Russia under the Old regime

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possessions in general; from this same root derives tovarishch which origii-ally denoted a business partner and tovarishchestvo, meaning a busines company. Pai, the Russian word for share or security, is likewise if Tatar origin. Chemodan (suitcase), sunduk (trunk or chest) and torba (ba|) are of Mongol-Tatar derivation, as are the terms for many articles if clothing, such as karman (pocket), shtany (trousers) and shapka (cap), aid for the means of communication and transport (e.g. iamshchik or postilion, telega and tarantass both denoting kinds of carts in which goods wee carried). Kniga (book) derives from the Chinese kiien (scroll) by way if the Turko-Tatar Kuinig.11 Such etymologies acquire special significanc when one considers that there is virtually no trace of Mongol or Turki-Tatar influence in the vocabulary of Russian agriculture.

Russian trade remained oriented towards the east even after tie Golden Horde had dissolved and Moscow entered into regular comme-cial relations with western Europe. The conquest in the 1550s of Kazai and Astrakhan, both of them important entrepots of oriental and Midde Eastern goods, increased Russian involvement with eastern market. Until the eighteenth century, Russia's foreign trade was directed prin-arily towards the Middle East, especially Iran; of the three bazaars ii Moscow in the second half of the seventeenth century, one dealt exch-sively with Persian merchandise. Through Armenian, Tatar, Bukhara!, Chinese and Indian intermediaries, commercial contacts were maii-tained also with other parts of Asia. The Russians sold abroad rav materials and semi-finished products (e.g. furs and leather) and importd weapons and luxury articles.

The long tradition of Levantine trade made a deep and lasting impression on the Russian merchant class, which was not erased by subsequeit relations with the west. The point is that in Asia the Russians trade! more or less directly and on equal terms, whereas in the west, whec they faced a highly sophisticated market, they had to rely on foreigi intermediaries. Russian merchants almost never ventured on business to western Europe - it was westerners who came to Russia to buy and sel, Because of its eastern contacts, the merchant class became the mail carrier of Levantine influences in Russia, much as the service class (afte Peter the Great) transmitted western influences, the clergy Greet Byzantine, and the peasantry remained loyal to native Slavic culture.

The oriental background of the Muscovite merchant class was mot in evidence in his appearance and domestic habits.* Clothed in sump tuous caftans cut from imported brocades, with their tall, fur-fringel hats and high boots with pointed toes, the gosti resemble! wealthy Persians. Merchant wives painted their faces in exoti

* Because the boyars were also actively engaged in trade, these remarks in some measuc apply to them as well. white and red tints. As a rule, Muscovite ladies of quality were confined to a separate quarter, called terem (from the Greek teremnon). Even as late as the middle of the nineteenth century, merchant women never worked in their husbands' shops. During the eighteenth century, the boyars and dvoriane succumbed to westernization, and by the beginning of the nineteenth they shed all traces of oriental legacy, except perhaps for a love for ostentation. The merchant class proved more conservative in this respect, and retained until the turn of the present century a characteristic eastern appearance: a beard (now usually trimmed), a long, blue coat adapted from the kaftan and usually buttoned on the left side, tall hat, baggy trousers and boots.

The oriental influence was also very much in evidence in the Russian manner of keeping shop. Following Mongol practices, the Muscovite government collected an ad valorem tax (tamga) on all goods in commerce. The collection of this tax required shops to be concentrated. The government allowed trade to be carried out only in designated marketplaces where officials or private persons to whom the collection of the tax had been farmed out could supervise it. Local merchants set up their rows (riady) of stalls, arranged by specialties, while out of town and foreign merchants had to display their wares at the gostinyi dvor, a typical oriental combination of shelter for men and animals and bazaar, of which every town had at least one. The value of the goods which each shop carried was minimal. Many of the shopkeepers - and in the principal towns and posady most of them - were also the producers of the goods offered for sale. Unlike western shopkeepers, the Muscovites did not reside at their place of business. Consisting of low upon row of tiny stalls arranged by speciality, Muscovite trade centres were a type of suq such as one can see to this day in any Middle Eastern city. The gostinyi dvor serving travelling merchants was a variant of the karavansarai or khan; like them it was located in the midst of the market-place and provided shelter but no food or bedding. As late as the middle of the nineteenth century a traveller in the provinces of Russia had to carry his own provisions and bedding because except for a few hotels in Moscow and St Petersburg, run by westerners for westerners, Russian inns provided neither.

The business mentality of the Russian merchant retained a strong Levantine stamp. We find here little of the capitalist ethic with its stress on honesty, industry and thrift. The buyer and seller are seen as rivals pitted in a contest of wits; every transaction is a separate event in which each party tries to take all. The dishonesty of the Russian merchant was notorious. It is repeatedly stressed not only by foreign travellers, whom one might suspect of prejudice, but also by native writers, including Ivan Pososhkov, Russia's first economic theorist and an ardent patriot.