Tsar - 1855

Dear Alexander The Second,

As one of your chief advisors, it is my duty and obligation to explain to you the current state and problems of Russia in the year 1855. I will also suggest some improvements you could make to direct Russia towards a suitable path of change in the coming years.              

I would first like to bring up Russia’s current economical state. Due to a number of bad harvests, trade has been slow in the country. As you well know, we rely heavily on the grain harvested as it makes up 40% of our economy. Due to the currently farming methods and poor soil, our harvests have been extremely week. This has affected the amount of crop we have to trade and greatly lessened the annual income we get from agriculture. The bad harvests have caused an increase in the food prices affecting serfs, as they can no longer afford food. It has then caused a drop in the demand for manufactured goods, causing bankruptcy with the middle class shop owners.   Russia has a great deal of raw materials which an easily be used for trade. Due to the frozen ports, it has become increasing difficult to get the materials to the buying countries.

There are a number of solutions you could put forward to increase and help Russia’s economy. For example, due to the frozen ports we could increase our use of the railway system. Britain have 15,000km of railway compared to our 1,600 – by having a larger railway it would allow us to trade more goods.

The next point I would like to address is that of the Russian politics. As the Tsar, you are well aware that you are the emperor and autocrat of the entire Russia state. As Russian is an Orthodox Christian country, the Tsar is also the head of the church; and the Russian people believe that you are the embodiment of god on earth. Russian depends on the provincial nobility for support, and they have served the state since 1785. The civil servants who make up the bureaucracy are paid noble officials who were selected from the...