Criminal Capitalism in Imperial Russia: Counterfeiters, Merchants and Gendarmes

A talk with Sergei Antonov of Columbia University. From the Jordan Center website:

Forgery and counterfeiting are as old as money itself, but they enjoyed a fresh start in the eighteenth century when European states, including Russia after 1769, began to rely on paper currency and long-term national debt to pay for their ever-expanding militaries and extensive imperial projects. Printing banknotes was as cheap and quick for criminals as it was for governments, despite the attention of government spies and policemen and the risk of severe punishments. Archival materials reveal a sprawling web of printers, smugglers, and passers of forged rubles that incorporated persons of all the major ethnic, religious, and social groups that inhabited Russia.