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Straits become a perpetual plague-spot of Europeancontroversy, since they involve the heart of the Ottomanempire.From the standpoint of Russia, her relations withTurkey during the century closing with the FirstWorld War involved four different, but overlapping,problems: the Balkan Christians and later the Slavstates (see pp. 239-248), the attitude of the other greatpowers (see pp. 240, 245, 247-248), Constantinople andthe Straits, and (often forgotten or minimized in theWest) the Caucasus (see pp. 293-294).First and foremost, the Straits, quite apart from anypolitical designs of Russia, were of essential and everincreasingeconomic importance to her. The developmentand prosperity of New Russia depended on secureaccess to the West, through the Straits. This was aprimary concern of Russian policy ever since Catherinethe Great extracted by the treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardji(1774;cf. P. 238) the right of Russian merchantmen tonavigate the Black Sea and pass through the Straits,together with various trading rights within the Ottomanempire. Thereby the Ottoman monopoly of the BlackSea had been broken into. But it took roughly half acentury before Russia secured in practice that Turkeyshould not requisition at will cargoes coming throughthe Bosphorus and that the navigation and commercialstipulations of a series of Russo-Turkish treaties shouldbe actually operative. She was also active and successfulin supporting the claims of other countries to the sameright of commercial passage of the Straits. This wasan essential complement since her own merchant marinewas diminutive. Her object was attained by the treatyof Adrianople (1829). Henceforward the unhinderedpassage of unarmed ships through the Straits has notbeen called in question, while Turkey has been at peace.The new wheat lands of the South already underAlexander I (1801-25) were receiving great attentionfrom the government. Until late in the century theycontinued to be the principal source of the phenomenalrise in Russian grain exports, which came to occupysuch an exceptional place in Russian economy. During