RUSSIA. 



699 



Railroads. During 1894 and 1895 the Russian 

 :-ii men t acquired the principal railroads from 

 tlie companies. Tliere were in operation on - 

 1, 1^'."). in Russia. Siiieria. and Caucasia ] 

 mill- railroads and 7,427 miles of private 



lines: in Finland. 1.397 miles: in the Trai - 

 pian territory and Turkestan, 890 miles; making a 

 total f 23,220 miles. There were under c, instruc- 

 tion T.S44 miles in Russia. Siberia, and tiie Caucasus. 

 166 miles in Finland, and 96 in Turkestan: total. 

 8,106 miles. The Trans-Siberian railway is expected 

 to be completed before 1905, a length of 4.950 miles, 

 costing 150,000.000 rubles. The section of 493 miles 

 from Chelyabinsk to Omsk was completed before the 

 end of 1895. the section of 384 miles from Omsk to 

 the Ob river was nearly ready, on the section of 476 

 miles from the Ob to Krasnoyarsk the rails were 

 down, and work was proceeding on the next section 

 of 672 miles to Irkutsk and the one from Mysovaya 

 to the head of navigation on the Amur river, which 

 was 701 miles. The section from Vladivostok, tlie 

 terminus on the Pacific coast, to Grafskaya, on the 

 Usuri, 250 miles, was also nearly completed, and the 

 next one of '225 miles to Khalarovsk, on the Amur, 

 was partly built. Tlie parts completed had a length 

 of 1,086 miles. There were 24.080 miles altogether 

 in operation in the empire on Jan. 1, 1896. During 

 1896 there were 918 miles of rail laid on the Trans- 

 Siberian Railroad, making a total length of 1.72 s 

 miles completed by Dec. 31. 1896. including the 

 branch of 150 miles from Chelyabinsk to Ekate- 

 rinburg. The section between the Ob and the Yen- 

 isei was in operation and more than one third of 

 the total distance of 4.547 miles from Chelyabinsk 

 to Vladivostok was laid down, more than half the 

 distance in direct Trans-Siberian communication, 

 and direct communication was established by the 

 completion of the Ekaterinburg branch between St. 

 Petersburg and the Yenisei. 



A line 619 miles long is projected to be built from 

 Perm to Kotlas, on the Dvina, at a cost of 35,000.000 

 rubles. A new railroad in Caucasia will connect Kars 

 with Tiflis, a distance of 188 miles. In central 

 Asia a line will run from Samarcand to Andijan. in 

 Ferganah, 342 miles, including a branch to Tash- 

 kend, the estimated cost being 27,000,000 rubles. 



Posts and Telegraphs. The postal traffic in 

 1894 was 207.441.000 internal and 26.977.000 foreign 

 letters, 36.629.000 internal and 5.053.000 foreign 

 postal cards. 52.026.000 internal and 19,300.000 

 newspapers and pamphlets, and 15.785.000 internal 

 money letters and 544 foreign ones, transmitting 

 2< 1,273,179,000 and 481 .497.000 francs. The receipts 

 of the post office were 151.490.312 francs. The ex- 

 penses of the postal and telegraph services were 

 110.123.836 francs. 



The state telegraphs in 1894 had a total length of 

 7ti.t'>23 miles, with 152.540 miles of wire. The length 

 of the Anglo-Indian line in Russian territory is 

 2.256 miles, with 5,829 miles of wire. There were 

 :X"> miles of private telegraphs, with 470 miles of 

 wire. The number of internal dispatches sent in 

 1894 was 11.132.794: the number of foreign dis- 

 patches received 908.505. and sent 931,234 ; of trans- 

 it dispatches. 173.278; of official dispatches. - 

 746 : total. 13.971.647 : receipts. 50.524.572 francs. 



Currency. The legal monetary unit is the silver 

 ruble, containing in the new coinage 19'9957 

 grammes of silver 0'900 fine, or 17'994 grammes of 

 fine silver. The money in circulation has been 

 paper for a long period. The value of the paper 

 ruble fluctuated formerly, not only in relation to 

 gold, but in relation to the silver "ruble. In 1890 

 the rate adopted in the budget was 1'60 of paper to 

 1 silver ruble. By placing in circulation new silver 

 currency, coined in France, withdrawing a large 

 part of the paper notes issued by the Bank of Rus- 



sia on account of the Government, requiring 

 bank to strengthen it- coin n-er\ e for t he j, : 

 tion of it> . and accumulating an imi 



gold reserve, the Government has succeeded ii 

 ing the exchange value of the paper ruble, making 

 it identical with the>ilver ruble, and in rai-ingthat 

 of the silver ruble also in mar- 



kets. There were 1,046,281,684 paper rubles in cir- 

 culation in Decemlu-r. 1885 . by a metallic 

 reserve of 375. 000,000 gold rub!- <i,000 

 rubles of temporary emissions that were fully cov- 

 ered. The gold coins of Russia are the imperial 

 and half imperial, the latter containing 5'9987 

 grammes of fine gold. The imperial, or 10-ruble 

 piece, of the new coinage, contains 11 '61 18 grammes 

 of fine gold. The Ministry of Finance fixed tin- 

 value of the gold imperial for 1896 at 15 paper ru- 

 bles, thus establishing a ratio of 1-50 to 1 between 

 the gold ruble and the paper and silver rubles. 

 The gold ruble is worth 77 2 cents. The bullion 

 value of the silver ruble on Oct. 1, 1896. was 39'2 

 cents. In 1891 the silver ruble was taken by the 

 Government at 60 per cent, premium above the 

 paper ruble, but since 1894 they have stood at par. 

 The addition of 75.000,000 gold rubles to the ex- 

 change fund in March, 1896, brought the metallic 

 reserve up to 500.000.000 gold rubles. The debt 

 contracted by the Government through the issue of 

 credit rubles amounted at that date to one third of 

 the entire paper circulation. A further redemption 

 of credit rubles was proposed, and a complete re- 

 form of the currency was contemplated. M. Witte's 

 plan was to issue a new gold currency, in which 

 the coins would correspond to the silver and paper 

 ruble in value. The new pieces would thus contain 

 two thirds as much gold as the existing gold coins 

 of the same denominations, which until their with- 

 drawal and recoinage would still continue to circu- 

 late at the fixed legal premium of 50 per cent. 

 Having begun by the compulsory circulation of the 

 silver ruble at a par with its paper equivalent and 

 of the old gold pieces of 5 and 10 rubles at a pre- 

 mium fixed by him for twelve months in advance, 

 the minister expected to complete the restoration 

 of a metallic currency by coining and issuing the 

 gold fund accumulated in the Imperial Bank, which 

 was large enough to give 750.000,000 rubles of the 

 proposed new gold coins, with which 1,000,000,000 

 rubles of paper could be kept in concurrent circu- 

 lation. The credit rubles of the Government would 

 all be called in and the Bank of Russia would be 

 compelled to hold a metallic reserve to cover 50 per 

 cent, of its emissions up to 1,000,000,000 rubles and 

 to cover fully all issues over and above that amount. 

 M. Witte compelled the bankers to accept gold cer- 

 tificates by threats of retaliation through the state 

 bank. The new silver currency was greatly aug- 

 mented in 1896 and a new copper coinage was struck 

 at the mint in Birmingham. All Russian officials 

 were paid partly in gold and partly in silver, and 

 the public, which in some remote districts refused 

 to take the new currency, was compelled to accept 

 the metal. 



Coronation of the Emperor. The Emperor 

 Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, 

 who was Princess Alix of Hesse, went through the 

 ceremony of coronation in the Grand Kremlin at 

 iw on May 26. 1896. The ceremonial and the 

 accompanying festivities, which lasted nearly three 

 weeks, were of unexampled splendor. Besides rep- 

 resentatives of all the reigning houses of Europe, 

 the chief dignitaries of the Russian Empire were 

 present and several of the potentates of Asia who 

 acknowledged the sovereignty of the Czar. The 

 Czar made his formal entry into the ancient capital 

 of the empire from the adjacent Petrofsky palace 

 on May 21, on May 26 he placed upon his head the 



