49,486,665

If we were to construct a map showing the geographical distribution of
the serf population, we should at once perceive that serfage radiated
from Moscow. Starting from that city as a centre and travelling in any
direction towards the confines of the Empire, we find that, after making
allowance for a few disturbing local influences, the proportion of serfs
regularly declines in the successive provinces traversed. In the region
representing the old Muscovite Tsardom they form considerably more than
a half of the rural population. Immediately to the south and east of
this, in the territory that was gradually annexed during the seventeenth
and first half of the eighteenth century, the proportion varies from
twenty-five to fifty per cent., and in the more recently annexed
provinces it steadily decreases till it almost reaches zero.

We may perceive, too, that the percentage of serfs decreases towards the
north much more rapidly than towards the east and south. This points to
the essentially agricultural nature of serfage in its infancy. In the
south and east there was abundance of rich "black earth" celebrated for
its fertility, and the nobles in quest of estates naturally preferred
this region to the inhospitable north, with its poor soil and severe
climate.

A more careful examination of the supposed map* would bring out other
interesting facts. Let me notice one by way of illustration. Had serfage
been the result of conquest we should have found the Slavonic race
settled on the State Domains, and the Finnish and Tartar tribes
supplying the serfs of the nobles. In reality we find quite the reverse;
the Finns and Tartars were nearly all State Peasants, and the serfs
of the proprietors were nearly all of Slavonic race. This is to be
accounted for by the fact that the Finnish and Tartar tribes inhabit
chiefly the outlying regions, in which serfage never attained such
dimensions as in the centre of the Empire.

* Such a map was actually constructed by Troinitski
("Krepostnoe Naseleniye v Rossii," St. Petersburg, 1861),
but it is not nearly so graphic as is might have been.

The dues paid by the serfs were of three kinds: labour, money, and farm
produce. The last-named is so unimportant that it may be dismissed in
a few words. It consisted chiefly of eggs, chickens, lambs, mushrooms,
wild berries, and linen cloth. The amount of these various products
depended entirely on the will of the mast