A photo from open sources
September 5, 1698 (321 years ago) Peter I introduced a tax on beards in order to instill European fashion in Russian people.
It all started when Peter I returned to Moscow from Europe, and the very next day, the 26-year-old king, having gathered the boyars, deprived beards of several of them. He made it with scissors with my own hand.
New orders took root with great difficulty, since shaving beards in Russia was considered a sin. Not only that, priests even refused to bless the beardless.
Offended by the actions of Peter I, the boyars believed that the king encroaches on the foundations of Russian life and tried to resist in every way to this. Some of the beardless boyars even scored off life. However, this did not stop the king, and he decided to “teach a lesson” old-fashioned boyars by setting a tax on wearing beards.
At the end of 1698, the demand for shaving a beard was widespread. on the urban population. Decent imposed a decent fine.
In 1705, a new decree of Peter was issued, according to which everything men, excluding peasants and monks, were required to shave their beards. The amount of tax was established on the basis of estate and property wealth of a person.
Starting from courtiers to officials, beard wearers are required to were paid 600 rubles a year, merchants – 100 rubles per year, townspeople at 60 rubles a year, and Moscow residents at 30 rubles a year. The peasants were not taxed, although at the entrance “bearded” in the city, charged 1 penny. In 1772, a fee canceled.
There is evidence that the first of the Russian tsars who dared shave his beard, was the great Moscow prince Vasily the Third. The reason was his love for Elena Glinsky, who arrived in Russia from Poland, where beard fashion has long been a thing of the past.
Earlier ESOREITER talked about unusual decrees of Peter The first.
Andrey Vetrov
Life Moscow
