Imperiia: a spatial history of the Russian EmpireMain MenuAboutProjectsDashboardsData CatalogMapStoriesGalleriesGamesWho said history was boring?Teach Our ContentCiting the ProjectKelly O'Neilldc20b45f1d74122ba0d654d19961d826c5a557f5The Imperiia Project // Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University
The Tsar's Obsession
12020-04-16T15:52:02-04:00Kelly O'Neilldc20b45f1d74122ba0d654d19961d826c5a557f591plain2020-04-16T15:52:02-04:00Kelly O'Neilldc20b45f1d74122ba0d654d19961d826c5a557f5Peter famously developed a near obsession with protecting the trees that might one day become warships. The felling of any oak, and any oak, elm, maple, larch, or pine with a diameter of 12 inches (vershki) or more growing in the forest preserves was a crime punishable by death, but the tsar set a certain category of trees in a class of their own: those growing within thirty versts of a navigable river. (His first decree on the opisi lesov extended the territory of the admiralty’s gaze to 50 versts on either side of a major river and 20 versts of a smaller river.) The idea from the beginning was to minimize the distance between the place where the trees were felled to the river along which it would travel, and finally the wharf where shipwrights (korabel’shchiki) would work them into hulls and masts.