Welcome to a slap shot episode of the Russian rulers podcast.

Today's short version of a podcast

can be possibly one of the shortest ones I've done, but it's on a very important issue.

It has to do with the reforming attitude of Alexander the First, in a particular one man, a very

brilliant person who rose up from the ranks, one of the most talented people

in Russian history that very few people know about.

His name was Mikhail Sporanski and he was appointed by Alexander as I mentioned in a

previous podcast to try to come up with a new constitution and reforms.

Sporanski did a lot of work on it,

spent a number of years, but in all honesty,

I don't think Alexander ever intended on him

implementing the policies that Sporanski put out.

But here I'd like to read something from Sporanski.

And this was about what he saw in Russia and what its condition was at the beginning of the 19th century.

And he wrote this memorandum in 1802, and I think it's very telling on what Russia was really going through and the problems it was

facing that many didn't know about outside of Russia or even within the country.

So here goes.

The outward impression is that we have everything and yet nothing has any real foundation.

I should like someone to point out the difference between the dependence of the peasants on the landlords

and the dependence of the landlords on the sovereign.

I should like someone to discover whether in fact the sovereign does not have the same right

over the landlords as the landlords have over the peasants.

...