How much was the human soul during the time of tsarist Russia?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

When the Grand Duchy of Moscow finally freed itself from the Horde dependence, the internal price for a Russian slave ranged from one to three rubles. A century later, by the middle of the 16th century, a slave was already a little more expensive - from one and a half to four rubles …

At the beginning of the reign of Boris Godunov, on the eve of the Time of Troubles, in well-fed years, the price of a slave was four or five rubles, in hungry lean years it fell to two rubles.

Wars and the capture of many prisoners periodically lowered the prices of living goods to a minimum. For example, during the Russian-Swedish war of 1554-1557, the army under the command of the voivode Peter Shchenyatev defeated the Swedish army near Vyborg and captured many prisoners in Finland and Karelia, the prices of which immediately fell to a penny in the literal sense.

One of the Russian chronicles of the 16th century gives these prices: "In the hryvnia of the Germans, and the girl in five altyns." Here, the hryvnia is already referred to as a dime, a 10 kopeck coin, and altyn is a Moscow three kopeck coin.

That is, a captive Finn, Karelian or Swede was sold by the archers of the boyar Shchenyatev for 10 kopecks, and the captured young girls - at 15 kopecks.

In 1594, the average price of a slave in Novgorod was 4 rubles 33 kopecks, and in the Novgorod province, prices for slaves were lower, on average from 2 rubles 73 kopecks to 3 rubles 63 kopecks.

Siberia was considered a border area, and customs duties were levied on live goods purchased from foreign sellers, as well as on livestock and other trade items.

The one who bought the slave paid the "universal" in the amount of eight altyns and two money (that is, 25 kopecks) for each, and the one who sold, paid the "tenth duty", 10% of the sale price. At the same time, the average price for a slave in Siberia at the end of the 17th century was two rubles and a half.

The prices for beautiful women were traditionally higher. Thus, the "note book of fortresses" (the Siberian analogue of enslaving books that recorded transactions with human goods) of the city of Tomsk contains a record that "1702, Gen. on the 11th day", the boyar's son Pyotr Grechenin submitted a fortress of sale to the "full zhonka Kyrgyz breeds" (that is, a captive from the Yenisei Kyrgyz), which was sold to Grechenin by the Tomsk Cossack Fedor Cherepanov for five rubles.

The official made a note that the buyer can “own forever” and “sell and mortgage on the side of the Kyrgyz breed”. A duty was taken from this deal: "By the decree of the great sovereign, the duty money from the ruble at the altyn, in total, five altyns were taken in full to the treasury of the great sovereign."

In total, a woman of the "Kyrgyz breed" cost the nobleman Grechenin 5 rubles 15 kopecks.

At the beginning of the 18th century, documents contain a lot of evidence of trade in Siberian aborigines and their prices. So in Berezovsky prison, a Khanty girl (Ostyachka) under the age of seven could be bought for 20 kopecks, and a boy of the same age was five kopecks more expensive.

Swedish Lieutenant Colonel Johann Stralenberg, after the defeat at Poltava, was captured and ended up in Siberia. Later he described his observations as the Yakuts, "when they are in yasak and in need of debt, their children, about the age of 10 and 12, are sold to Russian people and foreigners for two or three rubles without pity."

Tobolsk priest Pyotr Solovtsov described the situation in Kamchatka in the same years: "Kamchadals and other dumb foreigners were driven to such an extreme by intimidation that the parents themselves sold their children to the Cossacks and industrialists for a ruble and a half a ruble."

In 1755, the Senate in its decree allowed Russian clergy, merchants, Cossacks and representatives of other non-noble classes to buy “infidels” in captivity - Kalmyks, Kumyks, Chechens, Kazakhs, Karakalpaks, Turkmens, Tatars, Bashkirs, Baraba Tatars and representatives of other peoples professing Islam or paganism.

In 1758, the following prices for slaves existed in Orenburg: "for an age (that is, an adult) and a man fit for recruiting" - 25 rubles, for the elderly and children "a man's sex" - from 10 to 15 rubles, "for a woman's sex" - "for 15 or depending on the person and for 20 rubles." The land was poor and provincial, so the prices for people were lower here than in the densely populated provincial provinces of central Russia.

In 1782, in the Chukhloma district of the Kostroma governorship, at the request of the captain of the second rank Pyotr Andreevich Bornovolokov, an inventory was made of the property of his debtor, Captain Ivan Ivanovich Zinoviev. Officials carefully described and evaluated all the goods - from utensils and animals to serfs:

“In the same yard of cattle: a red gelding, an adult in years, according to an estimate of 2 rubles, a piebald gelding 12 years old, according to estimates. 1 RUB 80 kopecks, 9 years old gelding - 2 rubles. 25 kopecks, black mare, adult in years - 75 kopecks …

In the courtyard of courtyard people: Leonty Nikitin, 40 years old, estimated at 30 rubles. His wife Marina Stepanova is 25 years old, estimated at 10 rubles. Efim Osipov 23 years old, estimated at 40 rubles. His wife Marina Dementieva is 30 years old, according to an estimate of 8 rubles. They have children - the son of Guryan is 4 years old, 5 rubles, the daughter of the girl Vasilisa is 9 years old, according to an estimate of 3 rubles, Matryona is one year old, according to an estimate of 50 kopecks. Fedor is 20 years old at an estimate of 45 rubles. Kuzma, single, 17 years old, estimated at 36 rubles."

The famous 19th century historian Vasily Klyuchevsky described the prices of living goods in the previous century: “At the beginning of Catherine’s reign, when entire villages bought a peasant soul with land, it was usually valued at 30 rubles. With the establishment of a borrowed bank in 1786, the price of a soul rose to 80 rubles., although the bank accepted noble estates as collateral for only 40 rubles. per soul.

At the end of Catherine's reign, it was generally difficult to buy an estate for less than 100 rubles. per soul. In retail sales, a healthy employee who was bought into recruits was valued at 120 rubles. at the beginning of the reign and 400 rubles at the end of it.

In 1800, the newspaper “Moskovskie vedomosti” regularly published announcements of the following content: “Household people are being sold for excess: a shoemaker, 22 years old, his wife and his washerwoman. The price is 500 rubles.

Another cutter is 20 years old with his wife, and his wife is a good washerwoman, she also sews linen well. And the price is 400 rubles. They can be seen at Ostozhenka, no. 309 …"

Historians have studied in detail the advertisements for the sale of serfs in the "St. Petersburg Vedomosti" in the last years of the eighteenth century. On average, prices for "working girls" were then 150-170 rubles.

For "maids skilled in needlework" they asked for more, up to 250 rubles. An experienced coachman with his wife, a cook, cost 1000 rubles, and a cook with his wife and two-year-old son cost 800 rubles.

Boys cost from 150 to 200 rubles on average. For teenagers trained to read and write, they asked for 300 rubles.

But these were precisely the high prices in the capital. In the neighboring Novgorod province at the end of the 18th century, in a remote village, one could buy a "peasant girl" for 5 rubles. And on the outskirts of the empire, people were often bought in general by barter.

So in January 1758 the collegiate registrar Devyatirovsky bought a boy and a girl from the local Altai people in the Altai mountain district, paying for them "2 bulls, 2 bricks of tea, red leather and four (26 liters) cereals." In 1760, in the area of the Semipalatinsk fortress, merchant Leonty Kazakov bought a five-year-old boy "for 9 arshins to velvet."

At the same time in Moscow and St. Petersburg the prices for some serfs were thousands of rubles. A well-trained and young serf actress "nice looking" usually cost from two thousand rubles and more. Prince Potemkin once bought a whole orchestra from Count Razumovsky for 40 thousand rubles, and 5 thousand rubles were paid for one "comedian".

In 1806, the supplier of vodka to the imperial court, Alexei Yemelyanovich Stolypin, put up his troupe of serf actors for sale. This Penza landowner (by the way, a relative of the poet Mikhail Lermontov and the politician Pyotr Stolypin) owned peasants in the Penza, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, Moscow, Saratov and Simbirsk provinces. Only near Penza he owned 1146 souls.

The landowner Stolypin wanted to receive 42,000 rubles for his serf actors. The director of the imperial theaters, chief chamberlain (ministerial level) Alexander Naryshkin, having learned about such a wholesale, turned to Tsar Alexander I, recommending to buy out the sold troupe for the imperial theater: purchases thereof.

The Emperor agreed to purchase such a qualified living commodity, but considered the price too high. After bargaining, Stolypin ceded his troupe to the Russian tsar for 32,000 rubles.

Somewhat earlier than this royal purchase, the landowner Elena Alekseevna Chertkova, who owned vast estates in the Yaroslavl and Vladimir provinces, sold a whole orchestra of 44 musicians for 37,000 rubles.

As it was stated in the deed of sale, "from their wives, children and families, and all together with little change, 98 people … Of these, 64 are men and 34 are women, including the elderly, children, musical instruments, pies and other accessories."

On the eve of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, the national average price of a serf was approaching 200 rubles. In subsequent years, apparently in connection with the general financial and economic crisis as a result of the long and difficult Napoleonic wars for Russia, prices for people fell to 100 rubles. They kept at this level until the forties of the XIX century, when they began to grow again.

Interestingly, the prices of serfs in Russia were lower than the prices of slaves in Central Asia. By the middle of the 19th century, slaves in Khiva and Bukhara cost from 200 to 1000 rubles and more.

In those same years, in North America, a black Negro slave cost an average of 2,000-3,000 pounds, that is, three to four times more expensive than the average price of a Russian landlord peasant on the eve of the abolition of serfdom.