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1 ALL-RUSSIAN OLYMPIAD IN THE HISTORY OF RUSSIAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR SCHOOLCHILDREN REGIONAL STAGE April 27, 2017, Vladivostok Attention! This section of the title page is not filled in by the participant of the Olympiad! Proceed to filling in the section of the title page, which is below Participant code Signature of the member of the credentials committee This part of the sheet is filled in only by the member of the credentials committee Line of the sheet tear off by the credentials committee Attention! Further, in the set of competitive tasks (except for this section of the title page), no personal data of the participant of the Olympiad is indicated anywhere. FULL NAME. School Class E-mail address Contact phone This part of the sheet is filled in by the participant of the Olympiad - participant code. It is put exclusively by a member of the credentials committee!

2 Instruction for the participant: 1. Structure of the work The work consists of 4 blocks of different thematic focus: 1.1. Block 1. Tests 1.2. Block 2. Questions 1.3. Block 3. Definitions 1.4. Block 4. Photos 1.5. Block 5. Essay 2. Evaluation of work Each block is evaluated in a certain number of points: 2.1. Block points; 2.2. Block points; 2.3. Block points; 2.4. Block points; 2.5. The block of points is evaluated on a 20-point system, guided by the following criteria: - The validity of the choice of topic and the influence of the entrepreneur on society and social processes; - Knowledge and depth of use of historical material - Literacy in the use of historical facts and terms; - Clarity and evidence of the main provisions of the work; - The semantic unity of the essay and the quality of the presentation of the material; 3. The sum of points for each block of work is the final result of the Olympiad. That. the maximum number of points can be 3 hours are allotted for writing the paper

3 EVALUATION OF THE WORK IS FILLED BY THE MEMBERS OF THE COMPETITION COMMISSION (put by the members of the commission in the Vedomosti opposite the full name) Evaluation of the work and the result (filled in by the inspector) Block 1 Block 2 Block 3 Block 4 Block 5 Final result (sum of points) Signature of the inspector

4 TASKS BLOCK 1. TESTS (20 POINTS) 1. Indicate what name in Western chronicles was given to a well-known from the VIII century. Baltic-Volga waterway: A. The Great Route from the Varangians to the Greeks; B. Saracen trade route; C. Eastern waterway; D. Trans-European land route. 2. Name what was meant by “Russian fabric”, which was exported from Russia: A. Linen; B. Silk fabrics; C. satin; D. Satin fabric 3. As is known, the legal status of the merchants in the Old Russian state was not well developed. So, for example, in the main legal document of the Russkaya Pravda era, only 9 articles out of 121 were devoted to the merchants. As a well-known Russian historian O.V. Klyuchevsky called this collection of laws: A. The constitution of trade; B. Capital Code; C. Code of Laws; D. Trade Statement; 4. Name the most famous merchant association of Ancient Russia, uniting Novgorod merchants who traded in wax and other goods with the countries of Western and Northern Europe: A. Ivanovo Sto; B. Abode of St. James; C. Guest hundred; D. Northern Gardarika; 5. What entrepreneur was called the "vodka king"? A. Vladimir Petrovich Smirnov; B. Golitsin Lev Sergeevich; C. Pyotr Arsenievich Smirnov; D. Annaev Egor Nikitich; 6. The liberalism of which entrepreneur was ridiculed and jokingly called him “Russian Laffite”: A. Kokorev Vasily Aleksandrovich; B. Polutov Dmitry Vasilyevich; C. Vtorov Alexander Fedorovich; D. Abrikosov Ivan Alekseevich;

5 7. Whom S. I. Mamontov in his memoirs called the "farmer king": A. Gubkin Alexei Semyonovich; B. Kokorev Vasily Alexandrovich; C. Meck von Karl Fedorovich; D. Morozov Savva Timofeevich; 8. Name the last branch of the Morozov “dynasty”: A. “Abramovichi” B. “Potanins” C. “Putilovs” D. “Naryshkins” 9. Who proclaimed the principle “do not forbid or force”: A. Peter I B. Catherine II C. Alexander I D. Alexander II 10. Who initiated the era of "railway fever" in Russia: A. Meck von Karl Fedorovich; B. Bobrinsky Alexey Alekseevich; C. Derviz von Pavel Grigorievich; D. Abaza Alexander Ageevich; 11. According to the Charter of Vladimir Monomakh, priority repayment of the debt was guaranteed: A. Guests from other cities of Russia and foreigners; B. Moneylenders and boyars; C. Princely men and representatives of the boyars; D. Small creditors; 12. According to Russkaya Pravda, trade, both internal and external, could be carried out by: A. Only free people; B. Foreign merchants; C. Eminent guests; D. All categories of the population, including slaves; 13. "Pokonvirny" in Ancient Russia regulated: A. The duty of the population to keep the virnik; B. Privileges and rights of the merchants; C. Maximum usurious interest; D. Money circulation; 14. Acquisition of the rights to "merchants" in full became available to all Russian subjects with the appropriate capital under: A. Regulation of January 8, 1863 "On duties for the right to trade and other crafts"; B. Manifesto of January 1, 1807; C. "Charter of Merchant Shipping" of 1781; D. "Shop Charter" of 1799;

6 15. Tamga as a tax began to be collected in Russian principalities in: A. XIII c.; B. XII century; C. XIV century; D. 16th century; 16. From state duties and taxes in the XVII century exempted: A. Distinguished guests; B. Posad people; C. Merchants of the 1st guild; D. Guests are Surozhans; 17. Novotragovy charter (1667): A. Patronized Russian merchants through the system of protectionism; B. Granted class privileges and rights to the merchants; C. Prohibited the construction of metallurgical manufactories by foreigners; D. Abolished the state monopoly on certain types of goods; 18. Contractual relations with state institutions for the supply of a certain type of goods were called: A. Drinking tax; B. Farming out; C. Treasury contract; D. Monopoly; 19. Name the institution authorized to provide direct management of the customs business under Peter I: A. Commerce Collegium; B. Chief Magistrate; C. Berg College; D. Senate; 20. The main goal of the customs reform P. I. Shuvalov: A. Cancellation of customs taxation; B. Elimination of internal customs; C. Reducing the rates of import customs duties; D. Renewal of customs symbols;

7 BLOCK 2. QUESTIONS (10 POINTS) Fairs were an important element in the development of entrepreneurship in Russia. In addition to the most famous and large ones, such as Arkhangelsk or Irbitskaya, for example, there were a number of less well-known ones. We suggest you fill in the name of the fairs in Russia based on additional information on the date and place of their holding, as well as specialization. Name of the fair Dates from November 27 to December 15 from August 15 to September 1 from May 9 to 25 from September 14 to 28 Venue Ishim, Tobolsk province. Sloboda Rudnya Kamyshinsky u. Saratov province. Akhunsky farm of the Astrakhan province. Kineshme, Kostroma Province trade in manufactory, haberdashery and groceries from September 1 to October 1 from March 1 to March 20 from December 26 to January 11 from May 1 to June 1 from June 1 to November 1 from March 5 to 25 Arkhangelsk Vyatka Menzelinsk Ufimskoy lips Kazan r. Ural in the Orenburg province Yaroslavl trade in fish, textiles, household equipment trade in horses, vat and aniline paint, red paper yarn, manufactured goods, groceries and hardware, flax, tow, fur and iron trade in manufactured goods, tea, sugar, fur products, fish , livestock, horses, bread. trade in porcelain, faience and glassware, manufactures and haberdashery goods, handicrafts and hardware trade in livestock, horses, camels, rams, raw leather, wool, cotton, so-called Asian manufactured goods trade in dishes, manufactures and confectionery

8 BLOCK 3. DEFINITIONS (10 POINTS) 1. "Foreign wines of Yaroslavl production" 2. Feeding 3. Purchase fortress 4. Maklak 5. Partnership in faith

9 6. Trade books 7. Podymshchyna 8. Glenova artel 9. Auxiliary bank for the nobility 10. Otkhodnichestvo

10 BLOCK 4. PHOTOS (10 POINTS) Name entrepreneurs and philanthropists

11 Tips 1. Russian entrepreneur-perfumer and philanthropist of French origin. Collector of paintings and works of art. 2. Russian industrialist, public and political figure. In 1906, as a representative of the St. Petersburg industry, he was elected a member of the State Council. In 1915 he was the founder of a children's institution of an agricultural school for boys in the estate "Stanislavovka" near the village of Strugi Belye (now Strugi Krasnye, Pskov region). 3. A major industrial and financial figure, commerce adviser. He came from an old Jewish merchant family. From 1868 he was engaged in commercial activities in Kyiv. Head of the 1st and founder of the 2nd Shipping Companies along the Dnieper and its tributaries. From 1870, he took an active part in the construction of water supply, gas and electric lighting, and electric tram communication in Kyiv. 4. The mayor of Ivanovo-Voznesensk (now Ivanovo) in the years, manufactory adviser, hereditary honorary citizen of Russia, belonged to the family of textile industrialists of the Vladimir region. He financed the reconstruction of a number of churches and the Vladimir community. 5. Entrepreneur, public figure. Graduated from the University of St. Vladimir, after which he took up the affairs of the family company. He was the chairman of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair and Exchange Committee. Member of the 4th State Duma. 6. Major Baku oilman. He was a shareholder of the Moscow-Volga Oil Partnership, administrator for the Baku Russian Oil Society. He was a trustee of the Baku real school, the Temirkhan-Shurinsky female gymnasium, an honorary member of the society for the dissemination of literacy and technical information among the highlanders of the Terek region, an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Muslim Charitable Society, the founder of 40 scholarships for higher and secondary specialized educational institutions. 7. Russian industrialist, philanthropist and politician. Russia's largest oil tycoon of the 20th century. 8. Russian industrialist, public figure, scientist. Supporter of the Slavophiles, publisher and editor of socio-political magazines and newspapers, organizer of railway construction, philanthropist. 9. Merchant of the 1st guild, public figure, philanthropist, honorary citizen of the city of Samara, organized a profitable grain production and, on its basis, grain trading 10. The most famous Perm fur trader. Contemporaries called him "fur king". He took an active part in various philanthropic initiatives, regularly donating large sums to charity.

12 BLOCK 5. ESSAY (20 POINTS) Write an essay on one of the proposed topics: - The role of the merchants in the development of the Russian economy in the 15th and 17th centuries; - Features of the origin and formation of Russian entrepreneurship in the XI-XV centuries; - The emergence and role in the development of entrepreneurship of monopolistic associations; - The influence of Russia's international relations on the development of entrepreneurship in the 18th and 19th centuries; - The role of entrepreneurial dynasties in the cultural development of the country. The essay is written on a separate blank sheet of paper indicating the number specified in the Vedomosti (without indicating the full name), the block of questions and the title of the topic. THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATION!

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Abstract on the theme of entrepreneurship history of the development of entrepreneurship in Russia

Merchants and Power in Medieval Russia

annotation

Keywords
merchants, merchants, trade

Time scale - century

Bibliographic description:
Perkhavko V.B. Merchants and Power in Medieval Russia // Reports of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 1995-1996 / Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Russian History; resp. ed. A.N.Sakharov. M.: IRI RAN, 1997. S. 63-103.

Article text

V.B. Perkhavko

MERCHANTS AND POWER IN MEDIEVAL RUSSIA

Merchants are rightly called the first Russian entrepreneurs who made a significant contribution to the development of the country's market economy. It was at the expense of the merchants and the wealthy "capitalists" of the peasants who were engaged in crafts, industrial production and trade that formed in the 18th-19th centuries. domestic bourgeoisie.

Meanwhile, the policy of the state in relation to the merchant class is still poorly studied in the historical context, especially in the early stages in the Middle Ages (IX-XV centuries). The policy of the authorities had a significant impact on the formation of the social psychology of medieval Russian merchants, without taking into account the specifics of which it is difficult to understand the problems of the history of early entrepreneurship, the reasons for the absence of a powerful third estate in our country during the era of bourgeois revolutions in the West. The deep origins of the domestic merchant class can be traced back to the 9th-10th centuries, when Russia actively joined the international transit trade, the participants of which - combatants and merchants in the same linden - can rightfully be called the distant predecessors of later entrepreneurs.

Simultaneously with the beginning of the formation of feudal relations in East Slavic society, there was a process of separating a group of people who specialized in commodity exchange, and initially mainly in foreign trade. The profitability of international trade - the oldest kind of entrepreneurial activity - was determined primarily by a very significant difference in prices for a number of goods (furs, leather, slaves, etc.) in the domestic and foreign markets. Since its inception, it has been carried out with the active participation and under the strict control of the state. Only with the knowledge of the great princes of Kyiv (with their direct participation and under their control) were organized in the 9th-10th centuries. distant trading expeditions of merchant warriors to Byzantium, countries of the East and West.

The foreign policy of the young ancient Russian state, which achieved its goals with the help of military campaigns against Byzantium, Khazaria, the Volga Bulgarin, Poland and concluded peace treaties, was largely connected with the tasks of strengthening its positions in international markets. So, according to the agreements of 907 and 911, concluded after the victorious campaign of Prince Oleg, the Byzantines undertook to give Russian guests annual allowance (“month”) of various products for six months every year, allow them to visit the capital’s baths as much as they like, and supply anchors on the way back, sails, other gear and food. Only the ancient Rus used after 907-911. a huge privilege to trade duty-free in Constantinople, “not washed in anything.” In the treaty of 944, signed after the unsuccessful campaign of Prince Igor against Constantinople, their rights were somewhat limited by a ban on buying expensive silk fabrics (“pavoloks”) for more than 50 “spools” - Byzantine coins. Not only close associates and ambassadors, but also merchants accompanied Igor's widow, Princess Olga during her trip to Constantinople and received cash gifts after the imperial receptions - 6 and 12 Byzantine miliaris coins each. According to an agreement signed in 971 in Dorostol by the great Kievan prince Svyatoslav and the Byzantine emperor John Tzimiskes, trips of Russian merchants to Byzantium were resumed. Gradually, in the process of multiple trading expeditions, the Old Russian merchants acquired the necessary experience, learned to be entrepreneurial.

What environment did the first Russian merchants come from? It seems that in the 9th-10th centuries they could trade in rather risky overseas trade, fraught with danger and long absences. predominantly people who have already torn away from their community - first of all, warriors-combatants.

Every year, when autumn came, the Grand Duke of Kyiv with his retinue departed on a detour of the conquered East Slavic tribes in order to collect polyudya. As if the continuation of polyudya was the sale of surplus tribute, which could not be organized without the participation of members of the prince's squad, who went in the spring and summer on long-distance military and trade expeditions to Byzantium, Khazaria, Volga Bulgaria, Germany, and other countries of the East and West. The warriors, with whom the princes shared part of the collected valuables, are characterized by a personal interest in the exchange, the mobility necessary for merchants, and the ability to stand up for themselves and protect expensive goods from looting. Poly-functionality was their characteristic feature in the 9th-10th centuries, when they were engaged in military affairs, and the collection of tribute, and the court, and diplomacy, and trade, which gave some scientists good reason to call Russia of this transitional era a retinue state. At that time, the interests of the princely authorities and the merchant warriors from among the combatants almost completely coincided. There were no sharp contradictions between them, although there could be conflicts regarding the distribution of tribute and profits from the international trade operations of the merchants.

In the IX-X centuries. the process of formation of the merchants, as well as other classes and social groups of ancient Russian society, was just beginning. Later, in the 11th century, representatives of the retinue elite, having received land ownership and merging into the class of feudal lords, gradually moved away from direct trading activities. Along with them from the X century. in Russia, a stratum of people is already being distinguished, for whom the sphere of exchange is gradually becoming the only occupation.

Only by the middle of the XI century. the merchant class turned into a completely separated professional and social group of the population of Ancient Russia. Trade expeditions to Byzantium, Germany and other countries of the Baltic and the East are losing the nature of military events on a nationwide scale. Although long-distance trips to overseas lands continued to be unsafe and risky even then, the Old Russian merchants from that time on acquired a more peaceful appearance. Their composition is replenished by people from other strata - urban and rural artisans who have broken away from the community of free peasants and even serfs who carried out trade orders from princes and boyars, for which they sometimes received freedom.

Already in those distant times, the merchant environment was heterogeneous and consisted of several layers, which was also reflected in trade terminology. For example, "guests" in Ancient Russia were usually called foreign merchants and Russian trading people engaged in exchange with foreign countries or with other principalities. And in later times in feudal Russia, guests belonged to the richest and most privileged group of merchants.

The word "merchant" (and its variant - "merchant") was used in Russia in several meanings. First, in relation to all persons professionally engaged in the exchange of goods. Secondly, in a narrower sense, this was the name given to merchants who specialized in domestic trade. Finally, in a later period (from the 15th-16th centuries), along with the designation of the type of professional activity, the sources also referred to the term "merchant" and simply a person who made purchases, i.e. buyer.

From the 11th century there can no longer be talk of a complete coincidence of the interests of the princely power and the merchant class. The state policy in relation to it acquires a contradictory, dual character. On the one hand, the princes were still interested in selling their surplus income in kind with the help of merchants and in replenishing the treasury through trade fees. Therefore, the line on upholding the interests of the merchants in international markets was preserved in the conduct of foreign policy. Let me give a few examples in this regard.

V.N. Tatishchev included in his “History of Russia” curious reports about the robbery in 1129 on the territory of Poland of Russian guests returning home from Moravia: “The same year, the Poles robbed Russian merchants traveling from Morava. Mstislav, having learned about this, sent to Boleslav to say that he should immediately pay all that loss, and he himself ordered to gather troops, threatening, if they did not pay and the wine ones were not executed, they would go from the troops to them. But Boleslav sent ambassadors and asked for peace, ensuring the losses to pay and continue to see off and protect merchants through their lands. Mstislav gave them peace and released the ambassadors with honor. It is immediately clear that what we have before us is not the chronicle-written news itself, but its free retelling by the historian of the 18th century. The source of this message, which is not recorded in any of the surviving annals, is unfortunately not indicated by V.N. Tatishchev. But, despite this, none of the researchers doubts its authenticity, although neither in the Polish chronicles, nor in the ancient Russian written monuments there are any hints of a conflict between the great Kyiv prince Mstislav Vladimirovich and the Polish prince Boleslav III Krivousty in 1129 In this report, it is difficult to see any motives for conjectures or even falsifications on the part of VN Tatishchev himself. From a historical point of view, it is quite reliable and can be compared with the news of the Ipatiev Chronicle of 1279 about the robbery in Poland of a Russian merchant caravan with bread, sent by the Volyn prince Vladimir Vasilkovich from Berestye (Brest) to the lands of the West Baltic people of the Yotvingians in exchange for furs, wax, silver.

Defending the interests of the merchants (and hence their own), the rulers of the ancient Russian principalities and lands in the 12th-13th centuries sought to conclude international trade agreements on an equal basis that would provide foreigners and their guests with a free journey, without paying travel customs duties. In the treaties of Novgorod with German cities (1191-1192, 1269, etc.), Smolensk with Riga and Gotland (1229), great attention was also paid to the settlement of disputes between merchants, punishments for criminal offenses, often committed in the merchant environment. The life of the murdered "merchant" was estimated in them at 10 hryvnias of silver, that is, a very significant amount for those times, although smaller in comparison with the fine rate in Russkaya Pravda (40 hryvnias under article 1 of the Brief and Pro-Strange Pravda) . Trade agreements specifically stipulated that both parties mutually renounce the use of such measures as confiscation of goods, arrest and detention of merchants in prisons. However, in practice, these prohibitions were often violated. In an effort to prevent unnecessary conflicts, in the treaty of Smolensk with Riga and Gotland in 1229, they even regulated the order of transportation of goods by portage between the Dnieper and the Western Dvina. The ancient Russian and German guests had to install it by lot, so that no one would be offended. In a foreign land, it was forbidden to force them to participate in military campaigns, to delay their departure to their homeland with the purchased goods. Both sides usually guaranteed the merchants a free way, on which sometimes, alas, they themselves erected obstacles.

In support of what has been said above, I will cite one of the most interesting news from the Paterik of the Kiev Caves Monastery. During the period of feudal civil strife 1097-1099. as a result of the establishment of a commercial blockade, the supply of salt to Kyiv by land and by water from Galich and Przemysl was stopped. This disastrous situation for the common people was taken advantage of by the resourceful Kyiv merchants, who managed to create large stocks of salt in advance and raised the price of it five times, which caused outrage among the townspeople. The greedy salt merchants were patronized by the Grand Prince of Kyiv Svyatopolk Izyaslavich, who himself, apparently, was involved in salt speculation and received additional income from it. After his death, the long accumulated anger of ordinary Kyivans against merchant speculators and usurers resulted in a powerful uprising in 1113, when many of them did not fare well. Vladimir Monomakh, who took the throne of Kyiv, had to make significant concessions to the city lower classes, supplementing Russkaya Pravda with articles of his Charter and improving the position of debtors, primarily by significantly reducing the size of the usurious interest charged.

The poor of Novgorod the Great especially suffered from sharp fluctuations in the price of bread, mostly imported. The infertile soils of the Novgorod land did not provide enough own grain, especially in lean years, when Novgorod depended on grain supplies from North-Eastern and Southern Russia, and sometimes even by sea from Germany. During civil strife, the princes sometimes prevented the delivery of grain to Novgorod, which aggravated the already plight of ordinary citizens who did not have large supplies.

The earliest chronicle evidence of the commercial blockade of Novgorod dates back to 1137, when “there was no peace either with Suzdal, or with Smolny, or with Polotsk, or with Kiev,” therefore, very high prices for corn. At such moments, the princes who were at enmity with Novgorod, often not limited to the organization of armed outposts on communications that led there from South and North-Eastern Russia, forbade their merchants to eat bread with him and resorted to repressions against Novgorod guests. For example, they were ordered to be arrested in 1161 in Kyiv by Grand Duke Rostislav Mstislavich. Six years later, the ruler of Vladimir-Suzdal Russia, Andrei Bogolyubsky, in alliance with Polotsk and Smolensk, blocked the routes along which grain was brought to the Novgorod land. His brother Vsevolod the Big Nest did exactly the same in 1210. Five years later, the son of the latter, Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, during a terrible famine, arrested 2,000 Novgorod merchants and did not let a single cart of bread out of Torzhok. The next year, having suffered a crushing defeat in the Battle of Lipitsa from Novgorod and its allies, the vengeful prince, having driven several horses, galloped to the ancestral Pereyaslavl-Zalessky and immediately ordered 150 Novgorod guests to be imprisoned, where they suffocated and died . Here is another example of this kind. In 1273, during the military operations of the Kostroma and Tver princes against the Novgorod Republic, “in Novgorod, there was expensive bread, and the gostebniks (i.e., merchants - V.P.) had goods taken away.” That is why a special article was included in the treaty letter of the Moscow Prince Yuri Danilovich and Novgorod with the Grand Duke of Tver Mikhail Yaroslavich (winter 1318-1319): - V.P.); and open the gates, and let the bread in, and let every guest into Novgorod; but by the power of you, the guest cannot be transferred to Tfer. A similar formula was used in other treaties of Novgorod. True, in real life, agreements of this kind were far from always respected, especially during sharp clashes, as evidenced by birch bark No. 2 discovered during excavations in Tver from the middle or second half of the 14th century. The author of the letter, a certain Grigory, who was in Torzhok, asked his mother: “Find out if the people of Novgorod are allowed to eat without dirty tricks and they came (news) as soon as possible (translation).” Such situations sometimes served as a spark for the outbreak of popular unrest, which abounds in the history of the Novgorod feudal republic.

The attitude in ancient Russian society towards the merchants was very contradictory and ranged from princes supporting guests in foreign markets to infringing on their property rights and robbery during feudal conflicts, from recognizing the need for merchants to expressing open hostility towards them on the part of the poor.

The ancient Russian feudal elite, ambivalent towards merchants, itself constantly used their services to sell surpluses and purchase luxury goods, and also received significant income from customs and trade fees. In the era of feudal fragmentation, the number of customs houses increased markedly. And there was obviously no more hated figure for the guest than the mytnik (publican), the toll collector (myta), who often abused his position. Many customs officers, replenishing the prince's treasury, obviously did not forget about their wallet.

In addition to the actual trade, merchants in Ancient Russia also carried out other instructions from the authorities, for example, equipping the squad and the militia before the outbreak of hostilities. Sometimes in hard times they were even used as warriors. For example, in 1195 they, together with squads, participated in a campaign against Chernigov, organized by the powerful prince Vsevolod the Big Nest, and in 1234 they repulsed the Lithuanian attack on Staraya Russa. And yet more often the authorities found application for their experience, knowledge and capabilities not in military affairs, but in the field of diplomacy and intelligence. Acquaintance with foreign languages ​​allowed them to perform the functions of translators. Under the guise of merchants from ancient times, scouts penetrated the camp of the enemy, bringing valuable information. In this regard, I will cite only two or three chronicle evidence, although in reality there were much more of them. In a later Nikon chronicle, under 1001, it is written “The same summer Volodimer sent his guests, some of them later to Rome, and others to Jerusalem and Egypt and Babylon, observing their lands and their customs.” And although this insert is clearly included in the annalistic text by a medieval Russian scribe of the 16th century, and in 1001 the Grand Duke of Kyiv hardly sent merchants as ambassadors to these overseas countries, the fulfillment of diplomatic missions by them has been practiced since ancient times. Merchants participated in the preparation of agreements between Russia and Byzantium in the 10th century. During the campaign of the coalition of South Russian princes led by Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich against the Polovtsian horde of Khan Konchak (1184), Russian soldiers met “a guest going against himself from Polovets, and told them (to the soldiers. - V.P.) like Polovtsi to stand on Khorol. The following year, merchants who returned to Russia from the steppe brought the sad news of the defeat of the troops of the Novgorod-Seversky prince Igor Svyatoslavich, who was captured by the Polovtsians. In the absence of an organized postal service with reliable merchants, written messages, including secret ones, were apparently transmitted.

Having turned into a more powerful economic force with the accumulation of capital and the expansion of the scope of trade operations, the merchant class began to put forward their own demands to the authorities, to which, willy-nilly, they had to respond. Otherwise, the authorities acquired in his person an influential opponent. The Vladimir boyars and merchants, who rebelled in 1176, demanded that Prince Vsevolod the Big Nest execute or hand over to the crowd for reprisal the hated Rostov and Suzdal residents who were in prison. At the beginning of the XIII century. Novgorod posadnik Dmitry Miroshkinich tried to force merchants to pay the so-called "wild vira" - a fine for a person killed on the territory of the community by an unknown criminal. Naturally, this measure aroused sharp discontent among merchants who were not part of the community. As a result, they actively participated in the uprising of 1207, which ended with the deposition of Dmitry Miroshkinich, the election of a new mayor and the abolition of illegal requisitions. Later, already in the second half of the 13th century, the Novgorod merchants finally managed to free themselves from yet another burdensome duty - the “carriage”, which consisted in transporting the people and goods of the princes at their own expense.

The merchant elite already in the XII-XIII centuries. was involved in the decision of important state affairs. In 1137, during the conflict between Novgorod and Prince Vsevolod Mstislavich, 1,500 hryvnias of silver were confiscated from his supporters from among the boyars, which were then given to the merchants "to go to war", i.e. for the purchase of military equipment. Four years later, in order to demand that Vsevolod Olgovich send his son to reign in Novgorod, a representative delegation consisting of the bishop, ambassadors and the best guests went to Kyiv. A quarter of a century later, having come from Kyiv to Velikie Luki, the Grand Duke of Kyiv, Rostislav Mstislavich, convened a council with the participation of prominent ("vyach's") representatives of the Novgorod merchants (1166). And in 1215, the Novgorodians themselves sent a gardener, a thousand and ten of the most influential merchants to invite Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich. Shortly before his death in 1212, the ruler of Vladimir-Suzdal Russia, Vsevolod the Big Nest, invited “all his boyars from cities and volosts, and Bishop John, and abbots, and priests, and merchants, and nobles, to resolve the issue of the throne-heritage and all people."

A certain idea of ​​the position of the merchants in ancient Russian society makes it possible to compile a monument to the feudal legislation of the 11th-12th centuries. — Russian Truth. Article 44 of the Long Russian Truth testifies to the widespread distribution of trade on credit. Its meaning was as follows: a merchant could give money to a merchant without witnesses for trade, but if the debtor refused to return it, it was enough for the creditor to take an oath. Without the presence of witnesses and written registration, the merchants legally left their goods for temporary storage, which is clear from article 45 of the Long Truth.

The Grand Duke of Kyiv Vladimir Monomakh called on his sons in the "Instruction": "And honor the guest more, from where he will come to you." And then he explained that the guests, wandering, spread throughout the lands good or bad fame about the person they had to deal with. In the Russian epics recorded in the North (“Danube Ivanovich”, “About the Nightingale Budimirovich”, “Ivan the Living Room Son”, etc.), the prince in Kyiv honorably welcomes wealthy overseas guests, invited along with the boyars to take part in the prince's feast.

Yes, echoes of the respectful attitude towards the merchants in Ancient Russia have been preserved in the people's memory. But in reality, his rights were often violated, especially during feudal civil strife, when trade blockades of hostile principalities and confiscation of merchants' goods from other lands were practiced.

In the Middle Ages, it was very difficult to engage in trade alone, especially distant trade. Common occupations and economic interests, the difficulties of overseas trips, the danger of robbery and oppression of the feudal lords forced the merchants to unite. Merchants usually united in peculiar partnerships who constantly traveled to the same country or traded in the same specific set of goods. Members of merchant guilds sometimes pooled their capital to purchase huge consignments of goods abroad, and then profitably sold them on monopoly conditions in their native country. Together they sought various customs and legal benefits from the authorities.

Similar processes took place in the XI-XII centuries. and in the ancient Russian merchant environment. In South Russia during this period, a group of Greek guests stood out who traveled regularly to Byzantium. They had to combine efforts and funds to purchase or hire people, sailors, to protect their corporate interests both in Russia and in the Byzantine Empire. Under 1168, the Ipatiev Chronicle mentions another group of South Russian merchants-vaulters who made trade trips along the so-called Zaloznoy route to the Crimea and the North Caucasus. To protect the "Greeks" and "hostages" from the attacks of the Polovtsians, the South Russian princes sent military expeditions to the area of ​​the Dnieper rapids.

The patron church usually served as the center of merchant associations. Perhaps such a merchant's temple was the Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God Pirogoshcha, founded in 1131 on the Marketplace of Kyiv Podil by Grand Duke Mstislav Vladimirovich. When mentioned in the annals under 1147, the church of St. Michael (the Novgorod goddess), obviously, merchants from Novgorod stopped, often visiting Kyiv.

Several Orthodox merchant churches also existed in Veliky Novgorod. In 1156, at the expense of overseas guests, the church of St. Paraskeva Pyatnitsa, the patroness of trade, a few years later built the Trinity Church on the Sofia side of the Novgorodians, who traded with the Western Slavic city of Szczecin on the southern coast of the Baltic at the mouth of the Oder. And in 1365, Novgorod merchants and tribute collectors - "Yugorians", who mined furs in the North, erected their patronal stone church in the city, which, unlike previous buildings, has survived to this day. Wooden church of St. Sophia in Pskov was built around the same time by local merchants. In Torzhka, two churches were closely connected with merchants - the Cathedral of the Savior, which received part of the income from wax weighing, and the Church of the Transfiguration. Novgorod salt merchants (prasols) united in the XIII-XV centuries. around the church of Boris and Gleb in Staraya Russa, where there were salt springs.

Unfortunately, the chronicles are silent about the internal organization of the ancient Russian merchant corporations, united around patronal churches. A certain idea of ​​them is given by the only surviving Charter of the Church of St. John the Baptist on Opoki in Novgorod, built in 1127-1130. Prince Vsevolod Mstislavich. Historians date the charter, or otherwise the Manuscript of Prince Vsevolod, in different ways: from the 12th to the 14th centuries, since the text has come down to us in later copies. His last detailed analysis, done by V.L. Yanin, allows us to confidently attribute the execution of the document to the end of the 13th century, although some of its provisions were in effect even earlier, from the 12th century. The “House of the Great Saint Ivan” united wealthy Novgorod wax merchants who traded wax and other goods with the countries of Western and Northern Europe.

Who could become a full member of the Ivan merchant association - the so-called "vulgar" merchant? Everyone joining it had to make a cash contribution ~ fifty hryvnias of silver bars with a total weight of over ten kilograms - to the temple treasury, i.e. to the corporation's fund, and also to present a roll of expensive "Ypresian" cloth, brought from Flanders, to the Novgorod thousandth. The title of a “vulgar” merchant was hereditary and gave the right to take the honorary position of a merchant headman, which other merchants who were unable to fulfill the conditions for admission to the Ivan association could not even dream of.

For many years the church of St. Ivan the Baptist remained the center of merchant life throughout Novgorod. On the square in front of it, meetings of the merchant court, which dealt with litigations between merchants, have long been held. In the draft treaty charter of Novgorod with Lübeck and the Goth coast of 1269, in particular, it is said: “And there will be a quarrel between the Germans and Novgorodians, end the quarrel in the courtyard of St. Ivan in front of the mayor, thousand and merchants.” According to the historian and archaeologist V.A. Burov, this court was originally in the hands of the prince, and then in the 12th century. passed under the auspices of the Novgorod church lord. The analysis of conflicts between foreign and local merchants was also in charge of the posadnik, who was elected from among the most noble boyars. Already at the end of the XIII century. the merchant court gained independence and began to obey, like the Ivan merchant corporation, only to the thousand. Over time, the court included, along with the elders of the Ivan association, representatives of the unprivileged merchants of Novgorod.

All ecclesiastical and commercial affairs of the "House of St. Great Ivan" were elected: "three elders: from the living people and from the black thousand, and from the merchants, two elders, to manage all sorts of Ivan and commercial and state affairs and the commercial court." Neither the posadniks nor the Novgorod boyars had the right to interfere in the internal life of the Ivan corporation. Only the elders from the "vulgar" merchants, full members of the Ivan association, made a control weighing of goods. They also collected a fee for using the pier on the Volkhov, adjacent to the churchyard. This was another source of income for the "house of the great saint Ivan." In addition to significant privileges, members of the merchant corporation - parishioners of the church of St. Ivan on Opoki - had a number of duties. They were responsible for the construction of a wooden pavement in front of the temple, at their own expense they repeatedly repaired it, ordered icons, cast bells.

The Novgorod authorities defended the interests of local merchants during conflicts between them and overseas merchants. Their culprits, judging by medieval documents from the Lubeck, Riga and other archives, were equally domestic and foreign merchants. Novgorodians often lost their goods as a result of attacks by pirates in the Baltic. And although under the terms of trade agreements, as compensation for the lost, it was forbidden to confiscate goods from other merchants who were not involved in robberies or deceit, in practice this provision was often violated by both parties, which gave rise to new conflicts.

Chroniclers have repeatedly recorded cases of German attacks on Novgorod and Pskov guests during hostilities. In 1240, the German knights "made a raid, killing merchants and not having reached 30 miles to Novgorod." Forty-three years later, something similar happened again: “when you entered the German ci ratia, the Neva, into Lake Ladoga, and beat the Novgorodians, the Onega merchants.” Such incidents happened more than once and later. But even in peacetime, in the trade relations of Novgorod and Pskov with their western neighbors, there were enough reasons for major quarrels and grievances. They sometimes even caused mutual bans on trade, as was the case, say, in 1385-1391. in relations between Novgorod and the Hansa. This seven-year trade war ended in 1392 with the signing of a new peace treaty (the Peace of Niebuhr), which only temporarily smoothed out the sharp contradictions between the Hanseatic and Novgorod merchants, who continued to conflict in the next century. One of the reasons for the clashes was the desire of the Hanseatic people, because of competition, to prevent the appearance of Russian trading people in the markets of German and Baltic trading centers.

Particularly strong indignation among the Novgorod merchants was caused by frequent attacks by Baltic pirates. In 1420, the Russian merchants Miron, Terenty and Tryphon, robbed by them on the Neva, were taken to the Hanseatic city of Wismar in the Baltic. As soon as the news of this reached the banks of the Volkhov, eleven German merchants who were in Novgorod were immediately arrested. Another conflict broke out, causing a three-year hiatus in trade. Failing to satisfy their legitimate claims from the authorities of the Hanseatic and Livonian cities, Russian merchants themselves carried out court and reprisals by confiscating the goods of other innocent foreigners, arresting or beating them, relying on the ancient custom of blood feud and the principle of collective responsibility for wrongs.

It must not be thought, however, that the truth was always on their side. Among the Novgorod and Pskov merchants, there were also dishonest people, swindlers, adventurers who caused damage to German merchants. Along with petty tricks (like filling circles of wax with peas or stones), they also committed serious offenses, including theft and robbery.

An active role in the peaceful settlement of trade conflicts was played by the highest church hierarchs of Novgorod, using their personal authority for this and being, in the eyes of merchants, both domestic and visiting, guarantors of honesty and justice. In 1375, representatives of the German merchants turned to Vladyka with a complaint against Maxim Avvakumov, a Novgorodian, who, with the assistance of bailiffs, had seized the property of one of their countrymen; in 1412, with the help of the archbishop, they bailed out their comrade arrested in Novgorod.

Vladyka also participated in the conclusion of international trade agreements. The earliest of them is a treaty charter of Novgorod with the Gotsky coast, Lübeck and German cities of 1262-1263. sealed along with the princely and state seals of the Novgorod Republic with the lead seal of Bishop Dalmat. In one of the letters of the beginning of the XIV century. Novgorodians turn to the townspeople of Lübeck with a request to send ambassadors to conclude an agreement on the passage of merchants, not only on behalf of Prince Andrei, the mayor and elders, but also the lord of Novgorod. A letter sent by Novgorod to Riga a little later (circa 1303-1307) demanding the return of the stolen goods and the extradition of the robbers begins with the blessing of the Archbishop of Novgorod Feoktist, the seal of which is attached to the document.

The bargaining of Novgorod was a kind of territorial community with self-governing ranks. The latter had their own elected elders, their public premises, religious buildings, legal proceedings and specialized in the production and sale of certain types of goods. The entire trade and craft population of ancient Novgorod was divided into hundreds - structural units of the military organization of the townspeople, which appeared in the era of the tribal system. The "vulgar" merchants were part of the privileged Ivanskaya hundred, and the rest - the unprivileged Merchants, and, living in different parts of the city, they were still socially and militarily grouped according to their hundreds.

Two people elected citywide merchant elders represented the interests of Novgorod's trading people. Apparently, their re-elections took place every year. One of the Novgorod letters of 1371 was compiled “from the archbishop of Novgorod Alexei, and from the viceroy of the Grand Duke Andrei, and from the mayor Yuri, and from the thousands of Matvey, and from the elders of the merchants Sidor and Yeremey, and from all the merchants of Novgorod-Rod ". And in the charter, signed the following year, there are already new names of the merchant elders - Yakim and Fyodor. One of them was chosen by members of the Ivan Hundred, the second - by the Merchants. In neighboring Pskov, the "younger brother" of Novgorod, in the annals of the XV century. one or two merchant elders are mentioned. The most striking figure among them is Yakov Ivanovich Krotov. It is curious that he did not come from a merchant, but from an eminent boyar family, whose representatives more than once occupied a posadnik place. The boyar and merchant Ya.I. Krotov himself became a Pskov mayor, carried out important diplomatic missions, repeatedly leaving as an ambassador to Novgorod, Moscow, Riga, Tartu and Lithuania. The interests of the boyars of Pskov were closely intertwined with trade. In 1465, under the leadership of Ya.I. Krotov, the patronal church of St. Sophia, around which the Pskov merchants united, was covered with iron, a very expensive material at that time.

The merchants of both Pskov and Novgorod were distinguished by strong differentiation in social and property relations. Trading operations in the international markets of the Baltic were carried out mainly by wealthy Novgorod merchants, members of the privileged Ivan corporation, they were also engaged in usury. These entrepreneurs, receiving large profits, possessed significant capital and, in addition to urban estates, had rural land holdings. In submission to them, clerks and dependent people worked for hire. The appearance of such merchants vividly appears before us in the epic image of the eminent guest Sadko, who decorated his “white-stone chambers”, erected temples, arranged rich feasts, could redeem all Novgorod goods. It is clear that the interests of the trading elite and the mass of small traders, often at the same time manufacturers, differed significantly. Even greater was the gulf between them and the boyar oligarchy. By the way, Novgorod the Great was precisely a boyar, and not a merchant republic, as some historians erroneously claimed in the last century. In the hands of the boyars were all the reins of government and the most important posts. Even the richest merchants, having achieved significant trade advantages, did not receive boyar privileges. In the XIV-XV centuries. the usurpation of power intensified, the boyars did not particularly consider the interests of the rest of the urban population. That is why the simple trade and craft people of Novgorod were not very willing to defend its independence with weapons in the decisive battle with the Moscow army on the Shelon River in 1471. Seven years later, Veliky Novgorod finally lost its liberties and became part of the Muscovite state. Since that time, a new page began in the history of the Novgorod merchants, as well as merchants from other Russian principalities and lands, annexed at the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th centuries. to the Grand Duchy of Moscow, whose despotic system of power was noticeably different from the veche system of Veliky Novgorod and Pskov.

For the medieval Moscow merchants of the XIV-XV centuries. significant property and social differentiation was also characteristic, reflected in the naming of representatives of its various groups. The highest group consisted of “deliberate guests” engaged in large-scale international trade, sometimes referred to in the sources as “great jackpots” and standing much higher on the social ladder of “black people”. Among them stood out a particularly privileged corporation of guests - Surozh residents, who brought expensive silk, dyes and other exotic goods from Surozh - modern Sudak, Kaffa - Feodosia (Crimea), Constantinople and even distant Italy. They received large profits and enjoyed significant privileges. Obviously, far from the last role in the exaltation of the guests-surozhans was played by their fulfillment of the trade orders of the Moscow grand dukes and the noble boyars, who were very interested in selling their excess income in kind in exchange for expensive overseas goods.

The trips of Surozhan guests from Moscow to the Crimea and back were very unsafe: on the Volga they were often attacked by river pirates-Ushkuiniki, and on the steppe roads - by Tatar detachments and Cossacks. In the busy markets of the Crimea, conflicts often occurred between the merchants themselves, between them and local officials (Italian, and then Tatar and Turkish), who were in charge of trade. And the Moscow grand dukes sought to protect the economic interests of their citizens. So it was, for example, in 1474, when the last consul of Kaffa, Gioffredo Lercari, ordered the confiscation of the goods of Moscow guests Gridka Zhuk and Stepan Vasiliev "and comrades" for a significant amount of two thousand silver rubles in order to compensate for the loss of ten Kaffins merchants who were robbed on the way from Moscow to the Crimea by dashing robbers. As a response, the ruler of Muscovy, Ivan III, forbade the Genoese merchants from Kaffa from entering his possessions. And later, the grand-ducal administration more than once showed concern for the preservation and transfer to the legitimate heirs of the property of Moscow guests who died in the Crimea, and also protested through diplomatic means against the collection of excessive customs duties and taxes from them in favor of the Lithuanian authorities of Kyiv, through which they sometimes returned from the Crimea to North-Eastern Russia.

South and East were, of course, the only directions of international trade of the Moscow principality. The leading role in the trade exchange with the countries of the West was played by another privileged group - the "clothesmen", often mentioned in the sources of the XIV-XV centuries. together with the Surozhans, but standing at a lower level in the hierarchy of the medieval Moscow merchants. In contrast to the Surozhans, in the chronicles and letters, the term “guests” was not even used in relation to cloth workers. So, they did not enjoy the same big benefits. As can be seen from the name itself, the main subject of their trade operations was Western European cloth, which was usually purchased at the nearby markets of Novgorod, Pskov, the cities of Livonia, Lithuania, and Poland.

The trips of Russian merchants to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were complicated by the introduction there (for example, in Minsk, Polotsk, Smolensk) in the 80s. 15th century excessively high customs duties. Under the pretext of bypassing the washing outposts and evading duties, the local authorities sometimes confiscated the goods of Moscow cloth workers for their own benefit, or even simply robbed them without any (even far-fetched) reason. Although the right of unhindered passage of merchants from both sides (“the path is clear”) was specifically stipulated in the treaties of Moscow and Tver with Lithuania: both in the truce of the ambassadors of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Olgerd Gediminovich with the Grand Duke of Moscow Dmitry Ivanovich (1371), and in the contract the letter of 1427 of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vitovt and the Grand Duke of Tver Boris Alexandrovich. The last document established the places for collecting customs duties from Tver merchants in Lithuania - Vitebsk, Vyazma, Kyiv, Smolensk, Dorogobuzh. “And we invite our guests to visit without borders and without dirty tricks,” said the Moscow Grand Duke Vasily II the Dark in the end of 1449 with the Polish king and the Grand Duke of Lithuania Casimir and in the agreement signed at the same time by the latter with Tver. It should be clarified that, unlike the modern Russian language, the word "frontier" in those ancient times had one more meaning - "confiscation of goods." And, despite all contractual obligations, Moscow merchants on the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania often had to deal with both the “frontier” and the “dirty tricks” of the authorities.

The trips of Russian merchants to Lithuania were complicated by the introduction there (in Vyazma, Kyiv, Minsk, Polotsk, Smolensk and other centers) in the 80s of it. 15th century excessively high customs duties and new customs gates. In a number of cities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at that time, the so-called warehouse law (German Nedderlaghe, Nedirlag, Stapelrecht) was applied, according to which merchants passing through, say, Kyiv, Lutsk or Polotsk had to stop in them for a full or partial sale goods With the help of such measures restricting freedom of trade, the local merchants sought to become the main intermediary in the trade of the West with Russia and the East, receiving additional profits due to their monopoly position.

A detailed list of all these unfair, in the opinion of the authorities of Muscovy, innovations was set out in the order to Mikhail Eropkin, whom Ivan III sent in 1488 in a scrapped way to the Polish king and Grand Duke of Lithuania Kazimir. However, the claims of the Moscow sovereign were not satisfied. And two years later, the embassy of M.S. Eropkin to the court of Casimir again had to complain on behalf of Ivan III that “our guest, the Moscow lands and the Novy-Rodsky lands and the Tver lands, were repaired in your land, and our guests were plundered, and on mytehs on the old ones many extra duties on our guests were caught and sharply new mytovs in your land on our guests, where there were no washings in advance of this from the old days; and I sent lists to you about those matters, and you didn’t do anything to the council with that matter.

Therefore, at the time of the completion of the unification of Russian lands around Moscow, the government of Ivan III, in order to protect the economic interests of the merchants (and, therefore, their own), waged a stubborn diplomatic struggle with their western neighbors for equal relations in trade. The relations of already defeated Novgorod with Livonia and the Hanseatic League demanded special attention.

Here it is appropriate to emphasize the duality and inconsistency of the policy of the Moscow sovereign in relation to the Novgorod merchants themselves. On the one hand, fearing sedition and conspiracies, Ivan III more than once forcibly moved from Novgorod to other remote cities of Russia not only local noble boyars, but also merchants. Their “withdrawals”, accompanied by the simultaneous resettlement of Moscow guests to Novgorod, were undertaken two or three times during 1487-1489. and were called upon to strengthen the political support of the sovereign of Russia in the newly annexed territory of the boyar republic. At the same time, the Moscow government by no means pursued the goal of destroying the entire Novgorod merchant class as a powerful social and economic group of the population. After all, only a part of its most influential and prosperous representatives, obvious and potential oppositionists, was “brought out” to Moscow. The rest gradually merged with the Moscow settlers.

Along with such tough and extremely unpopular measures among the merchants, Ivan III did a lot to protect the trade interests of Novgorod the Great. In 1481, on behalf of the Grand Duke's governor (and not the posadnik and lord, as before), the Novgorod-Livonian treaty was concluded, many articles of which improved the conditions for trade and stay of Russian merchants in the cities of Livonia. Russia managed to achieve new concessions in the agreement with the Hansa, signed in Novgorod in 1487. The Hanseatic side, in particular, was forced to take responsibility for the robberies of Novgorod merchants on the Baltic Sea. But in 1494, a sharp conflict broke out between Russia and Livonia, which dragged on for two whole decades. It was accompanied by the closure of the German court in Novgorod, arrests of merchants, confiscation of goods, the Russian-Livonian war, and a ban on mutual trade. Only in 1509 was a peace treaty signed with Livonia for fourteen years, and in 1514, after lengthy negotiations, with the Hansa. As a result, as a result of a stubborn struggle for many years, the authorities of Muscovy managed to significantly raise the status and expand the rights of the Russian merchants in the Hanseatic cities.

True, even in Russia itself, the authorities excelled in the establishment of numerous trade and travel fees, which significantly hampered the activities of merchants. They also, as in neighboring Lithuania, were forbidden to go around the customs gates, where various duties were levied and, above all, “washed” from a wagon or boat loaded with goods. A trader paid “bones” for travel on high roads, “bridge” and “transportation” for crossing a river, and “coastal” for crossing a river. Only in rare cases, when for some reason the collector was not at the outpost, the merchant could pass without paying duties, without fear of a fine for evading it - “washed”. The goods of the grand dukes and church institutions (primarily monasteries), which received special tarkhan letters from the authorities, were exempted from customs and travel fees. Duties were levied in the grand ducal treasury or in favor of privileged monasteries, mainly in cash, but sometimes in kind - salt, grain, and other goods. Unlike other merchants, the resourceful monastic merchants enjoyed significant benefits, especially when transporting goods.

Regulation of trading activities, it should be noted, did not exhaust the relations of the merchants of North-Eastern Russia with the princely authorities.

The rich Surozhan guests were engaged not only in trade, but also in usury, lending money to less fortunate merchants and even representatives of the aristocracy. In a spiritual charter drawn up around 1481, the appanage prince Andrei Vasilievich bequeathed to the heirs to pay 300 rubles of debt to the merchant Gavrila Salarev. Another of the Surozhan guests, Andrei Shikhov, was a creditor to the appanage prince Yuri Vasilyevich, who pledged a roll of expensive overseas cloth for 30 rubles in silver. Engaged in lending to well-born persons, wealthy Moscow merchants obviously counted on the help they needed from the feudal aristocracy, into whose midst they themselves sought to penetrate. This desire was expressed both in marriages between representatives of merchant families and well-born boyar families, and in the acquisition of land estates by merchants.

The earliest information about merchant land ownership in the Moscow principality dates back to the era of Dmitry Donskoy. Under 1375, Russian chroniclers placed an interesting message about the flight from Moscow to Tver of the son of the last thousand Ivan Vasilyevich Velyaminov, who did not get along with the Moscow prince, and the wealthy guest-surzhan Nekomat (judging by the name, apparently, a Greek by origin). Soon, Nekomat set off on a familiar path to the Golden Horde for a label for a great reign for the Tver prince Mikhail Alexandrovich and successfully completed the assignment of a new benefactor, returning to Tver with a khan's label and the Horde ambassador Achikhozheyu in July 1375. But in August, Moscow prince Dmitry Ivanovich defeated the troops of Mikhail Alexandrovich and forced him to renounce the great reign, then ordered the confiscation of the villages of Ivan Vasilyevich and Nekomat, and later executed the traitors themselves. Under 1383, in Moscow and other chronicles, a laconic message about this was placed: “The same winter, a certain lie was killed, by the name of Nekomat, for some former sedition and treason.” Paid with his head for political intrigues, Neko-mat, of course, was far from the only landowner from among the merchants. The names of the villages known in the Moscow principality are connected with the names of the villages - Khovrino, Salarevo, Sofrino, Troparevo. There were also many land holdings of the Surozh residents in the Dmitrovsky district near Moscow, which is recorded in a number of letters. Having transferred from Moscow to Novgorod Rod at the end of the 15th century. merchants Koryukovs, Syrkovs, Salarevs, Tarakanovs and others, Ivan III compensated them for the loss of land holdings near Moscow by granting villages in the Novgorod land.

The case of Nekomat vividly illustrates the close connection between the elite of the merchant class and the Moscow thousands, whose duties included control over the collection of taxes and trade duties, the organization of the militia, and the court for merchant cases. Hundreds of merchants and craftsmen and their elders were subordinate to the thousands and on all other issues of the life of the city. Although the thousandths themselves came from the boyars, they were considered representatives of all the unprivileged sections of the townspeople. And in this regard, there are certain analogies between the functions of the thousand in Novgorod and the cities of North-Eastern Russia.

Having abolished in 1373 in Moscow the position of a thousand man, which was usually inherited, the Grand Duke of Moscow transferred his functions to the replaceable “great governor”, ​​who also turned out to be closely connected with merchant circles. In Moscow, however, the situation was complicated by the existence, since 1340, of the so-called tertiary system. Here I do not have the opportunity (and indeed the need) to delve into the essence of the debatable question of what the Moscow "thirds" represented. Some researchers believe that the “third” is part of the income from Moscow, which was distributed in different proportions between the Moscow Grand Duke and his brothers, co-rulers of the city. According to others, the "third" is a specific territorial unit. Obviously, by the third one should mean both the first and the second. In this case, the merchants who lived in different parts of Moscow were subject to jurisdiction and subject in the middle of the XIV-XV centuries. not only to the great governor, who was supposed to represent the interests of the Grand Duke, but also to two other "treaters", henchmen of his closest relatives - the specific princes.

And if this was actually the case, then it becomes clear why in the second quarter of the 15th century. during the feudal war in the principality of Moscow, part of the wealthy merchants went over to the side of the specific prince Yuri of Galicia, a rival of Vasily II in the struggle for the grand throne. Having seized Moscow for a while, Prince Yuri Dmitrievich turned to them, “guests and clothiers”, in 1433 for financial help, when he urgently needed six hundred rubles to pay the Horde debt of Vasily II. According to a contractual letter of 1439, the specific Galician prince Vasily Yuryevich undertook not to receive Moscow guests and cloth workers who participated in a conspiracy against Grand Duke Vasily II and fled from Moscow to Tver in his possessions. They also helped later, in 1445-1446. to another son of Yuri Galitsky, Dmitry Shemyaka, who also claimed supreme power in the Moscow principality and conspired against Vasily II the Dark. It is assumed that representatives of another eminent Surozhan merchant family, the Khovrins, on the contrary, provided financial support to Vasily II in the difficult years after his expulsion from Moscow, blindness and imprisonment in Uglich, which contributed to his victorious return to the capital and defeat of the specific princes. Obviously, for the services rendered then, the Grand Duke Treasurer Vladimir Grigoryevich Khovrin received an unusual title, with which he is mentioned in 1450 - "a guest and a boyar of the Grand Duke." From the middle of the XV century. by the 16th century representatives of the Khovrin family - Golovins traditionally occupied the honorary and important position of grand ducal and royal treasurers.

In this regard, a logical question arises: was the civil service obligatory for Moscow merchants in the XIV-XV centuries? For a long time already, historians have been arguing over one of the points of finishing the end of the Moscow Grand Duke Dmitry Ivanovich with his cousin, Serpukhov and thieves prince Vladimir Andreevich of March 25, 1389. This point of the final letter reads: city ​​people (s) and guardians from one, but do not accept them into service. It was reproduced almost unchanged at the end of Ivan III with the appanage prince of Ug-lich Andrey Vasilyevich (1472): accept." This interesting condition has caused a lot of conflicting interpretations.

Some (for example, S.M. Soloviev, V.E. Syroechkovsky, A.M. Sakharov) believed that the obligation of princes was recorded here not to accept merchants and other townspeople to serve as combatants, i.e. feudal servants. Others (M.A. Dyakonov, A.P. Prigara) under the service meant the duties of guests close to their professional activities (collection of customs duties on behalf of the authorities, financial support). According to M.N. Tikhomirov, the term “service” in this case hides vassal dependence, and the entry into the service of any city dweller infringed on “the rights of the others, since he came under the authority of the court of this or that prince and thereby thereby violated the corporate privileges of the surozhans and clothiers”, which means that in the end it was about the protection of the rights of these rich and influential merchant corporations by the grand ducal power. But it seems to me that L.V. Cherepnin is closest to the truth, having come to the most correct conclusion that the townspeople (including merchants) "possessed a certain privilege militarily", being part of the city militia under the authority of their own governors, and the princes promised to keep this Moscow army "as an independent military unit, not mixing its participants with their servants."

True, it should be noted that eminent Surozh residents and cloth makers were involved in military service only under emergency circumstances, for example, in 1382, when they participated in the defense of Moscow during an unexpected attack by the troops of Khan Tokhtamysh. One of them, the clothier Adam, standing on the Frolovsky (Spassky) gates of the Kremlin, with a well-aimed shot from a crossbow, hit the son of the Horde prince to death. In 1433, hastily preparing for a battle with a competitor in the struggle for the Moscow Grand Duke's table, Yuri Galitsky, Vasily I, "what was then around his people, gathering those, and even Muscovite guests and others we will drink with us," but with such an incapable army, he suffered a crushing defeat on the Klyazma. The son of Vasily II the Dark, Ivan III sent in 1469 "compatriots and clothiers, and merchants, and all other people of Muscovite who are handy in their strength" on a campaign on ships against the Kazan Khanate. In ordinary times, however, the Grand Dukes preferred to use the Surojan guests in a different, diplomatic field. After all, they usually owned, in addition to Russian, Greek, Italian, Tatar languages, knew the political situation and customs in neighboring countries well, and had certain connections there. It was always possible to get valuable information and useful advice from them. That is why, setting off in September 1380 to meet the Horde’s army of Mamai, the Grand Duke of Moscow Dmitry Ivanovich (according to the later “Tale of the Battle of Mamaev” of the 15th century) took with him on a campaign to the Kulikovo field guests - surozhans, apparently, as informers, translators and ambassadors. As one of the chroniclers later explained, “for the sake of seeing: if something happens to God, they will tell in distant lands, as if they are people from earth to earth and we know both in the Hordes and in Fryazeh (Italy - V.P.)” . It is significant that, in contrast to them, ordinary merchants from the Russian lands who were of a lower rank participated in the battle as ordinary warriors of the foot militia.

Opponents of Russia also took into account the possibility of Moscow merchants performing intelligence and information functions. Two years after the Battle of Kulikovo, in order to make a surprise attack on Moscow, according to the chronicler, “Tsar Takhtamysh sent his Tatars to the Volga and ordered all the Russian guests to be beaten, and their ships to be re-imported for transportation so that they would not lead to Russia.” A century later, diplomatic correspondence between the Taman prince Zakhary Gvizolfi and Ivan III was conducted through the mediation of Moscow merchants Gavrila Petrov and Semyon Khoznikov. Diplomatic services to the same Moscow Grand Duke were repeatedly provided by other merchants. Wanting to avoid paying customs duties on the way from Moscow to the Crimea and back, the Moscow guests-surozhans themselves sought to join the grand ducal embassies, with which it was, if not much safer, then at least more profitable to travel.

The literature has long been discussing the question of whether the Moscow guests-Surorozhans and cloth workers of the XIV-XV centuries represented. special merchant corporations with certain privileges, like guests, members of the Living Room and the Cloth So-ten of the 17th century? If M.N. Tikhomirov, for example, answered it positively, then V.E. Syroechkovsky, A.M. Sakharov, L.V. Cherepnin showed a certain caution and skepticism when considering this problem. And although no documents (charters) have been preserved in which their rights would have been legally formalized, judging by indirect data, the rudiments of a corporate organization among the Surozhans clearly existed. Its members had certain obligations in relation to each other, enjoyed privileges and privileges (for example, the right to acquire land holdings), apparently arranged common feasts (brotherhoods) in a pool, and built churches. Such a patronal merchant church in Moscow at that time was the Church of St. John Chrysostom, located in the later White City in the monastery of the same name, known from the beginning of the 15th century. According to chronicle evidence, in 1479 Ivan III founded a new stone church of St. John Chrysostom in Moscow, ordering to dismantle the “formerly wooden building” standing on this site ... but that church from the beginning of the guests of Moscow building. Why, then, did she come to that time into desolation, according to the chronicler, “began to become impoverished”? Obviously, Moscow eminent merchants, for some reason, ceased to consider it their patronal church and refused to contribute funds for maintenance. The presence of corporate privileges among guests-sour-rozhans is also confirmed by a later document - the Novgorod customs charter of 1571, according to which they were canceled: Sovereign of that letter set aside, and ordered the Surozhans to imati all their duties in the old days. It is not known, however, when the Surozhans received it; still, while in Moscow, or after moving to Novgorod at the end of the 15th century.

The Moscow Grand Dukes considered trade (especially distant trade) as an important and extremely necessary area of ​​people's occupations. That is why they tried not to tear the merchants who brought considerable income to the state from trade, although they sometimes gave them other government assignments, most often related to their professional activities. Already from the turn of the XV-XVI centuries. the grand ducal administration began to involve them in the organization of the customs business of Muscovy. So, in 1497, the Belozersk customs was farmed out for one hundred and twenty rubles a year by the merchants "Tit Okishov, yes Esip Timofeev, and Semyon Beaver."

Many historians rightly note the social immaturity of the Moscow merchants of the XIV-XV centuries. Its elite, which belonged to the "best people", tried in every possible way to rise above the bulk of the population of the urban settlement ("black people") and merge with the boyar circles. Based on the deep economic interests of merchants who were hindered by feudal partitions, it would seem logical to assume that they all stood for the unification of Russian lands and the creation of a single centralized state. However, in real life, things were much more complicated. Without a doubt, the bulk of the Moscow merchants should have been impressed by the idea of ​​state centralization, but some of its representatives showed hesitation and did not always support the Moscow Grand Dukes, striving to play a more independent political role.

Along with other groups of the townspeople, the merchants fought for their corporate rights. Not only in Novgorod and Pskov, where the veche became a permanent body of power, but also in North-Eastern Russia, merchants, along with other townspeople, participated in spontaneous veche meetings that were convened more than once during unrest, especially in the second half of the 13th century. in Rostov the Great and other cities. Trading rows already in the XIV-XV centuries, obviously, were headed by merchant elders, although more reliable evidence of their activities in Moscow appears from the XVI century. They played the role of intermediaries in relations between the authorities and all the rest of the merchant class, were in charge of allocating taxes between the ranks and hundreds of the townspeople of the trade and craft population. But in North-Eastern Russia, merchants had much less political freedom than in Novgorod the Great, Pskov, Polish and Lithuanian cities. Trade people from Poland, Lithuania, as well as other countries of Central and Western Europe, were a curiosity about the orders of the feudal cities of Muscovy, where the so-called Magdeburg law, granted in 1390 to Brest, in 1441 to Slutsk, was not applied, in 1494 - Kiev, in 1496 - Grodno, in 1498 - Polotsk, in 1499 - Minsk-ku. It freed the townspeople from feudal dependence, allowed them to choose a council (magistrate), which usually included rich merchants and artisans.

None of this was (and could not be) in Moscow and other cities of North-Eastern Russia, where the trade and craft population did not enjoy the same rights as in neighboring European countries. Representatives of the merchant class, like other emerging classes, were considered by the Moscow authorities as the sovereign's servants, obliged to carry out any orders and unquestioningly obey the grand duke's decrees. The rulers of Muscovy were especially concerned about the merchant elite, which enjoyed strong influence along with the boyars in the newly annexed lands of Novgorod, Pskov, Vyatka, and Smolensk. After all, they saw in it a support of real or potential opposition, opponents of the new Moscow order. That is why the annexation of these important centers to Moscow was soon followed by forced relocations not only of the well-born boyars, but also of the most eminent merchants. After such a kind of shake-up, the merchant class (especially the prosperous) was placed at the service of the feudal state, which used both its capital and business experience for its own purposes.

DISCUSSION OF THE REPORT

A.V. Semenova:

The speaker touched upon a very important and interesting problem, which is also relevant for later times. Is it possible, on the basis of an analysis of the materials collected and summarized by him, to assert that feudal Russia, unlike other European countries, was characterized by a specific form of relations between state power and the merchant class? My second question concerns the continuity of merchant capital in medieval Russia: is there any evidence of this for the early period of the history of Russian merchants?

V.B. Perkhavko:

Studying this topic on domestic material, in a number of cases I try to use data on the attitude towards the merchants of the authorities in other European countries in the Middle Ages. They, too, according to sources, were far from ideal. In England, sometimes the funds of merchants were confiscated in favor of the royal treasury, and their activities, for example, in the XIII-XIV centuries, were subjected to strict state regulation. Jews were expelled from Germany, Spain, and Italy more than once, including businessmen, who were deprived of their immovable and movable property. But such mass migrations of merchants as in Russia at the end of the 15th-16th centuries, perhaps, were not known by any medieval state. But under Ivan IV, the "conclusions" of merchants were often accompanied not only by robberies of their property, but also by executions, as was the case, say, during the oprichnina pogrom of Novgorod, in the winter of 1570. Moreover, even in Lithuania, neighboring Russia, many cities, as I said, received in the XIV-XV centuries. Magdeburg law, and representatives of their trade and craft elite participated in the bodies of city self-government - magistrates, thereby playing a more active political role and enjoying much greater rights that, for example, Russian merchant elders did not have. The exception, perhaps, is Novgorod the Great and Pskov in the era of their independence.

As for the question of the succession of trading capital, it is practically impossible to trace this process on early materials (until the end of the 15th century) due to the lack of an appropriate source base. Only from the last quarter of the XV century. article lists of embassies appeared, which mention the size of the losses of merchants during trips to the Crimea and Lithuania, which makes it possible to establish only the working capital of a number of representatives of the merchant class at a certain moment. But they cannot be compared with the later data of the 16th century, which are practically absent in relation to the descendants of those merchants whose names appear in earlier diplomatic documentation. Customs books in Russia are known only from the beginning of the 17th century. (Novgorod).

In general, it is necessary to emphasize the paucity of sources for studying the genealogy of medieval Russian merchants of the 13th-15th centuries.

ON THE. Gorskaya:

Does the speaker explore the features of the relationship between the merchants and the city authorities?

V.B. Perkhavko:

Yes, in the process of working on this topic, this very significant moment was in the field of my attention, although the state of the sources (especially for the early period) sometimes allows me to form only the most general opinion about the specifics of the relationship between merchants and the authorities of the Russian feudal city.

E.I. Kolycheva:

I have a few questions for VB Perkhavko. What confirms the conclusion about the isolation of the merchants in the 11th century? What is the difference between the terms "merchant" and "guest"? After all, the word "merchant" meant "a person who buys goods", i.e. meant not only a professional trader. In my opinion, even the forcible resettlement of representatives of the merchant class to Moscow from the periphery cannot be called repression, let alone terror. In the XVI century. all segments of the population were dependent on the grand ducal and royal power, and the merchants were far from being in the worst position.

V.B. Perkhavko:

The separation of the merchant class by the middle of the 11th century. in Russia as an independent social and professional group of the population is confirmed both by the evidence of written sources and by archaeological data. By this time, long-distance overseas trips of merchants were losing the character of military-trading expeditions, previously organized by the princely authorities with the active participation of the squad. The warrior merchant gave way to a professional merchant, and in the burial complexes, less and less often since the 11th century. weapons and trade equipment are found together, in contrast to the ancient Russian retinue burials of the 10th century.

Now let's move on to terminology. "Guests" in Ancient Russia were usually called foreign merchants and Russian trading people engaged in exchange with foreign countries, or who came from other principalities. It is not for nothing that this word is used more than ten times in The Tale of Bygone Years, which mainly reflects the foreign trade of the young ancient Russian state. And the "guests" themselves in ancient Russian sources, for example, in the Novgorod Chronicle, were sometimes also called "guests". And later in feudal Russia they belonged to the richest and most privileged group of merchants.

The word "merchant" (and its variant - "merchant") was used in Russia in several meanings. First, in relation to all persons professionally engaged in the exchange of goods. Secondly, in a narrower sense, this was the name given to merchants who specialized in domestic trade. Finally, in a later period, along with the designation of the type of professional activity, the sources also designated the term “merchant” and simply a person who made purchases, i.e. buyer. Initially, it was used less frequently than the term "guest", and in the "Tale of Bygone Years", in contrast to later chronicles, it occurs only twice.

Forced resettlements and other repressive measures carried out over several centuries, together with petty regulation of trade and economic activity, ultimately had a far from positive influence on the creation of the image of the first Russian entrepreneurs, on the formation of the psychology of their social instability and dependence on states, distrust of him. And although merchants belonged to one of the most mobile groups of the population, there are very significant differences between their voluntary migrations and forced movements. The former are usually associated with the search for more favorable conditions for life and trade, new markets, with the expansion of the scale of economic activity, when a trading person is the master of his own destiny, and in case of failure he has no one to blame. In the second case, he is forced, against his will, to obey the strict instructions of the authorities and attribute all the hardships and negative consequences to their account. Economic coercion, the violence of feudal sovereigns over the individual, which became commonplace, did not pass without a trace, leaving an imprint on many generations of merchants, whose character and style of behavior were formed in Russia in an environment far from the spirit of free enterprise.

L.V. Danilova:

What, in the speaker's opinion, specifically explains the change in the social status of the merchants in the 15th century? Does the expression "spirit of free enterprise" apply to the Middle Ages?

V.B. Perkhavko:

In answering your question, we should first of all clarify that we are not talking about the 15th century. in general, but about the period from the end of this century, when the unification of the Russian lands around Moscow was completed, and the merchants of the previously independent principalities and lands were placed at the service of a single Russian state, whose authorities often treated it consumerly.

But basically the materials reflecting the changes in the situation and destinies of the Russian merchant class belong to the 16th century, which goes beyond the chronological framework of my report. In addition, even a cursory review of them would take too much time.

I turn to the answer to the second question. It seems that the terms "entrepreneurship" and "free enterprise" can be used, speaking not only about the capitalist era, but also about the Middle Ages, when there was a specific entrepreneurship within the framework of the dominant feudal order. It covered in the XV-XVI centuries. along with trade and other spheres of the economy - handicraft production, crafts in which personally free people were involved. Their entrepreneurial activity in the era of feudalism was subjected to strict state regulation, but the sprouts of free entrepreneurship existed even among the peasantry in the Russian North, as evidenced by both the sources and the conclusions of the studies of A.I. Kopaneva, N.E. .Nosova.

V.D. Nazarov:

What are the main features of the estate organization of the merchant class, and when did a large merchant class form in Russia?

V.B. Perkhavko:

In this case, I can only talk about those features of the merchant class that had developed by the end of the 15th century, when the process of its legal registration in essence had just begun in Muscovite Russia and was far from over. I will try to give a very brief description of it. Trade was not the only occupation of medieval Russian merchants. It actively participated in other spheres of life of feudal society. This was especially true of the most prosperous and privileged groups of merchants.

Surozhan guests and cloth makers who got rich on trading operations were often engaged in usury, lending money to less fortunate merchants, and also lending money to representatives of the feudal elite.

The desire of the prosperous merchants to achieve the social status of the aristocracy found expression both in marriages with representatives of the Moscow boyar families, and in the acquisition of large land holdings, which also served as a profitable means of investing capital and more firmly stabilized their property status.

In a dangerous time, they were involved in participation in the general tribal militia, but more often they carried out other assignments of the Moscow Grand Dukes - of a commercial and diplomatic nature. Surozhans and cloth makers were characterized by elements of a corporate organization (special privileges, the presence of a patronal church, warehousing, etc.). From the end of the XV century. to the representatives of the merchant class passes the collection of customs duties. Eminent Moscow merchants had their own political interests, which, in particular, was clearly manifested in 1375 (the case of Nekomat) and during the feudal war in the Moscow principality (second quarter of the 15th century).

According to available data (article lists of Russian embassies), the emergence of large merchants in North-Eastern Russia dates back to the 15th century, in Novgorod the Great and Pskov, this process, apparently, began even earlier.

CM. Chestnuts:

Did the speaker use customs charters as a source on the history of the merchant class? Is it possible to determine the share of Russian and foreign merchants in the international trade of Russia? Finally, to what extent did the government take into account the role of the merchant class in society in its policy?

V.B. Perkhavko:

The source base, unfortunately, does not allow, at all stages of the history of medieval Russia, to accurately determine the relationship between Russian and foreign merchants in foreign trade due to the lack of comparable materials.

If we count the evidence from narrative sources, it is unlikely that the data obtained will be objective and representative due to the selective fixation of these most often extraordinary cases with merchants in chronicles and Western European chronicles.

We do not have ancient Russian materials that are adequate and synchronous, for example: the customs charters of the Upper Danube centers - Raffelstetten (beginning of the 10th century), Enns and Mauthausen (12th century), which mention merchants who came there from Russia ; Riga debt book of 1286-1352, in which many names of Russian merchants are attested. Therefore, any conclusions on this issue will inevitably be of a conjectural nature.

Undoubtedly, the rulers of the ancient Russian state, Russian principalities and lands of the era of fragmentation took into account the interests of the merchants in their domestic and foreign policy, especially in the 10th century, when they almost completely coincided with the needs of the grand ducal power itself. Later, as I already emphasized in the report, the attitude of the authorities towards the merchants becomes contradictory, characterized by both support and oppression. And the level of both depended on the specific situation, primarily political and socio-economic. But if we talk about the ratio as a whole, then support, at least until the end of the 15th century. the activities of the “foreign” merchant class, who came from other principalities and lands, prevailed, and the activity of the “foreign” merchant class was infringed upon.

L.B. Danilova:

We can agree with the speaker that in the IX-X centuries. in Russia, the merchant class had not yet been singled out, being characterized by fusion with the military-druzhina sphere, which was also observed later in Novgorod the Great. And at an early stage, when its legal status had not yet fully taken shape, there existed, along with other classes in Russia, a merchant class with certain characteristics. True, in medieval documents it is far from easy to identify them. What, in the opinion of the speaker, explains the almost complete lack of attention to merchants, for example, in the first Russian Sudebnik of Ivan III?

V.B. Perkhavko:

First of all, I want to agree with the thesis of L.V. Danilova about the connection of merchants with the military sphere in the later period in Novgorod the Great. True, we should talk mainly about representatives of one specific group - the “Ugor region”. The people who were part of it, who traveled to the remote northern regions of Eastern Europe and the Trans-Urals, i.e. to Western Siberia, and were engaged in the collection of furs from the Ugric tribes, and the robberies of the local population, and the fur trade. Such military-trade expeditions were undertaken more than once by Novgorodians in the 11th-15th centuries. At the same time, I cannot agree with the opinion contained in the question of the Sudebnik of Ivan III and the reflection in it of the role of the merchant class. Feudal legislation, beginning with Russkaya Pravda, regulated relations between merchants (domestic and foreign), between them and their creditors. The content of 3 of the 68 articles of the Sudebnik of 1497 is directly related to trade and merchants: articles 46 (“On merchants”), 47 (“And who will buy land for someone else ...”) and 55 (“On loans”). As you can see, some attention was nevertheless shown to the merchants in this monument of feudal legislation of the era of the creation of a unified Russian state.

S.M.Kashtanov:

I would like to hear in the initial part of the report an overview of the sources used by V.B. Perkhavko, as well as more theoretical generalizations. I advise the speaker to continue a purposeful study of the merchant terminology of the 11th-15th centuries, which can lead to interesting results and will make it possible to more accurately show the social status of the merchants in medieval Russia. I also propose to limit the upper chronological framework of the study to the end of the 15th century, when a qualitatively new stage in the development of Russian statehood and social groups of feudal society, including the merchants, begins.

V.D. Nazarov:

It seems to me that the huge chronological range does not give the speaker the opportunity to study in depth a number of important issues related to the history of medieval Russian merchants. It seems appropriate to limit the upper limit of the study to the middle of the 15th century, when the situation changed with the fall of Byzantium. It is required to take a more differentiated approach to the consideration of the relationship between the authorities and the merchants in the XIV-XV centuries. in North-Eastern Russia, on the one hand, in Novgorod the Great and Pskov, on the other, although both there and here there was a gap between the boyars and merchants who sought to penetrate this upper layer. The difficulty lies in the absence of documents in medieval Russia that would describe the rights and obligations of the merchants.

V.B. Perkhavko:

Concluding the answers to the questions, I would like to emphasize once again that when considering the role of the merchants in medieval Russia, its relationship with the authorities, it is required to observe a differentiated approach, differentiated both chronologically, and socially, and geographically. The Russian merchant class of the Middle Ages was divided into a number of groups. Naturally, the position of the most privileged strata differed from the social status of the lower classes of the trade and craft population. Of course, it is necessary to take into account even more the specifics of Novgorod the Great and Pskov, where the activities of merchants proceeded in conditions that differed from Muscovite Russia. It also seems to me very promising to conduct an in-depth study of merchant terminology based on a comparison of synchronous and asynchronous medieval Russian sources of the 11th-15th centuries. At the same time, I cannot agree with the proposal of V.D. Nazarov to limit the upper time frame of the study to the middle of the 15th century, since such a narrowing of the chronology does not allow us to trace the changes in the fate of the merchants at the end of the 15th century. On the contrary, for comparison with the policy of the authorities in a later period, it is advisable to involve, in my opinion, materials even from the 16th century. The report presented here analyzes the interim results of work on this topic, which can be adjusted in the course of further research.

The oldest information about trade among the Slavs. The Slavs, the ancestors of the modern peoples of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, came from Central Europe to Eastern Europe in the 5th century. Since that time, they began their centuries-old settlement in Eastern Europe and the economic development of its natural resources. The economy of the Slavic society was based on gathering, hunting, fishing, farming, mining, which were not deep from the surface of the earth. Subsistence farming dominated the country, that is, the Slavs produced everything necessary for life in their place of residence. Therefore, it was not essential products that were exchanged, but only especially valuable and rare items- jewelry, weapons, metals, salt, etc. This feature of the exchange in all ancient societies - dominance of foreign trade over domestic- remained in Russia for many centuries.

Among the Slavs, like among all ancient peoples, the original form of trade was silent exchange. Information about such an exchange between Novgorodians and primitive Ugric tribes has been preserved from the 11th century. in the annals: (Ugrians) “they show iron and wash their hands, asking for iron, and if anyone gives them iron or a knife or an ax, and they (Ugrians) will give quick (furs) against (for this).” That is, at the place where the exchange took place, people usually kept a distance from each other and did not talk to each other, which is why it is called mute. Wishing to receive this or that product - "buyer" - showed it. Another participant in the exchange - the "seller" - put what he asked for and usually left. The “buyer” posted his product and also left. If its quantity seems sufficient, then the “seller” who came to the lying things took the “fee”. If he was not satisfied, he either took his thing back, or did not touch anything and expected that the other participant in the exchange would add some more “fee”. This is how an ancient exchange took place, in which one feels mutual distrust towards each other, the desire to insure against troubles or even misfortunes that can be expected from a stranger. Initially, instead of exchange, there was simply robbery with the use of force and murder. Silent exchange is a more humane form of communication between people, the result of the development of social relations, that is, connections between people.

Already in antiquity, some kind of exchange existed among the Eastern Slavic tribes. Thanks to transit trade and other types of exchange, different things got from one region to another. So, items made in the Black Sea region ended up in the Dnieper region, and from there they were transported to the north of Europe. Things brought from Central Asia and Iran (Persia) are found during excavations in the Middle Dnieper region, where the Kievan state was later formed. Perhaps in the VII-VIII centuries. the slave trade was born, which at a later time played a very important role in Russia and in its trade with other countries.

In the ninth century Slavic conquests began Byzantium- a huge empire located south of the Slavic lands. Byzantium at that time was the richest and most culturally developed country in Europe. Its capital, Constantinople (the modern Turkish city of Istanbul), was located along the shores of the strait connecting the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Here Europe bordered on Asia. Through Constantinople, goods of Asian production were sold to Europe, so the capital of Byzantium was a center of trade of world importance. Especially in medieval Europe, Asian spices were valued, necessary for the consumption of meat food. This food spoiled rather quickly during storage, and spices contributed to its storage and beat off an unpleasant odor. Merchants from Europe were also attracted by fine Byzantine handicrafts.

During military campaigns against Byzantium, the Slavs learned about the way of life of strangers, their occupations and products of Byzantine crafts. This created the basis for exchange and trade with Byzantium. Acquaintance with the works of Byzantine crafts, especially weapons and jewelry, increased the level of needs of the Slavic nobility, aroused the desire to acquire them. Wars delivered a very valuable commodity - slaves. The Byzantines captured by the Slavs were ransomed by their relatives, which also contributed to the development of trade between the two peoples.

Volga trade route. From the end of the VIII - the beginning of the IX century. in Eastern Europe there were merchants from the Arab East (Anterior Asia). Their lands were south and east of Byzantium. The territory occupied by the Arabs expanded due to their conquests. They pressed Byzantium, advanced to Central Asia. Therefore, the borders of their lands were approaching the homeland of the Slavs.

The way from the Arab lands to Eastern Europe lay along the Caspian 耠sea 䑎 and along the Volga 䀮 (In the 8th - 10th centuries, the Arabs mastered the Volga trade route and the European North. ␟on the banks of the Middle Volga and its "tributary of the Kama" lived! the nomadస Bulgarians who founded here the state - Volga Bulgaria (Bulgaria) Į The Bulgarian kingdom adopted Islam - the same religion that "was among the Abs. It established diplomatic relations with the Arabs.

This contributed to trade along the Caspian Sea and the Volga. The main trade of the Arabs was in Volga Bulgaria, in the small town of Bulgar (not far from modern Kazan).

The Arab nobility greatly appreciated the skins of sables and silver foxes. Arab merchants bought mammoth bones and walrus tusks for their artisans. To meet these merchants along the rivers of Eastern Europe, people from the Scandinavian Peninsula, from the territory of modern Sweden, moved.

Immigrants from Scandinavia began to come to Eastern Europe at the end of the 8th century. Initially, these were armed groups that came here for robbery. They began to develop the Baltic-Volga route, which opened up access to the places of trade of Arab merchants. The Scandinavians considered Arabic silver oriental coins to be the most valuable goods (they were interested in metal). They themselves sold slaves, sable furs and squirrels to the Arabs. In the middle of the ninth century Scandinavians began to establish contacts with the Slavs. In the X-XI centuries. Scandinavian merchant ships already regularly went to Russia.

In the land of the Slavs, at the place where the Volkhov River flows into Lake Ladoga, the newcomers founded their city. It had a busy market, craft shops for repairing equipment and weapons. Through this city and from it, military-trading detachments went to the southeast, to the middle reaches of the Volga, where their trade with the Arabs took place. Merchants arrived on the Middle Volga in boats in whole squads. They built booths here, in which they laid out goods for sale. Trade was the most primitive, barter: a commodity was simply exchanged for another commodity. Thus, along the Volga and other routes, goods went from Scandinavia in the north to the Arab East in the south. The flow of Arab silver first went to Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, and from the beginning of the 10th century. silver began to settle in the lands of the Eastern Slavs. Arab merchants traded on the Volga until the 10th-11th centuries. The heyday of their trade fell in the first half of the tenth century. Later, their goods began to come to Eastern Europe, mostly through Constantinople, along the Dnieper route.

On the lower Volga at that time there was a state Khazar Khaganate founded by a nomadic people - the Khazars. In the capital - the city of Itil - on one side, on the right bank of the Volga, lived the ruler-kagan and his nobles, warriors, merchants from different countries stopped on the left. There was a market on the river bank. Merchants arriving in the city moored their ships to the shore and engaged in trade here. This order was widespread among ancient peoples. In European languages, the word "port" means "market", that is, usually the port - the place where ships stopped - was also a place of trade.

A variety of furs came from the north along the Volga to Itil, and from there to Central Asia - sables, ermines, ferrets, foxes, martens, beavers, hares, goats. Treated horse skin was also exported - yuft, wax, honey. From the Arabs, merchants received, in addition to silver items, beads, pearls, precious stones, and jewelry. In the X century. The Volga was the main artery connecting Asia and northern Europe.

The path "from the Varangians to the Greeks". In the ninth century formed another great trade route in Eastern Europe. Contemporaries called it the path "from the Varangians to the Greeks", that is, from Scandinavia to Byzantium; the inhabitants of Scandinavia, the Slavs called the Varangians, and the Byzantines - the Greeks. Unlike the Volga trade route, this route went through the Slavic lands and had a great and varied impact on the life of the local population. He begins to play an important role in the life of the Slavs from the tenth century. Through the Slavic lands, ships moved along the rivers, which carried foreign merchants and their goods. These vessels sometimes walked on water, sometimes they were dragged with the help of the local population overland on wooden skating rinks, beams or on a deck from one river to another. The length of the route from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea was 2,700 km. It took about four months to overcome such a distance, taking into account stops along the way. The path "from the Varangians to the Greeks" ended in the capital of Byzantium - Constantinople.

Passing through unfamiliar lands, Western European merchants now and then encountered the local population, which robbed them. Therefore, as can be assumed, over time they began to negotiate with the leaders of the Slavic tribes. The chieftains took tribute from passing merchants and in return ensured their safety as they advanced through their territory. Apparently, from that time a custom developed, which also operated much later in Russia: a visiting merchant first of all presented his goods to the local ruler, who chose what he especially liked, and then the merchant could start trading. This tribute over time became the most tempting income for the Slavic rulers, since it included items that were not produced or mined in the Slavic land.

From the second half of the ninth century Byzantium experienced an economic boom. Here, after some decline, urban life revived. Foreign trade grew. Silk fabrics of Byzantine production, gold and silver brocade, jewelry and glass items were widely sold in different countries, including in Russia.

From the second half of the IX-X centuries. The Dnieper region began to play a significant role in transit trade. Small towns arose along the trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks”. Thanks to trade and tribute, the local nobility rose from it. Kyiv became an important hub for this trade. Since that time, the state of the Eastern Slavs has been formed, one of the largest centers of which was Kyiv. The top of the society was the military-trading layer, which rallied around the prince, formed his squad, army, administrative apparatus, distributed over the cities. This layer included not only Slavs, but also Scandinavians.

Merchants in Russia in the IX-XIII centuries. At this time, it is already possible to speak of the emergence of the merchant class as a special social group whose main income was trade. The merchant was not just a seller or buyer of goods. Urban and rural artisans who sold their products and purchased raw materials, the clergy, who managed the boyar economy, and peasants who sold the products of their agriculture and crafts in the nearest cities and at rural markets, were involved in market operations. For all these people, trading was not a professional occupation. They belonged to different classes and class groups. A merchant is a professional merchant who was engaged in the purchase, delivery, resale of consignments of goods and belonged to the merchant class. Already in Kievan Rus, a layer of people was taking shape, who, according to their professional occupations, can be attributed to merchants.

In the IX-X centuries. the process of formation of the merchant class was just beginning. Important conditions for the formation of a layer of professional traders In Slavic society, there was the accumulation in the hands of the local nobility of significant reserves of forestry and agricultural products, the acquaintance of this nobility with such luxury and household items that were not produced or mined in the land subject to it, the separation of craft from agriculture, the emergence of more or less permanent trade - handicraft settlements.

At first, the composition of such merchants was not homogeneous. They were from different lands. The merchants included Scandinavians, Slavs, representatives of other nationalities. In the IX-X centuries. merchant guests in Russia usually came from Scandinavia. They were accustomed to seafaring, to long-distance voyages in ships, so they could embark on long journeys both in Europe and in Asia. During the formation of the state of Kievan Rus, the first merchants, by their origin, were warriors of the princes who ruled in Russia. Later, especially from the 11th century, merchants appeared from among the local boyars, the trade and craft population of cities.

Starting from the first centuries in the history of Russian trade and for a very long time, the merchant was a military man. Trade caravans resembled armed expeditions, as merchants had to face various dangers on a long journey and defend their goods with weapons in their hands. On the way, the merchant could also go on a robbery for the sake of valuable booty. At this time, trading operations sometimes turned into raids. In ancient times trade and plunder accompanied each other everywhere.

An ancient legend, recorded by a chronicler, said that at the end of the 9th century. Novgorod prince Oleg, a Scandinavian by origin, came with soldiers in boats along the Dnieper to Kyiv. Seeing that he would not be able to take the city by storm, Oleg pretended to be a merchant and summoned the rulers of Kyiv, Askold and Dir, to the banks of the Dnieper. The military attire of Oleg and the people around him could not seem strange to the representatives of the local authorities who came to him. This was the usual appearance of merchants who were on a large trading trip. Askold and Dir were killed by Oleg's soldiers, and Oleg turned Kyiv into the capital of his state, uniting the northern and southern Slavic lands. In Kyiv, there were much more merchants traveling to Byzantium than in Novgorod, and the prince's income was higher. Now the path "from the Varangians to the Greeks" was under the control of the new ruler. Dohᐾzh from merchants passing through it significantly replenished the princely treasury.

Varangians

(A.జ.Vasnetsov)

Every year in the fall, the prince set off with his retinue to detour the subject lands. An important purpose of these trips was the collection of “polyudya”, which consisted of food products and especially valuable items - gathering and hunting. Everything collected during the detour was delivered to Kiev. The princes shared with the warriors part of the collected valuables. In late spring and summer, on behalf of the prince, the combatants went to Byzantium to sell the products that they, together with the prince, collected from the subject population. It is no coincidence that already in the ninth century. such traders exported from Russia for sale not only furs, but also swords, not of Slavic production, but of Western Europe. Thus, the warriors more or less systematically engaged in trade, receiving from it an important income.

Over time, the layer of Scandinavian merchants was replenished with Slavs. The merchant class included people who, like farmers, were not tied to a certain place of residence, who freely left their homes. Among them could be princely and boyar servants, artisans.

Trade was not always a permanent, professional activity for their participant. He could have left them. The composition of the layer of trading people was still unstable. Merchants who made long-distance trading trips were called in Russia guests, and trade guest. The social status of the merchant was quite high. A new period in the development of the merchant class began in connection with the growth of cities in Russia (since the 11th century). At this time, the aggressive policy of the Russian princes was replaced by a policy of peaceful relations with neighbors. In the XI-XII centuries. trade relations between Russia and Byzantium became especially close. Professional merchants arose among the townspeople. Foreign trade began to pass to them. If in the IX-X centuries. merchants led a nomadic lifestyle, were temporary residents of trading settlements, then in the XI-XIII centuries. they increasingly connect their lives with the city, with local trade, become more sedentary.

An important feature of trade in antiquity was that trade duties at that time and for many centuries were very high, reaching 20% ​​of the value of goods carried by the merchant. However, the high prices of goods at the point of sale and the wholesale scope of trading operations not only reimbursed all the costs of travel and trade, but also brought significant profits. A dangerous but very profitable long-distance trading trip quickly enriched the merchant.

At this time, merchants traveled to Byzantium on the way "from the Varangians to the Greeks", to Khazaria - along the Don, through the Caspian Sea - to Baghdad. Their ships plowed the waters of four seas - the Black, Baltic, Azov and Caspian. Clay vessels served as containers for storage and transportation of some goods. Since the ninth century merchants had miniature folding scales with weights. When folded, they easily fit into a small pouch or case and attached to the belt. On such small scales, only precious goods, usually silver, could be weighed.

Scales and weights of an ancient Russian merchant

In the XII century. Russia was divided into different lands-principalities. In the XII century, when the former commercial importance of Kyiv began to fall, the commercial role of such cities as Novgorod, Smolensk, Polotsk, Vladimir-on-Klyazma began to grow rapidly. At this time, the Russian lands finally got rid of dependence on Kyiv, stopped sending the Kyiv prince an annual tribute in silver. The craft developed. At the same time, the stratum of the merchant class grew. There was a further development of trade. Trade-related operations became more diversified. In the XII century. among the merchants, mutual money loans are spreading - lending. Merchants also took other people's goods for sale on a trading trip. One merchant received goods from another for storage. At the same time, the first merchant associations were formed in Novgorod, which indicates a high degree of development of trade. The growth of trade and merchants' incomes also causes sharply negative consequences. From the 30s. 12th century princes constantly attacked merchant caravans, intercepted trade routes, took trading centers from battle, and arrested merchants. According to the collection of laws - Russkaya Pravda - for the murder of a merchant, the same fine was imposed on the guilty as for the prince's combatant - 40 hryvnias.

Merchant people were used as warriors by the princes in case of military danger or even as participants in a military campaign. Even more often, the princes used their knowledge, experience, and opportunities in the field of diplomacy and intelligence. Knowing foreign languages, they acted as translators. Messages were passed with reliable merchants. The princes forced merchants to transport princely people and goods at their own expense.

Foreign trade of Ancient Russia. Trade with Byzantium and Eastern countries. Around the 11th century . Kyiv has become one of the most important international trade centers in Eastern Europe. He was considered a rival of Constantinople. To some extent, the commercial role of Kyiv was similar to that of the Byzantine capital. Just like Constantinople, Kyiv was the center through which Europe received goods from Asia. In the Kyiv markets one could meet merchants from different countries. Lively trade routes crossed here. Southern Russia was a region of Europe through which goods from the east of the continent moved to the west and from west to east. So from the Russian lands silk fabrics of Arab production went to Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, France. The path "from the Varangians to the Greeks" was actively used until the 12th century.

Expensive foreign things imported into the Russian lands settled in the cities and estates of the nobility. The needs of the nobility for luxury invariably grew. She needed beautiful dishes for feasts, silk fabrics, chased lining for men's belts and horse harness, necklaces for men and women, pendants, earrings, etc. The princes generously endowed warriors with imported things - expensive weapons, jewelry. Trade in these items in one way or another affected the top of society, without touching the bulk of the population.

In the second half of the X century. Kyiv Prince Svyatoslav dealt a crushing blow to the Khazar Khaganate. After this event, the position of Russia on the Volga trade route increased significantly. Apparently, the regime for collecting duties from Russian merchants has changed. The Volga began to be perceived as a trade road, which was actively used by Russian merchants and foreign merchants who traveled to Russia. From the mouth of the Volga to the Baltic Sea could be reached in two months.

In the tenth century merchant caravans from Russia traveled to the largest center of Central Asia, Khorezm. Furs, processed leather, flax, Baltic amber, and slaves were brought here. From the mouth of the Volga, the ships of ancient Russian merchants moved along the western coast of the Caspian Sea to the Persian coast.

For a long time, trade with Byzantium remained an important area of ​​trade for merchants from Russia. Every year two merchant caravans departed from Kyiv to Constantinople. They consisted not only of Kyiv merchants, but also of warrior merchants from Novgorod, Smolensk, Chernigov and other centers of Russia. First, in May, merchants from the southern lands set off. In July, merchants from Novgorod and other northern regions gathered near Kyiv. From Kyiv, on boats hollowed out of large trees, 30-40 people in each merchants went down the Dnieper. Each of these caravans spent three months in Byzantium. Between Russia and Byzantium in the first half of the tenth century. trade agreements were signed. In accordance with them, empty soldier barracks near Constantinople were allotted for merchants coming from Russia, from which the soldiers were sent to summer camps. In such a place, it was easier for the government of Constantinople to control the behavior of visitors. Here the merchants lived and received food from the Byzantine government. They were allowed into Constantinople through the same gates only accompanied by a state official, without weapons, in turns in groups of 50 people, taking into account everyone who entered the capital. In these orders, the fear of the Byzantine authorities in front of the often violent crowd of Russian merchant soldiers is noticeable. Trade with Byzantium was under the control of the Kyiv prince. Without his knowledge, not a single merchant could go to Constantinople. Merchants accompanied the embassies to Constantinople, they were considered lower in position than the ambassadors, but usually greatly outnumbered them in each embassy. All military-trade expeditions to Byzantium were not private, but state-owned.

Byzantium has repeatedly become the object of robbery by the Slavic princes with their squads. Often, under the guise of merchants, soldiers entered Byzantium with the aim of robbery. Therefore, already in the tenth century. a procedure was introduced for the presentation by visitors from Russia to local authorities of gold or silver seals-rings - a kind of identity card. After the baptism of Russia in 988, relations between the two states acquired a much more peaceful character. From Byzantium, ancient Russian merchants exported luxury items - gold, silver, fine fabrics, vegetables, wines and jewelry. The Church needed to bring wine, olive oil, incense, dyes, non-ferrous metals to Russia. These goods were bought by a narrow circle of consumers, the top of the Slavic society. Slaves, wax and furs went from Russia to Byzantium as goods.

In the tenth century at the conclusion of treaties between Russia and Byzantium, they regulated the procedures for the trade of ancient Russian merchants on the territory of Byzantium and the passage of Byzantine merchants through the ancient Russian lands.

Merchants who arrived in Byzantium were sent by princes and boyars. Some of them were merchants of the prince, some were free guests. The treaties determined penalties for criminal offenses committed by visiting merchants. Russian merchants had to present to the Byzantine authorities a certificate from their prince indicating the number of ships sent to prove the peaceful nature of the trip. The soldiers' barracks in which they were settled were outside Constantinople. These barracks had simple furnishings and a large kitchen. They lived like this for several summer months, until autumn. The authorities gave them food for the entire duration of their stay.

Since ancient times, all peoples had a custom - "coastal law", - in accordance with which coastal residents robbed ships that were wrecked. The agreement between Russia and the Byzantines provided for mutual assistance in such cases: if the Greek ship was wrecked, the inhabitants of Russia must rescue the cargo and deliver it to a safe place.

In the XI-XII centuries. trips of merchants from Russia to Byzantium continued. People traveling along the Dnieper route were in danger in the form of nomads who followed the advancing caravan and attacked it at an opportunity. Merchants also suffered damage during strife between princes. Therefore, the Kyiv princes took care of the merchants - they sent their warriors to the most dangerous places to protect them.

Over time, the set of goods that were exported from Russia to Constantinople and further - into the depths of Byzantium grew. In addition to slaves, whose role as a commodity grew, Russian merchants brought dried fish, red and black caviar, wax, white hare fur.

From the middle of the XI century. gradually began to change the terms of trade. The conquests of various nomadic peoples cut Russia off from some of the southern states, making it difficult for Russia to connect with Byzantium. The influx of Arab silver coins - dirhams - to Russia stopped. From the end of the XI century. Crusades began from Western Europe to the Arab East. They paved new, shorter routes that linked Western Europe with the Byzantine markets. In the XII century. the value of the route “from the Varangians to the Greeks” decreases, the trade of Kyiv weakens. The conquest of Constantinople by the crusaders at the beginning of the 13th century. finally paralyzed the Kiev-Byzantine trade.

Trade in the western direction. Since ancient times, merchants from Russia moved not only in a southerly direction - to Byzantium, but also in a northerly direction, to the Baltic Sea, to coastal countries - Denmark, Sweden, Slavic Pomerania. Since the X century. contacts of the Slavs with Western Europe begin. At the beginning of the X century. merchants from Eastern Europe traveled up the Danube through the Bulgarian lands to Poland, the Czech Republic, and southern Germany (Bavaria). A significant flow of artistic works from the West began in the 12th century, where urban craft flourished at that time.

In the IX-XI centuries. through the northern part of Russia to the Baltic countries there was a stream of Arab silver. During this time, Northern Europe received approximately 800-1000 tons of silver from the Arabs through Russia. Slavic merchants delivered expensive furs (ermine, sable), wax, and honey to the Baltic countries and even to the more distant parts of Europe. Unlike Byzantium, the inhabitants of the northern Polish and southern Swedish lands also bought old Russian jewelry, dishes, tools, and other household items.

Since the second half of the IX century. from Kyiv, merchants traveled to the upper reaches of the Danube through Krakow and Prague, through Hungary to Bavaria. In the X-XI centuries. Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, was the largest European center of the slave trade. Land roads led here, along which merchants moved in wagons and with pack horses. They brought slaves (men, women, children), wax, drove horses for sale. In the Bavarian capital, one of the richest German cities, Regensburg in the XI-XII centuries. even there were Russian gates, which speaks of the constant arrivals of merchants from Russia here.

Since the X century. swords were taken to Russia from German lands, silver, which was not mined in Russian lands. Amber was brought from the Southern Baltic. Russia received metals through the Baltic Sea (iron, copper, lead, and from the 11th century - silver), salt, cloth, wine, herring. Wonderful horses were brought from Hungary to Russia, which were especially valued by military people. Silver also came from here. Bronze and other goods were brought from German cities to Russia. In Kyiv, Novgorod, Smolensk there were colonies of foreign merchants. Temples were even built for them here.

Domestic trade. In ancient times, for a long time, internal trade was inferior to external trade in terms of development. Domestic trade becomes a noticeable phenomenon in the 11th century. At this time, in the ancient Russian cities appear tenements – handicraft and trading quarters located around the fortified city center. In the XII-XIII centuries. cities grew rapidly. Some of the artisans moved from working to order to working for the market. The role of internal trade has increased.

An important place in the city was bargaining - the city market, where they sold ordinary things necessary for the main part of the population of Russia: clothes, livestock, in particular, horses. On behalf of his master, his slave slave could trade in the market. At the beginning of the XI century. There were 8 markets in Kyiv. Later, their number grew to 12. In addition, 8 fairs were held in Kyiv.

Novgorod was a significant trading center. Over time, its commercial value grew. In Novgorod, bargaining occupied a vast place and was divided into rows of shops in accordance with the goods that were sold in these shops. So, wax was sold in Voshchny Ryad. The trade was usually located next to the church, the church square at the same time was a place of trade, as was the case in Western Europe. Cellars in a stone temple were often used as a room in which goods were stacked and stored. Behind the front door, in the vestibule of the temple, the goods were weighed.

Operated on the market mytnik – servant of the prince who collected one of the most important taxes - myt - toll. Along with this duty in Russia there were such duties as living tribute, transportation, osmnichee. In the conditions of the fragmentation of Russia, the number of customs houses increased.

Bargaining was a place that was most often visited by the entire population of the city. Handicraft products were sold within the rural district closest to the city (50-100 km). Pedlars carried goods from city markets to remote villages. Inside Russia, glass bracelets made in Kyiv, jewelry with enamel, dishes dispersed. From city to city, merchants carried imported salt by land or water. Imported bread was often sold in Novgorod, especially in famine years. In such times, the well-being of the inhabitants of Novgorod depended on the delivery of grain from the eastern and southern regions of Russia, even from German lands. In the years of famine, self-sale into slavery of adults and the sale of children into slave slaves grew. In general, the slave trade was developed in Russia.

Money. International and domestic exchange facilitated the development of money and money circulation. In Russia there was a variety of money. Initially, barter trade prevailed: goods were exchanged for goods. Then commodity-money appeared, their role was played by the most common and highly valued goods on the market. When making settlements with foreign merchants, ancient Russian people used full-fledged high-quality furs. Oriental silver coins were in use - durhems and Western European denarii. Although the princes of Kyiv Vladimir and later his son Yaroslav minted their own coin, it did not play a prominent role in the market. The role of money for domestic trade was played by animal skins - squirrels, martens. From the ancient Slavic name of the squirrel "veveritsa" came the name of money - "veksha", from "marten" - "kuna". Coons in Russia were called money in general. In one or another territory of Russia, money was in circulation in the form of bundles of furs (in particular, 18 skins in a bundle).

The underdevelopment of commodity-money circulation is evidenced by the treasures of oriental coins, which are found during excavations of ancient Russian settlements. Money buried in the ground went out of circulation. In addition, they were often used not as a means of exchange, but as raw materials for handicrafts - jewelry and utensils, used as pendants for necklaces.

Importance of trade in ancient Russia. Speaking about the importance of trade in the life of the Eastern Slavs, it must be remembered that the Slavic society lived in a subsistence economy. It was aimed at consumption, not at the production of goods for sale. Opportunities for the development of trade were small. Trade almost did not concern the broad masses of the population. Such economic phenomena that existed in Russia as the accumulation of money as a treasure, barter in kind were an indicator of the weakness of commodity-money circulation. Craftsmen worked to order, not for market sales. Their products were not intended for the mass buyer. Trade links between isolated settlements were limited and irregular.

Nevertheless, trade had a noticeable impact on various aspects of the life of the population of Eastern Europe. She influenced the composition of society. Trade contributed to the stratification of ancient Russian society. The nobility celebrated their position by decorating themselves with imported things, and thus towered over the rest of the population. Imports introduced the nobility to previously unknown jewelry, fine crafts, and high-quality household items. Imported things caused the development of the need for luxury, in an appropriate lifestyle. The taxes that the merchants gave to the princes enriched the princely-druzhina elite of society. Trade stimulated the development of the trade and handicraft population in the cities. It was the basis for the formation and development of such a social stratum as the merchant class.

Trade stimulated the formation and growth of cities, created income and new employment for the population of the country. On trade routes, special settlements arose - settlements of warriors, merchants and artisans. The composition of the population of such points was unstable, closely connected with foreign trade. The most ancient cities of Russia were on the way "from the Varangians to the Greeks." Trade stimulated their growth. Strangers to each other came to live in shopping centers, breaking off the old blood-kinship and communal ties, they were the forerunners of medieval townspeople. In places where passing merchants had to drag their ships from the basin of one river to the basin of another, settlements arose. Control over portages was carried out by princely combatants. The local population served merchants moving along difficult sections of the rivers, provided equipment for the movement of boats on dry land in the portage areas. Trade influenced the development of Slavic crafts. Oriental and Byzantine fabrics and works of artistic craft brought to Russia served as models for Slavic craftsmen.

A merchant is not such an ancient profession as a hunter, but still a fairly old specialty in the field of entrepreneurship, that is, activities aimed at systematically profiting from trade.

foundation of the foundations

There were merchants in Russia already in the 9th century. In those days, the treasury of the state was filled mainly due to the tribute levied from the conquered peoples. The second source of income was trade. She was also the engine of progress. Cities were built mainly along the banks of rivers that served as trade routes. According to historical data, the Scythians had no other roads at all. Coastal cities first became trading centers, and then handicrafts developed in them. In Ancient Russia, a merchant is not only a merchant. who was installed in Tver, in his homeland, was both a traveler "over three seas", and a discoverer, and a diplomat. And the famous legendary Novgorod merchant Sadko went to the bottom of the sea.

trade routes

Thanks to the exchange of goods and its representatives, merchants opened such great trade routes as “from the Varangians to the Greeks”, the “Great Silk Road”, which is called the “crossroads of civilizations”, the “Chumatsky Way”, the famous “incense road”, which crosses many others. The merchants were Russian princes, forced to somehow get rid of excess natural tribute or accumulated money, spending it on overseas curiosities. The merchant is also the main informant in those distant times “Is it okay overseas or is it bad? And what is the miracle in the world? - learned only from representatives of this multifaceted profession.

Peter's reforms affected everyone

This type of activity was respected, the merchant class was an important estate at all times. There were legends about the commercial enterprise of the Russians. Old merchant houses often came to the aid of the state. The richest Stroganovs discovered new lands, built factories, erected temples. Some historical studies say that Peter I defeated the merchants, as a result of which many types of Russian crafts loved and supported by merchants perished. The tsar carried out reforms, as a result of which the old form of merchant associations "hundreds" was abolished, and they were replaced by guilds. it was bad or bad, but the merchants did not die.

rich and kind

The merchant class developed and gained strength, the best representatives of this estate were promoted to the nobility for special services to the fatherland. For example, the Rukovishnikovs. The Moscow dynasty founded a noble family, and Ivan Vasilievich (1843-1901) rose to the rank of Privy Councilor. The Novgorod dynasty, founded by a resourceful peasant, already in the third generation began to belong to the upper class. The motto of this family was the words "I sacrifice and care." The same can be said about quite a few Russian entrepreneurs. This is the special mentality of the domestic merchant. A Russian merchant is in most cases a benefactor and patron. The names of the largest merchants-philanthropists, the memory left by them, occupy a special place in Russian history. Who does not know the merchant Tretyakov, the founder of the art gallery named after him. Anyone who is at least a little familiar with the history of Russia knows the names and deeds of the best representatives of this class - the Mamontovs and Morozovs (the legendary Savva Morozov), the Naydenovs and Botkins, the Shchukins and the Prokhorovs. A large number of hospitals, charities, theaters and libraries in Russia were built at the expense of merchants.

Images positive and negative

However, in Russian literature, the image of a merchant is rather negative. In many of Ostrovsky's plays, the merchant environment is ridiculed, and the merchant himself is more of a cunning rogue than an educated generous person. Kustodievsky merchants and merchants personify what is mockingly called "merchant taste." The features and reviews of foreigners are added to the negative image. In this regard, I would like to note that there are very few Russians, about whom foreigners speak well. Their opinion should not be a verdict. Many famous writers laughed at the merchants. But Lermontov's Kalashnikov is very good. It concentrates the best features of the merchants - honesty, decency, courage, willingness to give life for the good name of a loved one. There were, of course, in this environment and crooks. What environment does not have them? And then, the merchant class, as noted above, was divided into guilds. The “third”, with a small capital (500 rubles), could include any irresponsible people. But wealthy Russian merchants, living in full view of everyone, thinking about their trademark, for the most part were not conscientious and decent, but fanatically honest people. "The Merchant's Word" is not a legend. Of course, not all transactions were only verbal. But this merchant's word was kept strictly, otherwise it would not have become a legend in the good sense of the word.

trading class. It has existed in Russia since ancient times. In the notes of the Byzantine imp. Constantine Porphyrogenitus tells about the activities of Russian merchants as early as the 1st half. 10th century According to him, since November, as soon as the road froze up and the sledge track was established, Russian merchants left the cities and headed inland. Throughout the winter, they bought goods from the graveyards, and also collected tribute from the inhabitants in payment for the protection that the city gave them. In the spring, already along the Dnieper with hollow water, the merchants returned to Kyiv and, on ships prepared by that time, went to Constantinople. This path was difficult and dangerous. And only a large guard saved the caravan of Smolensk, Lyubech, Chernigov, Novgorod, Vyshegorodsky merchants from numerous robbers. Having sailed the Dnieper, they went out to sea, holding on to the shore, since at any moment the fragile boats could die from a steep wave.

In Tsargrad, Russian merchants traded for six months. According to the contract, they could not stay for the winter. They were placed not in the city itself, but at the "Holy Mama" (the monastery of St. Mamant). During their stay in Constantinople, Russian merchants enjoyed various benefits granted to them by the Greek emperor. In particular, they sold their goods and bought Greek ones without paying duties; in addition, they were given free food and allowed to use the bathhouse. At the end of the auction, the Greek authorities provided our merchants with edible goods and ship gear. They returned home no earlier than October, and there it was already November again, and they had to go deep into the country, to graveyards, selling what was brought from Byzantium, and buying up goods for foreign trade for the next year. Such entrepreneurial activity was carried out by Russia for more than one century. The cycle of trading life played a huge role in the development and unification of Russian lands. More and more people were involved in this economic activity, becoming vitally interested in its results. However, Russian merchants traded not only with Tsar-grad, from where they exported silk fabrics, gold, lace, wine, soap, sponges, and various delicacies. A lot of trade was carried out with the Varangians, from whom they bought bronze and iron products (especially swords and axes), tin and lead, as well as with the Arabs - from where beads, precious stones, carpets, morocco, sabers, spices came to the country.

The fact that trade was very large is evidenced by the nature of the treasures of that time, which are still found in abundance near ancient cities, on the banks of large rivers, on portages, near former churchyards. These hoards often contain Arabic, Byzantine, Roman and Western European coins, including even those minted in the 8th century.

Around Russian cities, many trading and fishing settlements arose. Merchants, beaver farmers, beekeepers, trappers, tar smokers, lykoders and other "industrialists" of that time converged here for trade, or, as they called it then, "guests". These places were called graveyards (from the word "guest"). Later, after the adoption of Christianity, in these places, as the most visited, churches were built and cemeteries were located. Here transactions were made, contracts were concluded, hence the tradition of fair trade began. In the cellars of churches, the inventory necessary for trade (scales, measures) was stored, goods were stacked, and trade agreements were also kept. For this, the clergy charged merchants a special fee.

The first Russian code of laws Russkaya Pravda was imbued with the spirit of the merchants. When you read his articles, you are convinced that he could have arisen in a society where trade was the most important occupation, and the interests of the inhabitants are closely connected with the result of trade operations.

"Pravda", - writes the historian V.O. Klyuchevsky, - strictly distinguishes the return of property for storage - "luggage" from "loan", a simple loan, a friend's loan from the return of money in growth from a certain agreed percentage, a short-term interest loan - from a long-term one, and, finally, a loan - from a trading commission and contribution to a trading company from an unspecified profit or dividend. Pravda further gives a definite procedure for collecting debts from an insolvent debtor during the liquidation of his affairs, and is able to distinguish between malicious and unfortunate insolvency. What is a trade credit and operations on credit is well known to Russkaya Pravda. Guests, out-of-town or foreign merchants, "launched goods" for native merchants, i.e. sold them on credit. The merchant gave the guest, a countryman merchant who traded with other cities or lands, "kuns for purchase", for a commission for buying goods for him on the side; the capitalist entrusted the merchant with "kuns as a guest", for turnover from the profit.

City entrepreneurs, rightly notes Klyuchevsky, were sometimes employees, sometimes rivals of the princely power, which reflected their great role in society. Russian legislation valued the life of a merchant, his head was fined twice as much as for the head of an ordinary person (12 hryvnias and 5-6 hryvnias).

The successful growth of merchant activity in Ancient Russia was confirmed by the development of credit relations. Novgorod merchant Klimyata (Clement), who lived in XII - n. XIII century, combined its extensive trading activities with the provision of loans (the return of money in growth). Klimyata was a member of the Merchant Hundred (a union of Novgorod entrepreneurs), he was mainly engaged in airborne fishing and cattle breeding. By the end of his life, he owned four villages with vegetable gardens. Before his death, he compiled a spiritual, in which he listed over a dozen different kinds of people associated with him by entrepreneurial activities. From the list of debtors of Klimyata it is clear that he also gave out "poral silver", for which interest was charged in the form of an invoice. Klimyata's activity was such that he not only provided loans, but also took them. So, he bequeathed two villages to his creditors Danila and Voin in payment of a debt. Klimyata bequeathed all his fortune to the Novgorod Yuryev Monastery - a typical case for that time.

Novgorod the Great was one of the most characteristic merchant cities. Most of the population lived here by trade, and the merchant was considered the main figure about whom fairy tales and legends were formed. A typical example is the Novgorod epic about the merchant Sadko.

Novgorod merchants conducted their trade and fishing activities in artels, or companies, which were well-armed detachments. There were dozens of merchant artels in Novgorod, depending on the goods they traded, or the area where they went to trade. There were, for example, Pomeranian merchants who traded on the Baltic or White Seas, Nizov merchants who had business in the Suzdal region, and so on.

The most solid Novgorod merchants united in a commercial and industrial "association", then called "Ivanovo Sto", which had its center near the church of St. John the Baptist in Opoki. There was a public guest yard where merchants put their goods, and there was also a "gridnitsa" (large chamber), a kind of hall for business meetings. At the general meeting of "Ivanovo hundred" the merchants elected the headman, who managed the affairs of this "association", supervised the public cash desk and the execution of business documents.

Bargaining took place near the church, there were special scales, at which there were elected jurors who observed the correctness of weight and trade. For weighing, as well as for the sale of goods, a special fee was levied. In addition to large scales, there were also small scales near the church, which served to weigh precious metals, the ingots of which replaced coins.

The contradictions that arose between merchants and buyers were resolved in a special commercial court, the chairman of which was the thousand.

The merchants who were part of the "Ivanovo hundred" had great privileges. In case of financial difficulties, they were provided with a loan or even gratuitous assistance. During dangerous trading operations, it was possible to get an armed detachment for protection from Ivanovo Sto.

However, only a very wealthy merchant could join Ivanovo Sto. To do this, a large contribution had to be made to the cash desk of the "association" - 50 hryvnias - and, in addition, donated to the church of St. John in Opoki for almost 30 more hryvnias (with this money you could buy a herd of 80 oxen). But, having joined the "Ivanovo hundred", the merchant and his children (participation was hereditary) immediately occupied an honorary position in the city and received all the privileges associated with this.

Novgorod merchants carried on a great mutually beneficial trade with the Hanseatic League. Novgorod merchants bought and sold linen fabrics, dressed leather, high quality resin and wax, hops, timber, honey, furs, and bread to the Hanseatic people throughout Russia. From the Hanseatics, Novgorod merchants received wine, metals, salt, morocco, gloves, dyed yarn and various luxury items.

A highly developed system of merchant entrepreneurship, coupled with people's self-government, were the main conditions for the economic prosperity of Ancient Novgorod, which was repeatedly noted by foreign merchants and travelers.

In addition to "Ivanovo hundred" in Russian cities, there were other professional associations of merchants. In the XIV-XVI centuries. trade entrepreneurs who had shops in the city market (“rows”) united in self-governing organizations, whose members were called “ryadovichi”.

The riadovichi jointly owned the territory allotted for shops, had their own elected elders, and had special rights to sell their goods. Most often, their center was the patronal church (goods were stored in its cellars), often they were also given even judicial functions. The property status of the merchants was unequal. The richest were the "guests-surozhans" - merchants who traded with Surozh and other cities of the Black Sea region. Wealthy were also merchants of the cloth row - "cloth workers", who traded cloth imported from the West. In Moscow, the church of St. John Chrysostom was the patronal church of the "Guests-Surozhians". Belonging to the corporation of Moscow guests was furnished with approximately the same rules as in the Novgorod "Ivanovo Sto". The position in this corporation was also hereditary. The guests led the merchant caravans going to the Crimea.

Already in the XV century. Russian merchants trade with Persia and India. The Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin visits India in 1469 and, in fact, opens it for Russia.

In the era of Ivan the Terrible, the energetic activity of the merchants Stroganovs became a symbol of the Russian merchants, through the efforts of which the active development of the Urals and Siberia by the Russians began. Kielburger, who visited Moscow during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich as part of the Swedish embassy, ​​noted that all Muscovites "from the most noble to the simplest love merchants, which is due to the fact that there are more trading shops in Moscow than in Amsterdam or at least another whole principality".

Some cities looked like colorful trade fairs. The wide development of trade was noted in earlier times. Foreigners who visited Moscow in the 15th century pay special attention to the abundance of edible marketable products, which testified to the broad development of commodity relations among the peasants, and by no means to the dominance of subsistence farming.

According to the description of the Venetian Josaphat Barbaro, “in winter they bring to Moscow so many bulls, pigs and other animals, completely skinned and frozen, that you can buy up to two hundred pieces at a time ... Abundance in bread and meat is so great here that they sell beef not by weight, but by eye." Another Venetian, Ambrose Contarini, also testifies that Moscow "abounds in all kinds of bread" and "subsistence supplies are cheap in it." Contarini says that every year at the end of October, when the Moscow River is covered with strong ice, merchants set up "their shops with various goods" on this ice and, having thus arranged a whole market, almost completely stop their trade in the city. Merchants and peasants "every day, throughout the winter, bring bread, meat, pigs, firewood, hay and other necessary supplies" to the market located on the Moscow River. At the end of November, usually "all the local residents kill their cows and pigs and take them to the city for sale ... It's nice to look at this huge amount of frozen cattle, completely skinned and standing on the ice on their hind legs."

Handicrafts were traded in shops, markets and workshops. Already in ancient times, a number of cheap mass goods made by urban artisans (beads, glass bracelets, crosses, whorls) were distributed by peddler merchants throughout the country.

Russian merchants carried on extensive trade with other countries. Their trips to Lithuania, Persia, Khiva, Bukhara, Crimea, Kafa, Azov and others are known. The subject of trade was not only raw materials and products of extractive industries exported from Russia (furs, timber, wax), but also products of Russian artisans (yufti, single rows, fur coats, canvases, saddles, arrows, saadaks, knives, dishes, etc.). In 1493 Mengli-Giray asks Ivan III to send him 20,000 arrows. Crimean princes and princes turned to Moscow with a request to send shells and other armor. Later, in the 17th century, a huge trade in Russian goods went through Arkhangelsk - in 1653 the amount of export through the city's port abroad amounted to over 17 million rubles. gold (in prices of the beginning of the 20th century).

The scale of Russian trade amazed foreigners who visited our country. “Russia,” the Frenchman Margeret wrote at the very beginning of the 17th century, “is a very rich country, since money is not exported from it at all, but they are imported there annually in large quantities, since they make all payments in goods that they have in abundance, namely: a variety of furs, wax, lard, cow and horse skin.Other skins dyed red, linen, hemp, all kinds of ropes, caviar, i.e. salted fish caviar, they export in large quantities to Italy, then salted salmon, a lot of fish oil and other goods.As for bread, although there is a lot of it, they do not risk taking it out of the country towards Livonia.Besides, they have a lot of potash, linseed, yarn and other goods that they exchange or they sell without buying foreign goods with cash, and even the emperor ... orders to pay with bread or wax.

In the 17th century in Moscow, the trading, merchant class is distinguished from the category of taxable people into a special group of city, or townspeople, people, which, in turn, is divided into guests, living room and cloth hundreds and settlements. The highest and most honorable place belonged to the guests (there were no more than 30 of them in the 15th century).

The title of a guest was received by the largest entrepreneurs, with a trade turnover of at least 20 thousand a year - a huge amount for those times. All of them were close to the king, free from paying duties paid by merchants of a lower rank, occupied the highest financial positions, and also had the right to buy estates into their possession.

Members of the drawing room and cloth shop (in the 17th century there were about 400 of them) also enjoyed great privileges, occupied a prominent place in the financial hierarchy, but were inferior to the guests in "honor". Living rooms and cloth hundreds had self-government, their common affairs were managed by elected heads and foremen.

The lowest rank of the merchant class was represented by the inhabitants of the Black Hundreds and settlements. These were predominantly handicraft self-governing organizations that themselves produced goods, which they then sold. This category, relatively speaking, of non-professional merchants was in strong competition with professional merchants of the highest ranks, since the "black hundreds", trading in their own products, could sell them cheaper.

In large cities, townspeople who had the right to trade were divided into the best, middle and young. The sphere of activity of Russian merchants of the XVII century. was wide, reflecting the entire geography of the economic development of Russia. Six main trade routes originated from Moscow - Belomorsky (Vologda), Novgorod, Volga, Siberian, Smolensk and Ukrainian.

The Belomorsky (Vologda) route went through Vologda along the Sukhona and the Northern Dvina to Arkhangelsk (formerly to Kholmogory) and the White Sea, and from there to foreign countries. Famous centers of Russian entrepreneurship gravitated towards this path: Veliky Ustyug, Totma, Solchevygodsk, Yarensk, Ust-Sysolsk, which gave Russia thousands of merchants.

All R. 16th century Russian entrepreneurs received the right to trade duty-free with England (it went along the White Sea route), they had several buildings in London for their needs. Russians brought furs, flax, hemp, beef lard, yuft, blubber, resin, tar to England, and received fabrics, sugar, paper, and luxury goods.

The most important transshipment center on this route was Vologda, where goods were brought from Moscow, Yaroslavl, Kostroma and other cities throughout the winter, and then they were sent by water to Arkhangelsk, from where, in turn, goods arrived in autumn to be sent to Moscow by sledge.

The Novgorod (Baltic) trade route went from Moscow to Tver, Torzhok, Vyshny Volochek, Valdai, Pskov, then to the Baltic Sea. Russian flax, hemp, lard, leather and red yuft went this way to Germany. The Volga route passed along the Moscow River, Oka and Volga, and then through the Caspian Sea to Persia, Khiva and Bukhara.

The main business center along this path was Nizhny Novgorod, with the Makarievskaya fair located next to it. The way from Nizhny Novgorod to Astrakhan was overcome by Russian merchants in about a month. They went in caravans of 500 or more ships with a large guard. And even such caravans were attacked from time to time. Merchants sailed and stopped in local business centers - Cheboksary, Sviyazhsk, Kazan, Samara, Saratov.

Trade with Khiva and Bukhara was carried out in the Karagan refuge, where merchant ships came from Astrakhan under guard, and local merchants with their goods came to meet them. The trade went on for about a month. After that, part of the Russian ships returned to Astrakhan, and the other went to Derbent and Baku, from where the merchants already reached Shamakhi by land and traded with the Persians.

The Siberian route went by water from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod and to Solikamsk. From Solikamsk, the merchants moved by drag to Verkhoturye, where there was a big bargain with the Voguls, and then again by water to Tobolsk, through Turinsk and Tyumen. Then the road went to Yeniseisk past Surgut, Narym. In Yeniseisk, a large guest yard was arranged.

From Yeniseisk, the path ran towards the Ilim prison along Tunguska and Ilim. Part of the merchants followed further, reaching Yakutsk and Okhotsk, penetrating even the Amur.

The main business center of Russia for trade with China was Nerchinsk, where a special guest house was built.

Furs and animal skins were the main goods that were bought or bartered on this way; iron, weapons, fabrics were brought from Central Russia to Siberia.

The Smolensk (Lithuanian) route went from Moscow through Smolensk to Poland, but due to constant wars, this route was relatively little used for wide trade. Moreover, Polish and Jewish merchants who had a bad reputation were very reluctantly welcomed in Moscow, and Russian merchants avoided relations with merchants in shtetl Poland.

The steppe Little Russian (Crimean) path ran through the Ryazan, Tambov, Voronezh regions, went to the Don steppes, and from there to the Crimea. Lebedyan, Putivl, Yelets, Kozlov, Korotoyak, Ostrogozhsk, Belgorod, Valuyki were the main business centers that gravitated towards this path.

The wide scope of the main ways of trade and entrepreneurial activity clearly testified to the gigantic efforts invested in the economic development of the vast territory of Russia. In Ancient Russia, this activity was also associated with travel difficulties. By trading in certain goods, Russian merchants often took part in organizing their production, especially in the production of wax, lard, resin, tar, salt, yuft, leather, as well as the extraction and smelting of metals and the production of various products from them.

A Russian merchant from the townspeople of Yaroslavl, Grigory Leontievich Nikitnikov, conducted large-scale trade in European Russia, Siberia, Central Asia and Iran. But the basis of his wealth was the trade in Siberian furs. He built boats and ships carrying various goods, bread and salt. In 1614 he received the title of guest. From 1632 Nikitnikov invested in the salt industry. In the late 1630s, in the Solikamsk district, Nikitnikov owned 30 breweries, where, in addition to dependent people, more than 600 hired workers worked. Nikitnikov keeps a whole row of salt for sale in various cities located along the Volga and Oka and related rivers: in Vologda, Yaroslavl, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Kolomna, Moscow and Astrakhan.

For a long time, the center of Nikitnikov's trading activities was his native city of Yaroslavl with a vast courtyard that belonged to his ancestors. According to old descriptions, the estate of the merchant Nikitnikov turns into a real shopping center of Yaroslavl, becomes a nodal trading point, where the Volga and Eastern goods coming from Astrakhan crossed with Western goods brought from Arkhangelsk and Vologda. Here Nikitnikov built in 1613 a wooden church of the Nativity of the Virgin. Not far from the estate stood the famous Spassky Monastery, next to which there was a market. The salt and fish barns of the Nikitnikovs were located closer to the Kotorosl River. In 1622, Nikitnikov, by order of the tsar, moved to Moscow, and his shopping center also moved there. In Kitay-Gorod, Nikitnikov builds rich chambers and the most beautiful Trinity Church in Nikitniki (it has survived to this day). On Red Square, Nikitnikov acquires his own shops in the Cloth, Surozh, Hat and Silver rows. Nikitnikov builds large warehouses for wholesale trade. His house becomes a meeting place for wealthy merchants and deals. The names of major Moscow guests of the 17th century, who were in personal and family relationships with the host, are inscribed in the Synodicon of the Trinity Church.

The merchant Nikitnikov became famous not only for his business, but also for his social and patriotic activities. In n. 17th century he is a young zemstvo headman, his signature is on the lists of participants in the first and second zemstvo militias created in Yaroslavl to fight the Polish and Swedish invaders. Nikitnikov constantly participated in the performance of state elective services, represented at zemstvo councils, participated in the preparation of petitions to the tsar from guests and merchants who sought to protect the interests of Russian trade and limit the privileges of foreign merchants. He was bold and self-confident, thrifty and accurate in payments, did not like to owe, but did not like to lend, although he had to lend quite often, even to the tsar himself, who rewarded him with silver ladles and expensive damask. Life researcher Grigory Nikitnikov testifies to him as "a businesslike and practical man, of a deep penetrating mind, strong memory and will, with a tough decisive character and great life experience. Through all his instructions, the requirement to preserve the family and economic order as it was with him. The same businesslike tone sounds in orders to maintain splendor in the churches he built and in the order for accurate contributions to the treasury for salt pans.

Nikitnikov bequeathed all his capital not to be split up, but transferred to the joint and indivisible possession of two grandchildren: "... both my grandson Boris and my grandson Grigory live in the council and work together, and which of them will live furiously and money and others he will distribute his belongings to his relatives and outsiders, alone without the advice of his brother, and he is deprived of my blessing and order, he does not care about my house and belongings. Dying (in 1651), the merchant Nikitnikov bequeathed: "... and decorate the church of God with all sorts of charms, and incense, and candles, and church wine, and give a friend to the priest and other churchmen together, so that the church of God without singing would not be and not for what it didn’t become, as it was with me, George. In addition to his Moscow church, he asked to take care of the churches he built in Salt Kama and Yaroslavl.

One of the characteristic entrepreneurs of the XVII century. was a merchant Gavrila Romanovich Nikitin, by origin from the black-eared peasants of the Russian Pomorie. Nikitin began his trading activities as a clerk of the guest O.I. Filatiev. In 1679 he became a member of the living room hundreds of Moscow, and in 1681 received the title of guest. After the death of the brothers, Nikitin concentrated in his hands a large trade, doing business with Siberia and China, his capital in 1697 amounted to a huge amount for those times - 20 thousand rubles. Like other merchants, Nikitin is building his own church.

In the 17th century a church is being built in Moscow, which has become a shrine for the merchants of all Russia. This is Nikola the Great Cross, erected in 1680 by the Arkhangelsk guests Filatiev. The church was one of the most beautiful in Moscow, and indeed in all of Russia. It was blown up in the 1930s.

Russian merchants who traded with foreign countries offered them not only raw materials, but also products of high technology for those times, in particular metal devices. So, in the inventory of one of the Czech monasteries under 1394, "three iron castles, colloquially called Russian" are documented. In Bohemia, of course, there were quite a few of their famous metal craftsmen from the richest Ore Mountains and the Sudetenland. But, obviously, the products of Russian industry were no worse if they enjoyed fame and success so far abroad. This is a message from the 14th century. confirmed by later sources. So, from "Memory, how to sell Russian goods in the Germans", known from the text of the "Trade Book" of 1570-1610, it is clear that the sale of the Russian "way" and other metal products "in the Germans" was a common thing in the 16th-17th centuries . They also traded weapons. For example, in 1646 600 cannons were taken to Holland.

Talking about the famous Russian merchants of the 17th century, one cannot fail to mention the Bosov brothers, as well as the guests Nadia Sveteshnikov and the Guryevs. The Bosovs traded with Arkhangelsk and Yaroslavl, bought goods in the local markets of Primorye, also bought villages in order to get a large amount of bread for sale, engaged in usury, but Siberian trade was the basis of their enterprise. Bosovs sent carts of 50-70 horses to Siberia, loaded with both foreign goods and Russian homespun cloth, canvas, and iron products. They exported furs from Siberia. So, in 1649-50, 169 magpies and 7 sables (6,767 skins) were exported; purchased in large quantities and other furs. In the service of the Bosovs there were 25 clerks. They organized their own gangs in Siberia, i.e. industrial expeditions to places rich in sable, and also acquired them from local residents and from service people who collected yasak in Siberia. The sale of foreign and Russian products in Siberia also gave a high profit.

The richest merchants carried the state financial service as guests, which gave them a number of advantages and provided ample opportunities for further enrichment. Nadia Sveteshnikova and Gurieva's methods of creating enterprises also had the character of "initial accumulation". Sveteshnikov came from the Yaroslavl townspeople. Services to the new Romanov dynasty brought him an award to visit. He ran large fur trading operations, owned villages with peasants, but also invested in the salt industry. His wealth was estimated in ser. 17th century at 35.5 thousand rubles. (i.e. about 500 thousand rubles for gold money of the beginning of the 20th century). This is an example of large commercial capital and its development into industrial capital. Land grants were of paramount importance for the enrichment of Sveteshnikov and the development of his enterprises. In 1631, he was given huge land holdings along both banks of the Volga and along the Usa River to the later Stavropol. Here Sveteshnikov put 10 varnits. By 1660, there were 112 peasant households in Nadein Usolye. Along with hired people, he used the labor of serfs. Sveteshnikov built a fortress to protect against nomads, started a brick factory.

The Guryevs also came from the rich elite of the Yaroslavl Posad. In 1640, they started fishing at the mouth of the Yaik River, set up a wooden prison here, then replaced it with a stone fortress (the city of Guryev).

The development of entrepreneurship in Russia was largely successive. A study of the merchant families of the Upper Volga region, conducted by the researcher A. Demkin, showed that 43% of all merchant families were engaged in merchant activity from 100 to 200 years, and almost a quarter - 200 years or more. Three quarters of merchant families, numbering less than 100 years, arose in the middle - 2nd floor. 18th century and continued until the end of the century. All these surnames passed in the 19th century.

In 1785, Russian merchants receive a charter from Catherine II, which greatly elevated their position. According to this charter, all merchants were divided into three guilds.

The first guild included merchants who owned a capital of at least 10 thousand rubles. They received the right to wholesale trade in Russia and abroad, as well as the right to start factories and plants. Merchants with capital from 5 to 10 thousand rubles belonged to the second guild. They received the right to wholesale and retail trade in Russia. The third guild consisted of merchants with a capital of 1 to 5 thousand rubles. This category of merchants had the right only to retail trade. Merchants of all guilds were exempted from the poll tax (instead of it, they paid 1% of the declared capital), as well as from personal recruitment duty.

In addition to merchants of various guilds, the concept of "eminent citizen" was introduced. In status, he was higher than the merchant of the first guild, because he had to have a capital of at least 100 thousand rubles. "Eminent citizens" received the right to have country dachas, gardens, plants and factories.

A significant part of the Russian intelligentsia of the XVIII-XIX centuries. she did not like the Russian merchants, she despised them, abhorred them. She represented the merchants as inveterate rogues and swindlers, dishonest, greedy like a wolf. With her light hand, a myth about the dirty and vile "Tit Titychi" is created in society, which had nothing to do with reality. “If the trading estate both in the former Muscovy and in recent Russia,” noted P.A. Buryshkin, “would actually be a collection of rogues and swindlers who have neither honor nor conscience, then how to explain the enormous successes that accompanied the development of the Russian national economy and the rise of the productive forces of the country.Russian industry was created not by government efforts and, with rare exceptions, not by the hands of the nobility.Russian factories were built and equipped by Russian merchants.Industry in Russia has gone out of trade.It is impossible to build a healthy business on unhealthy grounds. And if the results speak for themselves, the merchant class was in its mass healthy, and not so vicious."

“In Moscow’s unwritten merchant hierarchy,” wrote V.I. Ryabushinsky, “at the top of respect stood an industrialist-manufacturer, then a merchant-merchant walked, and at the bottom stood a man who gave money at interest, took into account bills, made capital work. they respected him very much, no matter how cheap his money was and no matter how decent he himself was.

The attitude towards this category of the first two was extremely negative, as a rule, they were not allowed on the threshold and, if possible, they tried to punish them in every possible way. Most of the businessmen of the third group came from the western and southern provinces of Russia.

Before the revolution, the title of a merchant was acquired by paying for a guild certificate. Until 1898, a guild certificate was mandatory for the right to trade. Later - optional and existed only for persons wishing to enjoy some of the benefits assigned to the merchant rank, or participate in estate management. Advantages: exemption from corporal punishment (very important for merchants of the peasant class), the right, under certain conditions, to receive the title of honorary and hereditary honorary citizen (granting the advantages of a merchant title without choice and a guild certificate), the opportunity to receive the title of commerce adviser (rank with the title of excellency), certain rights for the education of children, the right to participate in city self-government (regardless of the possession of immovable property), participation in class self-government. Class merchant self-government consisted in the management of merchant charitable institutions, the distribution of certain fees, the management of merchant capital, banks, cash desks, the election of officials (merchant elders, merchant foremen, merchant councils, members of the orphan's court from the merchant class).

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