Coaches and Other Wheel Carriages in the 16th–17th Century Russia

The paper is devoted to the “great transport revolution” in Russia. The author shows that the users of passenger carriages in the Moscow state of the late Middle Ages were mostly women from aristocratic families. Aristocratic men usually rode on horseback. They could be forced to take a carriage only by illness or old age. In the 16th century, the kolymaga, which differed little from the medieval European carriages, remained main wheeled means of transportation in Russia. Late in the 16th century, more advanced European coaches with the body suspended on leather straps began to get to Moscow. Lexemes of European origin—carretta and coach—began to penetrate into the Russian language along with them. From the end of Ivan the Terrible’s reign, coaches began to be used in diplomatic practice, which gradually created an idea of them as an element of prestige. The “transport revolution” in Russia was delayed by the Time of Troubles. From the middle of the 17th century, the number of European-made equipages began to increase in Moscow. In the late 1660s–early 1670s, coaches became fashionable among the Russian aristocracy. In 1681, the first decree restricting their use in Moscow was issued. It led to the widespread use of buggies. The “transport revolution” ended late in the 17th century.