Abandoned 1867 Moscow, Russia. Where are the people?

First off there is clearly a numbered key somewhere that identifies some of these structures. Here is the evidence but where is the key?


My take on the ladders now is they are fire escapes here is the evidence.


Here are a couple of buildings used as shops.


This big structure whose form we see literally all over the place in different lands is abandoned and collapsing. Here is the evidence.

Here is some demolition being done or all but finished judging by the gap in the middle of the scaffolding. Could be construction but construction scaffold usually goes up with the construction itself. Here's the evidence.
On second glance it is more likely to be a tower under construction.

Edit to add these
People fishing on a working weir


I think this is likely to be a mill.


More fire escapes


Fire escapes made but not yet installed.


Timber yard


A huge stack of logs


A large building under construction


Water meadows under cultivation


Washing


A cart with a barrel on it.


Can any of the Russians here translate this please?


EDIT 2 to add

The working weir

A house cow or horse in a yard

KorbenDallas said:

Here we can observe the same issue of having no people in the streets of a 19th century city. This time it is Moscow Russia. The year in 1867.

A few of the photographs (last 2) will not show the streets, but I wanted to put those up anyways, in case you spot something in the architecture.

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3/7 has 4 people in it. . All right of center. 3 in front of s building and one in the alley behind the same building. Still odd though. Maybe donecwhile everyone is at church?

jd755 said:

Can any of the Russians here translate this please?

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Губернская гимназия = Provincial Gymnasium.

jd755 I think your explanation of the ladders as fire escapes is the best so far, as long as we assume that people are intended to get onto the roof from inside the building and then go down the escapes. Explains why the ladders appear permanently mounted, though some of those buildings don't have very easy access to the roof. (small, few windows)
I don't see how you can determine whether that large building is under construction as in a new building or just an old building getting a new roof, as in being repaired.
Also as to the building with the pillars that is abandoned and collapsing; is it collapsing because it was abandoned or is it abandoned because it was collapsing? What was causing it to collapse? Could it just be next in line to get a new roof?
Nice post, though. Your picture blow-ups are the clearest yet.

enthusiast thank you.
Provincial Gymnasium in other words a college or university right?

silhouette also a thank you.
Once upon a long ago I found myself climbing out onto a roof of a four storey office building (that also sported a big basement) through a small window. It led directly to duckboard over the stone gutter as the building dated back to the late 1880's and was a building which also contained entertaining rooms, directors offices and even the royal toilet. It was a shipyards head office building.

I've worked in buildings being constructed and on buildings being prepared for demolition as well as being present when re-roofing is underway.
The building under construction in the photograph is on what was most likely given its surroundings a former lumber yard or some other yard usage that has either gone out of use or is being redeveloped as it is called into something else. This pattern of use change continues everywhere to this day.
Speculative but based in experience and observation

The roof of the collapsing building gives the game away. It is literally falling down as the weather works is magic. Old buildings that go out of use round here are often on the way to decay and collapse when they go out of use. Slates or tiles are missing, birds and weather get inside and thus the building already ill maintained and unloved really begins to suffer the degradation water brings to building interiors.
That is what I am seeing in the roof of the Moscow building. The geographical location means anything saturated in summer freezes in winter and ice expanding causes even more failure to occur so in effect the decay is sped up over say here where we do not get months and months of freezing, just months and months of rain.
I say abandoned because compared to everything else in the photograph it is shitty, it has an air of abandonment akin to many large buildings without a use they just stand out for being left there. Too expensive to repair or pull down they fall down inside their own footprint until fire most often completes the job.

Speculation again but there could have been site ownership issues or claims for non payment of debt so the building was seized in the hopes of selling it but no buyer was found so it was boarded up and abandoned. By its size in comparison to all around my guess would be it is probably some form of state building but could equally be a bank a post office an academic institution a museum perhaps.
Who built it and why is anyone's guess quite honestly. There will be something about in in Russian archive material I'm fairly certain of that but as I do not read Russian and do not know where to go looking I have to leave such and endeavour to others.

il1968 said:

This is according to the official history. The Tsar Aleksander the first was sitting in Saint Petersburg the Russian Empire capital that time. There is a big question why Napoleon went to Moscow and not to Saint Petersburg which might be obvious. Probably because Aleksander and Napoleon were allies and Moscow didn't belong to Aleksander that time. 100 years later after that event there were issued coins with Aleksander and Napoleon together. Unfortunately it's in Russian but you can see coins here

• Who did Napoleon and Alexander I fight against?

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Came across this nicely illustrated blog, which theorizes some alternate history.
Scroll down to this bit to see the medal,

"Were the Cossacks with Alexander against Napoleon or alternately, were Napoleon and Alexander unified together against the Cossacks who were tied to Great Tartary?"

• 1812 Was a Very Strange Year | The Unexpected Cosmology

I am seeing possible flood watermarks on quite a lot of buildings. Streets look dirty and muddy. No horses and very few humans. I assume this city could house 500 thousand to one million. If the area was flooded the survivors would be in the upper rooms of the taller buildings. Ladders would be needed to fix roofs, enter buildings after flood if windows were not used. In flood aftermath food would be scarce. Competition for resources would be savage. No crops to eat or animals. Here is my big question in any flood or even energy weapon scenario; where are all the thousands of bodies? Washed away, buried in mud, if energy weapon the smell would be...wow. If massive numbers of people were killed all at one time all over the world the survivors certainly would write about the bodies, any evidence of bodies in the literature?

How did you not notice the neatly stacked log piles, the working weir, the fully intact buildings and other infrastructure right on the waters edge etc?
What is your basis for a population estimate?
Wouldn't wooden ladders be washed away by a flood?
Who cleaned all the mud away? The few survivors hiding out in their lofts with their scant food supplies and no boats or any other means to get more food and what did they do for potable water?

Edit to fix typo

I'm not discounting the fire escape theory, but I can't help but notice a similarity with the San Francisco photos of the same time period having ladders everywhere. In that case a lot of them were placed between roofs for some reason.

Severian said:

I'm not discounting the fire escape theory,

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It's not a theory. It's what the ladders are as in their purpose and placement.
The San Francisco panorama discussion is Here

The foreground one maybe, but the dormer for the one on the right looks a bit small for a person to get out of. I'm assuming that by fire escape you mean egress from the building. I don't see a way down from the window beneath the dormer but that's just me.

The one on the left looks like it's attached to the gutters.

Severian said:

The foreground one maybe, but the dormer for the one on the right looks a bit small for a person to get out of.

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You pick one image out of 14 crops!

Severian said:

I'm assuming that by fire escape you mean egress from the building.

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Don't know what they are called where you live but here they are fire escapes ergo a way to exit the building safely in the event of it catching fire.

Severian said:

I don't see a way down from the window beneath the dormer

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The roof!

Severian said:

The one on the left looks like it's attached to the gutters.

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Look again it is fixed to the roof. Only idiots attach things to gutters.

Look I think I get it.
I am looking at a perfectly normal photograph of a populated city without very many of the populace actually in the photograph. You see something more akin to a depopulated city. As I often say to each their own.
No point engaging in argy bargy. Find the numbered key and all will be revealed.
I've looked for it and cannot find it. You may be better at asking the search engines the right questions than I am so please do have a bash.

These ladders might have been used as a fire escape route, but to my eyes there is a technological mismatch between the ladders and the actual buildings.

KorbenDallas said:

These ladders might have been used as a fire escape route, but to my eyes there is a technological mismatch between the ladders and the actual buildings.

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I appreciate there are things of greater import in your life at the moment so look forwards the time you are able to expand on technological mismatch".

I don't think they are fire escape ladders. Going up is the exact opposite of what you would do in case of a fire. They look like general maintenance type ladders. If these were fire escape ladders I would expect they would need to conform to some fire safety standard so they would all be placed at a certain angle so they can't be knocked down by traffic on the road/pavement, only extend a certain length beyond the ledge they are placed against, a ratio of ladders to building population, etc.

I would also assume it would be a fixed feature and it doesn't seem to be secured against the building.