Flooding in St. Petersburg

[greekhoop]

Does anyone know anything about the practice of firing off cannons to alert the population of St. Petersburg to the flooding of the Neva River? There are a couple of references to it in Dostoyevsky, which is how I found out about it, but nothing very substantial

Comments

[brune_hilda]

The signs were fire, bells, flags and lightnings (at nights). As I know the tradition was interrupted in 1897. The exact correspondance between numbers of fire and flood intensivity won't google:(

[greekhoop]

This is really helpful. Thank you!

[brune_hilda]

the canon shot daily from the walls of St.Peter and Paul fortress at noon, but at the times of the flood there were several shots fired to warn the citizens. An article I've found in Russian does not indicate the number of shots, or if the number was related to the amount of danger. But it also says that the tradition was terminated in 1920s

[greekhoop]

You are awesome. This is just want I was looking for. Thanks so much!