They belong to the primitive period of economic development, and that period in Russia, as I shall explain in a future chapter, is now rapidly drawing to a close.

Formerly the Head of a Household bought the raw material, had it worked up at home, and sold with a reasonable profit the manufactured articles at the bazaars, as the local fairs are called, or perhaps at the great annual yarmarkt* of Nizhni-Novgorod.
This primitive system is now rapidly becoming obsolete.

Capital and wholesale enterprise have come into the field and are revolutionising the old methods of production and trade.

Already whole groups of industrial villages have fallen under the power of middle-men, who advance money to the working households and fix the price of the products.

Attempts are frequently made to break their power by voluntary co-operative associations, organised by the local authorities or benevolent landed proprietors of the neighbourhood--like the benevolent people in England who try to preserve the traditional cottage industries--and some of the associations work very well; but the ultimate success of such "efforts to stem the current of capitalism" is extremely doubtful.