Russian Empire
From Roach Busters
| Российская империя Rossiyskaya Imperiya Russian Empire | |
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| Flag | Great State Emblem |
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| Motto "Съ нами Богъ!" (Russian) "God is with us!" | |
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| Anthem God Save the Tsar! | |
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| Capital Largest city | Saint Petersburg 59°56′0″N, 30°20′0″E Moscow |
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| Official languages | Russian |
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| Demonym | Russian |
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| Government - Emperor - Minister President - Legislature | Absolute monarchy Peter IV Aleksandr Drozdovsky State Duma |
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| Official religion | Russian Orthodox Church |
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| Establishment - Accession of Peter I - Empire proclaimed - Abolition of feudalism - Constitution | May 7, 1682 NS, April 27, 1682 OS October 22, 1721 NS, October 11, 1721 OS March 3, 1861 NS, February 19, 1861 OS April 23, 1906 |
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| Area - Total - Water (%) | 22,623,132 km² 8,734,762 sq mi 0.86 |
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| Population - July 2007 est. - Density | 290,373,111 12.84 /km² 33.24 /sq mi |
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| GDP (PPP) - Total - Per capita | 2007 estimate $16.298 trillion $48,384 |
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| GDP (nominal) - Total - Per capita | 2007 estimate $16.298 trillion $48,384 |
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| Gini | 37.6 (medium) |
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| HDI |  0.947 (high)
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| Currency | Ruble (RUB)
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| Time zone - Summer (DST) | (UTC +2 to +12) (UTC +3 to +13) |
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| Internet TLD | .ru |
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| Calling code | +7 |
Contents |
Cabinet
Minister President: Aleksandr Drozdovsky
Minister of the Imperial Court: Alexei Pokrovsky
Minister of Foreign Affairs: Andrey Viskovatyi
Minister of War and Marine: Ivane Cholokashvili
Minister of Finance: Leonid Khodorkovsky
Minister of Commerce and Industry: Mikhail Tretyakov
Minister of Interior: Sergey Krasheninnikov
Minister of Agriculture: Pyotr Kuchin
Minister of Ways and Communications: Aleksandr Kokovstov
Minister of Justice: Nikita Dmitriev
Minister of National Enlightenment: Count Fyodor Golitsyn
Local administration
Alongside the local organs of the central government in Russia there are three classes of local elected bodies charged with administrative functions:
- the peasant assemblies in the mir and the volost;
- the zemstvos in the 34 Governorates of Russia;
- the municipal dumas.
Municipal dumas
Since 1870 the municipalities in European Russia have had institutions like those of the zemstvos. All owners of houses, and tax-paying merchants, artisans and workmen are enrolled on lists in a descending order according to their assessed wealth. The total valuation is then divided into three equal parts, representing three groups of electors very unequal in number, each of which elects an equal number of delegates to the municipal duma. The executive is in the hands of an elective mayor and an uprava, which consists of several members elected by the duma. Under Alexander III, however, by laws promulgated in 1892 and 1894, the municipal dumas were subordinated to the governors in the same way as the zemstvos. In 1894 municipal institutions, with still more restricted powers, were granted to several towns in Siberia, and in 1895 to some in Caucasia.
Baltic provinces
The formerly Swedish controlled Baltic provinces (Courland, Livonia and Estonia) were incorporated into the Russian Empire after the defeat of Sweden in the Great Northern War. Under the Treaty of Nystad of 1721, the Baltic German nobility retained considerable powers of self-government and numerous privileges in matters affecting education, police and the administration of local justice. After 167 years of German language administration and education, laws were promulgated in 1888 and 1889 where the rights of the police and manorial justice were transferred from Baltic German control to officials of the central government. Since about the same time a process of rigorous Russification was being carried out in the same provinces, in all departments of administration, in the higher schools and in the university of Dorpat, the name of which was altered to Yuriev. In 1893 district committees for the management of the peasants' affairs, similar to those in the purely Russian governments, were introduced into this part of the empire.
Religions
The state religion of the Russian Empire is Russian Orthodox Christianity. Its head is the Emperor, but although he makes and annuls all appointments, he does not determine questions of dogma or church teaching. The principal ecclesiastical authority is the Holy Synod, the head of which, the Procurator, is one of the council of ministers and exercises very wide powers in ecclesiastical matters. Following the landmark reforms of 1922, Russians enjoy a great degree of religious freedom, and the state and church have since then worked actively to combat anti-Semitism and promote interreligious tolerance. According to returns published in 2005, based on the Russian Empire Census of 2002, adherents of the different religious communities in the whole of the Russian empire number approximately as follows, though the heading Orthodox includes a very great many Raskolniks or Dissenters.
| Religion | Count of believers (%) |
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| Orthodox | 69.34 |
| Islam | 11.07 |
| Roman Catholics | 9.13 |
| Judaism | 4.15 |
| Lutherans | 2.84 |
| Old Believers | 1.75 |
| Armenian Apostolic | 0.9 |
| Buddhists and Lamaists | 0.34 |
| Other non-Christian religions | 0.28 |
| Reformed | 0.07 |
| Mennonites | 0.05 |
| Armenian Catholics | 0.03 |
| Baptists | 0.03 |
| Karaite Judaism | 0.01 |
| Anglicans | 0.007 |
| Other Christian religions | 0.003 |
The ecclesiastical heads of the national Russian Orthodox Church consist of three metropolitans (St Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev), fourteen archbishops and fifty bishops, all drawn from the ranks of the monastic (celibate) clergy. The parochial clergy have to be married when appointed, but if left widowers are not allowed to marry again; this rule continues to apply today.
Society
Subjects of the Russian Empire are segregated into sosloviyes, or social estates (classes) such as nobility (dvoryanstvo), clergy, merchants, cossacks, and peasants. Native people of the Caucasus, non-ethnic Russian areas such as Tartarstan, Bashkirstan, Siberia, and Central Asia are officially registered as a category called inorodtsy (non-Slavic, literally: "people of another origin").
A mass of the people, 81.6%, belong to the peasant order, the others are: nobility, 1.3%; clergy, 0.9%; the burghers and merchants, 9.3%; and military, 6.1%.
