The Emancipation Package - Redemption Payments

The czar agreed that the landed gentry had to be compensated. The state did not actually fork over a literal pile of money to each and every noble, because most of those nobles were themselves deep in debt. So this lump sum the state paid out was put down in the books as a loan provided by the state for the villages who would then repay this friendly loan in annual installments for the next forty nine years at six % interest.