Russia in the mid-19th century

Nick Armitt

12 SHN

Russia in the middle of the 19th century was a Tsarist Russia; it’s Tsar being Alexander the II. The time was a tsarist Russia, the tsar being like an emperor. He was at the top of a pyramid that was the class system. At the time lord’s had a type of Russian slave called a serf, these and state peasants took the bottom with just under 85% of the population being one or the other. The working class making up 3.7% and just over 11% were the educated classes, i.e. nobility and clergy. He was a reformist Tsar, but to reform Russia was a hard task. Russia at this time had many problems. It was hard to grow food and get natural resources, as most of Russia was in permafrost. This permafrost also made the already difficult job of communication even harder. Communication was hard due to Russians living in rural areas, and the big cities being so far away, and the roads were still in their infancy. Communication was far behind that of England, as was its industry.

The population at the time was 42 million, and the majority of them lived in the big cities and towns, which also made transport and communication hard. The country also had a massive empire including Bulgaria, Ukraine and Latvia to name a few, so places like the capital St. Petersburg were closer to New York than the city of Vladivostok. This meant big gaps in land and therefore hard to defend, and the army was mostly made up of serfs, and these being slaves, there was always the fear of a revolt.

Serfs were slaves, and this meant they were ...