Russia under the Old regime

1. The Black Earth Belt

Finally, the waterways. Russia's rivers run in a north-south direction; none of the major rivers runs east-west. However, the lateral branches of the great rivers do just that; and because Russia is flat (no point in its European part exceeds 1,400 feet) and its rivers originate not in moun- tains but in swamps and lakes formed by swamps they have gentle gradients. As a result, Russia possesses a unique network of navigable waterways, composed of large rivers and their numerous branches linked with one another by means of easy portages. Even with primitive modes of transport it is possible to navigate across Russia from the Baltic to the Caspian seas, and to reach by water a high proportion of the land lying in between. In Siberia, the water network happens to be so excellently meshed that in the seventeenth century Russian fur trappers succeeded in traversing in a very short time thousands of miles to the Pacific and inaugurating regular commerce between Siberia and the home country by means of river transport. Were it not for these waterways, life in Russia would have been hardly feasible above the mere subsistence level until the advent of railways. The distances are so great and the costs of maintaining roads under the prevailing extremes of temperature so high that land transport was practicable only in the winter, when snow provided a smooth surface for sleighs. This fact accounts for the great reliance of Russians on water transport. Until the second half of the nineteenth century the bulk of merchandise moved on boats and barges.

Like the other Slavs, the ancient Russians were primarily a pastoral people; and like them, upon settling down in their new territories, they slowly made the transition to agriculture. Unfortunately for them, the area which the Eastern Slavs penetrated and colonized happens to be uniquely ill suited for farming. The indigenous Finns and Turks treated farming as a supplementary occupation, concentrating in the forest zone on hunting and fishing, and in the steppe on livestock breeding. The Russians chose otherwise. Their heavy reliance on farming under adverse natural conditions was one of the constant problems underlying Russian history.

Some of these difficulties have been alluded to already: the indifferent quality of the soil in the north, and the vagaries of the rainfall, which is heaviest where it does the least good, and has a tendency to come down too late in the agricultural season. The peculiar topographical and seasonal distribution of the rainfall is a major reason why, over the course of its recorded history, Russia has averaged one bad harvest out of every three.

But the gravest and least soluble problems derive from the extreme northern location of the country. Together with Canada, Russia is the northernmost state in the world. It is true that modern Russia controls large territories with semi-tropical climates (the Crimea, the Caucasus and Turkestan), but these were acquired late, mostly in the mid-nineteenth century, in the course of imperial expansion. The cradle of the Russian state, that which Brandenburg is to Germany or the lie is to