158 hundred fifty-eight employees (20,140 rubles) than had the 1718 budget for eighty-seven officials (23,729 rubles). This decrease reflected not only the fact that some of the most remunerative positions remained unfilled by 1720 (including two councillorships and all four assessorships),^- but also the fact that the salaries for Russian employees had been lowered. As of 1720, a Russian councillor who had previously received 800 rubles a year was to receive 600, while the salary of the secretary was halved from 500 rubles to 240.®'‘^ Therefore, the cost of supporting the kamerkollegiia fell despite the increases in staff. It was mentioned above that the 1718 budget called for the kamerkollegiia to have twenty-six foreigners on its staff, but that proved a difficult goal to achieve. Apparently it was a great problem to find knowledgeable persons to perform the various cameral tasks; in 1719, there were only eighteen foreigners serving in the college, most of whom were fromthe Baltic provinces or the various German states.*’* Prince Dmitrii Mikhailovich Golitsyn was named president of the kamer-kollegiia,^^ while Baron M. W. von Nieroth, the provincial councillor fromEstonia, was named vice president.*® Heinrich Pick was named councillor with an annual salary of 1,600 rubles and an annual bonus of 100 rubles for the purchase of firewood.*' Among the other foreign officials was the secretary, Stefan Kochius, a Prussian who, “since he finished his education, which went on for ten years, has worked nine years in his native land, in Poland, in Germany, and in Holland, as a recording clerk, secretary, and councillor in chancellery, treasury, judicial, and correspondence matters.” Among the clerks or scriveners in the college was a Dane, Heinrich L. Geber, who had previously served in the same capacity with the Danish college of revenue. Some of the foreign employees were former Swedish prisoners of war who had entered Russian service. It is said of the accountant Johan Schmidt, for example, that: ** during the period of the Swedish dominion, he was, as seen from the patents given him by the Swedish kammarkollegium, employed from 1702 at the guberniia and war commissariat offices as a provincial clerk {zemskii pod’iachii) and scrivener (kamer-shreiber), and that from 1706 until 1710 he performed the tasks of a field provisions master {proviantmeister) with the army in Finland. He was taken prisoner at the capitulation of Viborg together with the garrison. Ibid., loc.cit. TsGADA, f. 248 delo 42 1. 271; f. 248 delo 606 1. 200. TsGADA, f. 248 delo 605 1. 44. ZA (no. 265), 220. TsGADA, f. 248 delo 654 1. 93; Wittram, II, 84, 116. 8' TsGADA, f. 248 delo 606 1. 200. 88 TsGADA, f. 248 delo 654 11. 93—96v.
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