This is how one lived in the Tsarist empire — with two striking examples

The most interesting portrait of Nicholas II Romanov - the Tsar thinks in his office, depressed by the burden of power. (Valentin Serov, public domain - public access). On the right side you can see an anonymous portrait of a woman who was destroyed by hard labor, and who earned her money doing the laundry for other people to feed their children. ("New Lodzer Zeitung", public access). This Czar knew what it means to have to endure a terrible calamity. He bore the heavy weight of the incurable disease of his only son, whom he could not bear to say he shall die at the young age. For the common people, he was a sweet heart, despite of the fact that he sometimes let this people to be shoot death, with much regret. when they were incited by the communists. Mainly because he guessed that an overthrow of the throne would bring not thousands, but many millions of victims with it.

The very poor harvest in the Tsarist empire in the summer and autumn of the year 1911 has skyrocketed food prices. This was exploited by the speculators to make big profits by grouping and reducing the supply. This situation has been noted by the authorities and they have taken various measures to prevent the famine.

In Russian Poland the harvest was better, so the decision was made to secure different kind of provisions for the important industrial city (textile industry) of Lodz

With the permission to trade on a larger scale for the farmers, many of whom did not have a problem to get to the city with the horse-drawn cart, the middlemen chain was switched off. In addition, the economic crisis following the inflation of agricultural products (the broad sections of the population did not have any money for cotton goods) was somehow alleviated in the Petrykov government. The working population was able to purchase necessities of life for a much lower sum of money, once again. The mild winter of that time has favored the whole action.

This issue was described in the press of Polish Germans as follows:

“The current increase in the price of agricultural products is felt by the poor population of the city of Lodz. Undoubtedly, the reason for this sad phenomenon is the insufficient number of existing markets where farmers can sell their products. As a result, the supply of agricultural products due to lack of space in the marketplaces is quite low.

The Lodz Committee for Food Prices Control has asked the competent authorities to increase the number of market days and to allow farmers to sell agricultural products not only in the markets, where there are marketplaces, but also in the streets of the town. This request has been answered favourably by the authorities; it was allowed to introduce 4 trading days a week till the 1st (14th) April 1912 in the city of Lodz: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays

The agriculturists have therefore been allowed to sell their food products on all markets in the hours set for market trading on the days indicated above. Likewise, until 10 o'clock in the morning on all other weekdays on all the streets of the city, with the exception of Petrykov Street [ulica Piotrkowska, Petrikauerstraße; the main street of the city] and the streets with tram traffic, to merchandise the food products directly from the cart. [...]

The Committee asks all citizens and our town' residents not to pursue the peasants off the real estate property, as they will remain with their carts in front of the houses [tenement blocks or barracks], but on the contrary — to give the porters a corresponding instruction and to command that, after the husbandmen left, to clean the streets in a properly way, in order to give no cause for resentment to the authorities, who behave so benevolently to the request of the Committee.”

An die Einwohner der Stadt Lodz: Das Komitee zur Bekämpfung der Teuerung in der Stadt Lodz, Präses F. Meyerhoff, Neue Lodzer Zeitung, January 6th 1912, Morgenausgabe, p. 13

The Russian Emperor and King of Poland acted as the father of his subjects, and the officials usually behaved as their older brothers

This situation in the important industrial center of Lodz was only one among many similar examples. The last tsar and his governors, also ministers were not the men who stood in the way of much needed reforms. They only wanted slow, circumspect reforms, but they ultimate goal was very noble one; that politics would be purified; that the morale of the community would be on a higher plane; that there would be less trickery in business, less exploitation in the society. There were not as progressive as i. e. US Presidents of that time were, simply because they knew that too much progress harbors more parasites than the tsarist bureaucracy.

The opening new farmland for colonizers who would increase the Russian empire's food supply was one of the most important activity fields of the tsars and theirs civil, sometimes also military servants. They protected the Russian, Baltic countries' and Polish industries with high tariffs and minimal restrictions on domestic trade. To transform Russia from an European backwater to an economically strong and politically reformed state was their main aim, and they obviously found some goods instruments to gain that end.

On the opposite pole were many important members of the so called higher, generous Anglo-Saxon race. The American economist Henry Walton Farnam criticized this state of mind. "Wealthy families often contain parasitic members, those who derive large incomes from society without rendering economic or public service in return."

Economist Scores Idle Rich, January 2nd 1912, The Spokesman-Review, p. 7

Remarkable situation of the farmers in the vicinity of the Lodz' industrial area

Lodz and the other industrial cities located in the vicinity of the city were a special part of the country. Here a valuable documentary with English subtitles:

Thousands of farmers had put their food production there on the market, usually after only a small amount of processing, at least not mixed with other products. However, only a part of them were privileged in the sense that they could also operate in the yards of the tenement houses, or had secured a fixed place in one of the permanent weekly markets in the industrial area of ​​Lodz and paid them on a permanent basis.

 

The view from the Petrykov Street (ulica Piotrkowska) to the New Ring (today: Plac Wolności - the Freedom Square, at that time one of the weekly markets), the Nowomiejska Street (New City Street) and the huge village Baluty. The Protestant (Lutheran) congregation of St. Trinitatis (today: the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Spirit) on the second plan. Photo by Bronisław Wilkoszewski, taken in 1897. On the first plan we see a wagon of a Polish farmer, who has just delivered the food for the mostly German, but already at that time unequivocally polish-minded inhabitants of the main street.

In general, however, plant production was more than economical, despite of the Lodz' country being any of the best lands in Poland, and the main reason for this was the one hundred thousand or so workers who had very numerous families. As a result of the low wages of that time, they were forced to eat a lot of vegetables and fruits, and rarely could they afford a little meat. Only one, but a striking example.

In the tsarist Empire, the common people enriched themselves

“The buried money. In the village of Modrev (Modrzew), the municipality of Lagov (Łagiewniki), in the vicinity of Lodz (Łódź), the mates Mateusz and Józef Kowalskis manage more than a dozen mornings [about 6 to 8 hectares]. Due to the proximity of Lodz (Łódź) and Sgesh (Zgierz), the K. couple earn considerable profits from the land. Even so, her table and clothes bore witness to poverty rather than abundance. A few weeks ago Kowalska became seriously ill, so she became bedridden. Although Kowalski was deeply impressed by his wife's situation, he could not stay in front of her bed all the time. But many women: neighbors and relatives spent their time with her constantly.

One day Kowalska, unfortunately (because of a high fever, half unconscious), told this company where she had hidden the money. Her husband knew nothing about his wife confessions, as well as about the storage of the money. A few days later — this happened the week before Christmas — Kowalska gained some strength and hurried to check if the money was still in storage. But everywhere: in a cell, under a barn, in a garden, under trees, etc., she found only empty pits. Shortly thereafter, one of the relatives returned her 600 rubles, which she had found "quite by accident" in a cell. The rest was lost.

A few examples of golden coins, which the unfortunate Kowalska would have burried in her garden.

How much Kowalska had all the money, she did not know because she can not count. According to the neighbors, the sum total of the wife's savings amounted to — counting only in the garden — on several thousand rubles. As she herself said, there were 50 gold pieces besides papers [banknotes]."

„Rozwój” (the between the years 1897 and 1930 issued in Lodz daily), 2nd January 1912, p. 2

The Russian rule in Russian Poland was by no means as annoying as it is nowadays in most cases described on the Vistula river

In summary, it may be noted that the reign of the autocratic emperors of Russia in Poland had been a black night for the Polish patriots, yet it was enlightened by many much favorable for the development of the Polish nation factors. It would be a reasonable thing to abstain from stirring up hatred between the two most important Slavic peoples because of this part of their common history.