A Russian Merchant's Tale: The Life and Adventures of Ivan Alekseevich Tolchënov, Based on His Diary

1 The Setting, Education, Youth, and Marriage

1 The Setting, Education, Youth, and Marriage IVAN’S HOMETOWN Ivan Tolchënov was born and grew up in Dmitrov, a city 80 kilometers north of Moscow. Ancient by Russian standards, Dmitrov was founded in the twelfth century. It played a role in early Russian princely politics and twice su√ered destruction by the Mongol-Tatar invaders of the thirteenth century. The town nevertheless survived Mongol rule, and when trade with England and Holland opened through the White Sea port of Arkhangel’sk in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Dmitrov shared in the renewed prosperity that this commerce brought to towns north of Moscow. Of all the cities connected to the northern waterways Dmitrov was the closest to Moscow. It was in this period of economic growth that two of Dmitrov’s most impressive cultural monuments were built: the Boris and Gleb Monastery and the Dormition Cathedral, both of which figured importantly in the life of Ivan Tolchënov and his family.∞ Dmitrov’s prosperity was undermined for a time by a shift of trade routes to the northeast through Iaroslavl and Vologda and the disruptions of Ivan the Terrible’s reign, which drained Dmitrov’s commerce and shrank its population. The Time of Troubles soon after caused further losses of trade and population, so that by the middle of the seventeenth century, after conditions had improved somewhat, the city counted only 242 homes (dvory, i.e., homes with their adjacent outbuildings and lands) and a population of 1,300. Thereafter, investments by the tsarist court in local meadows and fishing ponds slowly rebuilt the economy of Dmitrov. By 1705 the population reached 2,000.≤ At this time, an event of major importance for Dmitrov took place. Tsar Peter I decided to move his seat of government to the Baltic seacoast and began construction of the new capital city of St. Petersburg. This decision contributed to renewed prosperity for Dmitrov. The tsar recruited artisans and traders from the city for work in 2 a russian merchant’s tale the new capital. The redirection of trade routes to the north and northwest likewise boosted Dmitrov’s commerce.≥ Until this time its trade had been primarily in market gardening and small manufacturing sales locally and south to Moscow. Now it broadened to include a varied and growing proto-industrial base. When the German-born historian and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Gerhard Friedrich Miller visited Dmitrov in 1779, he found it a lively commercial and artisanal center with a number of small manufactories in the surrounding countryside. The most recent census (1763) had counted a population approaching 3,000 persons (male and female) residing in 611 households . The commercial elite comprised about 200 merchants. Another nearly 1,100 male citizens, artisans and workers of various sorts, made up the rest of the population (not counting clergy, nobles, and government o≈cials).∂ Of the fourteen district cities of Moscow province in 1787, Dmitrov ranked fifth in population and number of homes and fourth in the amount of commercial capital.∑ Dmitrov lies on the northern slope of heights that run north and west of Moscow. The Iakhroma River flows out of these heights and northward through Dmitrov on its way toward the great commercial artery of the Volga River, which in the eighteenth century it reached just upriver from the town of Kimry via the Sestra and Dubna Rivers. The Iakhroma snaked through Dmitrov, which straddled the river. An ancient earthen fortress wall in the shape of an oval marked the center of the town. This impressive wall (which still stands today) stretched 6.4 meters high, and half of it was made more impregnable by a trench 2 meters deep. In early times, it was topped by a parapet and nine towers. On the east, the fortress stood at the foot of a sharply rising hill; the western side ended in a swampy area bordering the river. Dominating the walled city was the magnificent Dormition Cathedral, the seat of the bishop when one served in Dmitrov (for much of the eighteenth century the city either shared a bishop or belonged to the bishopric of PereslavlZaleskii ). In the square fronting the cathedral and in the adjoining market square stood a number of government buildings, including the ecclesiastical administration, district courts, the police administration and state financial o≈ces, the city government and salt storage barns.∏ The Boris and Gleb Monastery with its masonry wall occupied a large space just to...