century, the Baltic German nobility also assumed some leading posts in the Russian imperial government.

Germans, other than the local estate-owners, mainly lived in the cities, such as Riga, ''Reval'', ''Dorpat'', ''Pernau'' and ''Mitau''. As late as the mid-19th century, the population of many of these cities still had a German majority, with Estonian, Latvian or Jewish minorities.