reforms, coach and mail systems were administered separately. For the coach
system, around 1730 the Coach Chancery (Iamskoi prikaz) was replaced with an
empire-wide Chancery (Iamskaia kantseliiaria) in St. Petersburg and its subor-
dinate (Iamskaia kontora) in Moscow with jurisdiction over central Russia. These
two institutions held jurisdiction over coachmen in all but criminal cases and
oversaw the construction of new coach stations. Meanwhile, the General Post
Director oversaw mail and mailmen through a network of regional postal offices
(pochtovaia kontora) in towns on the coach roads; there were four in 1723,
ninety-five around the realm by the end of the century. They in turn oversaw
post offices in their localities. Meanwhile, responsibility for road upkeep and
construction was lodged with gubernia and provincial officials, with various
institutions taking national overview, such as a Chancery for the building of
state roads founded in 1755.
Throughout the century Russia’s rulers devoted attention to road improvement;
in 1740 and 1741firmer standards for community road building and technical
specifications for roads were issued; in 1746 the St. Petersburg–Moscow“Perspec-
tive”highway, which had taken decades to complete, was improved and by mid-
century the state was hiring crews to repair it in the fall and late spring. Landlords
often supported local road building and maintenance to provide them with better
access to markets or ports. The best roads, such as the first stretches of the
St. Petersburg–Moscow highway, were well constructed of planed logs covered
with stone. But as a rule most roads, if paved at all, were corduroy, that is,
composed of tree trunks lightly covered with gravel or sand, which produced not
only a bumpy ride but a surface that quickly deteriorated. Outside of important
arteries (and even between populated centers), most roads were dirt, dissolving into
muddy ruts in spring and autumn. Although a few streets in Moscow and
St. Petersburg were paved with stone in the eighteenth century, thefirst macadam
roads (crushed stone, often bound with tar or asphalt) were not built in Russia until
thefirst quarter of the nineteenth century.
Communications became a major complement to Catherine II’s empire build-
ing. Immediately upon accession to power Catherine II revived in 1764 the
Chancellery for Construction of State Roads and ordered more systematic mapping
of existing roads. While the Academy of Sciences had produced an atlas of roads in
1748, in 1786–8 a single map of all postal routes in the empire was prepared and
published. The General Land Survey reinforced norms of the 1730s and 1740s for
road construction: major roads were to be 10sazheniwide (about 70 feet) for horses
and carts,flanked by 25sazheni(about 175 feet) on each side for driving cattle;
lesser roads (such as the highways of Siberia) were to be three widths of 10sazheni
each. Village roads could be threesazheniwide (about 20 feet). The 1775 admin-
istrative reforms located in each gubernia’s Treasury Office, in addition to mapping
and census taking, responsibility for maintenance and construction of roads and
assigned a Postal Director to each gubernia to oversee mail and coach stations. Rates
and the structure of stations were standardized. Coachmen lost social privileges,
such as their independent bailiffs and venues of jurisdiction; they were subordin-
ated to the gubernia judicial hierarchy.
340 The Russian Empire 1450– 1801