Characteristics of the landowners' estates of the Vologda province obtained by the appanage department in 1804 and 1824

Analysis of archival sources shows that in 1804 the Appanage Department obtained a rather large estate of Princess V.A. Shakhovskaya in the north-eastern part of the Vologda province. As a result, the appanage holdings were significantly expanded in Solvychegodsk uyezd and appeared in Velikoustyug uyezd. In the same year, in the south of the province, in the Vologda uyezd, four villages of the landowner F. Sokolova were purchased, which increased the number of state peasants in the uyezd by almost a third. After the acquisition of the patrimonial estate of Prince Shcherbatov, the number of appanage villages was replenished in the Kadnikovsk uyezd of the Vologda province and the number of state peasants in the Gryazovets uyezd increased by 95%. After the purchase of the landowners' estates in the Vologda province, the structure of the lower peasant administration was supplemented with two appanage divisions and three volosts. At the time of the purchase, the noble estates had a higher proportion of workers relative to the proportion of workers in the appanage villages of the province. These landowners' serfs, in comparison with the state peasants, were better provided with arable land, hay and forest land, working and productive cattle. Therefore, in the landowners' estates, there were more favorable conditions for managing than in the appanage villages of the Vologda province. It is quite understandable that the landlord serfs, relative to the state peasants, mostly paid higher monetary payments in favor of the owner, although in the Shakhovskaya estate, 40.5 % of peasants had the opposite situation. Six years after the purchase, the monetary dues for the former serfs of Princess Shakhovskaya and the landowner Sokolova were equal to the appanage dues, while the former peasants of the Shcherbatov patrimonial estate paid much larger dues until the reform of 1863.