Freed in tsarist Russia, "a slave freed by the mercy of the lord," was the most disenfranchised social class. According to the "Code of Laws of the Russian Empire" (T. III, Art. 4b): "it is forbidden to admit freedmen and their children into the civil service." And, nevertheless, my great-great-grandfather, Mikhail Potapov, served the hereditary nobility, and his sons became generals in the army and civil services.