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Message:: [QUOTE="Juan Blanco, post: 1575930, member: 41665"]No, really. Mere citation of some journal is entirely insufficient to defend a patently absurd proposition.  In fact, conscripts & "enlisted" alike were paid almost nothing, certainly nothing in Gold Coin. Mercenaries and satraps' tribute notwithstanding, Russian soldiers basically starved: they were slav(e)s after all. The historical record is perfectly clear on this pretty simple fact. Soldiers were paid a pittance in in paper Roubles (assignats).  See 'The Turkish Campiagn of 1829' - translation from Der Orient und Europa. Erinnerungen von Land und Meer. Von Eduard, Freiherrn von Callot.   During the 1830s Russians who had means paid many ounces in Gold bribes to escape military service. See Domestic Scenes in Russia: In a Series of Letters Describing a Year's Residence in that Country; Richard Lister Venables (1839) p.187-9 If peasants frequently mutiliated themselves to avoid the army, those conscripted were certainly not 'paid Gold.'  See The British and Foreign Review: Or, European Quarterly Journal, Vol. 7 (1838) p.433[/QUOTE]