Russia under the Old regime

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by the crown were westerners. In 1553 an English ship in search of a northern passage to China touched Russian soil not far from what later became the port city of Archangel. Its crew was escorted to Moscow where Ivan iv greeted them warmly, and offered them privileges if they would open a regular trade route between the two countries. Two years later, the Muscovy Company was formed in London for this purpose, the first of the great chartered companies of merchant adventurers. It obtained from Ivan iv the exclusive right to the northern route which its members had discovered, exemptions from tariffs and taxes, and the right to maintain in several cities its own warehouses. Although forbidden to carry on retail business, the Company did so anyway, employing for the purpose Russian front men. Later on, somewhat less generous privileges were granted to the Dutch, Swedes, Germans and other westerners. The Muscovite elite strenuously opposed the crown's policies favouring foreigners, but it could do little about them because the crown derived great profit from trade in western merchandise.

The Muscovite state made its presence felt in trade and manufacture in such an overpowering manner that even without additional evidence it should be apparent how difficult were the conditions under which the ordinary Muscovite merchant had to operate. He was barred by the crown more or less permanently from trading in the most lucrative commodities. As soon as he discovered on his own some new line of business, the crown was certain to take it away from him by declaring it a state monopoly. Gosti, members of the merchant sotni, and foreigners, all of them trading tax free, offered unfair competition. Manufacturing and mining, for which he had neither capital nor the know-how, were controlled by the crown and its foreign managers. The trading and artisan class therefore had left to itself nothing but scraps from the table of the tsar and his servitors; and even this little, as we shall see, it was not allowed to enjoy in peace. To a western reader, the words 'trade and industry' used in a pre-modern context automatically evoke the image of the city; protective walls within which the commercial and manufacturing classes go about their affairs free and secure from arbitrary authority. In dealing with Russia, it is well at once to divest oneself of such associations. There, the centre of trade and manufacture lay not in the city but in the countryside; the commercial and industrial classes did not constitute the bulk of the urban population; and residence in the city guaranteed neither security nor freedom, even in the limited sense in which these terms were applicable to Russia.

Max Weber noted that in its fully matured form the city was five things: 1. a fortress with a military garrison, 2. a market-place, 3. the