In 1714, another decree was issued from the pen of Emperor Peter I. According to the royal will, from October of that year, only wooden buildings were allowed to be erected in all Russian cities. And houses made of stone became the privilege of the then capital of St. Petersburg. At first glance, this order may seem strange if you do not know about the plans of the cunning Peter.
Wooden Petersburg
Back in 1703, when the construction of St. Petersburg was just beginning, Peter I already saw the city as a new cultural capital, in no way inferior to European centers. To the delight of the Tsar, St. Petersburg grew rapidly. One thing upset the emperor: a large number of wooden low-rise buildings. In addition, the courtyards were filled with all kinds of outbuildings, sheds and baths, which, of course, were also built of wood.
It is clear that fires have become a real scourge of the northern capital. Houses burst into flames one after another. So in 1710, a fire broke out right in the market not far from Trinity Square. To combat the elements, a special detachment was organized, whose members, upon seeing the flames, began to beat drums, thereby warning residents of the surrounding streets about the danger. Soldiers were also involved in putting out the fire.
The Tsar, concerned about these problems, forbade the construction of wooden buildings within the city in the future. St. Petersburg was to become the capital of stone.
Masons required
Despite frequent fires, for a long time the residents of the newly-made capital continued to build houses from wood the old fashioned way. Due to the dominance of wooden buildings, good masons did not stay in St. Petersburg. There was simply no work for them there. Workers traveled across Russia in search of the ruble.
It was precisely in order to lure the best masons to St. Petersburg that Peter issued the above-mentioned decree. Now, according to him, the construction of stone buildings in other cities was strictly punished. But in the capital such construction was only encouraged. It’s no wonder that the masons rushed to northern Palmyra.
By the way, the emperor, known for his love for everything European, ordered, just like abroad, that St. Petersburg roofs be built exclusively from tiles. In addition, tiled roofs prevented the spread of fire.
What came of it?
Despite all the measures taken by Peter, the construction of stone Petersburg moved too slowly. The emperor died without waiting for its end. It would seem that after the decree there was no shortage of masons. However, such workers did not have longevity. In addition to the dangers that even modern construction projects pose, the health of the masons was undermined by constant winds and low temperatures.
In addition, the country had a catastrophic shortage of building materials. The brick factories of that time could easily be counted on one hand. Therefore, residents of St. Petersburg often built houses with a wooden frame, which was then coated with clay. And on the clay surface they painted brickwork.
According to some sources, the order of Peter the Great “On the destruction of 300-year-old elders” was in order to introduce a deceptive story with the help of foreigners. But there is no evidence of this decree preserved in our time, and we must take into account that History was written for us not as it really was, and that now they are also trying to influence the people with the help of all sorts of “fairy tales” of historical meaning modern writing... There are many versions, regarding this issue there is an assumption about what caused this.
Peter's personality still evokes mixed reactions. For example, in his work “Antichrist,” Dmitry Merezhkovsky noted a complete change in the appearance, character and psyche of Tsar Peter the Great after his return from the “German lands,” where he went for two weeks and returned two years later. The Russian embassy accompanying the tsar consisted of 20 people, and was headed by A.D. Menshikov. After returning to Russia, this embassy consisted only of Dutchmen (including the well-known Lefort), only Menshikov remained from the old composition.
This “embassy” brought a completely different tsar, who spoke Russian poorly and did not recognize his friends and relatives, which immediately indicated a substitution. This forced Queen Sophia, the sister of the real Tsar Peter I, to raise the archers against the impostor. As you know, the Streltsy revolt was brutally suppressed, Sophia was hanged on the Spassky Gate of the Kremlin, the impostor exiled the wife of Peter the Great to a monastery, where she never reached, and summoned his wife from Holland. False Peter killed “his” brother Ivan the Fifth and “his” little children: Alexander, Natalya and Lavrenty immediately, although the official history tells us about this in a completely different way. And he executed his youngest son, Alexei, as soon as he tried to free his real father from the Bastille.
False Peter began to act like an ordinary conqueror:
He crushed Russian self-government - the “zemstvo” and replaced it with a bureaucratic apparatus of foreigners who brought theft, debauchery and drunkenness to Russia and vigorously instilled it here;
He transferred the ownership of the peasants to the nobles, thereby turning them into slaves (to whiten the image of the impostor, this “event” is blamed on Ivan the Fourth);
He crushed the merchants and began to plant industrialists, which led to the destruction of the former universality of people;
He crushed the clergy, the bearers of Russian culture, and destroyed Orthodoxy, bringing it closer to Catholicism, which inevitably gave rise to atheism;
Introduced smoking, drinking alcohol and coffee;
Destroyed the Old Russian calendar, rejuvenating our Culture by 5503 years;
He ordered all Russian chronicles to be taken to St. Petersburg, and then, like Filaret, he ordered them to be burned. Called in German “professors”; write a completely different Russian history;
Under the guise of fighting the old Faith, he destroyed all the elders who had lived for more than three hundred years;
He forbade the cultivation of amaranth and the consumption of amaranth bread, which was the main food of the Russian people, which destroyed longevity on Earth, which then remained in Russia;
He abolished the natural measures: fathom, finger, elbow, vershok, which were present in clothing, utensils and architecture, making them fixed in the Western manner. This led to the destruction of ancient Russian architecture and art, to the disappearance of the beauty of everyday life. As a result, people ceased to be beautiful, since Divine and vital proportions disappeared in their structure;
He replaced the Russian title system with a European one, thereby turning the peasants into an estate. Although “peasant” is a title higher than the king, as there is more than one evidence of;
He destroyed the Russian written language, which consisted of 151 characters, and introduced 43 characters of the writing of Cyril and Methodius;
He disarmed the Russian army, exterminating the Streltsy as a caste, and in the European manner introduced primitive firearms and piercing weapons, dressing the army first in French and then in German uniforms, although the Russian military uniform was itself a weapon. The new regiments were popularly called “amusing” ones.
Amaranth
Basically, they were received with hostility by the people. And this is correct, since after the reforms the people remained begging in a slave position. So, few people know that Peter 1 prohibited the cultivation of amaranth, as well as the consumption of amaranth bread, which was the main food of the Russian people at that time. With this, Peter 1 destroyed the long residence that at that time still remained in Russia (according to legend, the elders lived for a very long time, even the figure of 180 years is mentioned..).
Under Peter, some restrictions on marriage were introduced, and they affected almost all classes. It was forbidden for illiterate nobles to marry, and military and civil officials could not marry without the consent of their superiors.
I don't want to study - I want to get married
On January 20, 1714, Peter issued a decree prohibiting male nobles from marrying without acquiring the basic knowledge necessary for service. By order of the emperor, young nobles were sent to study abroad at the expense of the state. In Russia, at that time, there was a catastrophic shortage of educated personnel - managers, military personnel, and government officials.
In 1722, Peter issued another decree that did not allow noble minors to marry before receiving an education and before receiving public service, and those who violated the decree were reported to the Senate. The document was directed against noble families who did not want to give their heirs to public service.
In the document, the emperor’s approach is justified by the fact that it is impossible to marry people who are unfit “for any science or service”; the heirs of such parents are unlikely to be useful to the state. The decree also prohibits the marriage of mentally ill and insane people. People who did not have the ability to perform administrative activities were excluded from public service and estate management.
Girls - later
We touched upon reforms of marriage and the military class. The Admiralty and Navy Regulations of 1722 prohibited midshipmen from marrying without a decree from their superiors. If the officer did get married, he was punished with 3 years of hard labor. There was also an age limit: the Admiralty College forbade marriage before the age of 25. Documents and birth certificates were also checked to avoid falsification.
The Emperor believed that a naval officer, for whose training large funds allocated by the state were spent, must first develop as a person, be a good specialist and serve the Motherland as a military man in order to benefit the country. A military man should put marriage and personal interests in second place.
Also, military legislation under Peter reduced the responsibility of the father in the event of the conception of an illegitimate child. Peter's military regulations stated that an unmarried man must marry a pregnant or giving birth woman if he had previously promised her marriage. If not, then a service man could not be forced to marry. In this case, the “offender” paid a fine to the state.
Marry for love
Emperor Peter was an opponent of forced marriages, so he issued a decree on April 22, 1722, which ordered the Senate and Synod to prohibit the practice of arranged and forced marriages. First of all, this affected noble families, where parents and guardians of young people forced them to marry. This also affected the Russian peasantry; before this, landowners married their serfs, without any restrictions from the state.
This legislation was contested in the Senate and was not approved by the elite. Dissatisfaction was caused by the clause concerning dependent peasants. Peter the Great did not take into account the opinion of the senators and on January 5, 1724, signed a Decree that contained all the previously prepared points.
Naturally, in order to reform the rules of marriage, Peter needed to intervene in church affairs. Family law was entirely under the jurisdiction of the Church. The first transformation of the emperor was a change in the nature of the betrothal procedure. The Church turned this ritual into a mandatory ritual.
Before the reform, betrothal served as an indissoluble agreement between the families of the bride and groom. It was carried out by relatives or guardians, and very young children were often engaged. In 1702, Peter banned the payment of a penalty for a failed marriage; this deprived the betrothal of the property aspect and simplified life for young people.
The engagement period also changed - under Peter it could take place no earlier than 6 weeks before the wedding. Dissolution of the engagement was allowed if the bride and groom had not seen each other before, and when they met they did not like each other. Before the reform, substitutions at bride shows were common, that is, relatives replaced an ugly or sick girl with her beautiful maid or sister.
The age for marriage was specified in the decree on unified inheritance in 1722. It was forbidden to marry before the age of 20; girls could only get married after 17. The most important thing was the consent of the young people, as well as their parents or guardians, to marry.
A 1924 decree states that parents are prohibited from forcing their children into marriage under pain of “serious punishment.” Before the wedding of the newlyweds, relatives had to swear that they would not force their children to get married. If this prohibition was violated, then repentance followed.
The word AMARANTH. Mara is the goddess of death (among the ancient Rus, Slavs and Aryans), and the prefix “A” means negation in the language - for example, moral-immoral, etc., linguists know.
So it turns out that AMARANTH literally means one who denies death, or rather, one who bestows immortality!!! The word AMRITA - we literally get the same thing - mrita is death, the prefix “a” is negation.
In addition to the wonderful culinary properties that Amaranth oil has, it contains a number of unique substances, microelements and vitamins, the benefits of which for the body can hardly be overestimated.
The healing properties of amaranth have been known since ancient times. Amaranth oil is a well-known source of Squalene.
Squalene is a substance that captures oxygen and saturates the tissues and organs of our body with it. Squalene is a powerful antitumor agent that prevents the destructive cancerous effects of free radicals on cells. In addition, Squalene easily penetrates through the skin into the body, affects the entire body and is a powerful immunostimulant.
Unique chemical composition amaranth determined the limitlessness of its use as a remedy. The ancient Slavs and Aryans used amaranth to feed newborn children; warriors took amaranth grains with them on difficult campaigns as a source of strength and health. Being a real pharmacy, amaranth was used for treatment in ancient Tartaria (the country of the Aryans). Currently, amaranth is successfully used in different countries in the treatment of inflammatory processes of the genitourinary system in women and men, hemorrhoids, anemia, vitamin deficiencies, loss of strength, diabetes, obesity, neuroses, various skin diseases and burns, stomatitis, periodontitis, peptic ulcer stomach and duodenum, atherosclerosis. Preparations containing amaranth oil reduce the amount of cholesterol in the blood, protect the body from the effects of radiation exposure, and promote the resorption of malignant tumors, thanks to squalene, a unique substance included in its composition.
Squalene was first discovered in 1906. Dr. Mitsumaro Tsujimoto from Japan isolated an extract from the liver of a deep-sea shark, which was later identified as squalene (from the Latin squalus - shark). From a biochemical and physiological point of view, squalene is a biological compound, a natural unsaturated hydrocarbon. In 1931, Professor of the University of Zurich (Switzerland), Nobel Prize winner Dr. Claur proved that this compound lacks 12 hydrogen atoms to achieve a stable state, so this unsaturated hydrocarbon captures these atoms from any source available to it. And since the most common source of oxygen in the body is water, squalene easily reacts with it, releasing oxygen and saturating organs and tissues with it.
Deep-sea sharks need squalene to survive in conditions of severe hypoxia (low oxygen) when swimming at great depths. And people need squalene as an anticarcinogenic, antimicrobial and fungicidal agent, since it has long been proven that oxygen deficiency and oxidative damage to cells are the main causes of aging of the body, as well as the occurrence and development of tumors. Entering the human body, squalene rejuvenates cells and also inhibits the growth and spread of malignant tumors. In addition, squalene is able to increase the strength of the body’s immune system several times, thereby ensuring its resistance to various diseases.
Until recently, squalene was extracted exclusively from the liver of deep-sea sharks, which made it one of the most scarce and expensive products. But the problem was not only its high cost, but also the fact that there is not so much squalene in the shark’s liver - only 1-1.5%.
The unique antitumor properties of squalene and the great difficulty of obtaining it have forced scientists to intensify their search for alternative sources of this substance. Modern research has discovered the presence of squalene in small doses in olive oil, in wheat germ oil, in rice bran, in yeast. But during the same research, it turned out that the highest content of squalene is in oil from amaranth grains. It turned out that amaranth oil contains 8-10% squalene! This is several times more than in the liver of a deep-sea shark!.
During biochemical studies of squalene, many other interesting properties were discovered. Thus, it turned out that squalene is a derivative of vitamin A and, during the synthesis of cholesterol, is converted into its biochemical analogue 7-dehydrocholesterol, which in sunlight becomes vitamin D, thereby providing radioprotective properties. In addition, vitamin A is absorbed much better when it is dissolved in squalene.
Then squalene was discovered in the human sebaceous glands and caused a whole revolution in cosmetology. After all, being a natural component of human skin (up to 12-14%), it is able to be easily absorbed and penetrate into the body, while accelerating the penetration of substances dissolved in the cosmetic product. In addition, it turned out that squalene in amaranth oil has unique wound-healing properties and easily copes with most skin diseases, including eczema, psoriasis, trophic ulcers and burns. If you lubricate the area of skin under which the tumor is located with amaranth oil, the radiation dose can be significantly increased without the risk of getting a radiation burn. The use of amaranth oil before and after radiation therapy significantly accelerates the recovery of the patient’s body, since when squalene enters the body, it also activates the regenerative processes of the tissues of internal organs.
The healing properties of amaranth have been known since ancient times. In ancient Slavic medicine, amaranth was used as an anti-aging agent. The ancient peoples of Central America – the Incas and Aztecs – also knew it. Among the ancient Etruscans and Hellenes, it was a symbol of immortality. Indeed, amaranth inflorescences never fade.
The name of amaranth among the ancient Mayan, Aztec and American Indian peasants was Ki-ak, Bledo, Huatli. The Indian name for amaranth is ramadan (given by God). Amaranth is a clear confirmation of the truth: the new is the long-forgotten old. The plant that fed the population of the American continent for eight thousand years now appears before us in the form of a stranger. Some facts have come down to us about the economic importance of amaranth for the last Aztec empire, which was ruled by Montezuma in the early 16th century AD. The emperor received 9 thousand tons of amaranth as a tax. Amaranth became an integral part of many ritual events in which paint made from it was used. Obviously, this was the reason that the Inquisition declared the plant a devilish potion, as a result of which the Spanish conquistadors literally burned the Huatli crops, destroyed the seeds, and punished the disobedient with death. As a result, amaranth disappeared from Central America.
European civilization trampled on a foreign, unknown culture, often much higher in intelligence. No amount of fear of conquerors could force the Indian tribes to abandon the cultivation of Huatli. Especially in hard-to-reach mountain villages. And it’s not even about pagan rituals. Maize (corn) cakes suppressed hunger, but caused intestinal inflammation and pain. The addition of huatli to the dough deprived the peasants of suffering.
It is not surprising that Mexico, the USA, and the countries of Central and South America began to cultivate amaranth in large areas.
UN Food Commission for Food and healing properties recognized amaranth as a culture of the 21st century.
To be honest, I personally know this plant well, but I always thought that it was decorative... What a surprise!!! Amaranth, and even right in my flowerbed!!!
It’s good and tasty to make bread and add it to soups, especially mushroom soups - you’ll lick your fingers, you’ll get full from a small plate because it’s very filling, but at the same time you won’t gain weight from it, but on the contrary, a feeling of lightness will appear in your body.
But this is a cultivated plant, brought from America by chance with the seeds of other plants back in the 30s of our century. Amaranth seeds are small, like a poppy, and the height of the plant is over 2 m. And if it grows alone, then one plant occupies an area of almost 1 m. Isn’t it a miracle that from a small grain such a luxurious one, with a garland, grows in 3.5 months? precious seeds, reddish or golden giant! The productivity of amaranth is fantastic - on fertile lands - up to 2 thousand centners of high-quality green mass and up to 50 centners of seeds per hectare.
Amaranth is drought- and frost-resistant in the presence of a high agricultural background and does not require feeding, and animals eat it completely. He is the record holder for protein content. It is not for nothing that amaranth greens are equated to the most high-calorie seafood products - squid meat, because, in addition to protein, the most valuable amino acid for the human body - lysine in it is 2.5 times more than in wheat, and 3.5 times more than in corn and other high-lysine grains.
Amaranth is a wonderful food for pets and poultry. If you feed it green mass (up to 25% of other feeds), piglets grow 2.5 times faster, and rabbits, nutrias and chickens grow 2-3 times faster, and milk yield and milk fat content increase significantly in cows and goats. The green mass of amaranth is fed to pigs with a small amount of dirt, and the animals grow quickly, gaining up to 60 kg of live weight in 4 months.
A large amount of vitamin C and carotene makes amaranth food especially valuable and has a good effect on animals and birds, thanks to which they do not get sick.
Amaranth ensiles well, but it is better to do this in a mixture with corn and sorghum. Since the green mass of corn contains a lot of sugars, and the green mass of amaranth contains a lot of protein, silage made from them is much more nutritious than from amaranth itself.
But amaranth is also a wonderful product. It is used in first and second courses, dried, salted and fermented like cabbage, pickled for the winter, and prepared in soft drinks that are more expensive than Pepsi and Coca-Cola.
Amaranth oil has the highest price among vegetable oils and animal fats, in all respects it is 2 times superior to sea buckthorn oil and is used during the complex treatment of radiation sickness, and the sprouted seeds are similar in composition to mother’s milk.
Scientists have found that amaranth has effective medicinal properties. Scientists explain this by the fact that amaranth seeds have particularly strong biofields, which determine its miraculous healing properties. Or such a fact. Rickets chickens immediately recovered after being fed amaranth seed residues (chaff) for two days. And further. All rabbit owners in the neighborhood had deaths of animals - both adults and young animals. And those who used amaranth as food had none.
Amaranth is especially effective for successful beekeeping.
A pantry of squirrels, a culture of today and the future - this is what biologists around the world call this plant. Experts from the UN Food Commission have recognized it as a crop that will help provide the growing population of our planet with high-quality protein.
It is advisable to sow amaranth on green mass with row spacing of 45 cm, then thinning the crops after they reach a height of 20-25 cm, leaving 10-12 plants per linear meter. If for seeds, then with row spacing of 70 cm, leaving 4-5 plants per linear meter. The sowing time is the same as for corn, when the soil warms up to 8-10 degrees. C heat.
After seedlings emerge, the main concern is to prevent weeds from drowning them out. Care is needed for three weeks, then the amaranth itself oppresses all its “enemies.” Its roots are strong and can penetrate soil waters, taking from there not only moisture, but also necessary mineral elements, which contributes to the formation of huge biomass. Thus, amaranth can play the role of ameliorant and provide valuable food with high-quality protein.
For regions with risky farming, it is very promising, because in drought conditions it is capable of producing constant yields, and in optimal conditions - high yields of biomass and grain. When collecting amaranth for medicinal purposes, one must keep in mind that it can be used for greens even when the plants reach a height of 25-30 cm; leaves can be collected from the lower tiers of plants throughout the summer until late autumn, while it is still growing, consumed as food, stored for the winter and for the manufacture of medicinal preparations
The grain should be collected when the upper leaves become creamy in color and the seeds show signs of slight shedding. It is necessary to dry greens under a canopy, in drafts, without access to sunlight.
Amaranth should be stored in a dry, dark and well-ventilated place, preferably hanging in linen or paper bags.
In one of the diaries, a topic appeared about the reforms of Peter I, about the fact that, among other things, he banned the cultivation of amaranth and the consumption of amaranth bread, which had previously been the main food of the Russian people, which destroyed longevity on Earth, which then remained in Russia; (according to legend, the elders lived for a very long time; even the figure of 300 years is mentioned..)
Amrita is the drink of the gods, the nectar of immortality, and also the herb from which it was made.
Nowadays, amaranth is successfully used in different countries for the treatment of hemorrhoids, inflammation of the genitourinary system in men and women, anemia, loss of strength, obesity, diabetes, neuroses, periodontitis, stomatitis, various skin diseases, burns, atherosclerosis, and peptic ulcers.
Medicines containing amaranth oil help reduce cholesterol in the blood, protect against radiation exposure, and resolve malignant tumors, because amaranth contains the unique substance squalene.
Studies have found that amaranth oil has more squalene in the grains (8-10% of the substance), this is more than the liver of a deep-sea shark contains!
Amaranth oil has wound-healing properties and easily cures skin diseases such as psoriasis, eczema, burns and trophic ulcers.
You can increase the radiation dose without the risk of getting a radiation burn if you lubricate the area of skin over the tumor with amaranth oil. Squalene significantly activates regenerative processes in the tissues of internal organs, so taking amaranth oil orally before and after radiation therapy speeds up the recovery of patients.
Summarizing the foreign and domestic experience in using amaranth oil, it can be argued that it is a powerful tool for the treatment, recovery and prevention of various diseases. By affecting the entire body, amaranth oil normalizes metabolism, restores the body's defenses, which leads to long-term positive results.
Amaranth leaves contain a lot of vitamin C, carotene, tannins, flavonoids, calcium salts, potassium, zinc, manganese.
The seeds and leaves of the plant are used to treat pancreatitis, gastritis, diabetes, tumors, kidney and liver diseases.
Looking back at Russian legislation of the 17th-19th centuries, one can notice how different the morals and customs of those times are from those of today. If the memoirs and memoirs of contemporaries of the era carry an emotional connotation and do not always reflect reality, then the dry letters of the law describe reality in the most accurate way.
"Drinking" decrees of Peter the Great
Peter I approached the use of vodka and other alcoholic beverages with all seriousness. The decree of 1718 “On the dignity of being a guest at assemblies” meticulously prescribed how to behave when drunk and what to do with guests at different stages of intoxication. Those who could not sit on the chair had to be put aside so as not to disturb the dancers, having sorted the women from the men, “otherwise you will not end up embarrassed when you wake up.” It was forbidden to serve vodka to those lying down, even if asked, in order to avoid the risk of choking.
Peter is credited with decreeing drunken sailors going ashore on a foreign voyage. A sailor who had drunk to the point of unconsciousness could avoid punishment if he lay with his head towards the pier. It was believed that the drunkard tried to board the ship, but failed to reach it.
Elizaveta Petrovna forbade keeping a bear in the house
Elizabeth I showed herself to be a humane and progressive ruler. She abolished the death penalty and particularly sophisticated torture. Concerned about the safety of the city population, the Empress banned fast driving on the streets and introduced fines for swearing in public. She stopped the then widespread practice of keeping bears in rich houses. It seems very reasonable to decree that persons who have measles or smallpox in the house are not allowed to come to court.
One cannot help but share the understandable indignation of the Empress, which prompted the issuance of a decree of March 11, 1747 “On the non-painting of a portrait of Her Imperial Majesty by unskilled masters.” But the decree “On not wearing rich dresses with gold and silver to anyone, except military personnel and visiting foreigners...”, issued on December 11, 1742, reflects the empress’s desire not to allow ladies to surpass her in outfits.
The historical anecdote about the “hair regulation,” according to which all court ladies had to shave their heads and wear black shaggy wigs, is most likely an anecdote, since there is nothing of the kind in the list of Elizabeth Petrovna’s decrees.
Catherine II: selected places from the Charter of the Deanery
Catherine II, having taken the throne, tried to bring order to the legislative system Russian Empire. The main instrument of law and order was the Charter of Deanery, an analogue of the modern Criminal Code. Some of the positions look very peculiar from our point of view, but at that time these problems were very relevant.Thus, clergy were not allowed, under threat of a fine, to marry young boys to older girls. This did not apply to marriages of older men with young girls.
From the age of seven, men were forbidden to enter a public (commercial) women's bathhouse, and women were prohibited from entering a men's bathhouse. For this they were punished not only with a fine in the amount of half a day’s allowance for a prisoner, but they were also forced to heat the bathhouse.
Article 224 confirmed the prohibition of all types of witchcraft by writing on the ground or smoking, as well as “scaring with a monster.”
The following are strictly prohibited:
- air or water omens;
- interpretation of dreams or search for visions;
- searching for treasures;
- whispering on paper, grass or drink.
Any action from the vast arsenal of Russian witches was punished with a fine the size of a beggar’s daily food supply - an analogue of the modern subsistence level.
Catherine never managed to completely restore order in Russia. “I am being robbed, but this is a good sign - it means there is something to steal,” she wittily noted in one letter.
The tyrant laws of Paul I
The desire to elevate any rule into law led to the fact that the reign of Paul I was marked by strange decrees that irritated his contemporaries. “I would rather be hated for a just cause than loved for a wrong cause.” The newly-minted emperor established a curfew, prohibiting lights on in houses after eight in the evening. Only guards, midwives and priests were allowed to walk on the streets at night to visit the dying. To prevent society from becoming infected with freethinking, books and sheet music were not imported from abroad, and in Russia the words “citizen”, “doctor” and “execute” had to be changed to: “philistine”, “doctor” and “execute”.
Paul I paid special attention to appearance and clothing. The Emperor abolished the fashion for round hats and high boots. Instead of tailcoats, it was necessary to wear a German dress with a stand-up collar and cuffs in the color of the collar. A decree of 1799 prohibited combing hair forward, only back, and men wearing sideburns.
There are many anecdotes about the eccentricities of Paul I, but the punishment for failure to comply with absurd orders was serious. Thus, Nathan Eidelman cites facts when the touchy emperor imprisoned Colonel Knutov for life for “daring conversations”, and sent non-commissioned officer Meshkov to hard labor for an unsuccessful caricature, having previously punished him with a whip and torn out his nostrils. The situation is not at all the same as under Elizaveta Petrovna, who modestly forbade “unskilled masters to paint portraits.”
Humane laws of a strict emperor
By the time of Nicholas I, the number of laws had greatly increased. Now there was not just one Charter of the Deanery, but a whole complex of charters, collected by the works of S.M. Speransky into a single Code of Laws. Despite all the severity of the reign of Nicholas I, the legislation was humane in nature. Thus, the chapter “On fights and personal grievances” consisted of 15 articles and began with the words: “Everyone and everyone is charged with the duty to live in unashamed love, peace and harmony... and try to prevent misunderstandings, quarrels, disputes and debates, which can lead to grief and resentment." Fist fights were recognized as “harmful entertainment”; it was forbidden to carry canes with blades inside on the street, and “to use artillery” at private celebrations.
At the same time, freedom of thought was not at all welcomed - the Charter on Censorship contained 230 articles, for which it was nicknamed “cast iron”, and among the criminal codes there were crimes against faith, which were suppressed quite harshly. Thus, Jews were forbidden to hire Christians for work, and to dress up in monastic dress in home theaters.
Continuing the topic. And the great monarch had failures.