identifiable when Russia acquired lands from the Commonwealth in the Thirteen
Years War (1654–67) and partitions of Poland, elsewhere in the empire knowledge
of borders was sketchy. In the task of claiming territory all the way to Alaska,
ethnographic information about the often nomadic populations of these lands was
as important as territorial maps; vast distances and harsh climate made surveying
the entire realm impossible. Attention was focused only on the most strategic
areas—trade routes to China, fortresses, tax collection centers. But Peter I and
his successors had established the critical institutions for surveying, cartography,
and intelligence gathering that would bear fruit in increasingly systematic imperial
mapping projects in the next century.
ROADS, COACH, AND MAIL
Over the century numerous improvements were made to Russia’s skeletal system of
roads and coach stations. Essential to Peter I’s military reform were better roads for
military communication and trade; thus he founded schools and corps of military
engineers, improved roads with bridges and mileage markers, and inaugurated
construction of a highway between St. Petersburg and Moscow. He extended the
coach and postal services with a monthly mail service to western Siberia by 1724
and direct lines between St. Petersburg and Arkhangelsk and to Livonia, in addition
to the existing mail services to other Baltic capitals.
Legislation in 1722 formalized existing practices of road construction and
maintenance: communities within a radius of 50versty(averstaequaled a kilo-
meter) were required to construct and repair roads after the spring and autumn
muddy seasons, as well as providing additional horses and carriages for major parties
(embassies, supply trains in war). Standards were established for coach service: a
minimum number of coachmen per station (28) was decreed in 1752, if not
enforced; norms were set for acceptable weights of cartage. By the 1740s coach
stations began to offer inns and taverns; a 1773 decree mandated that each coach
station offer mail services and an inn.
Over the century the coach system expanded as networks of roads improved, with
about 16,000 to 17,000 km of postal/coach roads by mid-century. As in Peter I’s
time, most attention was paid to the key routes between the capitals and from
St. Petersburg to trade and diplomatic centers to the west. A decree of 1740 ordered
all gubernii and provinces to create postal/mail stations to expand the network. Since
stations were supposed to be placed at intervals of 20– 50 versty(about 20– 50
kilometers) on major highways, the system could work well in clear winter or
summer conditions.
The coach and mail systems sometimes shared duties, with all coach stations
being required to transport mail in 1717; coachmen and mailmen were also allowed
to take private passengers when they had the capacity. Still, coachmen as a social
group maintained their separate status until Catherine II’s time. At the same time
that most bureaucrats lost salaries in 1714, coachmen did as well; they lived off
service, taking passengers on the side and farming. Until the 1775 administrative
Surveillance and Control 339