In the mid-tenth century, the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus described (De administrando imperio) the southern part of the route, noting the existence of seven cataracts in the lower Dnieper, passable only by portage, and the attendant dangers of Pecheneg attacks. According to Constantine, the Slavs-from as far north as Novgorod-cut monoxyla (dugouts) during the winter and floated them downstream to Kiev in spring. There, these boats were rebuilt and equipped with oars, rowlocks, and “other tackle.” In early summer, the Rus filled these boats with goods to sell in Constantinople and rowed downstream to the island of St. Aitherios (Berezan) in the mouth of the Dnieper, where they again re-equipped their boats with “tackle as is needed, sails and masts and rudders which they bring with them.” Thereafter, they sailed out into the Black Sea, following its western coast to Constantinople. With the Rus-Byzantine commercial treaties of 907, 911, 944, and 971, Rus traders were common visitors in Constantinople, where they stayed for as long as six months annually, from spring through the summer months, at the quarters of St. Mamas.
The Rus traded furs, wax, and honey for Byzantine wine, olive oil, silks, glass jewelry and dishware, church paraphernalia, and other luxuries. During the tenth century and perhaps a bit later, the Rus also sold slaves to the Byzantines. Rus and Scandinavian pilgrims and mercenaries also traveled to the eastern Mediterranean via this route. On several occasions in the tenth century and in 1043, the Rus used this route to invade Byzantium.
During inter-princely Rus disputes, the route was sometimes closed, as at the turn of the twelfth century when Kiev blockaded trade with Novgorod. On occasion, nomadic peoples south of Kiev also blocked the route or impeded trade, and Rus princes responded with military expeditions. With the occupation of Constantinople by Latin Crusaders in 1204, Rus merchants shifted their trade to the Crimean port of Sudak. The route was abandoned following the Mongol conquest of Rus in about 1240. However, up to that time, Kiev’s trade via the route flourished, particularly from the eleventh to the mid-thirteenth centuries. See also: BYZANTIUM, INFLUENCE OF; FOREIGN TRADE; KIEVAN RUS; NORMANIST CONTROVERSY; PRIMARY CHRONICLE; VIKINGS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cross, Samuel Hazzard and Sherbowitz-Wetzor, Olgerd P., tr. and ed. (1973). The Russian Primary Chronicle. Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America. Kaiser, Daniel, tr. and ed. (1992). The Laws of Russia, Series 1, Vol. 1: The Laws of Rus’, Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries. Salt Lake City, UT: Charles Schlacks, Jr. Noonan, Thomas S. (1967). “The Dnieper Trade Route.” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Noonan, Thomas S. (1991). “The Flourishing of Kiev’s International and Domestic Trade, ca. 1100-ca. 1240.” In Ukrainian Economic History: Interpretive Essays, ed. I. S. Koropeckyj. Cambridge, MA: Ukrainian Research Institute.
RSFSR See RUSSIAN SOVIET FEDERATED SOCIALIST REPUBLIC.
The basic unit of Russian currency.
The term ruble (rubl’) emerged in thirteenth-century Novgorod, where it referred to half of a grivna. The term derives from the verb rubit (to cut), since the original rubles were silver bars notched at intervals to facilitate cutting. The ruble was initially a measure of both value and weight, but not a minted currency. Under the monetary reform of 1534, the ruble was defined as equal to 100 kopecks or 200 dengi. Other subdivisions of the ruble were the altyn (3 kopecks), the grivennik (10 kopecks), the polupoltina (25 kopecks), and the
1306
A five-ruble Russian banknote. TNA ASSOCIATES. poltina (50 kopecks). A highly inflationary copper ruble circulated during Alexei Mikhailovich’s currency reform (1654-1663), the first instance of minted ruble coins.
In 1704 the government began the regular minting of silver rubles, defined initially as equal to 28 grams of silver but declining steadily to 18 grams by the 1760s. Gold coins were minted in 1756 and 1779, copper rubles in 1770 and 1771. From 1769 to 1849, irredeemable paper promissory notes called assignatsii (sing. assignatsiya) circulated alongside the metal currency.
Nicholas I reestablished the silver ruble as the basic unit of account. In 1843 he introduced a new paper ruble that remained convertible only until 1853. In 1885 and 1886, the silver ruble, linked to the French franc, was reinstated as the official currency. Sergei Witte’s reforms in 1897 introduced a gold ruble, and Russia remained on the gold standard until 1914. Fully convertible paper currency circulated at the same time. A worthless paper ruble (kerenka) was used at the close of World War I.
The first Soviet ruble-a paper currency-was issued in 1919, and the first Soviet silver ruble appeared in 1921. Ruble banknotes were introduced in 1934. A 1937 reform set the value of the ruble in relation to the U.S. dollar, a practice that ended in 1950 with the adoption of a gold standard. Monetary reforms were implemented in 1947, 1961, and 1997. See also: ALTYN; DENGA; GRIVNA; KOPECK; MONETARY SYSTEM, SOVIET
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Spassky, Ivan Georgievich. (1968). The Russian Monetary System: A Historico-Numismatic Survey, tr Z. I. Gor-ishina and rev. L. S. Forrer. Amsterdam: J. Schulman.
The Soviet economy was predominantly centrally controlled, with production and supply targets set using physical indicators or quasi-physical units, and with prices fixed according to criteria that were far removed from any consideration of the demand and supply equilibrium. Given the dual monetary circulation in the economy, only physical or quasi-physical units were to be used inside the state sector. Households, on the other hand, participated in a mostly fixed-price cash economy. Central control of monetary units was called ruble control. It aimed both at the quasi-physical monetary units used for decision-making within the state sector and the mostly fixed-price monetary units that the household sector faced.
In the broad sense of the phrase, ruble control thus included central control over any activities
1307
that used monetary units. This primarily encompassed prices, wages, costs, profits, investment, and finance, as well as credits. Because the use of monetary units is broadly pervasive in a multiresource and multiproduct economy, the field of ruble control was extensive, even in a centrally managed economy. In addition to being another general control tool, ruble control was supposed to focus on improving efficiency and equilibrium in the economy. The more the economy moved from direct central control of entrepreneurial and other behaviors to the more indirect control based on prices and other monetary units, the more the importance of ruble control tended to grow. However, the monetary units used were administratively determined, and enterprises had soft budget constraints with little real decision-making independence, so that ruble control remained just one more way of implementing central management, and did not become an element of market relations.
Because the centrally managed economy had a wide variety of monetary units, ruble control also had a large number of subjects, from business enterprises to governmental ministries to the State Bank. The variety of controlling agencies and their always badly defined prerogatives, as well as the inevitable divergence of interests among these disparate groups, meant that ruble control was far from an optimal management tool. Different controllers sent different or even contradictory commands, giving subordinated units at least some decision-making room. Businesses had an impact at the planning stage on the directives and parameters that would ultimately be given to them. In addition, since these enterprises had soft budget constraints, the availability of finance was not a binding constraint if a priority target threatened to go unfulfilled. This is because, although costs were theoretically under ruble control, they could be exceeded if necessary in order to meet output targets. Soviet leaders thought they could well accept inefficiency if that helped them to reach goals with a higher priority, because they believed that resources were in almost unlimited supply. In other words, central management was based on priority thinking, and ruble control had to accommodate the established priorities.
The negative consequences of this logic were visible from the very beginning of central management. Already by 1931, many proposals were circulated for enhancing ruble control. Among these were more rational pricing, fuller cost-accounting, and better coordination of different controls, as well as increased decentralization, at least in plan fulfillment. It is revealing about the priority-planning logic that very similar, even identical proposals for rationalizing
