Years	Direct Taxes			Quitrent*			Total of Taxes and Quitrent			Corvee***		Index of Grain Prices		Nominal Prices of Rye per pud,**** Kopecks
Ko-pecks	Index**		Ko-pecks	Index**		Ko-pecks	Index**		Desia-tin	Index	Nomi-nal	In Silver
A	B	A	B	A	B
1700–09	27	100	100	40	100	100	67	100	100	0.60	100	100	100	4.3
1710–19	–	–	–	50	125	69	–	–	–	–	–	180	149	8.3
1720–29	70	259	96	70	175	67	140	209	79	–	–	263	218	12.6
1730–39	70	259	115	90	225	100	160	239	106	–	–	226	190	10.9
1740–49	70	259	94	120	300	108	190	284	103	–	–	277	233	12.3
1750–59	70	259	103	160	400	159	230	343	136	–	–	251	208	9.4
1760–69	70	259	72	200	500	138	270	403	111	0.75	125	362	264	17.6
1770–79	70	259	58	350	875	197	420	627	141	1.20	200	444	320	20.5
1780–89	70	259	37	500	1250	182	570	851	124	–	–	686	420	34.1
1790–99	96	356	32	700	1750	158	796	1188	107	1.50	250	1110	566	44.1

Years	State Peasants: Direct Taxes and Quitrent			Appanage Peasants: Direct Taxes and Quitrent			Church Peasants: Direct Taxes and Quitrent			Seigniorial Peasants: Direct Taxes and Quitrent		Burgers: Direct Taxes and Quitrent		Height, centi-meters
Ko-pecks	Index*		Ko-pecks	Index*		Ko-pecks	Index*		Index*		Ko-pecks	Index
A	B	A	B	A	B	A	B
1724–29	111	100	100	111	100	100	111	100	100	100	100	120	100	163.4
1730–39	110	99	115	110	99	115	110	99	115	114	134	120	100	164.5
1740–49	110	99	94	110	99	94	110	99	94	136	130	120	100	164.8
1750–59	110	99	104	110	99	104	110	99	104	164	172	120	100	163.5
1760–69	174	157	114	126	114	83	203	183	133	264	192	128	115	163.4
1770–79	270	243	144	270	243	144	270	243	143	371	222	200	180	163.2
1780–89	340	306	117	340	306	117	340	306	117	478	185	200	180	161.3
1790–99	388	350	83	388	350	83	388	350	83	604	144	200	180	160.7

From Table 5 and 6 it is obvious that the burden of taxes and obligations increased for all categories of taxable population, though in varying degrees. Landlord peasants suffered most of all. Even with the grain price rise taken into account the rent they paid to landlords almost uninterruptedly rose up to the 1770s when it doubled as compared with 1700-1709. After the powerful peasant uprising of 1774-1775 quitrent actually decreased but nevertheless in the late eighteenth century it exceeded its level of the early eighteenth century 1.6 times. And in 1780-1799 obligations of corvee peasants were not reduced ether. The whole burden of payments of landlord peasants, that is with direct taxes taken into account, was essentially lighter. By the 1770s however the total amount of payments, with a corrections for a grain price, increased 1.4 times and then decreased, but even in 1790-1799 was by 7 per cent higher than in 1700-1709. Per capita payments of other categories of peasants were lower than payments of landlord peasants. Before the 1770s they went up, then declined and in 1790-1799 even fell below the level of 1720s (corresponding information for 1700-11719 is not available). Because of the necessity of payments peasants had to sell produce they needed themselves for their own consumption and this substantially undermined their biological status. To discharge the payments in 1700-1709 a landlord peasant had to sell 250 kg of rye, while in 1790-1799 – 289 kg and in the 1770s – even 325 kg. During the century the payments of burgers rose in the least degree – nominally by 80 per cent. Burgers however suffered not only from an increase in taxes and obligations but also from a rise in prices for foodstuffs. They had to buy a considerable part of them in the market since their own household could not provide all necessary supplies as was the case with peasants. The comparison of stature of recruits from various social groups vividly supports the conclusions made on the basis of the analysis of the tax and rent dynamics (see Table 7).

	1700–1709	Rank	1700–1759	Rank	1760–1799	Rank	Decrease in stature, cm
1700–1759	1760–1799
State Peasants	164.2	7	163.6	4	161.7	7	-0.6	-1.9
Church Peasants	164.3	6	163.1	7	162.4	3	-1.2	-0.7
Seigniorial Peasants	164.7	5	163.1	8	161.1	5–6	-1.6	-2
Appanage Peasants	165	4	163.2	5 – 6	161.1	5–6	-1.8	-2.1
Burgers	165	3	164.1	2	161.8	6	-0.9	-2.3
Manor Serfs	165.2	2	163.2	5 – 6	162.1	4	-2	-1.1
Clergy	167	1	164.1	1	162.5	2	-2.9	-1.6
Non-Russian People of the Volga Region	–	–	163.9	3	163.3	1	–	-0.6
Standard Deviation	0.934		0.444		0.743

The biological status of burgers suffered most of all: their stature in 1760-1799 as comparison with 1700-1759 decreased by 2.3 cm. The stature of appanage (court) peasants (they belonged to the tsar’s family) decreased by 2.1 cm, of landlord peasants – by 2 cm, of state owned peasants by 1.9 cm, of clergy – by 1.6 cm, of manor serfs (house-serf peasants) (they were in landlords’ service) – by 1.1 cm, of church peasants (they were confiscated from the Church in 1764) – by 0.7 cm. The biological status of non-Russian peoples of the Volga region (Tatars, Mordovians, Chuvashes, Bashkirs; the ethnic origin of recruits of other nationalities was not defined in the sources) suffered least of all. By the end of the eighteenth century landlord peasants had the lowest biological status, non-Russian peoples and clergy had the highest one. Now we see that on the scale of stature social groups are arranged in accordance with their position on the scale of payments they paid to the state and their masters. Unfortunately, nobles serving in the Army were never measured. The procedure was thought to be humiliating for their dignity. That is why information on their stature is not available. Undoubtedly they were the tallest people. The stature of their house-serfs indirectly testifies to that. They were among the tallest people in various categories of peasant and by 1 cm higher than other landlord peasants. What made the state raise taxes and landlords increase rent? Years when the tendency for a fall of the biological level of living was replaced by the tendency for its rise are very indicative and suggest an answer to the formulated question. First of all let us note four 5-year periods when a short-term and insignificant rise of the biological status set in: 1725-1729, 1740-1744, 1760-1764, 1775-1779. In my opinion, in three cases it was connected with accession to the throne of a new emperor. Every time it was accompanied by the remission of arrears and temporary weakening of the state machinery pressure on taxable population on the issue of tax payment. And this was substantial concession since annual arrears on direct taxes made up 4-5 per cent of the total amount of payment. The rise of the biological status in 1775-1779 can be linked with the peasant uprising in 1774-1775 which raged over a vast territory for two years and after which the amount of rent was decreased for some time.

In 1700-1724 when there was the first decline of the biological status Russia waged a difficult exhausting war with Sweden for the Baltic lands which ended in 1721 in Russia’s victory and Nishtadt peace. During intervals in fighting in the West Russia also fought against Turkey (1700-1713) and Persia (1722-1723) and simultaneously she carried out serious political, economic, social, cultural and administrative reforms. Formation of a regular army, prolonged wars, building of towns, canals, roads, construction of a fleet, factories, reform of management required enormous funds from the state on whose initiative all these were going on. The state obtained these funds through tax raising, the use of the state regalia (monetary, salt, alcohol drinking etc.) and the emission of inferior money (the so-called coin spoiling). In 1701-1721 state revenue grew 2.9 times at the expense of direct taxes, regalia, various kinds of dues and duties (not counting considerable state obligations in kind – recruitment, delivery of horses and carts for the transportation of military cargoes, felling of trees for shipbuilding, building of roads, fortresses, towns etc., whose value it is difficult to estimate). Despite this revenues did not defray state expenses completely. In 1701-1721 the share of military expenditure in the budget was 76 per cent minimum and 96 per cent maximum.Recruitment became customary to provide Ibid, p. 383. personnel for the newly formed regular Army and Navy. In 1699-1723 they called up nearly 365 thousand people (15.2 thousand a year). In 1719 Russia numbered only 7,570 thousand males and this was a sensible loss of able-bodied men for the country. By the end of the Northern war, according to the evidence of some contemporaries, people groaned under war burden, high prices and impoverishment. A decrease in the stature of recruits by 2.1 cm indeed testifies to the lowering of the physical and perhaps general well-being of the population but hardly speaks of its disastrous fall. On the whole neither direct nor indirect per capita taxes collected in cash (with regard to the grain rise) increased (in 1701-1724 indirect tax receipts in the state budget grew 1.8 times). But with regard to the growth of obligations in kind the total tax burden increased since conversion of only recruit obligation to money raised direct tax by 23 per cent. If we also take into consideration the devastation of war-struck areas, asynchronism of variations in taxes, rent and prices and also the fact that in reality they collected more taxes than there were on paper (part of them stuck to the hands of officials from the local and central administration) the well-being of the population in the first quarter of the century lowered and this was reflected in the decrease of the biological status of the taxable population.

With the end of the military operations in 1721 and the death of the tireless emperor in 1725 a certain easing set and the biological status of the population began to rise gradually and in 20 years exceeded the pre-war level. A new fall in the biological level of living which went on 55 years (the fall halted only in 1760-1764 and 1775-1779) began in 1745-1749 and also largely due to wars. During this period Russia fought several wars: with Prussia (1757-1762), with Turkey (1768-1774, 1786-1791), with Poland (1768-1772, 1792 and 1794-1795), with Sweden (1788-1790), with Persia (1795-1796), with France (1798-1799). In 1763-1800 military expenditure on the Army and Navy absorbed 67 per cent of the state budget revenue. The most difficult was the war with Turkey. In expenditure and manpower losses it did not yield to the Northern war. Only military fatal casualties were 215 thousand, 2.2 times more than in the Northern war. Even during the first war against Turkey, in 1769 Catherine II had to turn to foreign loans which have become companions of Russian finance up to present time, and issue of banknotes which in the end threw into confusion country’s money circulation. By 1800 the rate of exchange of a banknote rouble fell down to 66.3 kopecks in silver and in 1796 the state debt (with the issue of banknote) was 216 mln roubles, 3.9 times exceeding the budget revenue. Finally, the spoils of war in the form of new territories, the Northern Black Sea lands in particular, required considerable investments on the part of the state into infrastructure, defence, settling and development.

The second important reason that made the state increase taxes was in the fact that that it was in the years of the fall of the biological level of living that the supreme authority carried out structural reforms in the country. Earlier we mentioned the reforms of Peter I. The reforms of Catherine II were not less significant and intensive and they also absorbed much funds. The empress created real estates in Russia, extended estate self-government for townspeople and created it for the nobility, established estate courts, placed local crown government under control of the nobility societies, carried out administrative reforms which helped to strengthen the rule of law in management, encouraged the development of industry, sciences, literature, education, journalism, book-printing, theatre and art, open foreign markets for Russian agriculture, extended contacts with West-European countries in all spheres of life, founded foundling hospitals for orphans etc.