Moscow Plague and Riot 1771

The Plague of 1771, was the last massive outbreak of plague in central Russia, claiming between 52 and 100 thousand lives in Moscow alone (1/6 to 1/3 of its population). (Melikishvili, 2006) The bubonic plague epidemic that originated in the Moldovan theatre of the 1768–1774 Russian-Turkish war in January 1770 swept northward through Ukraine and central Russia, peaking in Moscow in September 1771 and causing the Plague Riot. The epidemic reshaped the map of Moscow, as new cemeteries were established beyond the 18th century city limits.
Russian troops in Focsani, Moldova discovered first signs of plague in January 1770; the disease, indigenous to the area, was contracted through prisoners of war and booty. (Melikishvili, 2006) The news was hailed and exaggerated by adversaries of Russia. Commanding general von Stoffeln coerced army doctors to conceal the outbreak, which was not made public until Gustav Orreus, a Russian-Finnish surgeon reporting directly to Field Marshal Pyotr Rumyantsev, examined the situation, identified it as plague and enforced quarantine in the troops. Shtoffeln, however, refused to evacuate the infested towns and himself fell victim to the plague in May 1770. Of 1,500 patients recorded in his troops in May-August 1770, only 300 survived. [ (Melikishvili, 2006) ]
Medical quarantine checkpoints instituted by Peter I and expanded by Catherine II were sufficient to prevent plague from reaching inside the country in peacetime, but they proved to be inadequate in time of war. The first plague casualties in Moscow were recorded in November 1770. In December, a mass outbreak occurred in a military hospital. Twenty-seven inmates fell sick and only five survived. Hospital surgeon Afanasy Shafonsky promptly identified the disease as bubonic plague, locked up the hospital and installed a strict quarantine. Doctor Rinder, his superior, discarded Shafonsky's report as medically incompetent and causing undue panic. (Melikishvili, 2006) Although the medical council convened on the next day, upheld Shafonsky's viewpoint, and alerted Catherine and Saltykov, Rinder continued defaming Shafonsky and on January 21, 1771 made an official statement claiming that the outbreak was not a plague. The authorities relied on Rinder's assessment and paid no notice to the disease until March of 1771. Rinder himself died of plague in summer of 1771.
The second mass outbreak hit a state-owned textile mill on the island across from the Kremlin at the end of February 1771. Factory managers attempted to conceal the disaster, burying the corpses secretly at night. The workers panicked and ran away, spreading germs across the city. Finally, on March 10 the authorities accepted the fact. The traders and peasants who normally delivered goods for sale in the city also fled, causing a severe shortage of food. The city authorities set up temporary hospitals and quarantine checkpoints at Simonov, Danilov and Nikolo-Ugresh monasteries, but these measures could not contain the disease which already swept the city. (Alexander, 2002)
The plague peaked in September 1771, killing an estimated thousand Muscovites a day with 20,401 confirmed dead in September, despite the fact that an estimated three quarters of population fled the city. (Alexander, 2002) Many deaths escaped the statistics because residents, fearing that the infested properties will be destroyed by authorities, routinely concealed the casualties, burying the dead at night or simply throwing them on the streets. Authorities set up chain gangs of prisoners to collect and bury the bodies, but their forces were insufficient even for this single task.
Governor Saltykov, failing to control the situation, fled to his country estate and the police chief soon followed suit. Jacon Lerche, the newly appointed sanitary inspector of Moscow, declared a state of emergency, shutting down shops, inns, taverns, factories and even churches. The city was placed under quarantine. Masses of people, literally thrown into the streets, were denied their regular trade and recreation habits. (Melikishvili, 2006) On September 15, 1771, Moscow residents revolted against the authorities. The mob perceived any emergency measures of the state as a conspiracy to spread the disease. In particular, archbishop Amvrosy, who removed a revered icon from the public to curtail transmission of the disease by worshippers, was accused of conspiracy, hunted down and killed as "enemy of the people". Active rioting continued for three days. While the riot was still unwinding, Empress Catherine dispatched Grigory Orlov to take control of Moscow. Orlov, accompanied by Gustav Orreus and four regiments of troops, arrived in Moscow on September 26, immediately calling an emergency council with local doctors. They confirmed presence of both bubonic and septicemic forms of plague. (Melikishvili, 2006) Orlov established and supervised an executive medical commission charged with developing the ways to check the epidemic. More important, he succeeded in changing public opinion in favor of the state's emergency measures, at the same improving the efficiency and quality of medical quarantine. In particular, varying quarantine duration for different groups of exposed but yet healthy people, and paying them for the quarantine stay. (Melikishvili, 2006) In a move to control disease, authorities banned any burials on the traditional parish cemeteries inside the city of Moscow. Instead, they set up a chain of new cemeteries outside the city limits.
The epidemic in Moscow, although still rampant in October, gradually reduced through the year. November 15 Catherine declared that it was officially over, but deaths continued into 1772. Estimates of total death toll in Moscow range from 52 to 100 thousand out of total 300 thousand.

Works Cited
Alexander, J. T. (2002). Bubonic plague in early modern Russia: public health and urban disaster. US: Oxford University Press.
Brooke, C. (2006). In C. Brooke, Moscow: a cultural history (pp. 46-49). US: Oxford University Press.
Melikishvili, A. (2006). Genesis of the anti-plague system: the Tsarist period. Critical reviews in microbiology , 36: 19–31.