The Domestic Trade Network

Tsarist Russia's domestic trade was officially carried out through a number of ad hoc registered channels. According to an act of 1898, the registered stationary commercial enterprises were divided into four groups. Group I consisted of the wholesale firms handling agricultural products for over 300,000 rubles per year, the big drugstores, restaurants, and taverns. Group II comprised the establishments conducting transactions involving agricultural products for 50,000–300,000 rubles per year, as well as the wholesale stores selling alcoholic beverages either to small merchants or directly to private customers. Group III contained the small retail stores transacting agricultural products for 10,000–50,000 rubles per year, as well as the small tea and coffee shops and small drugstores. Group IV included the market stalls handling agricultural products for less than 10,000 rubles per year along with other types of commodities. A Group V was added for conveyance and delivery facilities. In 1912, only 27.5 percent of the total commercial-industrial sales of the stationary commercial enterprises went to the villages, then inhabited by 86 percent of the total population; on the other hand, 72.5 percent of the total sales went to the towns, inhabited by 14 percent of the country's total population. If one considers only Euro-Russia, the amount bought by the town's population reached 212.75 rubles per capita, while it amounted to 13.04 rubles per capita in the countryside, that is, about sixteen times less.