In the 17th century everything started to take shape Russian market. Prior to this, feudal fragmentation still persisted economically: the country was divided into a number of regions (local markets), closed on itself, between which there were no stable trade ties. The merging of individual regions into the all-Russian market meant the establishment of a stable exchange of goods between individual regions. But if the regions exchanged goods, then they specialized in the production of certain goods for export to other regions: bread is not exchanged for bread.

The regional specialization of crafts has already been mentioned. The same specialization began in agriculture. The main regions for the commercial production of bread are the Middle Volga and Upper Dnieper regions, flax and hemp - the regions of Novgorod and Pskov. But the connections between the individual regions were still weak, which created a huge difference in the prices of goods in different cities. Merchants profited by using precisely this difference in prices, they bought goods in one place, transported them to another and sold them at a much higher price, receiving one hundred percent profit and more from trade transactions. Such high profits are characteristic of the period of primitive accumulation of capital.

A consequence of the weakness of trade ties was that fairs played a major role in trade. The merchant could not travel around the country, buying the goods he needed for retail trade at the places of their production - this would take several years. Merchants from different cities came to the fair, which also operated at a certain time of the year, and each brought those goods that were cheap to manufacture at his home. As a result, the fair gathered a full range of goods from different places. Having sold one product, the merchant could get what he needed. The largest fair in the XVII century. was Makarievskaya - at the Makariev Monastery near Nizhny Novgorod. Not only Russians, but also Western European and Eastern merchants came here. Big role the Irbit fair played in the Urals, connecting the European part of the country with Siberia and eastern markets.

International trade Russia in the XV-XVI centuries. was poorly developed. Medieval trade was predominantly maritime, and Russia, which did not have access to the Baltic Sea, was effectively isolated from the West. This economic isolation slowed down the economic development of the country. Therefore, the expedition of Richard Chancellor (Chenslor) played an important role for Russia.

An English navigator, setting out from England in search of a northern passage to India, Chancellor lost two of the three ships of his expedition. He reached the mouth of the Northern Dvina (1553) and was received in Moscow by Ivan IV. Along this route, English and then Dutch merchants followed Chancellor to Russia, and trade with the West revived somewhat. In the 80s. 16th century the city of Arkhangelsk was founded on the shores of the White Sea, through which the main trade with the West now went.

The economic backwardness of Russia, the contradiction between the centralized structure of the state and the feudal economy manifested itself in public finances. Large funds were required to maintain the state apparatus and the army. At that time in Russia, in addition to the noble militia, there were already regular regiments of the "foreign system", and the archery army, where the service was paid for with money, and not with estates. When the country is dominated market economy, these costs are successfully covered by taxes. But Russian state arose on a feudal basis, and subsistence feudal economy did not provide sufficient monetary resources for taxation. Therefore, the Order of the Great Treasury (Ministry of Finance) was forced to resort to special methods of covering public expenditures. One of the sources of replenishment of the treasury were monopolies and ransoms. Trade in many goods - hemp, potash, vodka, etc. - was a state monopoly. Merchants could trade these goods only by purchasing the right to trade from the treasury, taking a payoff, i.e. paying a certain amount of money to the treasury. For example, the tsarist monopoly was the drinking business and the sale of vodka. Naturally, it was sold 5-10 times more expensive than its procurement price. The tax farmer had to pay this difference in order to obtain the right to trade. But, as it turned out, this enriched not so much the treasury as tax farmers, and drinking tax farms became one of the main sources of the initial accumulation of capital in Russia. Indirect taxes were widely practiced, and not always successfully. So, in the middle of the XVII century. the tax on salt doubled its market price. As a result, thousands of pounds of cheap fish, which the people ate during Lent, rotted. There was a popular uprising called salt riot, and the new tax had to be abolished. Then the government decided to issue copper money with a forced exchange rate. But the people did not recognize them as equal to silver ones: when trading for a silver ruble, they gave 10 copper ones. There's a new uprising copper riot. It was started by archers, who were given a salary in copper money. And copper money had to be abandoned. They were withdrawn from circulation, and the treasury paid five, and then even a penny for a copper ruble.

Thus, in the Russian economy in the XVII century. capitalist elements arose: the all-Russian market began to form, the first manufactories appeared. The process of initial accumulation began. But capitals were accumulated by merchants in the process of non-equivalent trade, especially in farming. The second side of primitive accumulation - the ruin of the peasants and their transformation into hired workers - was not observed: the peasants were attached to the land and their landowners.

findings

findings

Initially, the society of the Franks consisted of tribal communities, large families consisting of blood relatives leading a common household.

The tribal community was replaced by a rural community (brand), where only the land remained in common ownership, but it was also divided for use among members of the community. The house, livestock and other property were privately owned, and each family sang its own household.

Gradually, a ruling military elite emerged in society, but this was not yet feudalism. Feudalism begins with the emergence of feudal landownership, but the feudal class was born as a military class. The basis of feudal relations was feudal ownership of land, which consisted in the right to receive a fixed feudal rent from people living on this land. Feudal relations presupposed the existence of two owners of the land at the same time: the feudal lord, who had the right to receive rent, and the peasant, who disposed of this land. The feudal lord could not take the land from the peasant. All economic relations within the feud were natural, in the feudal potchina everything was produced that was necessary for domestic consumption and nothing that would be required in other feuds. Nothing is bought from the outside and nothing is sold to the side. This economy is adapted for an isolated existence. From this property of the feud comes feudal fragmentation - the natural political organization of feudalism.

As the productive forces developed, the main direction in the development of feudalism in agriculture in Western Europe became the growth of commodity production. Gradually, the feudal economy begins to lose its isolation and naturalness, it is drawn into trade, which means it becomes less and less feudal. There is a process of gradual elimination of natural forms of feudal rent, their conversion into money (switching).

From the very foundation of the city, they opposed the feudal lords: it was from the urban burghers, from the third estate, that the bourgeoisie grew up, which replaced the feudal lords.

The great geographical discoveries played a huge role in the transition from feudalism to capitalism. They had three main prerequisites.

1.27. The conquest of Byzantium by the Turks led to a reduction in the flow of eastern goods.

1.28. Lack of gold as money supply.

1.29. The development of science and technology, primarily shipbuilding and navigation.

The main paradox of the Great Geographical Discoveries was that the flow of gold did not enrich Spain and Portugal, but dealt a blow to their economy, because feudal relations still dominated in these countries. On the contrary, the price revolution strengthened England and the Netherlands, in which commodity production was already developed. Before the invasion of the Mongols, the development of Kievan Rus followed the same path as other European states, and its economy and culture were at a high level. By the end of the Mongol yoke, it lagged far behind the European countries.

As a result of the Mongol invasion, Russia not only lagged behind in its development, but also took a different path: many elements of the Asian mode of production were included in its economy.

The Russian nobility was formed from the military class. But the nobles were not the owners of the land, the land was owned by the state and was used by it to maintain the army. The nobility was in the service of the state, and the state kept the nobles in economic subordination through the distribution of estates.

In Russia there were no workshops and merchant guilds, and at the head of the cities were administrators appointed by the tsar from among the noble boyars.

The main feature of the Asiatic mode of production introduced by the yoke was that large production in Russia it was originally state.

An important element in the formation of the All-Russian market was the creation in the country of a single monetary system. Until the end of the 15th century, practically all the principalities of Russia - Tver, Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod, etc., were engaged in minting coins independently.
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Prince Ivan III began to prohibit the minting of money to all the princes who were part of a single state. He approved the Moscow money issue. The inscription appeared on Moscow coins: ʼʼSovereign of all Russiaʼʼ. But the parallel money issue in Veliky Novgorod continued until the time

Ivan IV. His mother Elena Glinskaya, the widow of Vasily III, in 1534 took certain steps towards the creation of a unified monetary system. She introduced strict rules for minting coins according to standard samples (weight, design), and violation of these standards was severely punished.

Under Elena Glinskaya, small silver coins were issued, on which a horseman with a sword in his hands was depicted - sword money. On dengs of a larger weight, a rider-warrior was depicted, striking a snake with a spear - spear dengs, which later became known as a penny. These coins were of irregular shape, the size of watermelon seed. Smaller coins were also issued - half-coins, or 1/4 kopecks, with the image of a bird, etc.
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Until the end of the 16th century, the year of issue was not indicated on the coins. Under Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, they began to beat out the date ʼʼfrom the creation of the worldʼʼ. AT early XVII century, Tsar Vasily Shuisky managed to issue the first Russian gold coins - hryvnias and nickels, but they did not last long in circulation, turning into treasures.

And yet the most important factor in the unstable monetary circulation was an acute shortage of precious metals, and above all silver. Since the time of Kievan Rus, foreign coins have been used for money circulation for many centuries. In particular, under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, from 1654 on German and Czech thalers - round silver coins - the sovereign's stamp was minted in the form of a horseman with a spear or a double-headed eagle of the Romanov dynasty. Such coins were called efimok with a sign, they went in parallel with Russian coins *. In addition to their independent circulation, small coins were minted from efimka. From the very beginning, a firm rate was set: 1 efimok = 64 kopecks, ᴛ.ᴇ. that is how many kopecks could be minted from one thaler. The real content of silver in one thaler was only 40-42 kopecks.

By the middle of the 17th century, for a number of reasons, the state treasury was practically empty. The consequences of the Polish-Swedish intervention and the Time of Troubles also affected. For several years in a row there was a big crop failure, to which we can add the plague epidemics of 1654-1655. Up to 67% of all government spending in the middle of the 17th century went to the maintenance of the army and to constant wars: with Sweden (1656-1661) and Poland (1654-1667).

To cover the costs, the government first introduced inferior silver, and then, in 1654, copper money with a forced official rate at which a copper penny was equal to a silver penny of the same weight. Such copper money was issued for 4 million rubles. This immediately led to the depreciation of money and an increase in prices, since copper is much cheaper than silver. For one silver kopeck, at first they gave 4, and later - 15 copper kopecks. There were double prices for goods in the country. With servicemen and townspeople, the state paid with copper, and taxes required to be paid in silver. Peasants refused to sell food for copper money. All this led to a decrease in the standard of living of the population, especially its lower strata, and to the Copper Riot in Moscow in 1662, which was brutally suppressed, and copper coins were withdrawn from circulation.

In the 17th century, the desire of the state to streamline the entire monetary and financial system intensified. This was primarily due to the fact that

* The Russian name ʼʼefimokʼʼ comes from the name of the Czech that government spending on the maintenance of the administrative apparatus of the growing army (strelets army, reiters, dragoons), the huge royal court was constantly growing.

In 1680, the first state budget was adopted in Russia, which specified in detail the sources of income and expenditure items. The bulk of the income was made up of direct taxes from the population. During this period, a census of peasants was carried out and a house-to-house taxation (from the yard or tax) was established instead of the former sow tax ʼʼs sokhʼʼ, a conventional financial unit *. This step made it possible to increase the number of taxpayers at the expense of slaves and other categories of the population, from whom taxes were not previously taken. It should be noted that the feudal lords, the clergy, as a rule, did not pay any taxes. Moreover, they also established their exactions from the serfs.

Indirect taxes on salt** and other goods, as well as customs duties, were a large item of budget revenue. A separate source of income was state-owned monopolies of the state - the exclusive right to trade vodka within the country, and outside it - bread potash, hemp, resin, caviar, sable fur, etc.
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The number of state-owned goods included raw silk, brought from Persia. Monopolies were often farmed out, which also replenished the budget. For example, the richest Astrakhan fisheries in the country were in the hands of the treasury, which either rented them out or rented them out, or itself managed there through faithful heads or kissers. But all these sources of income did not cover the expenditure side, and the state budget remained in deficit from year to year, which inevitably raised the question of the extreme importance of fundamental reforms in the country.

In the 17th century The most important qualitative shift is also taking place in trade - the formation of an all-Russian market. Prior to this, feudal fragmentation still remained economically: the country was divided into a number of local markets - regions within the country, between which there was a trade exchange. There were almost no stable trade relations. The isolation of local markets was intensified by internal duties collected along the most important trade routes.

The merging of individual markets into one all-Russian market meant the establishment of a stable exchange of goods between individual regions.

This was a consequence of the beginning of the geographical division of labor. If districts exchange goods, it means that they produce different goods, which means that they already specialize in the production of certain goods for sale to other districts.

Earlier it was already said about the regional specialization of crafts. Regional specialization also begins in agriculture. The Middle Volga and the Upper Dnieper region became large areas for the commodity production of bread. The main areas of commercial production of flax and hemp (raw materials for textile crafts) were the regions of Novgorod and Pskov.

IN AND. Lenin wrote that the true, economic unification of the Russian principalities did not take place in the 15th century. but now, in the seventeenth century. This merger, he said, "was caused by the growing exchange between the regions, the gradually growing commodity circulation, the concentration of small local markets into one all-Russian market. Since the leaders and masters of this process were capitalist merchants, the creation of these national ties was nothing more than the creation bourgeois connections. V.I. Lenin here emphasizes the bourgeois essence of the economic unification of the country, noting that it was from that time that bourgeois elements began to accumulate in the Russian economy.

Ties between individual regions have so far been weak, and this has resulted in a huge difference in prices for goods in different cities. Merchants profited by using precisely this difference in prices, they bought goods in one city, transported them to another and sold them much more expensive than the cost, receiving from trade transactions profits of up to 100% or more on the invested capital. Such non-equivalently high profits are known to be characteristic of the sphere of capital accumulation during the period of primitive accumulation.

A consequence of the weakness of trade ties was the fact that fairs played a major role in trade. Fairs were the main form of medieval trade, because the merchant could not travel around the country, buying what he needed for retail goods at the place of their production. Such a detour would drag on for several years. Merchants from different places came to the fair, which operated several days a year, and each brought those goods that he could buy cheaply at home. As a result, a full range of goods from different places was collected at the fair, and each merchant, having sold his goods, could buy what he needed.

The largest fair in the seventeenth century. becomes Makaryevskaya - at the Makaryevsky monastery near Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky).

Not only Russian merchants came here, but also Western European and Eastern ones. The Irbit fair (the city of Irbit in the Urals) played an important role, which connected the European part of the country with Siberia and the eastern markets.

Foreign trade of Russia in the 15th-16th centuries. was pretty weak.

Trade at that time was predominantly maritime, because the overland transportation of goods was hindered by numerous duties on the borders of feudal states. Russia did not have access to the Baltic Sea, and therefore was actually isolated from the West. This economic isolation was one of the reasons for the slow economic development countries. Therefore, Chancellor's expedition played an important role for Russia. Departing from England in search of the "northern passage" to India, Chancellor lost two of the three ships of his expedition and instead of India in 1553 ended up in Moscow. By this route, English and then Dutch merchants began to penetrate into Russia after Chancellor, and trade with the West revived somewhat. In the 80s 16th century the city of Arkhangelsk was founded on the shores of the White Sea, through which the main trade with the West now went.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century about 20 ships a year came to Arkhangelsk, at the end - up to 150 ships. Fat, leather, potash, hemp, furs, cloth, metals, weapons, paper, wines, and luxury items were exported from Russia through this port.

Trade with the East - Iran, India, Central Asia - was conducted mainly through Astrakhan. Cotton and silk fabrics were brought here from the East, furs, leather, and metal products were exported. Annual turnover trade through Arkhangelsk was 10 times greater than through Astrakhan: Russia was oriented in foreign trade mainly to the West - there were goods that its development required.

The economic backwardness of Russia, the contradiction between the centralized state and the feudal organization of production, manifested itself in public finances. A lot of money was needed to maintain the state apparatus. They are also necessary for the maintenance of the army: at that time in Russia, in addition to the noble militia, there were already regular regiments (regiments of the "foreign system") and the archery army, whose service was paid with money, and not with estates. In a country with a developed economy, the state has sufficient Sources of income.In feudal Russia, revenues were insufficient to cover all government expenditures.Moreover, these methods of receipt of income to the treasury were of a feudal nature.One of the sources of replenishment of the treasury were monopolies and farming.

We have already spoken about farming out connected with the tsarist monopoly on the trade in certain goods. The drinking business (sale of vodka) was also considered a royal monopoly. Vodka was sold 5-10 times more expensive than its procurement price. It was assumed that the difference should be the income of the state. To do this, the sale of vodka was at the mercy of the merchants: they paid the required amount of money to the treasury in advance, and then, by selling vodka, they tried to earn more in their favor.

Such methods of replenishing the treasury enriched not so much the state as the farmers themselves.

Indirect taxes were widely practiced, and not always successfully. So, in the middle of the XVII century. the imposition of a tax on salt effectively doubled its market price. As a result, thousands of pounds of cheap fish, which the people ate during Lent, rotted, because it was impossible to salt cheap fish with expensive salt. There was a popular uprising, the "salt riot", and the new tax had to be cancelled. Then the government decided to issue copper money with a forced exchange rate. However, the people did not recognize them as equal to silver. When trading for a silver ruble, they gave 10 copper ones. There was a new uprising - the "copper riot". Especially active in this uprising were the archers, the city army, armed with firearms, because they were paid for their service in copper money. The government also had to abandon copper money. They were withdrawn from circulation, and the treasury paid 5 and even 1 kopeck for a copper ruble.

The 17th century was marked by the most important event in the economic life of the country - formation of the all-Russian market. For this, certain prerequisites have appeared in Russia. As mentioned earlier, the country has become more and more noticeably territorial division of labor. A number of regions specialized in the production of various industrial products. In agriculture, a certain regional specialization also developed, agricultural enterprises began to produce products for sale. In the northwest of Russia, they preferred to grow flax for the market, in the south and southeast - bread and beef cattle, near big cities - vegetables, dairy cattle. Even monasteries were engaged in the production of various products for sale: leather, lard, hemp, potash, etc.

All this contributed to the strengthening of economic ties between the regions, the gradual merging of local markets into one, all-Russian. In addition, the centralized state encouraged the process of such unification. The Left-bank Ukraine, the Volga region, Siberia, and the North Caucasus were gradually drawn into economic ties.

If in the 16th century internal trade was carried out mainly in small markets, then in the 17th century regular trade fairs and above all near the monasteries during great church holidays. There were all-Russian fairs: Makarievskaya ( Nizhny Novgorod), Svenskaya (Bryansk), Arkhangelsk, Tikhvin, Irbitskaya, Solvychegodskaya. A special place among shopping centers occupied Novgorod the Great, which was famous for trade in the XI-XII centuries. So, the legendary gusler Sadko, who became a merchant, had a real prototype of Sotko Sytin, whose name is mentioned in the Novgorod chronicle of the 12th century, since he built the temple with his own money.

In Veliky Novgorod, guest trade was carried out by artels-companies. One of these companies has been known since the 13th century and was called "Ivanovo-sto" (after the church of St. John the Baptist). She had a common gostiny yard (warehouse for goods), a "gridnitsa" (a large chamber for meetings). The company was led by an elected headman, who oversaw the order, the correctness of paperwork. The company had large special scales to check the authenticity of the weight of goods, and small scales weighed money bars. It had its own merchant court, headed by a thousand court, which resolved various conflicts.

It was difficult to join the Ivanovo artel, for this it was necessary to pay a fee of 50 hryvnias, donate 30 hryvnias of silver to the temple. With this money it was possible to buy a herd of cows of 80 heads. Later, membership became hereditary and passed on to children if they continued to trade. Since the 15th century, the Novgorod merchants Stroganovs have become famous. They were among the first to start the salt-making business in the Urals, they traded with the peoples of the North and Siberia. Ivan the Terrible gave the merchant Anika Stroganov a huge territory to manage: the land of Perm along the Kama to the Urals. With the money of this family, Yermak's detachment for the development of Siberia was later equipped.

But in the XV-XVI centuries, the center of trade gradually moved to Moscow. It was in Moscow in the 17th century that the merchants as a special class of citizens, playing an increasingly prominent role in the economic and political life of the country. Particularly eminent merchants, “guests”, about 30 people stood out here. This honorary title was received from the tsar by those who had a trade turnover of at least 20 thousand rubles a year (or about 200 thousand gold rubles on the scale of prices at the beginning of the 20th century). These merchants were especially close to the kings, carried out important financial assignments in the interests of the treasury, conducted foreign trade in the name of the king, acted as contractors at important construction sites, collected taxes, etc. They were exempt from paying duties, could buy large land plots into their possession .

Merchants with smaller capitals were included in the "hundreds" - living rooms, cloth, etc. Their representatives also had great privileges, had elected self-government within the "hundreds", which were led by "heads" and "foremen". The lowest ranks were "black hundreds" and "sloboda". This, as a rule, included those who produced products and sold them themselves.

Foreigners who visited Russia in the 15th-16th centuries were amazed at the scale of trade. They noted the abundance of meat, fish, bread and other products in the markets of Moscow, their cheapness compared to European prices. They wrote that beef is sold not by weight, but “by eye”, that representatives of all classes are engaged in trade , that the government strongly supports trade. It is important to note that the Western European “price revolution”, which took place in the 16th century, also affected Russia. It is known that in the era of the great geographical discoveries, a huge amount of cheap gold and silver from America poured into Europe, which led to a sharp depreciation of money and the same sharp general increase in prices. In Russia, connected with Western Europe by economic relations, prices also rose by the beginning of the 17th century by about three to four times.

In the 16th-17th centuries, the process of initial accumulation of capital began in Russia precisely in the sphere of trade. Later, merchant capital began to penetrate into the sphere of production, rich merchants bought craft workshops and industrial enterprises. Along with patrimonial and state-owned appeared merchant manufactories, which used the labor of free citizens, quitrent peasants released for seasonal work, foreign craftsmen were also involved. About 10,000 free people were employed in the various industries of the Stroganovs (salt, potash).

One of the sources of accumulation of merchant capital was the system ransoms, when the government granted rich merchants the right to sell salt, wine and other goods important for the treasury, to collect tavern and customs duties. So, the Moscow guests Voronin, Nikitnikov, Gruditsyn and others traded in grain, had large ironworks, were shipowners, were tax-farmers for the supply of food and uniforms to the army.

In the XVI-XVII centuries, Russia began to develop more actively foreign trade. Even under Vasily III, trade agreements were concluded with Denmark; under Ivan IV, strong ties were established with England. English merchants were given great privileges in trade, which was carried out with virtually no duties for both sides. The British founded several trading houses-factories in Vologda, Kholmogory, Moscow, Yaroslavl, Kazan, Astrakhan. Following England, Holland and France rushed to the Russian market. Foreign trade on a large scale was carried out with Lithuania, Persia, Bukhara, Crimea. Russian exports were not only traditional raw materials (timber, furs, honey, wax), but also handicraft products (fur coats, linen, horse saddles, dishes, arrows, knives, metal armor, ropes, potash and much more). Back in the 15th century, the Tver merchant Afanasy Nikitin visited India 30 years before the Portuguese Vasco da Gama, lived there for several years, learned foreign languages, strengthened trade relations with eastern countries.

Foreign trade in the 17th century was carried out mainly through two cities: through Astrakhan there was foreign trade with Asian countries, and through Arkhangelsk - with European ones. Arkhangelsk, founded in 1584 as sea ​​port, although Russia did not have its own merchant fleet and the entire cargo flow was on foreign ships. In the middle of the 17th century, goods worth 17 million rubles were exported abroad through this port annually. gold (at the prices of the beginning of the 20th century).

Russian merchants were not yet able to compete in the domestic market with strong foreign companies, and therefore they sought to strengthen their monopoly position with the help of the state. Merchants in letters of petition asked the government to establish protectionist measures to protect domestic interests, and the government largely went to meet them. In 1646 duty-free trade with England was abolished. In 1653 introduced Trade charter which imposed higher trade duties on foreign goods. By Novotrade charter 1667, foreign merchants were allowed to carry out wholesale operations in Russia only and only in certain border towns. The charter established great benefits for Russian merchants: the customs duty for them was four times lower than for foreign merchants. The charter strongly encouraged the reduction import operations and increase in exports in order to attract additional funds to the treasury Money and the formation of an active trade balance in Russia, which was achieved at the end of the 17th century. In this great merit belongs A.L. Ordyn-Nashchekin, Russian statesman under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. The government, under the influence of Ordyn-Nashchekin, tried to mercantilist policy, i.e. policy of all-round enrichment of the state at the expense of foreign trade.

However, the possibilities of Russian international economic relations were noticeably constrained by the lack of convenient ice-free ports on the Baltic and Black Seas, so the search for Russia's access to the seas became a vital need at the end of the 17th century.

An important element in the formation of the all-Russian market was the creation in the country unified monetary system. Until the end of the 15th century, practically all the principalities of Russia - Tver, Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod, etc., were engaged in minting coins independently. Prince Ivan III began to prohibit the minting of money to all princes who were part of a single state. He approved the Moscow money issue. On Moscow coins appeared the inscription: "The Sovereign of All Russia." But the parallel money issue in Veliky Novgorod continued until the time of Ivan IV. His mother Elena Glinskaya, the widow of Vasily III, in 1534 took certain steps towards the creation of a unified monetary system. She introduced strict rules for minting coins according to standard samples (weight, design), and violation of these standards was severely punished. Under Elena Glinskaya, small silver coins were issued, on which a horseman with a sword in his hands was depicted - sword money. On dengs of a larger weight, a rider-warrior was depicted, striking a snake with a spear - penny money. They were later named penny. These coins were irregularly shaped, the size of a watermelon seed. Smaller coins were also issued - half shells, or 1/4 kopeck, with the image of a bird, etc. Until the end of the 16th century, the year of issue was not indicated on the coins. Under Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich, they began to beat out the date "from the creation of the world." At the beginning of the 17th century, Tsar Vasily Shuisky managed to issue the first Russian gold coins - hryvnias and nickels, but they did not last long in circulation, turning into treasures.

And yet the most important factor in the unstable monetary circulation was the acute shortage of precious metals, and above all silver. Since the time of Kievan Rus, foreign coins have been used for money circulation for many centuries. In particular, under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, from 1654 on German and Czech thalers - round silver coins - the sovereign's stamp was minted in the form of a horseman with a spear or a double-headed eagle of the Romanov dynasty. These coins are called efimok with a sign, they went in parallel with Russian coins . In addition to their independent circulation, small coins were minted from efimka. From the very beginning, a fixed rate was set: 1 efimok = 64 kopecks, i.e. that is how many kopecks could be minted from one thaler. The real content of silver in one thaler was only 40-42 kopecks.

By the middle of the 17th century, for a number of reasons, the state treasury was practically empty. The consequences of the Polish-Swedish intervention and the "Time of Troubles" also affected. For several years in a row there was a big crop failure, to which we can add the plague of 1654-1655. Up to 67% of all government spending in the middle of the 17th century went to the maintenance of the army and to constant wars: with Sweden (1656-1661) and Poland (1654-1667).

To cover the costs, the government introduced first inferior silver and then, in 1654, copper money, with an official forced exchange rate at which a copper penny was equal to a silver penny of the same weight. Such copper money was issued for 4 million rubles. This immediately led to the depreciation of money and an increase in prices, since copper is much cheaper than silver. For one silver kopeck, at first they gave 4, and later - 15 copper kopecks. There were double prices for goods in the country. With servicemen and townspeople, the state paid with copper, and taxes required to be paid in silver. Peasants refused to sell food for copper money. All this led to a decrease in the standard of living of the population, especially its lower strata, and to copper riot in Moscow in 1662, which was brutally suppressed, and copper coins were withdrawn from circulation.

In the 17th century, the desire of the state to streamline the entire monetary and financial system intensified. This was primarily due to the fact that government spending on the maintenance of the administrative apparatus, the growing army (streltsy troops, reiters, dragoons), and the huge royal court were constantly growing.

In 1680, the first state budget was adopted in Russia, which specified in detail the sources of income and expenditure items. The main part of income was made by direct taxes from the population. During this period, a census of peasants was carried out and it was established household taxation (from the yard or tax) instead of the former field tax "from the plow", a conventional financial unit . This step made it possible to increase the number of taxpayers at the expense of slaves and other categories of the population, from whom taxes were not previously taken. It should be noted that the feudal lords, the clergy, as a rule, did not pay any taxes. Moreover, they also established their exactions from the serfs.

Indirect taxes on salt and other goods, as well as customs duties, were a major source of budget revenue. A separate item of income was state monopolies states - the exclusive right to trade vodka within the country, and outside it - bread, potash, hemp, resin, caviar, etc. Monopolies were often farmed out, which also replenished the budget.

But all these sources of income did not cover the expenditure side, and the state budget remained in deficit from year to year, which inevitably raised the question of the need for fundamental reforms in the country.