Natasha's Dance by Orlando Figes Read Free Book Online Page B

to be independent in the European sense.
        The fantastic wealth of the Sheremetev clan had a lot to do with this new confidence. With land in excess of 800,000 hectares and more than 200,000 ‘census serfs’ (which meant perhaps a million actual serfs), by the time of Pyotr’s death in 1788, the Sheremetevs were, by some considerable distance, the biggest landowning family in the world. In monetary terms, with an annual income of around 630,000 roubles (Ј63,000) in the 1790s, they were just as powerful, and considerably richer than, the greatest English lords, the Dukes of Bedford and Devonshire, Earl Shelburne and the Marquess of Rockingham, all
        of whom had annual incomes of approximately Ј50,000. 37 Like most noble fortunes, the Sheremetevs’ was derived in the main from enormous Imperial grants of land and serfs in reward for their service to the state. The richest dynasties of the aristocracy had all stood near the summit of the Tsarist state during its great territorial expansion between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries and had consequently been rewarded with lavish endowments of fertile land in the south of Russia and Ukraine. These were the Sheremetevs and the Stroganovs, the Demidovs and Davydovs, the Vorontsovs and Yusu-povs. Like a growing number of magnates in the eighteenth century, the Sheremetevs also made a killing out of trade. In that century the Russian economy grew at a fantastic rate, and as the owners of vast tracts of forest land, paper mills and factories, shops and other urban properties, the Sheremetevs earned huge profits from this growth. By the end of the eighteenth century the Sheremetevs were almost twice as rich as any other Russian noble family, excluding the Romanovs. This extraordinary wealth was in part explained by the fact that, unlike the majority of Russian dynasties, which divided their inheritance between all the sons and sometimes even daughters, the Sheremetevs passed the lion’s share of their wealth to the first male heir. Marriage, too, was a crucial factor in the Sheremetevs’ rise to the top of the wealth league - in particular the brilliant marriage in 1743 between Pyotr Sheremetev and Varvara Cherkasskaya, the heiress of another hugely wealthy clan, through whom the Sheremetevs acquired the beautiful estate of Ostankino on the outskirts of Moscow. With the immense fortune that was spent on it in the second half of the eighteenth century by their son Nikolai Petrovich, the first great impresario of the Russian theatre, Ostankino became the jewel in the Sheremetev crown.
        The Sheremetevs spent vast sums of money on their palaces - often much more than they earned, so that by the middle of the nineteenth century they had amassed debts of several million roubles. 38 Extravagant spending was a peculiar weakness of the Russian aristocracy. It derived in part from foolishness, and in part from the habits of a class whose riches had arrived through little effort and at fantastic speed. Much of this wealth was in the form of Imperial grants designed to create a superb court that would compare with Versailles or Potsdam.
        To succeed in this court-centred culture the nobleman required a fabulous lifestyle. The possession of an opulent palace, with imported works of art and furniture, lavish balls and banquets in the European style, became a vital attribute of rank and status that was likely to win favour and promotion at court.
        A large part of the Sheremetevs’ budget went on their enormous household staffs. The family retained a huge army in livery. At the Fountain House alone there were 340 servants, enough to place a chamberlain at every door; and in all their houses combined the Sheremetevs employed well in excess of a thousand staff. 39 Such vast retinues were the luxury of a country with so many serfs. Even the grandest of the English households had tiny servant numbers by comparison: the Devonshires at Chatsworth, in the