The efforts of the Government to create a rich, intelligent tiers-etat were not attended with much success.  Their influence was always more apparent in official documents than in real life.  The great mass of the population remained serfs, fixed to the soil, whilst the nobles—­that is to say, all who possessed a little education—­were required for the military and civil services.  Those who were sent abroad to learn the useful arts learned little, and made little use of the knowledge which they acquired.  On their return to their native country they very soon fell victims to the soporific influence of the surrounding social atmosphere.  The “town-building” had as little practical result.  It was an easy matter to create any number of towns in the official sense of the term.  To transform a village into a town, it was necessary merely to prepare an izba, or log-house, for the district court, another for the police-office, a third for the prison, and so on.  On an appointed day the Governor of the province arrived in the village, collected the officials appointed to serve in the newly-constructed or newly-arranged log-houses, ordered a simple religious ceremony to be performed by the priest, caused a formal act to be drawn up, and then declared the town to be “opened.”  All this required very little creative effort; to create a spirit of commercial and industrial enterprise among the population was a more difficult matter and could not be effected by Imperial ukaz.

To animate the newly-imported municipal institutions, which had no root in the traditions and habits of the people, was a task of equal difficulty.  In the West these institutions had been slowly devised in the course of centuries to meet real, keenly-felt, practical wants.  In Russia they were adopted for the purpose of creating those wants which were not yet felt.  Let the reader imagine our Board of Trade supplying the masters of fishing-smacks with accurate charts, learned treatises on navigation, and detailed instructions for the proper ventilation of ships’ cabins, and he will have some idea of the effect which Peter’s legislation had upon the towns.  The office-bearers, elected against their will, were hopelessly bewildered by the complicated procedure, and were incapable of understanding the numerous ukazes which prescribed to them their multifarious duties and threatened the most merciless punishments for sins of omission and commission.  Soon, however, it was discovered that the threats were not nearly so dreadful as they seemed; and accordingly those municipal authorities who were to protect and enlighten the burghers, “forgot the fear of God and the Tsar,” and extorted so unblushingly that it was found necessary to place them under the control of Government officials.