Slavery in Russia Slavery in Russia Slavery in Russia was officially abolished in 1723, when Peter the Great converted household slaves to serfs. In 2013, Global Slavery Index reported that unsatisfactory living conditions of migrant workers who for a number of reasons can not obtain work permits in Russia but continue to work in the country illegally and for minimum wage. In Kievan Rus' and Muscovy, legal systems usually referred to slaves as "kholopy". A kholop's master had unlimited power over his life: he could kill him, sell him, or use him as payment upon a debt. The master, however, had responsibility before
Christianity in Russia subscribers in Russia as early as 1887. In 1935, the Watch Tower Society unsuccessfully attempted to establish a branch office in the Soviet Union to support members already there. By 1939, thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses were residing in the Baltic states when the Soviet Union absorbed those formerly independent countries. In the 1940s, the Soviet government forcibly dispersed thousands of Witnesses, in a program named Operation North, later described by Dr. N. S. Gordienko, a professor at Herzen University as having "just the opposite of what was expected; they wanted to weaken the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses in the USSR,