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 Russia Capital punishment in Russia Currently, Capital punishment in Russia is not allowed. There exists both an implicit moratorium established by President Boris Yeltsin in 1996, and an explicit one, established by the Constitutional Court of Russia in 1999 and most recently reaffirmed in 2009. Russia has not executed anyone since 1996. In medieval Russia capital punishment was extremely rare, and was even banned in many, if not most, principalities. The Law of Yaroslavl (c. 1017) put restrictions on what crimes warranted execution. Later, the law was amended in much of the country to completely ban capital punishment. The Russian Empire