"in the Khanate of Khiva from the 17th to the 19th century. At the beginning of the 21st century Chechens and Ingush kept Russian captives as slaves or in slave-like conditions in the mountains of the northern Caucasus. Recent (2009–2012) reports have identified human trafficking and slavery of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan nationals in contemporary Russian society. Slavery in Russia Slavery in Russia was officially abolished in 1723, when Peter the Great converted household slaves to serfs. In 2013, Global Slavery Index reported that unsatisfactory living conditions of migrant workers who for a number of reasons can not obtain work permits"
"that had developed in Russia in the 16th century, and had become enshrined by law in 1649, was abolished in 1861. The household servants or dependents attached to the personal service were merely set free, while the landed peasants received their houses and orchards, and allotments of arable land. These allotments were given over to the rural commune, the ""mir"", which was made responsible for the payment of taxes for the allotments. For these allotments the peasants had to pay a fixed rent, which could be fulfilled by personal labour. The allotments could be redeemed by peasants with the help"
"several volosts that were subordinated to the uyezd city. After the abolition of Russian serfdom in 1861, ""volost"" became a unit of peasant's local self-rule. A number of mirs are united into a volost, which has an assembly consisting of elected delegates from the mirs. These elect an elder (""starshina"") and, hitherto, a court of justice (""volostnoy sud""). The self-government of the mirs and volosts was, however, tempered by the authority of the police commissaries (""stanovoi"") and by the power of general oversight given to the nominated ""district committees for the affairs of the peasants"". Volosts were abolished by the"
"were annulled on November 11 (24), 1917, by the decree ""On abolition of social estates and civil ranks"" of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. Merchants of the 1st guild were allowed domestic and international trade, owning factories and plants, river and sea vessels. They were privileged to ride in a coach drawn by a pair of horses. Merchants of the 1st guild were allowed being city mayors and bank directors. Since 1863 the 1st guild implied international and wholesale trade. The merchants of the 1st guild were allowed to carry swords and sabres and wear the formal attire of the"
"serfs had become impossible to ignore any longer if Russia was to be reformed and modernised. In 1861, Tsar Alexander II abolished serfdom in Russia proper. The tsar also wanted to emancipate the serfs of Georgia, but without losing the recently earned loyalty of the nobility whose power and income depended on serf labour. This called for delicate negotiations and the task of finding a solution that would be acceptable to the land-owners was entrusted to the liberal noble Dimitri Kipiani. On 13 October 1865, the tsar decreed the emancipation of the first serfs in Georgia. The process of abolition"
"that existed before in Russia, the estate privileges and restrictions, the estate organizations and institutions, as well as all civil ranks are abolished. <br> 2. Any titles (nobleman, merchant, tradesman, peasant, etc., princely, county titles, etc.) and the name of civilian officials (secret, state and other advisers) are destroyed and one common name for the entire Russian population is established — citizens of the Russian Republic. According to article 3 of the decree, the property of the noble-class institutions, merchant and petty-bourgeois societies was transferred to the respective local and city governments. Decree Abolishing Classes and Civil Ranks abolished estates"
"Bezdna unrest 1861 Bezdna unrest or Bezdna peasant revolt (, ) was an unrest of former serfs after the Emancipation reform of 1861 in Russia in April 1861. The events took place in the Spassky Uyezd of Kazan Governorate and the center of unrest was a village of Biznä (Tatar Cyrillic: Бизнә, Russian: Бездна). With the Emancipation Reform of 1861 in Russia, Tsar Alexander II and the Russian autocracy put several new alterations into place to help advance Russia past its old traditions of bonded labor and into a more enlightened age similar to the other European nations. But for"
"(the average for the Russian Empire was 34% above the market price). All land taken from Polish peasants since 1864 was to be returned without compensation rights. Former serfs could only sell land to other peasants, not to ""szlachta"". 90% of the ex-serfs in the empire who actually gained land after 1861 were confined to the 8 western provinces. Along with Romania, Polish landless or domestic serfs were the only people eligible for land grants after serfdom was abolished. All this was to punish the szlachta's role in the uprisings of 1830 and 1863. In addition to the land granted"
"the output of the Polish Partition was exported to Russia proper, especially after the border between Congress Poland and Russia was abolished in 1851. The emancipation reform of 1861 was a major step towards industrialization and urbanization. Particularly, the last three or four decades before World War I saw significant economic development and urbanization. However, in many areas of the economy, development stalled. The Russian Empire divided the former territories of the Commonwealth it obtained (""Rech Pospolitaya"" in Russian) by creating or enlarging the following guberniyas (Tsarist governorates, or provinces). After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Russian Empire"
"with minimal regulations and tariffs, thus a more ""laissez-faire"" economy. Soon after the reforms there was a substantial rise in the amount of production of grain for sale. Because of this there was also a rise in the number of hired laborers and in farm machinery. Furthermore, a significant measuring stick in the growth of the Russian economy post-reform was the huge growth in non-gentry private landownership. Although the gentry land-holdings fell from 80% to 50%, the peasant holdings grew from 5% all the way to 20%. Emancipation reform of 1861 The Emancipation Reform of 1861 in Russia ( -"
"szlachta's accrued sovereignty ended in 1795 with the final Partitions of Poland, and until 1918 their legal status was dependent on the policies of the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia or the Habsburg Monarchy. A project begun in the Golden Age of Poland was finally eclipsed, but arguably the memory of it has lingered in succeeding generations. In the 1840s Nicholas I reduced 64,000 szlachta to commoner status. Despite this, 62.8% of all Russia's nobles were Polish szlachta in 1858 and still 46.1% in 1897. Serfdom was abolished in Russian Poland on February 19, 1864. It was deliberately enacted"
"the Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, and Transcaucasian Soviet republics, each ruled by local Bolshevik parties. Despite the foundation of the Soviet state as a federative entity of many constituent republics, each with its own political and administrative entities, the term ""Soviet Russia""strictly applicable only to the Russian Federative Socialist Republicwas often applied to the entire country by non-Soviet writers and politicians. Modern revolutionary activity in the Russian Empire began with the Decembrist revolt of 1825. Although serfdom was abolished in 1861, it was done on terms unfavorable to the peasants and served to encourage revolutionaries. A parliament—the State Duma—was established in"
"tended to ameliorate the condition of the peasantry: the poll tax was abolished in 1886, a law was passed to accelerate legal transfer of the land allotted to the peasants in 1861, the payments due from them for this land were greatly reduced, Crown lands were made available for leasing or purchase to the peasants on advantageous terms, and great stretches of Crown lands in Eastern Russia and Siberia were opened for peasant emigration and resettlement. Labour legislation was first introduced in 1882 with the creation of the inspectorate of factories (in charge of health and life saving regulations), the"
"system and a lack of law enforcement meant that slave trade in some remote eastern Russian provinces survived until much later period. The official estimate is that 10.5 million Russians were privately owned, 9.5 million were in state ownership and another 900,000 serfs were under the Tsar's patronage () before the Great Emancipation of 1861. One particular source of indignation in Europe was ""Kolokol"" published in London, England (1857–65) and Geneva (1865–67). It collected many cases of horrendous physical, emotional and sexual abuse of the serfs by the landowners. Peter III created two measures in 1762 that influenced the abolition"
"Prohibition in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union Prohibition in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union existed during 1914–25. The Russian term is ""сухой закон"" (""sukhoy zakon"", literally ""dry law""). Prohibition as introduced in the Russian Empire in 1914 permitted the sale of hard liquor only in restaurants. It was introduced at the beginning of World War I under the premise that it would prevent the army from dealing with drunken soldiers. Other warring countries (e.g. the United Kingdom, France, and Germany) imposed certain restrictions on alcoholic drinks, but only Russia completely stopped the retail sale of vodka."
"Russian nihilist movement The Nihilist movement was a Russian movement in the 1860s which rejected all authorities. It is derived from the Latin ""nihil"", meaning ""nothing"". After the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, the Nihilists were known throughout Europe as proponents of the use of violence in order to bring about political change. Russian nihilism (rus. ""нигилизм"") can be divided into two periods. The foundational period (1860-1869) where the 'counter-cultural' aspects of nihilism scandalized Russia, and even the smallest of indiscretions resulted in nihilists being sent to Siberia or imprisoned for lengthy periods of time, and where the"
"to noble banks or to the state. The nobility was also weakened by the scattering of their estates, lack of primogeniture and the high turnover and mobility from estate to estate. After the peasant reform of 1861 the economic position of the nobility weakened. The influence of the nobility was further reduced by the new law statutes of 1864, which repealed their right of electing law officer. The reform of the police in 1862 limited the landowners' authority locally, and the establishment of all-estate Zemstvo local government did away with exclusive influence of nobility in local self-government. These changes occurred"
"of Balaclava, which saw the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade. This scrutiny later led to the abolition of the sale of commissions. The Crimean War was a contributing factor in the Russian abolition of serfdom in 1861: Tsar Alexander II (Nicholas I's son and successor) saw the military defeat of the Russian serf-army by free troops from Britain and France as proof of the need for emancipation. The Crimean War also led to the realisation by the Russian government of its technological inferiority, in military practices as well as weapons. Meanwhile, Russian military medicine saw dramatic progress: N. I."
"legal scholars as the Soviet Union itself was not constitutionally succeeded by the Russian Federation, but merely dissolved. Others argued that the international community had already established the precedent of recognizing the Soviet Union as the legal successor of the Russian Empire, and so recognizing the Russian Federation as the Soviet Union's successor state was valid. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev announced his resignation as Soviet president. The red hammer and sickle flag of the Soviet Union was lowered from the Senate building in the Kremlin and replaced with the tricolor flag of Russia. The next day, 26 December 1991,"
"document in its modern meaning is dated by the decree of Empress Elizabeth of 8 June 1751, which regulated the ownership of vodka distilleries. By the 1860s, due to the government policy of promoting consumption of state-manufactured vodka, it became the drink of choice for many Russians. In 1863, the government monopoly on vodka production was repealed, causing prices to plummet and making vodka available even to low-income citizens. The taxes on vodka became a key element of government finances in Tsarist Russia, providing at times up to 40% of state revenue. By 1911, vodka comprised 89% of all alcohol"
"Russian Revolutions of 1917. After 74 years, the party was dissolved on 29 August 1991 on Soviet territory, soon after a failed coup d'état by hard-line CPSU leaders against Soviet president and party general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, and was completely outlawed three months later on 6 November 1991 in Russian territory. The CPSU was a Communist party, organized on the basis of democratic centralism. This principle, conceived by Lenin, entails democratic and open discussion of policy issues within the party followed by the requirement of total unity in upholding the agreed policies. The highest body within the CPSU was the"
"would continue for almost a century, although serfdom would be officially abolished in 1861. Though defeated, the Decembrists did effect some change on the regime. Their dissatisfaction forced Nicholas to turn his attention inward to address the issues of the empire. In 1826, Speransky was appointed by Nicholas I to head the ""Second Section"" of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery, a committee formed to codify Russian law. Under his leadership, the committee produced a publication of the complete collection of laws of the Russian Empire, containing 35,993 enactments. This codification called the ""Full Collection of Laws"" (""Polnoye Sobraniye Zakonov"") was"
"rank was not officially canceled. For the last 35 years, since the death of Gorchakov, the Russian Empire still appointed no Chancellors. The rank was abolished in 1917 by the Soviet decree on estates and civil ranks. Chancellor (Russia) Chancellor of the Russian Empire was a civil position (class) in the Russian Empire, according to the Table of Ranks introduced by Peter the Great in 1722. Chancellor was a civil rank of the 1st class and equal to those of Active Privy Councillor, 1st class, General Field Marshal in the Army, and General Admiral in the Navy. The rank holder"
"Russia was invaded by France in 1812 but emerged as a more powerful superpower afterwards. Nonetheless industrialization did not come to Russia until the 1870s. The Medieval practice of serfdom was [[Emancipation reform of 1861|abolished]] in 1861 freeing over thirty million Russian peasants. A market economy finally emerged in the Russian Empire. However class warfare rose, and the nation was vulnerable due to rivalries with the [[United Kingdom]], the [[Ottoman Empire]], and the [[Empire of Japan|Japanese Empire]]. Historians define the 19th century [[List of time periods|historical era]] as stretching from 1815 (the [[Congress of Vienna]]) to 1914 (the outbreak of"
"entry into Russia without passports [from the] Minister of Foreign Affairs; the termination of the trade treaty with France"". The Manifesto of 1 January 1807 significantly restricted the rights of foreign merchants. However, nationals of those states with which Russia had concluded trade agreements, had prior rights over other foreigners. Restrictions of the rights of foreign trade and other fields existed until 1860. In 1860, reforms in Russia and expansion of international cooperation led to legislation relaxing restrictions on the rights of foreigners that had existed before 1860. Alexander II signed the decree ""On the rights of foreigners residing in"
"Zemstvo A zemstvo (, plural ""zemstva"" – ) was an institution of local government set up during the great emancipation reform of 1861 carried out in Imperial Russia by Emperor Alexander II of Russia. Nikolay Milyutin elaborated the idea of the zemstva, and the first zemstvo laws went into effect in 1864. After the October Revolution the zemstvo system was shut down by the Bolsheviks and replaced with a multilevel system of workers' and peasants' councils (""soviets""). The system of local self-government in the Russian Empire was represented at the lowest level by the mir and the volost and was"
"reforms of Alexander II. In 1871, he repealed the open-door immigration policy of his ancestors, effectively ending any new German immigration into the Empire. Although the German colonies continued to expand, they were driven by natural growth and by the immigration of Germans from Poland. The Russian nationalism that took root under Alexander II served as a justification for eliminating in 1871 the bulk of the tax privileges enjoyed by Russian Germans, and after 1874 they were subjected to military service. Only after long negotiations, Mennonites, traditionally a pacifist denomination, were allowed to serve alternative service in the form of"
"Russia from 1991 onwards). With the lowering at 12 midnight of the red flag with hammer and sickle design of the now former USSR from the towers of the Kremlin in Moscow on 26 December 1991, the USSR was self-dissolved by the Soviet of the Republics, which by that time was the only functioning chamber of the parliamentary Supreme Soviet (the other house, Soviet of the Union, had already lost the quorum after recall of its members by the several union republics). After dissolution of the USSR, Russia declared that it assumed the rights and obligations of the dissolved central"
"office of the Russian viceroy and were called namestnichestvo. Those namestnichestvo were introduced onto the expanded territory as well, the only exclusion were the governments of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. In 1796 all namestnichetvo were officially renamed into general governments. General governments exercised a small degree of autonomy as certain laws varied from general government to another. After the abolition of Russian serfdom in 1861, volosts became a unit of peasant's local self-rule. A number of mirs were united into a typical volost, which had an assembly consisting of elected delegates from the mirs. The self-government of the mirs and"
"that reads ""Alexander II. Tsar the Liberator. "" From the back, there is a brief biographical note on the ruler: ""Emperor Alexander II abolished serfdom in Russia in 1861 and freed millions of peasants from centuries of slavery, conducted military and judicial reforms, introduced the system of local self-government, city dumas and local administrations, brought to the end the long-lasting Caucasian War, and liberated the Slavic peoples from the Ottoman yoke. He was killed on March 1, 1881 and was a victim of a terrorist. The monument was erected on the initiative of the Historic council of the city of"
"resources of the country, and partly to increase its power for defense and attack. Military reforms included universal conscription, introduced for all social classes on 1 January 1874. Prior to the new regulation, as of 1861, conscription was compulsorily enforced only for the peasantry. Conscription had been 25 years for serfs that were drafted by their landowners, which was widely considered to be a life sentence. Other military reforms included extending the reserve forces and the military district system, which split the Russian states into 15 military districts, a system still in use over a hundred years later. The building"
"throne in 1855, desire for reform was widespread. A growing humanitarian movement attacked serfdom as inefficient. In 1859, there were more than 23 million serfs in usually poor living conditions. Alexander II decided to abolish serfdom from above, with ample provision for the landowners, rather than wait for it to be abolished from below in a revolutionary way that would hurt the landowners. The emancipation reform of 1861 that freed the serfs was the single most important event in 19th-century Russian history, and the beginning of the end for the landed aristocracy's monopoly of power. Further reforms of 1860s included"
"surviving emancipation and the Russian Revolution (1917). Until the abolition of serfdom in 1861, the mir could either contain serfs or free peasants. In the first case, lands reserved for serf use were assigned to the mir for allocation by the proprietor. Even after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, a peasant in his everyday work normally had little independence from obshchina, governed at the village level (""mir"") by the full assembly of the community (""skhod""). Among its duties were control and redistribution of the common land and forest (if such existed), levying recruits for military service, and imposing"