Molotschna farm economics

As enjoyable as the personal elements of our family history may be—the photographs and stories of our ancestors recent and distant—sometimes there is no substitute for doing the math. For example, why was Peter D unable to buy a farm in Molotschna? Jeffrey Longhofer explains:

For many, buying land was not an option. The amount required to purchase the rights to a Wirtschaft reached unaffordable levels: 6,000 to 7,000 rubles in 1860. Farm workers, on the other hand, could expect to earn only 80 rubles per year; harvest hands earned no more than 20 kopecks for one day’s work. (Longhofer 1993, 396)

With the help of some historical background and a little math, we can fill in a number of details of our Molotschna family picture.

1877 Russian 1 ruble coin

1. As a part of the Russian Empire, the Molotschna colony used the standard Russian currencies: the ruble and kopek. Think of the two as analogous to the U.S. dollar and penny, since 1 ruble equals 100 kopeks.


2. In 1860, 1 Russian ruble was equal to about 80¢ U.S.


3. Given the historical rate of inflation, $1 U.S. in 1860 would be equivalent to approximately $28.90 today.


4. It follows, then, that 1 1860 Russian ruble would be worth approximately $23.12 today and that 1 kopek would be worth 1 percent of that: $2.31.

With those simple facts as a foundation, let’s translate Peter’s situation in 1860 Molotschna into our own terms.

1. According to Longhofer’s figures, we can calculate that the typical Molotschna farm worker earned roughly $1,849.60 a year in today’s dollars (80 rubles x $23.12).


2. Looking at things differently, a harvest worker earned approximately $46.20 a day. Someone working six days a week for fifty-two weeks a year would earn a total of $14,414 at this rate, so it is clear that Molotschna laborers were only occasionally employed, perhaps as little as 13 percent of the time. (This does not imply that they were indolent the rest of the time; they probably used that time to work in their own gardens, engage in cottage industry, and the like.)


3. If a Wirtschaft cost even 6,000 rubles, that would equal $138,720 in today’s terms, or a little more than $788 an acre.

Of course, one can see the dire straits of Peter and other landless Mennonites even without doing the currency conversion. For example, if an 1860 laborer in Molotschna had been able to save half of his annual income of 80 rubles (a pipe dream), it still would have taken him 150 years to accumulate the 6,000 rubles needed to buy his own Wirtschaft.

Doing the math helps us appreciate how daunting were the obstacles to financial security that Peter D and others like him faced in Molotschna. Trying to raise a family of eight (two adults, six children) on $1,850 a year was no doubt challenge enough. Trying to raise funds to buy a farm was downright impossible. It is no wonder that Peter D and many others left Molotschna colony for North America; it was the only sane financial decision to make.

Source

Longhofer, Jeffrey. 1993. Specifying the Commons: Mennonites, Intensive Agriculture, and Landlessness in Nineteenth-Century Russia. Ethnohistory 40:384–409.