Land Obligations

a system of local taxation in tsarist Russia that arose in the 15th century. Land obligations underwent particular development in the 19th century.

The regulations of 1851 divided all land obligations into those paid in money and those paid in kind. Monetary land obligations, including state, provincial, and private (social class) obligations were used for the maintenance of police and judicial bodies, administrative and zemstvo institutions, schools, hospitals, and fire protection. The peasants, who constituted the mass of those subject to land obligations, also fulfilled numerous obligations in kind, such as the construction and repair of roads and bridges; the supplying of transport carts, horses, and guides; the billeting of troops; and postal obligations. With the formation of the zemstvos in 1864, the zemstvo institutions took charge of most of the land obligations. Land obligations were preserved until the Great October Socialist Revolution.