Commerce of the Black Sea — Prohibitive Tariff and Odessa Trade

The works on the Dniepr are scarcely in a more forward state than those of the Dniestr. It is known that below Iekaterinoslaf the course of the river is traversed by a granite chain, which extends between that town and Alexandrof, a distance of more than fifteen leagues. At the time of the conquest of the Crimea and the shores of the Black Sea, it was proposed to render navigable the thirteen rapids that form what has been improperly denominated the cataracts of the Dniepr. Works were begun at various times, but always abandoned. They were resumed under Nicholas with new ardour, but the government was soon discouraged by the enormous cost, and, above all, by the peculations of its servants. The whole amount of work done up to the present time is a wretched canal 300 yards long, more dangerous for barges to pass through than the rapids themselves. This canal was finished in 1838. The works had not yet been resumed when we left Russia in 1841. The rapids of the Dniepr are therefore still as impracticable as ever, and it is only during the spring floods, a period of a month or six weeks, that barges venture to pass them; and even then it rarely happens that they escape without accident. More than eighty men were lost in them in 1839, and a multitude of barges and rafts were knocked to pieces on the rocks. The goods that thus descend the Dniepr consist almost exclusively of timber and firewood, and Siberian iron. Corn never makes any part of the cargo, because in case of accident it would be lost beyond recovery. But what will really seem incredible is, that the German colonists settled below the rapids, are obliged to convey their produce to the Sea of Azov in order to find any market for it; hence the greater part of the government of Iekaterinoslaf, and those of Poltava and Tchernikof, watered by the Dniepr, are in a perpetual state of distress, though they have wheat in abundance; and the peasants sunk into the deepest wretchedness, are compelled every year to make journeys of 300 miles, and often more, to earn from six to seven francs a month in the service of the landowners on the borders of the Black Sea. The eastern part of the government of Iekaterinoslaf profits by the vicinity of the Sea of Azov, and tries to dispose of its corn in Taganrok, Marioupol, and Berdiansk, a port newly established by Count Voronzof.

This general survey of the means of transport possessed by Russia, is enough to show that the corn-trade of these regions owes its vast development in a great measure to fortuitous circumstances; and that the absence of easy communication, and the prohibitive system, both tend to bring it down lower and lower every year. Here follows a statement of the price of corn at Tulzin, one of the least remote points of Volhynia, and the cost of carriage to Odessa, during the years 1828-30, and 1839, 40, 41.

From this table we see that prices rose remarkably during the latter years. We must remark, however, that the years 1828-29-30, were unusually productive, and the prices prevailing in them are by no means an average. But it is altogether obvious that with such prices, and an absolute blank in importation, the commerce of Southern Russia must necessarily perish. In 1841, the merchants could only offer the masters of merchant vessels two-and-a-half francs per sack for freight to Marseilles, while the latter can hardly realise any profit even at the rate of four francs. For Trieste they offered only twenty, and even eighteen kreutzers, whereas not less than sixty will yield any remuneration. Ship owners will not henceforth be tempted to visit Odessa in quest of gain. The English alone have obtained tolerable freights.