“The Road is Expensive…”: Transport Costs in the Muscovite State in the 1620s

The cost of transportation expenses in the Muscovite state in the first decade after the end of the Time of Troubles in the 17th century is analyzed. In regions where the provision of stage deliveries was imposed on the taxable population, money for the hiring of transport vehicles and payment for the work of rowers and steersmen was collected and spent by the stage elders. The latter had ample opportunities for abuse, as a result of which up to a third of the stage money was stolen. The transportation of grain reserves by merchants to service people on the outskirts of the state was also expensive: the high cost of delivery increased the cost of maintaining the garrisons of the Lower Volga by a third, and the forts of Siberia, three times.