Mortgage of Land by nobles in the state noble land bank in the Kazan province in the late XIX - early XX centuries

Introduction. The abolition of serfdom confronted Russian landowner nobles with a new reality, when the possibility of using the resource potential of extremely cheap labor of serfs was firstly limited, and then completely disappeared. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account the presence of a significant part of the nobleman’s debts, as a result of which almost a quarter of them did not receive redemption payments that went to pay off the debt. In these conditions, many nobles were in a situation of lack of funds. The main source of finding these funds for the local nobility were operations with the land, its sale or pledge. In this situation, the nobility was extremely interested in obtaining a long-term loan secured by land. This led to the emergence of land banks, the largest of which was the State Noble Land Bank, which carried out mortgage lending to nobles on favorable terms. His activity was of great importance for the development of the noble economy in the new conditions. Materials and Methods. The study is based on the analysis of mainly statistical materials reflecting the activities of the State Noble Land Bank. A study of the regional characteristics of his activities reveals the features of the main trends in the development of noble land ownership in certain areas of the Russian Empire. In the research process, comparative-historical, systemic, quantitative, statistical methods and complex analysis were used. Results. During the analysis of statistical data on the territory of the Kazan province, the reasons were identified that prompted the nobles to pledge their estates and caused the emergence of land banks, reflects the performance indicators of the State Noble Land Bank with the identification of train specifics. It was revealed that the preferential terms of credit provided to the nobles allowed him to become a major player in this area and receive the lion’s share of transactions on the issuance of loans secured by noble estates. Discussion and Conclusions. As a result, this led to the fact that by the beginning of the 20th century, the most of the land belonging to the nobility of the Kazan province was mortgaged precisely in the State Noble Land Bank. His activity allowed the nobles to less loss and to solve the problems arising in the new economic conditions. But, despite the measures taken by the government to support noble land ownership, a significant part of the nobles could not overcome them and was forced to sell their land. At the same time, in general, the Kazan province during the reviewed period had the lowest rate of reduction of noble land ownership.