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vii preFaCe R This book has been a long time in the making. It began as a continuation of my published research on the provinces of northeastern Russia that, while serving as a natural barrier, also connected St. Petersburg with the rest of a vast empire that extended to the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, and the Pacific Ocean. I wanted to know how effectively laws, directives, and initiatives were transmitted from the capital to officials and subjects in the provinces and how information, taxes, and goods from the provinces reached Russia’s new capital and seaport. I presented papers and published articles on some of those topics, but my discovery that more than half the cargo shipped from the interior provinces to St. Petersburg consisted of grain and flour aroused my curiosity and moved that topic to the forefront of my attention. Were those cereals meant for export or consumption? What was drawing grain and flour to St. Petersburg, state authority or market forces? Who bought it? Who sold it? Where did it come from? How was it moved from one place to another over distances of hundreds and possibly even more than a thousand kilometers? Answering those questions and their many offshoots took me more than two decades, for my efforts to answer some questions provoked new questions that led me ever deeper into the workings of eighteenth-century Russia’s economy, government, and society. I found that I had to educate myself about nutrition, business law, military procurement, agriculture, hydroengineering, and several other subjects about which I originally knew very little. My research provided me with ample material to present at scholarly conferences and to publish in journals and collective volumes, and at that stage in my career I felt no pressure to publish a book prematurely in order to gain tenure or promotion. Those circumstances allowed me to take the time I needed to pursue my interests and follow them down the lengthening trail of questions and answers, picking up facts, clues, hints, and glimpses as I went. Family and personal concerns, medical problems, and service as the secretary of the faculty senate at my university and as the chair of my department viii Preface often diverted my attention and kept me from returning to Russia to continue my research. Even so, between 1985 and 2003 I made seven substantial research trips to the Soviet Union and the Russian Republic, during which I worked in archives and libraries, as well as some shorter ones, when I visited key sites and important museums. The research I completed there forms the core of this book and supplies much of its value. Personal memoirs, institutional histories, and antiquarian accounts supplemented and clarified my archival findings, and important secondary works based on archival sources (e.g., Mironov’s work on grain prices), as well as books by Rubinshtein, Confino, and Milov on agriculture , proved indispensable. From those many sources I acquired an understanding of the relevant activities of government officials, noble landowners, peasant farmers, and grain merchants from which I have tried to construct a portrait of eighteenth-century Russia’s government, economy, and society from a novel and, I believe, revealing perspective. My greatest frustration has been my failure to uncover any source that reveals consumers’ reactions to fluctuations in the price of their daily bread. Many people and institutions helped me with this work, and I am pleased to acknowledge their contributions. The International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) and the Research Council of the University of Massachusetts– Amherst provided funds for several of my research trips to the Soviet Union and the Russian Republic. Professors Boris Mironov and Oleg Omel’chenko directed me to important archival sources, and Professors Ruslan Skrynnikov and L. V. Milov helped me gain access to them. I am grateful to them and to the archivists at the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA), in Moscow, especially Svetlana Romanovna Dolgova, who helped me with this project as she has with others going back many years. I also want to thank the archivists at the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA) and the St. Petersburg branch of the Institute of Russian History of the Academy of Sciences (SPIRI. RAN) in St. Petersburg for their efficient assistance. On the recommendation of Ruslan Skrynnikov, Pavel Sedov finished reading one of the archival collections in SPIRI. RAN that I did not have time to complete myself and provided me with meticulous notes on it. Discussions with Professors...

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