Shoes made of cardboard and sugar with blueing: the methods and earnings of pre-revolutionary swindlers
Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2025 6:42 am
We often hear about telephone scammers and con artists who masterfully sell counterfeits for fabulous sums. But if you look into Russian history, it turns out that our ancestors were deceived no less inventively, and the victims were quite educated and wealthy people. For example, in the 19th century, provincial nobles were so often beaten by gangs of cheaters that Tsar Nicholas I had to ban card games altogether.
Megaplan continues a series of articles about business in pre-revolutionary Russia. We have already talked about how and what merchants traded on Christmas Eve and how capital stores lured customers . This time we will talk about dishonest pre-revolutionary business, the victims of which were Russian people of completely different classes.
Clothing scams
In the 19th century, poor city dwellers had to go to the shopping arcades, which were often uganda whatsapp list simply called "the city," to buy clothes. It was a favorite place for swindlers. Anton Chekhov even quoted a saying from the Moscow shopping arcades in his "Fragments of Moscow Life": "Remember the eleventh commandment: 'Don't yawn!'"
“Going into the city with almost the same feeling as a hunter-shooter in a snipe swamp, the buyer knew what awaited him and prepared for a fight , ” wrote Muscovite Nikolai Davydov.
“A Petersburg merchant, ” noted the writer of the same time, Mikhail Voronov, “ will never underestimate you or sell you rotten goods: he will only take one hundred and fifty percent on the ruble; a Muscovite will certainly make a concession of ten kopecks below the factory price when selling, but will always underestimate and sell the rotten and defective goods to the buyer.”
Before the invention of electricity, which became widespread only towards the end of the 19th century, people traded only in daylight. This played into the hands of swindlers: they sold shoes with soles made of cardboard, trousers and coats made of cheap cloth with a square of expensive cloth sewn onto the front side. If the buyer was in doubt, the seller would take him to the window, taking the good goods out from under the coat as he went, and show him exactly that. And at the counter, he would turn the defective goods back to the client. The fraud was discovered at home, but receipts were not issued at that time and it was impossible to return the goods.
Naive people, who have always been a desirable prey for swindlers, have long been called suckers in the Russian language. In fact, this word contains a deep metaphor. Fishermen of the Russian North called salmon fish this way, which during spawning spent all their strength to swim out of the sea into the river, where the conditions for the development of offspring were more suitable. At this time, it can be taken literally with bare hands. "The silent son of Karelia disturbs the sleepy camp of careless suckers with the mark of a spear , " wrote the poet Fyodor Glinka in 1830. In some sense, the "work" of swindlers today resembles fishing.
The shop assistants could threaten the police with particularly obstinate "clients": the fact of forgery would be hard to prove, and for slander one could end up in the police station. However, if the person was stubborn and was ready to prove his case, they preferred to return his money: scandals near the shop are bad advertising.
Fraud and counterfeiting of products
Strict monitoring of food quality in the Russian Empire began only in 1909, when the Committee for Combating Food Counterfeiting was established. Before that, the question had not even been raised - large food sellers did not allow themselves to sell bad or low-quality goods because they were afraid of losing their trade privileges and titles as suppliers to the Court. But there were only a few of them in the entire empire. Mid-level traders counterfeited everything.
Chalk, lime, and burnt gypsum were mixed into flour to add weight. Bread made from such flour could cause fatal poisoning. The same ingredients were found in sugar. Sugar loaves (sugar was supplied in the form of cones about 40 cm high. — Ed .) were also tinted with a solution of blueing so that they acquired a “noble” bluish tint. This dye is not fatal, but its use can cause side effects — headache, vomiting, confusion, shortness of breath, and high blood pressure. And if a rich merchant or gentleman drank a lot of tea with expensive blue sugar, he could easily have a stroke.
Megaplan continues a series of articles about business in pre-revolutionary Russia. We have already talked about how and what merchants traded on Christmas Eve and how capital stores lured customers . This time we will talk about dishonest pre-revolutionary business, the victims of which were Russian people of completely different classes.
Clothing scams
In the 19th century, poor city dwellers had to go to the shopping arcades, which were often uganda whatsapp list simply called "the city," to buy clothes. It was a favorite place for swindlers. Anton Chekhov even quoted a saying from the Moscow shopping arcades in his "Fragments of Moscow Life": "Remember the eleventh commandment: 'Don't yawn!'"
“Going into the city with almost the same feeling as a hunter-shooter in a snipe swamp, the buyer knew what awaited him and prepared for a fight , ” wrote Muscovite Nikolai Davydov.
“A Petersburg merchant, ” noted the writer of the same time, Mikhail Voronov, “ will never underestimate you or sell you rotten goods: he will only take one hundred and fifty percent on the ruble; a Muscovite will certainly make a concession of ten kopecks below the factory price when selling, but will always underestimate and sell the rotten and defective goods to the buyer.”
Before the invention of electricity, which became widespread only towards the end of the 19th century, people traded only in daylight. This played into the hands of swindlers: they sold shoes with soles made of cardboard, trousers and coats made of cheap cloth with a square of expensive cloth sewn onto the front side. If the buyer was in doubt, the seller would take him to the window, taking the good goods out from under the coat as he went, and show him exactly that. And at the counter, he would turn the defective goods back to the client. The fraud was discovered at home, but receipts were not issued at that time and it was impossible to return the goods.
Naive people, who have always been a desirable prey for swindlers, have long been called suckers in the Russian language. In fact, this word contains a deep metaphor. Fishermen of the Russian North called salmon fish this way, which during spawning spent all their strength to swim out of the sea into the river, where the conditions for the development of offspring were more suitable. At this time, it can be taken literally with bare hands. "The silent son of Karelia disturbs the sleepy camp of careless suckers with the mark of a spear , " wrote the poet Fyodor Glinka in 1830. In some sense, the "work" of swindlers today resembles fishing.
The shop assistants could threaten the police with particularly obstinate "clients": the fact of forgery would be hard to prove, and for slander one could end up in the police station. However, if the person was stubborn and was ready to prove his case, they preferred to return his money: scandals near the shop are bad advertising.
Fraud and counterfeiting of products
Strict monitoring of food quality in the Russian Empire began only in 1909, when the Committee for Combating Food Counterfeiting was established. Before that, the question had not even been raised - large food sellers did not allow themselves to sell bad or low-quality goods because they were afraid of losing their trade privileges and titles as suppliers to the Court. But there were only a few of them in the entire empire. Mid-level traders counterfeited everything.
Chalk, lime, and burnt gypsum were mixed into flour to add weight. Bread made from such flour could cause fatal poisoning. The same ingredients were found in sugar. Sugar loaves (sugar was supplied in the form of cones about 40 cm high. — Ed .) were also tinted with a solution of blueing so that they acquired a “noble” bluish tint. This dye is not fatal, but its use can cause side effects — headache, vomiting, confusion, shortness of breath, and high blood pressure. And if a rich merchant or gentleman drank a lot of tea with expensive blue sugar, he could easily have a stroke.