Serfdom in Russia Great, businesses began to send serfs into those areas in an attempt to harvest their large amount of untapped natural resources Tsar Alexander I wanted to reform the system but was thwarted in this ambition. New laws allowed all classes (except the serfs) to own land, a privilege that had previously been confined to the nobility. Russian serfdom was finally abolished in the emancipation reform of 1861 by Tsar Alexander II. Scholars have proposed multiple overlapping reasons to account for the abolition, including fear of a large-scale revolt by the serfs, the government's financial needs, evolving cultural sensibilities, and the
Capital punishment in Kazakhstan Kazakhstan sentenced mass-murderer Ruslan Kulikbayev to death for terrorism after he was convicted of killing ten people (including 8 policemen) in a shooting attack against police officers in Almaty. Kulikbayev is currently the only person under a sentence of death in Kazakhstan. Capital punishment in Kazakhstan Capital punishment in Kazakhstan has been abolished for ordinary crimes, but is still permitted for crimes occurring in special circumstances (such as war crimes). Kazakhstan, Russia, and Belarus are the only European countries which have not abolished capital punishment for all crimes (Russia retains it in law, but has "de-facto" abolished it through a