Evacuations of 1812, 1854-55, 1917

Categories / Army. Navy
EVACUATIONS OF 1812, 1854-55, 1917. Organised removal of state establishments and state valuables from St. Petersburg during the wars with Napoleonic France due to a fear of the enemy's capturing the city. During the Patriotic War of 1812, in July - September, precious metal resources from the Mint, a portion of the private Imperial jewels, a portion of the Imperial Archives and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archive were evacuated from St. Petersburg to Nizhny Novgorod. During the Crimean War of 1853-55, His Imperial Majesty's Personal Chancellery established a department "to ensure the safety of the country's capital against accidents", which developed the evacuation plan. The evacuation of government reserves of precious metals, bank-notes, and minted coins from St. Petersburg to Vologda and Yaroslavl lasted from the winter of 1853-54; the evacuation of valuables from the Hermitage, the Imperial Court and the Arsenal Store was also prepared and partly implemented; and a portion of the State Archives were evacuated. All state and military educational establishments, the Court, the Imperial Public Library, the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Arts were all prepared to be evacuated. At the beginning of 1855, evacuation stopped. After the February Revolution of 1917, and following the capture of Riga by German troops, the assets of the State Bank, of military educational institutions and a part of the State Archives were evacuated from Petrograd; a general evacuation plan for the evacuation of all government organs and valuables was planned. The Bolsheviks used this plan in part for their move of the main government organs from St. Petersburg to Moscow within one week in March 1918.

G. V. Kalashnikov. St. Petersburg Mint
Hermitage
Russian Academy of Sciences
Academy of Arts
Russian National Library