History of the Jews in Russia abandoning of Jewish dietary laws. Polish Catholic boys were subject to similar pressure to convert and assimilate as the Russian Empire was hostile to Catholicism and Polish nationalism. The cultural and habitual isolation of the Jews gradually began to be eroded. An ever-increasing number of Jewish people adopted Russian language and customs. Russian education was spread among the Jewish population. A number of Jewish-Russian periodicals appeared. Alexander II was known as the "Tsar liberator" for the 1861 abolition of serfdom in Russia. Under his rule Jewish people could not hire Christian servants, could not own land, and were restricted in
Latvians in Russia make up approximately 300 out of almost 2000 inhabitants of the municipality. In Siberia (modern Krasnoyarsk Krai), the village () was founded by Latvian settlers in 1859. The village still exists and has less than one hundred inhabitants. Since the 1990s, there is a number of Latvian organizations and Latvian Lutheran parishes in Russia, primarily in major cities such as Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Omsk, Tomsk, Smolensk and others. Latvians in Russia Latvians in Russia are a small ethnic minority scattered across various regions of Russia. According to the 2010 census, 18,979 people in Russia identified themselves as ethnic Latvians, down