“The establishment of a large factory industry was one of the changes introduced into Russian life in the 18th century. Until then, in our country there was only small handicraft production, which had long been concentrated in one area or another, depending on the conditions that were favorable for each craft. Anyone who begins to leaf through the Novgorod census books of the late 15th and early 16th centuries will notice clear traces of the handicraft iron industry within the northern Novgorod pyatinas: Obonezhskaya and Vodskaya. Among the farm products with which the local peasants paid rent to the landowners, census books mention sickles, scythes and axes, which were made in small forges that were the property of individual peasant households. The same metallurgical region existed in the 17th century in the Ustyuzhna district of Zheleznopolskaya, in the Urals and around the city of Tula, from where the government recruited blacksmiths for government needs and where it tried to set up government factories...”