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Central detail from a 1898 map of St. Petersburg, the Russian capital, from a German atlas. Central St Petersburg, or Petrograd, is on the Neva River. Key landmarks include the Peter and Paul Fortress, which served as a prison, Nevski Prospect, a primary boulevard south of the Fortress, the Finland Train Station, east of the Fortress, where Lenin made his triumphal return, the Tauride (Taurisches) Palace, which housed the Duma and later the Petrograd Soviet. Text: Neva River, Peter and Paul Fortress; Nevski Prospect, Finland Bahnhof (Train Station); Taurisches (Tauride) Palace

Central detail from a 1898 map of St. Petersburg, the Russian capital, from a German atlas. Central St Petersburg, or Petrograd, is on the Neva River. Key landmarks include the Peter and Paul Fortress, which served as a prison, Nevski Prospect, a primary boulevard south of the Fortress, the Finland Train Station, east of the Fortress, where Lenin made his triumphal return, the Tauride (Taurisches) Palace, which housed the Duma and later the Petrograd Soviet.

Image text

St Petersburg (Petrograd); Neva River, Peter and Paul Fortress; Nevski Prospect, Finland Bahnhof (Train Station); Taurisches (Tauride) Palace

Other views: Front, Larger, Detail, Detail

Tuesday, March 6, 1917

"Petrograd is short of bread and wood, and the public is suffering want.

At a bakery on the Liteïny this morning I was struck by the sinister expression on the faces of the poor folk who were lined up in a queue, most of whom had spent the whole night there.

Pokrovski, to whom I mentioned the matter, did not conceal his anxiety. But what can be done! The transport crisis is certainly worse. The extreme cold (43º) which has all Russia in its grip has put more than twelve hundred engines out of action, owing to boiler tubes bursting, and there is a shortage of spare tubes as a result of strikes. Moreover, the snowfall of the last few weeks has been exceptionally heavy and there is also a shortage of labour in the villages to clear the permanent way. The result is that at the present moment fifty-seven thousand railway wagons cannot be moved."

Quotation Context

Entry for Tuesday, March 6, 1917 from the memoirs of Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia in the Russian capital Petrograd. Nikolai Pokrovsky was Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, succeeding Boris Stürmer. As 43º will not freeze water and burst pipes, we assume (43º) is minus 43º Fahrenheit. The extreme cold had plagued the continent for a fortnight, but had eased in France by March 6.

Source

An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. III by Maurice Paléologue, page 213, publisher: George H. Doran Company

Tags

1917-03-06, 1917, March, Petrograd, shortage, bread line, Liteïny