In conquering Russia the Mongols had no wish to possess themselves of the soil, or to take into their own hands the local administration.  What they wanted was not land, of which they had enough and to spare, but movable property which they might enjoy without giving up their pastoral, nomadic life.  They applied, therefore, to Russia the same method of extracting supplies as they had used in other countries.  As soon as their authority had been formally acknowledged they sent officials into the country to number the inhabitants and to collect an amount of tribute proportionate to the population.  This was a severe burden for the people, not only on account of the sum demanded, but also on account of the manner in which it was raised.  The exactions and cruelty of the tax-gatherers led to local insurrections, and the insurrections were of course always severely punished.  But there was never any general military occupation of the country or any wholesale confiscations of land, and the existing political organisation was left undisturbed.  The modern method of dealing with annexed provinces was totally unknown to the Mongols.  The Khans never thought of attempting to denationalise their Russian subjects.  They demanded simply an oath of allegiance from the Princes* and a certain sum of tribute from the people.  The vanquished were allowed to retain their land, their religion, their language, their courts of justice, and all their other institutions.

     * During the Mongol domination Russia was composed of a
     large number of independent principalities.

The nature of the Mongol domination is well illustrated by the policy which the conquerors adopted towards the Russian Church.  For more than half a century after the conquest the religion of the Tartars was a mixture of Buddhism and Paganism, with traces of Sabaeism or fire-worship.  During this period Christianity was more than simply tolerated.  The Grand Khan Kuyuk caused a Christian chapel to be erected near his domicile, and one of his successors, Khubilai, was in the habit of publicly taking part in the Easter festivals.  In 1261 the Khan of the Golden Horde allowed the Russians to found a bishopric in his capital, and several members of his family adopted Christianity.  One of them even founded a monastery, and became a saint of the Russian Church!  The Orthodox clergy were exempted from the poll-tax, and in the charters granted to them it was expressly declared that if any one committed blasphemy against the faith of the Russians he should be put to death.  Some time afterwards the Golden Horde was converted to Islam, but the Khans did not on that account change their policy.  They continued to favour the clergy, and their protection was long remembered.  Many generations later, when the property of the Church was threatened by the autocratic power, refractory ecclesiastics contrasted the policy of the Orthodox Sovereign with that of the “godless Tartars,” much to the advantage of the latter.