Astrakhan-northern Caucasus gubernia population was not subject to direct taxes.
The few state peasants there paid poll tax and quitrent. Similarly, in Astrakhan
Russian townsmen paid poll tax and quitrent and provided the full panoply of
urban services, such as selling vodka and salt, being book-keepers in state interests,
carrying out night watch. Non-Russians in Astrakhan—Tatars, Armenians,
Indians, etc.—meanwhile paid a variety of fees in lieu of city taxes and services.
The state had tremendous challenges in taxation policy for the dynamic new area
of the Black Sea Steppe. As John LeDonne details, in 1764 a statute for New Russia
divided it into 70 districts: 52 for military settlers, 2 for townsmen, 16 for
foreigners, Old Believers, and Russian immigrants, most of them with different
taxation statuses. Military settlers paid no personal taxes; state peasants and serfs did
not pay the poll tax but paid by unit of land, at a rate for serfs half that of state
peasants. These provisions lasted till 1796, except that non-military settlers had to
provide recruits after 1776. Foreign immigrants, such as Greeks, Armenians,
Wallachians, or Germans in Volga colonies, enjoyed tax exemptions of up to thirty
years. The native Crimean Tatar population paid no personal taxes. Where there
was sufficient surplus grain andfirewood for distilling, vodka was made and sold by
nobles, settlers, and Cossacks, while tax farmers and the sale of vodka (generally
imported from Poland) in state taverns provided state income.
The Ukrainian-speaking lands were similarly diverse infiscal and other categor-
ies. When Sloboda Ukraine was turned into a gubernia in 1764, a census estab-
lished taxation rates and privileges according to status. Cossacks did not pay direct
taxes and had rights to brew and sell vodka; various rates were set for lesser social
groups, but not the empire-wide poll tax or quitrent. Similarly, the Left Bank
Hetmanate maintained its ownfiscal exactions; serfs, state and church peasants, and
townsmen paid a quitrent of one ruble, not raised with quitrent hikes in 1760 and
- In May 1783 Ukrainian peasants in Left Bank and Sloboda Ukraine were
enserfed when recruitment, the poll tax, and local registration were introduced.
Rates were the same as in Russia: poll tax for peasants was set at 70 kopecks;
Cossacks and townspeople paid 1 ruble 20 kop. Lower quitrent rates (1 ruble) were
imposed.
At thefirst partition in 1772 in the Grand Duchy lands Russia introducedfiscal
uniformity cautiously. A census was carried out and the poll tax introduced on serfs,
but only 60 kopecks. Jews paid a poll tax of 1 ruble and townsmen of 1.20. Landed
Polish and Ukrainian nobility and townsmen kept their privileges of distilling and
selling vodka, for minor fees. This situation lasted until the May 1783 decree that
imposed, as in the Left Bank, Russia’s 70 kopeck poll tax and a modest quitrent of 1
ruble for court and state peasants. In the towns, meanwhile, according to the 1775
reform, merchants paid tax on declared capital (1 percent) and townsmen paid a
1.20 poll tax; Jews were taxed as members of one of those groups. In 1795 after the
third partition, Jews across the western borderlands and Crimea were forced to pay
a double poll tax if they were shopkeepers and a double tax on capital for
merchants.
In the Baltic lands, peasants, whether serfs or free, paid taxes according to unit of
land, based on Swedish standards and record books dating to the seventeenth
Fiscal Policy and Trade 331