Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/77

 Rh activity now known as koustar, had existed and been general in the country from a very early date. At Kosmodiémiansk, near Nijni-Novgorod, there was a celebrated industry in chests, and there were others, famous for their red-leather and seal-skin appointments, at Kholmogory. The sledges made at Viazma and the wooden spoons produced at Kalouga were also highly renowned, but none of this was exceedingly profitable merchandise. The Kholmogory chests were used to carry wares to Moscow, and then sold there at very low prices. A hundred Kalouga spoons were worth 20 altines, and a Viazma sleigh was to be had for a poltina.

Trade, though comparatively stronger, was still starved. In the matter of exports it was almost exclusively confined to raw materials. The first place was held by furs, and 500,000 roubles' worth were sold in Europe and Asia every year. The finest sables came from Obdorsk, in the present Government of Tobolsk. White bearskins came from the banks of the Piétchora, and sealskins from the Kola Peninsula. A fine sable skin cost as much as thirty gold florins; a boïar's cap trimming, in black fox, was worth fifteen. But ermine was little sought after in those days, and an ermine skin could be bought for 3 or 4 diéngi. Wax held the second place in the external trade of the country; about 50,000 pounds were exported every year. Tallow came next, a considerable quantity, some 30,000 or 40,000 pounds, being sent annually out of the provinces of Smolensk, Jaroslavl, Ouglitch, Novgorod, Vologda, and Tver. Within the boundaries of Russia this commodity was not very largely consumed, for the rich used wax candles, and the poor burnt torches made of resinous wood. The honey so abundantly produced in the provinces of Riazan and Mourom, and, later, round Kazan, was principally employed in brewing the favourite beverage of the country, but a certain quantity was also sent abroad, Pskov and Novgorod, Jaroslavl and Vologda, exporting as much as 10,000 pounds a year. For elk-skins, too, much praised by Fletcher, there was a foreign demand. The finest elks were to be found in the forests near Rostov, Vytchegda, Novgorod, Mourom, and Perm. The oxen were too small to be of much mercantile value. The neighbourhood of Arkhangel sent seal-oil to the foreign markets, and the fisheries of Jaroslavl, Nijni-Novgorod, Biélooziéro, and Astrakhan—after the conquest of that country—furnished abundance of fish and fish-roes, already much sought after by English, Dutch, and French merchants. These were sold even in Italy and Spain. In his 'Treatise on the Sarmatians,' published in 1521, Matthew Miechovski speaks of the whale-fisheries in the White Sea. But it seems strange that efforts which have so frequently failed in later times should have been