The great changes that have taken place in the economy of Ves'egonsk Raion over 47 years are difficult to depict with figures alone. Whereas earlier there was practically no industry in this raion, it now produces industrial goods to the value of more than 314 rubles per capita per year. Sown area per capita has increased by a factor of 5 since 1916 (from 0.3 to 1.5 hectares), and since 1924 by a factor of almost 4. The sown area in flax has increased several-fold, and the yield by a factor of 1.5-2. One could also cite many other statistics showing the economic achievements of the raion under study. However, the main result consists in the fact that, in the course of 47 years, the character of the raion's economy itself has changed. Before the Revolution (and in the first years of Soviet power), Ves'egonsk Uyezd was a typical district of subsistence and semi-subsistence farming. The uyezd produced almost no commercial goods and gave nothing to the country. It also received little from other districts — some printed cotton cloth and kerosene, the simplest agricultural tools, salt, and a few other commodities, all of them in such tiny quantities that until 1918 the question of building a railroad or improving the waterways did not even seriously arise. In practical terms they were unnecessary: the peasants in any case did not have the money to buy imported goods; they ate what their own scant farms produced, and supplied the deficiency of clothing and footwear with homespun fabrics and the rope putees called chun'ia. The sole "social function" of the Ves'egonsk countryside over the course of many centuries was essentially the maintenance of the landowners (who numbered about 700 here), to whom more than half of the arable land belonged.