made worse by the fact that his secretary tended to act as something of an “independent entity” leaving even fewer financial documents.

His tastes in food were rather simple. Sauerkraut was #1 but here are Scrambled eggs "A la Potemkin". To make this dish, you will need: 3 eggs, 2 slices of bread, 1/2 cup of milk, cheese, ham and greens to taste.

Cooking process: Shake the broken eggs with milk, add salt, add chopped bread to the mixture, pour into a frying pan with heated butter. Add finely chopped ham and cheese. Stir. Fry until cooked, decorate with greens.

Bon apetit! 😉


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[1] quarter («четверть») is approximately 80 kg (as much as I could make it out of the weird system of the definitions).
[2] «зимовник» - place where the nomadic people were staying for a winter with their herds.
[3] A standard rule for making financing estimates believable is to never use the rounded numbers.
[4] see [3] 😂