History
The aqueduct was commissioned by Catherine II of Russia to engineer Friedrich Wilhelm Bauer. Catherine authorized 1.1 million rouble expenditure and 400 soldiers. Builders used second-hand stone left by demolition of Bely Gorod fortifications. Construction, frequently interrupted, dragged for 25 years, as the soldier engineers were summoned to the war with Turkey (1787-1792) and various other jobs. In the process, both Catherine and Bauer died. Colonel Ivan Gerard lead the project after Bauer's death in 1783. Catherine's son, Paul I, had to issue 400,000 roubles financing; Alexander I added 200,000 roubles. Finally, the aqueduct was completed at an unprecedented cost of 2 million roubles, thus the name Millionny Bridge.
Read more about this topic: Rostokino Aqueduct
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“Anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact; and anyone who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the “anticipation of Nature.””
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“The history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations ... all of which have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)