for local needs—small ironware, cutlery, leather goods, furniture. Now a rough
division of labor and trade developed: the fertile south expanded export-oriented
agriculture (particularly after 1774 when Russia secured Black Sea navigation from
the Ottoman empire), while peasants in the northwest, north, and center turned to
artisan work and production for the market. Often landlords organized whole
villages around a single mode of manufacture (textiles, metal working). Households
individually or working as a commune engaged in milling grain, brewing beer,
producing cheese, butter, and tallow for soap and candles, weaving linen, canvas,
and wool.
Production for trade spawned migration: peasants in the central non-black earth
areas and northwest often moved seasonally for industry or urban jobs (cab drivers,
domestic service). Landlords and communes provided passports and took a cut of
the wages. Nobles rented out their serfs for hired labor to other manufactories. In
Catherine’s time nobles as a group became dominant over merchants in manufac-
turing, aided by their monopoly over distilling and peasant labor, their ability to
trade in serf labor, and their greater access to court favors and subsidies. But Kahan
notes that, deprived of serf labor, entrepreneurial merchants probably benefited
from being forced to develop a more productive, free labor force from the increas-
ingly dynamic populace, laying ground for future economic change.
MARKETS, TRADE, AND PORTS
The eighteenth century witnessed the development of regional trade networks and
expanded export trade, if not a fully“national”market. Despite canal and road
construction, particularly focused on St. Petersburg but also spanning Siberia and
crossing European Russia, communication infrastructure was still insufficient to
knit the empire into a single zone of pricing and supply. Rather, the empire had
severalflourishing trade regions, structured around arteries for transit and export
trade, integrated regionally by fairs, bazaars, and small towns interlinked with a
large urban center. Weekly bazaars on afixed day in towns and rural centers were
the lowest level of this trade system; here all manner of goods were exchanged.
Larger transfers of goods were done in fairs that took place annually for anywhere
from three to seven days; here wholesalers bought local goods and sold imports and
manufactured goods. The number of fairs grew steadily across the century from
about 625 in the 1750s to over 4,000 in the 1790s; the fastest growth was in the
central non-black earth area where manufacturing was expanding. Noblemen edged
into this activity after their emancipation from service in 1762: in 1760 36 percent
of all fairs took place in villages owned by noblemen and by 1800 a full 51 percent
did. Itinerant peddlers provided exchange, while the shopping“rows”of towns
continued to serve urban dwellers and merchants (Figure 15.1).
Effectively situated towns and ports define the empire’s vibrant economic
regions in this century. The node of empire-wide trade markets remained Moscow.
With its central location, radial transport network, and surrounding manufacturing
region, Moscow hosted the exchange of goods from the heartland and imported
Fiscal Policy and Trade 321