The role of highways and land carriage in Tsarist Russia.

Abstract

Despite the fact that a system of paved and unpaved roads evolved, land transportation was less than satisfactory. Traveling and land carriage were slow, tedious, and expensive. The effects of rasputitsa (season of the mud) were a significant impediment to uninterrupted land transportation. An immense amount of capital, labor, and resources went into land carriage and a minimum amount into highway construction. Every facet of Russian society was touched in some manner by ground transportation ability. The effects of roads and and highways in inhibiting the modernization of Tsardom was of great significance.

Russia was not a roadless nation-state. On the contrary, it was a country with public highways and post-roads, divided into categories, each with specific construction codes and maintenance procedures. An intricate bureaucracy was spawned to supervise and manage these roads and highways. The decision to collapse distances and increase transport efficiency with steam railways was a significant development. Macadam surfaces declined precipitously, never to recover.

The purpose of this study is to describe and explain the role, influences, and effects of highways over land carriage in the development of the Old Russian economy. For centuries, Russia had few choices but to transport merchandise by land routes. In summer and winter, small animal-drawn vehicles and sleds carried the goods of the empire to local and distant markets.