Agriculture in Imperial Russia

Agriculture in the Russian Empire throughout the 19th-20th centuries represented a major world force yet it lagged behind other developed countries. Russia was amongst the largest exporters of agricultural produce, especially wheat, while the Free Economic Society made continuing efforts to improve farming techniques.

The Russian peasant (male) was colloquially called krestyanin (Russian: крестьянин), female form of this word is krestyanka (Russian: крестьянка), plural - krestyane (Russian: крестьяне). Some arrogate this meaning to word muzhik, moujik (Russian: мужи́к, IPA: [mʊˈʐɨk]) (man), and this word was calqued into Western languages through translations of Russian literature of 19th century, that described Russian rural life of that times, and where really word muzhik were used in meaning of most common rural dweller - peasant, but that was only a narrow contextual meaning of the word. Muzhik is plain traditional word that means just "man" (mature male human), and in more civil language it can mean "plain man". Female equivalent word is baba (Russian: баба).

The black-earth belt (or chernozem) stretched in a broad band north-east from the Romanian border to include the Ukraine, Central Agricultural Region, Middle Volga, south-west Urals and south-western Siberia. This expanse, together with the alluvial zone of the Kuban in the North Caucasus, constituted the fertile `grain-surplus' steppe areas of cereal production. In the non-black earth grain-deficit areas, with their poor soils, the peasants turned to cottage industry (and increasingly factory industry), as well as livestock breeding and the cultivation of vegetables and industrial crops, to make up their livelihoods. They relied on `imports' from the grain-surplus regions to make up the deficiency of cereals.

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