Russian local government during the war and the Union of Zemstvos

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1794855874

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-179223

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Polner, Tichon I. http://d-nb.info/gnd/172311195

Title:: Russian local government during the war and the Union of Zemstvos

Place of publication:: New Haven

Publisher:: Yale Univ. Press

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: XXV, 317 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter II. Activities of the zemstvo institutions on the eve of the war

Collection:: Economics Books

ACTIVITIES BEFORE THE WAR 47 work for its further promotion, by providing marketing facilities, furnishing artistic patterns and models to the producers, organizing exhibitions of their goods, and providing other facilities. The larg- est and most widely known of all the zemstvo stores for the sale of the products of the cottage industry (with an exhibition and work- shops attached to it) was that of the Moscow provincial zemstvo, which sold its goods not only throughout Russia, but even in foreign countries. Of great importance in the development of the cottage in- dustry were the stores maintained by the provincial zemstvos of Kostroma, Ufa, Vyatka, and other provinces, not to mention the stores belonging to numerous district zemstvos. During the last few years preceding the War, the system of banks (funds) maintained by the zemstvos expanded very rapidly. By January 1, 1915, the zemstvos had opened 239 such institutions, with a total balance of 85,958,900 rubles. Through the medium of these banks, just as through their agricultural stores, the zemstvos were closely connected with a large network of rural codperative societies. In concluding our survey of the activities of the zemstvos in the economic field, we cannot omit the vast amount of work that was accomplished by the statistical bureaus of the provincial zemstvos. Surveys, undertaken by the zemstvos for various practical purposes, such as the appraisal of real property, supplied a wealth of material without which an adequate study of the economic condition of the country would have been impossible. A majority of the provincial zemstvos had special offices for cur- rent agricultural statistics, which collected the yearly figures of the harvest, grain prices, wages, and similar important data. These sta- tistics were found to be more complete and reliable than those assem- bled by agents of the central government, and it is to be regretted that the traditional conflict between the bureaucracy and the zem- stvos stood in the way of their effective cooperation in this field. Fire Insurance and Prevention. Fire insurance constituted one of the most important fields of zemstvo activity. When the zemstvo institutions were established, fires in the rural districts were a veritable scourge to the peasants, owing to the fact that their buildings, mostly of wood and thatch, stood so close together. Every fire breaking out in a village would

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