Entrepreneurship in Russia

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

The article provides data from the official historical science - ed.

Ever since the times of Kievan Rus, our merchants were well known both in European and Asian markets. And large enterprises began to appear in our country in the 16th century, simultaneously with their appearance in the West. These are, for example, the Cannon Yard, the Printing House, the Armory Chamber, rope yards in Kholmogory and Vologda. In the Urals, the Stroganovs developed powerfully.

By the way, in Spain and France in this era, trade and crafts were considered "vile" occupations, and they were prohibited for the nobles. In Holland and England, entrepreneurship was crushed by large merchants and financiers. In Russia, everyone did this: peasants, townspeople (townspeople), nobles, archers, Cossacks, boyars, clergy. The Swede Kilburger wrote: "Russians, from the most distinguished to the simplest, love commerce."

The government encouraged trade, and duties were low. As a result, by the end of the 16th century, a single all-Russian market had already emerged with product specialization in various areas. Moscow supplied products of furriers, cloth makers, armourers, goldsmiths; Moscow region - vegetables and meat; the oil came from the Middle Volga region; fish - from the North, from Astrakhan; products of blacksmiths - from Serpukhov, Tula, Tikhvin, Galich, Ustyuzhna; leather - from Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Suzdal, Kazan, Murom. The Upper Volga region specialized in wooden products, artels from Pskov and Novgorod specialized in stone construction. Weaving production developed in Moscow and Yaroslavl, Pskov supplied products from flax and hemp, Vyazma - sledges, Reshma - matting. From Siberia came furs, from Astrakhan - the products of viticulture, winemaking, horticulture, melon growing.

The largest trade center was the capital. Kilburger wrote: "There are more trade shops in Moscow than in Amsterdam or at least in another whole principality." Markets were noisy in all other cities, and there were 923 of them in Russia. The largest fair was going to the Kholopye town on the Volga, from the 1620s it moved to Makaryev. Its turnover reached 80 thousand rubles (for comparison, a cow cost 1 - 2 rubles, a sheep - 10 kopecks). Arkhangelsk, Tikhvin, Svenskaya (near Bryansk) were very significant fairs. In Verkhoturye, a winter Irbit fair was organized, associated with Makarievskaya, up to a thousand merchants gathered at it.

Foreigners noted the highest honesty of the Russians. Olearius mentions how a fisherman on the Volga was mistakenly overpaid 5 kopecks for his catch. He counted and returned the excess. Struck by this behavior, the Germans offered him to take the change for himself, but he refused the unearned money.

The most respectable merchants and industrialists, who had a turnover of at least 20 thousand rubles a year, were called “guests”. But this was not an estate, but a rank that personally complained to the king.

A person who became a "guest" was introduced to the top of the state. It was believed that if he managed to make a big fortune, then he is a valuable specialist, his experience should be used. The "guests" were close to the tsar, received the right of direct access to him, and were exempted from taxes.

They became economic advisers and financial agents to the government. Through them, the treasury conducted foreign trade, instructed them to manage the collection of duties, transferred contracts for construction, for supplies for the army, for state monopoly trade - fur, wine, and salt.

The Stroganovs stood out from the "guests". They operated more than 200 salt breweries, the annual production of salt was 7 million poods, meeting half of the country's needs. In their possessions, iron production, trade in furs were also carried out, construction and artistic handicrafts developed. "Guest" Sveteshnikov owned large tanneries in Nizhny Novgorod, Emelyanov - workshops for the manufacture of linen fabrics in Pskov. Vasily Shorin conducted significant trade within Russia, with Persia, Central Asia, was the customs head in Arkhangelsk.

The "guests" of the Shustovs grew rich in the salt fields, and the Patokins and Filatyevs in the domestic and foreign trade. In Siberian trade, the Barefoot, Revyakins, Balezins, Pankratyevs, Usovs ruled. In Novgorod, the Stoyanovs were busy with affairs.

In the commercial and industrial hierarchy, the "guests" were followed by the drawing room and the cloth of the hundreds. They numbered about 400 people. The living room traded with the East, the woolen one with the West.

Entrepreneurs included in them also enjoyed significant privileges and tax benefits, occupied a prominent place in the financial and economic affairs of the state, and had their own self-government. Well, the inhabitants of black settlements and hundreds (small shopkeepers and artisans who paid taxes, therefore, were "black") belonged to the lowest category of entrepreneurs.

Peasants, boyar estates, and monasteries also traded with might and main. For example, in 1641, 2 thousand tons of grain were stored in the bins of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, there were 401 horses in the stables, 51 barrels of beer from our own breweries in the storerooms, tens of tons of fish from our own catches, there were 14 thousand rubles in the treasury, and ships belonging to the monastery could be found in the White Sea and off the coast of Norway.

In 1653, the "Customs Charter" was adopted, replacing many different customs duties with a single duty.

The customs charter, adopted in 1653, abolished various local taxes from merchants, introduced a single duty for all trade within the country: 10% on salt and 5% on other goods. As a result, huge Russia has finally become a "single economic space." By the way, this happened much earlier than in Western Europe, where there were still numerous customs offices on the borders of cities, principalities, provinces (in France, internal customs tariffs increased up to 30% of the value of the goods).

With regard to international trade, our country was one of its largest centers long before the "opening of windows". Russian merchants constantly visited and did business in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Riga, in the cities of Germany, Poland, Turkey, Persia. And foreigners came from everywhere with their goods. The German Ayrman in Moscow was surprised, describing the multitude of "Persians, Tatars, Kyrgyz, Turks, Poles … Livonian, Swedes, Finns, Dutch, British, French, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Germans from Hamburg, Lubeck, Denmark." "These nations all have their own special shops, open every day, miracles after miracles are visible there, so, out of habit of their strange customs or national appearance, you often pay more attention to their persons than to their wonderful products."

Every year dozens of ships came to Arkhangelsk carrying cloth, watches, mirrors, wine, knitwear. Silk, morocco, velvet, scarves, carpets, bezoar, turquoise, indigo, incense, oil were brought to Astrakhan from Iran. The Tatars and Nogai conducted a large cattle trade in Astrakhan, drove huge herds of horses to Moscow for sale - as a duty they took 10% of the horses for the Russian cavalry. Chinese tea has been supplied from Mongolia since 1635. Bukhara merchants carried cotton fabrics, the world's best paper, Chinese porcelain, and silk products. Indians also traded through Central Asia, their representations arose in Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, many of them settled in Astrakhan, where they were allowed to build an "Indian courtyard" with houses and a Vishnu temple. And Indian jewelry, incense and spices flowed to Russia.

Pomor crafts were famous for their salt pans. Kandalaksha in an old engraving.

Trade enriched the treasury. For example, in Arkhangelsk there were cases when the annual income from duties reached 300 thousand rubles. (which amounted to 6 tons of gold). And the flows of goods from all countries created a picture of an almost fabulous abundance. Foreigners were amazed that common women allowed themselves to dress up in silk and velvet. Spices, very expensive in Europe, were available to commoners, they were added to baked goods, making gingerbread. Czech Tanner gasped: they say, in Moscow "small faceted rubies are so cheap that they are sold by weight - 20 Moscow or German florins per pound." Austrian Geiss remarked about Russian wealth: "But in Germany, perhaps, they would not have believed." And the Frenchman Margeret concluded: "There is no such wealth in Europe."

Of course, Russia not only imported goods, but also produced a lot itself. Exported wax - 20-50 thousand poods per year, resin, tar, potash, fur, grain. Lard was also exported - 40-100 thousand poods, honey, hemp, flax, hemp, salt, calamus, rhubarb, walrus bone, blubber (seal oil), fish glue, mica, river pearls. Caviar was then exported mainly to Italy, where it was considered a delicacy. Up to 100 thousand leathers per year, dressed leather, felt, bags, jewelry, weapons, horse harnesses, and woodcarving products were sold abroad.

The Russian economy of the 17th century differed in many respects from Western models. Its key links were rural and craft communities, artels, self-governing city ends, settlements, streets, hundreds. Even the Westernizer Herzen was forced to admit that the economic organization of the Russian communities was the complete opposite of the Malthus principle - "the strongest survives." There was a place for everyone in the community. And what place - more or less honorable, more or less satisfying, depended on the personal qualities of the person. It was not a lag, but an original model, a national stereotype of relationships.

The craft communities bore some resemblance to the European guilds. They had their own elective self-government. So, in Moscow, the Tverskaya-Konstantinovskaya boorish (weaving) settlement elected 2 elders, 4 tselovalniks and 16 tenders for a year. There were internal rules, there were holidays, patronage churches, control over the quality of products.

But there were also noticeable differences between the Russian communities and the Western guilds. The French industrialist Frebe wrote: "Workshops in Russia do not suppress talents and do not interfere with work." There was no petty regulation of the quantity of manufactured goods, prices, technologies and tools used. The transfer of apprentices and apprentices to masters or the admission of new masters to the organization was much easier than in the West. If you have sufficient skills and funds, please. But many artisan hundreds and settlements would be more legitimate to compare not with workshops - they were "scattered type" manufactories. They sold products for resale to large traders, centrally supplied them for government needs or for export.

Michalon Litvin admitted that "Muscovites are excellent business executives." Our ancestors were already familiar with the corporatization - many enterprises, such as salt breweries, fish industries, were "common shares". The merchants knew how to use credit very well. Olearius described how wholesalers bought cloth brought by the British at 4 thalers per cubit, but on a loan. They immediately resold them to shopkeepers for 3 - 3, 5 thalers, but in cash. And by the time the debt was repaid, they managed to put money into circulation 3-4 times, more than covering the initial loss with profit.

Fur trade in Ancient Rus.

Contractual relations were widely practiced. For example, the "Contract Record" of the construction artel has reached us: "We were entrusted with each other by mutual responsibility and we gave ourselves this record of the Borovsk district of the Pafnutiev Monastery to Archimandrite Theophan and the elder Papnotius the cellar with the brethren that we, contractors and bricklayers, make a stone bell tower in that Pafnutiev monastery. " The cost of the work was negotiated - 100 rubles and the possibility of collecting a forfeit: “If … we don’t make the most solid workmanship … or learn how to drink and hawk, or what bad thing to go after … take them, Archimandrite Theophan and the cellar Elder Papnotius with his brothers, according to this record, for a penalty 200 rubles of money ".

Domestic insurance also existed in the communities. Juan the Persian reported that among Murom tanners, tanning of leather is carried out "in a thousand and one houses," where "one thousand and one leather" is laid, and if they match, colleagues give him one leather each thousand.

Since the 17th century, the industrial revolution in Russia has gone very violently. In addition to the former enterprises, new ones are being built. State-owned sewing manufactories, a silk manufactory, new printing houses, arms and gunpowder factories appeared. Brick factories - state-owned, private, and monastic ones - appeared. Numerous shipyards, dyeing and bleaching workshops, distilleries, tanneries, potash, cloth, weaving, and salt-making enterprises are organized. Iron, lead and tin mines were developed. Saltpeter was mined in Uglich, Yaroslavl and Ustyug, and sulfur in Vyatka.

Foreign specialists were also attracted. In 1635, the Dukhaninsky glass factory, built by the Italians, began to operate. In 1637, an "iron" factory in Tula, founded by the Dutch merchants Marselis and Vinius, went into operation. The enterprise turned out to be very profitable for both the owners and the state - according to the terms of the agreement, part of the production was deducted from the treasury. And the same entrepreneurs received licenses to organize new metallurgical plants. They began to grow like mushrooms - near Vologda, Kostroma, Kashira, on Vaga, Sheksna, in Maloyaroslavets district, Olonets region, near Voronezh. With the help of foreigners, a watch factory was built in Moscow.

However, it is not worth exaggerating the contribution of foreigners to the development of the country. Their knowledge, experience, and their capital were used. But under Mikhail Fedorovich and Alexei Mikhailovich, the government first of all tried to observe national interests. And if the Italians undertook to build a glass factory, then Russian craftsmen were allocated to help them, they mastered the technology - and along with Dukhaninsky there was a state-owned Izmailovsky factory that produced "fairly clean glass". The first paper mill was built on Pakhra by the Germans, and from it the Russian spun off in exactly the same way - on the Yauza.

Foreigners were not allowed to plunder to the detriment of Russia and its citizens. The permits for the construction of factories specifically stipulated for Marcelis and Vinius - “do not repair tightness and insults to anyone and do not take away trades from anyone”, and workers were allowed to be hired only “out of kindness, and not in bondage”. Licenses were issued for 10-15 years with the possibility of subsequent revision.

In 1662, when the terms of the permits were out, half of the metallurgical plants built by the partners were “assigned to the sovereign”. Have made a profit - and be happy with it. And for further profits, they left you the other half - and also be happy. You are not in charge of your own land. Despite repeated requests, persuasions, sending of embassies, neither the Dutch, nor the British, nor the French, nor the Danes, nor the Swedes received the right to transit trade with the East through the territory of Russia. And in 1667, on the initiative of Chancellor A. L. Ordin-Nashchokin, the New Trade Charter was adopted, which introduced tough protectionist measures to protect domestic merchants and entrepreneurs from foreign competitors.

But in Russia, as already noted, not only the merchant class was engaged in entrepreneurship. Even the highest nobility did not shy away from these matters. Prince Pozharsky was a co-owner of several salt brews, he also owned the "village" Kholui with workshops for icon painters and artistic paintings. Boyarin Morozov built a metallurgical plant in his estates, using advanced "water-making" technology, as well as potash and distilleries. The owners of large enterprises were the boyars Miloslavsky, Odoevsky.

The tsar himself and the tsarina were also entrepreneurs. Court physician Collins described how “beautiful houses” were built seven miles from Moscow for processing hemp and flax, “which are in great order, very extensive and will provide work to all the poor in the state … benefits and benefits ". All in all, under Mikhail Fedorovich and Alexei Mikhailovich, more than 60 "palace" manufactories were created.

The result of the industrial revolution was that by the middle of the 17th century, Russia was exporting not only furs, wax and honey. And also fabrics, canvas, ropes (the Kholmogorsk yard alone provided a quarter of the ships of the British fleet with ropes). Cannons were also exported. "Overseas at free price" sold up to 800 guns a year!

Casting and production of guns in Moscow. XVII century.

At the same time, the active development of the Urals continued. The metallurgical plant of the Dalmatov Monastery, the Nitsynsky plant, the Nevyansk plant (the one that Peter later gave to Demidov) were built here. In past centuries, copper was a scarce raw material for Russia. Russian merchants received orders to buy up even copper scrap abroad. In the 17th century, copper ore was finally found near the Kamskaya Salt, the state-owned Pyskorsky plant was founded here, and subsequently the Tumashev brothers' plant was deployed on its basis.

Siberia was also assimilated. In the second half of the 17th century, soap-making, candle-making, woodworking workshops, distilleries and breweries began to appear here in great numbers. In Yeniseisk in the 1670s, researchers count 24 craft specialties, in Tomsk - 50, in Tobolsk - 60. Large enterprises began to be organized here as well. For example, tanneries, which processed a thousand or more skins per year. And on this basis the shoe industry developed. In Siberia, bast shoes were not worn. Leather and boots were supplied to Central Asia, Mongolia, China. Shipyards operated on all rivers.

Large salt brewhouses functioned in the Yenisei Territory, Yakutia, near Irkutsk and Selenginsk. Siberia began to provide itself with salt. And iron too. In the Verkhotursky, Tobolsk, Tyumen, Yeniseisky districts, they celebrated the "populousness of blacksmiths and armored masters." Exploration of minerals was carried out more and more widely. The development of mica began in Western Siberia, Yeniseisk, the Baikal region, it was exported to Moscow, exported to Europe. Found a "stone nazdak" at the Nevyansk prison, mineral dyes at Vitim, a building stone in Verkhoturye. Pearl fishery has opened in the Sea of Okhotsk.

Iron was found in the Yakutsk district, in the Baikal and Amur regions. Saltpeter - on Olekma. Explored non-ferrous metals, silver. Lead smelting began in Argun. The Nerchinsk deposits were already being developed. True, in most cases, at the sites of future Siberian developments, the first test pits were only being laid, the first experimental smelting was being made. But they had already been discovered, and such authoritative researchers of Siberia as S. V. Bakhrushin and S. A. Tokarev unequivocally established: "The research of the academicians of the 18th century was based on the previous searches and experience of the service people of the 17th century." Thus, it is by no means necessary to speak of Russia's "lagging behind" the West in pre-Petrine times. The facts show the opposite.