ABSTRACT
Eighteenth-century Moscow, although it had lost its political primacy to Petersburg, remained the undisputed metropolis of Central Russia and probably the most important individual commercial center in the country. Moscow had the largest posad population of any Russian city, not excluding Petersburg. In the eighteenth century the Moscow grain market was supplied chiefly by the central black-soil provinces, located directly to the south of the old capital. The peasantry was the most important source for the replenishment and growth of the Moscow posad. Trading peasants of Moscow uezd and the surrounding districts also appeared in Moscow as suppliers of firewood, lumber, hay, fruits and vegetables produced by those districts. Textile production, widespread in the countryside, was carried on extensively by peasants within the bounds of Moscow. As in the textile field, peasants in the leather industry sometimes went beyond craft production to found large "authorized" enterprises.
