Imperial Russia

What kind of place was Imperial Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century? What were her vital statistics, identifying features, ideas, and ideals? Here was a land mass stretching 2,905 miles (4,675 kilometers) north to south and 6,669 miles (10,732 kilometers) west to east, with a latititude form the Artic wastes to the mountain ranges in the south and longitude from Europe to the Pacific Ocean. In 1900 the population of Russia was over 150 million, 10 percent of whom lived in cities, 1.5 million living in St. Petersburg. By 1913, however, the population had increased to over 174 million, with the two metropolitan populations almost doubling in size, while Russia's railroads had expanded from a mere 15 1/2 miles (25 kilometers) in 1840 to over 236,000 miles (380.000 kilometers) -- demographic and technological developments which help to explain the major economic, social, and cultural changes which St. Petersburg and Moscow, especially, witnessed during the Silver Age. On the other hand, even as late as 1913 land was still owned largely by the gentry, and in st. Petersburg alone there were 25,000 homeless. If, in 1913, Russians reportedly consumed over 39,000,000 pounds (18 million kilos) of potatoes and could have read 26,629 books published in Russian, and if Moscow alone boasted 163 bookstores, poverty, disease, and undernourishment were rampant and only half the total population was literate. True, recent decades had seen urgent reforms or, at least, efforts to introduce palpable change, such as the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 (two years before the emancipation of the slaves in the United States), the assassination Of Alexander II by anarchists in 1881, and the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in 1904.

On the other hand, Russia of the early twentieth century was still a predominantly rural and agricultural power and, at least outwardly, maintained a patriarchal, hierarchical order with the Tsar of all the Russias at the apex of the social pyramid and the peasants at the base. Russian noblemen still lived most of the year in France or Italy and the Orthodox Church continued to mark the calendar with numerous feasts and saints' days. Hawkers and vendors plied their trades as they had done for centuries, markets and bazaars abounded, and coachmen still egged on their horses.

Moscow and St. Petersburg in Russia's Silver Age: 1900-1920 by John E. Bowlt. 2008. Pages 33-4.