On their return to their native country they very soon fell victims to the soporific influence of the surrounding social atmosphere.

The "town-building" had as little practical result.

It was an easy matter to create any number of towns in the official sense of the term.

To transform a village into a town, it was necessary merely to prepare an izba, or log-house, for the district court, another for the police-office, a third for the prison, and so on.

On an appointed day the Governor of the province arrived in the village, collected the officials appointed to serve in the newly-constructed or newly-arranged log-houses, ordered a simple religious ceremony to be performed by the priest, caused a formal act to be drawn up, and then declared the town to be "opened." All this required very little creative effort; to create a spirit of commercial and industrial enterprise among the population was a more difficult matter and could not be effected by Imperial ukaz.
To animate the newly-imported municipal institutions, which had no root in the traditions and habits of the people, was a task of equal difficulty.