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RUSSIA. 



RUSSIA, an empire in northern Europe and 

 Asia. The legislative and executive powers are 

 united in the autocratic hereditary monarch of 

 the Romanoff-Holstein-Gottorp family, in which 

 the dynastic succession is through the male line 

 in the order of primogeniture and through fe- 

 male descendants in default of male successors. 

 The reigning Emperor or Czar is Alexander III, 

 born Feb. 25, 1845, who succeeded to the throne 

 at the death by assassination of his father, Alex- 

 ander II, on March 13, 1881. The heir-apparqnt 

 is the Czar's eldest son, the Grand Duke Nicho- 

 las, born May 18, 1868. The Czar exercises the 

 powers of government through the medium of 

 four consultative and administrative bodies : (1) 

 The Council of State, which examines and passes 

 upon the budget and elaborates the projects of 

 law that the Czar desires to have enacted; (2) 

 the Ruling Senate, which promulgates the laws 

 and is the supreme court of civil and criminal 

 judicature ; (3) the Holy Synod, composed of the 

 metropolitan bishops of Kieff, Moscow, and St. 

 Petersburg, the Exarch of Grusva, four or five 

 temporary members chosen from the episcopate, 

 two representatives of the secular or married 

 clergy, one lay member, the superior procurator, 

 whose duties are to see that the decisions of the 

 body, which embraces all affairs of religion, are 

 in harmony with the laws of the empire ; (4) 

 the Committee of Ministers, who are the imme- 

 diate advisers of the Czar. The following were 

 the ministers in office in 1891 : Gen. Count 

 Vorontzoff-Dashkoff, Minister of the Imperial 

 House ; Nicholas Carlovich de Giers, Minister 

 of Foreign Affairs ; Gen. Vannoffsky, the Czar's 

 aide-de-camp, Minister of War; Vice- Admiral 

 Tchikhatchoff, Minister of the Navy; Privy 

 Councilor Durnovo, Minister of the Interior ; 

 Privy Councilor Delyanoff, Minister of Public 

 Instruction; Privy Councilor Vyshnegradsky, 

 Minister of Finance ; Privy Councilor Manas- 

 sein, Minister of Justice ; Privy Councilor Os- 

 trovsky, Minister of Domains; Privy Councilor 

 von Hubbenet, Minister of Public Works and 

 Railways ; Privy Councilor Filipoff, Chief of 

 the Department of General Control. The post 

 of Secretary of State for Finland has been vacant 

 since the death of Baron Brunn in 1888. 



Area and Population. The area of the 

 Russian Empire, according to the calculations 

 of Gen. Strelbitzky, is 8,660,427 square miles. 

 The European provinces of Russia have a super- 

 ficies of 1.902,227 square miles: Poland, 49,157 

 square miles ; the Grand Duchy of Finland, 

 144,255 square miles; the Caucasus, 182,457 

 square miles ; the Khirghiz Steppe, with Lake 

 Aral, 755,793 square miles ; the Caspian Sea, 

 169,381 square miles ; the trans-Caspian terri- 

 tory, 214,237 square miles ; Russian Turkestan, 

 409,414 square miles ; western Siberia, 870,818 

 square miles ; eastern Siberia, 3,044,512 square 

 miles ; the Amur region, 888.830 square miles ; 

 Saghalien, 29,336 square miles. The Govern- 

 ments of European Russia were estimated in 

 1885 to contain a population of 85.395,209, di- 

 vided into 42.999,324 males and 42.895,885 fe- 

 males. An estimate for 1890 makes the popula- 

 tion, not including troops, of the kingdom of 

 Poland 8,256,562, of whom 3.977,406 are males 

 and 4,279,156 are females. The population of 

 the Caucasus was estimated at 7,284,567 in 1885, 



consisting of 3,876,868 males and 3,407,699 fe- 

 males ; that of Siberia and the Amur region was 

 estimated in the same year at 4,313,680, and 

 that of Central Asia, including the Steppe, at 

 5,327,098. The number of marriages in Euro- 

 pean Russia in 1888 was 804,084; of births, 

 4,251,473 ; of deaths, 2,749,085 ; excess of births, 

 1,502.388. In Poland the number of marriages 

 was 67,392 ; of births, 334,268 ; of deaths, 204,- 

 031 ; excess of births, 130,237. The population 

 of St. Petersburg, the capital, in December, 1890, 

 was 956,226 ; that of Warsaw in the same year 

 was 443,426; Moscow in 1885 had 746,469 in- 

 habitants. Odessa 240,000, Riga 175,332, Khar- 

 koff 171,416, Kieff 165,561, Kasan 139,915, Sara- 

 toff 122,826, Kichineff 120,074, Vilna 102,845, 

 and Lodz in 1890 had 125,227. 



Religion. The Russian branch of the Greek 

 Orthodox Catholic Church has been governed by 

 its independent directing body since Peter the 

 Great established the Holy Synod with the con- 

 sent of the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Jeru- 

 salem, Antioeh, and Alexandria. The Russian 

 Church is organized in 60 bishoprics, of which 

 48 are in European Russia, including the north- 

 ern Caucasus; three of these have the rank of 

 Metropolitan Archbishops, but exercise no au- 

 thority beyond the limits of their sees. Of the 

 other 12 bishoprics 6 are in Siberia, 4 are in 

 trans-Caucasia, 1 in the Aleutian Islands, and 1 

 embraces the territory of Alaska. When a bish- 

 opric becomes vacant the Czar appoints the 

 bishop, selecting one of three names submitted 

 by the Holy Synod. The clergy constitute one 

 of the four classes into which the population is 

 divided. There are two distinct classes : (1) 

 The celibate or monastic clergy, called the 

 "black" clergy, who fill all the important eccle- 

 siastical offices, and are the authorities and pre- 

 servers of the traditions and forms of the 

 Church ; and (2) the " white " clergy, who are 

 educated at the expense of the state in the semi- 

 naries at St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kieff, and 

 Kasan, and must marry before they can receive 

 an appointment. There are, according to the 

 latest statistics, 1.418 archpriests, 34,345 priests, 

 6,810 deacons, and 48,371 assistants. Those who 

 fail in the examination for the priesthood enter 

 the diaconate, or, if they fall below the standard 

 for that division of the clergy, become psalm- 

 singers or assistants. The monastic system 

 stands in high repute, and the chief occupation 

 of the monks, of whom there were 18,128, in- 

 cluding novices, in 1889, is to go through litur- 

 gical and devotional exercises. The formalism 

 of the orthodox worship and the debasement 

 and immorality of the "white" or parochial 

 clergy have, in spite of persecution, driven a 

 large proportion of the people into the schis- 

 matic sects. Of these, the most important a-rc 

 the Raskol dissenters, estimated at 14,000,000 

 souls, and the Stundists, who number about 

 2,000,000. 



Finances. The chief sources of revenue are 

 direct and indirect taxes, state domains and salt 

 mines, and the salt and tobacco monopolies. In 

 -1890 the ordinary revenue was 943,686,000 rubles, 

 and the extraordinary revenue 103,687,000 ru- 

 bles, a total of 1,047,373,000 rubles, which ex- 

 ceeded the budget estimated by 99.504,000 ru- 

 bles. The ordinary expenditures were 877,- 



