Emancipation reform of 1861 business. The Manifesto prescribed that peasants would be able to buy the land from the landlords. Household serfs were the least affected: they gained only their freedom and no land. In Georgia the emancipation took place later, in 1864, and on much better terms for the nobles than in Russia. The serfs were emancipated in 1861, following a speech given by Tsar Alexander II on 30 March 1856. State owned serfs, i.e. the serfs living on Imperial lands, were emancipated later in 1866. Prior to 1861 Russia had two main categories of peasants: with only those owned privately considered to
Polish minority in Russia Polish minority in Russia There are currently 73,000 Polish nationals living in the Russian Federation. This includes autochthonous Poles as well as those forcibly deported during and after World War II; the total number of Poles in what was the former Soviet Union is estimated at up to 3 million. Zainsk, Kazan governate, was originally a fort occupied by Chelny strelsty, archers and servicemen, and 81 Polish Cossask prisoners from Smolensk area after the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1654 the Poles were taken from Polotsk, 141 people from the Polish small gentry were evacuated to Tiinsk together with the Cossacks,