Economic Reasons or War Needs: comparative Cost Price of defensive Structures in Mid 17th Century Russia

Abstract

The object of the article is the cost price of defensive structures of different construction: palisade, log-made and stone-made. The analysis is based on written sources of the 17th century. A calculation of the cost of labour and material as well as man-hours has been made. It is shown that the cost of defensive walls increased from palisade to log walls in the tarassy style and to stone walls. Stone walls cost about 30 times more than log ones. And yet, in spite of high costs, the Russian State often preferred stone fortifications to wooden ones and roskaty to towers.

Keywords

• военные укрепления
• оборонительные сооружения
• крепость
• каменные фортификации
• роскат
• башня
• граница