Soshnoe Pismo

a cadastre in Russia in the period from the 15th to 17th centuries.

In compiling a soshnoe pis’mo, plots of land—and, in cities, the land under residences and other buildings—were measured, the information obtained was converted into standard units of taxation, called sokhi (seeSOKHA), and, on this basis, direct taxes were assessed. Depending on the quality of the land, the normal, or great, sokha (bol’shaia sokha) ranged from 800 to 1,200 cheti (or chetverti; one chetvert’ equaled 0.5 desiatins, or 0.546 hectares) of land for lay feudal landholders, from 600 to 800 cheti for churches and monasteries, and from 500 to 700 cheti for crown and “black” (state) lands. With the introduction of a new unit of land taxation—the zhivushchaia (inhabited) chetvert’—the taxes on large feudal landholders decreased.

In addition, other adjustments could be made for the quality of the land; that is, for tax purposes, average or poor land could be made equal to good land by increasing the amount of average or poor land in one sokha. The revenue agent (pisets) could count, as one sokha, either 800 chetverti of good land, 1,250 chetverti of average land, or 1,800 chetverti of poor land. For every 100 chetverti of average land, he was authorized to add 25 chetverti of the same kind of land, and for every 100 chetverti of poor land, 50 chetverti of the same kind of land. Such calculations reduced the total number of sokhi on a given property and thus eased the tax burden.

The methods used to draw up a soshnoe pis’mo changed as the sokha itself changed and as the revenue agents were given new instructions; with time, however, the soshnoe pis’mo was given more precise forms, forms set forth in special knigi soshnogo pis’ma (manuals for cadastre officials) and pistsovye nakazy (instructions to revenue agents). The soshnoe pis’mo was usually drawn up by a revenue agent and his revenue clerks (pod’iachii). Each was based on the register of the preceding survey, a register known as the pripravochnaia kniga. The revenue agent was obliged to cover the district assigned to him, compile a description of the city and all settlements, ascertain the number of taxpayers and the amount of land they worked, and determine the profits made or losses sustained on the cultivated land subject to taxation. The description of the city and the district, with their populace, households, and categories of landholding, constituted a pistsovaia kniga.

In describing a given property, the revenue agents often arrived not at a whole number of sokhi but at a fractional number. In such cases, the sokha could be divided into 32 smaller units. In 1646 the dvor (household) was made the unit for assessment of the land tax, and perepisnye knigi (census rolls), which contained only a list of households and householders, replaced the pistsovye knigi. In 1679 the dvor was also made the unit of general taxation (seeHOUSEHOLD TAX).