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1684–1746
Governor of Moscow
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Karl Biron came from the aristocratic von Bueren family of Courland. He joined the Russian armed forces under Peter the Great and was taken prisoner by the Swedes. Having escaped to Poland, he rejoined military service there. In the same year that Anna loannovna came to the throne, he was summoned to Russia by his brother, the all-powerful royal favourite Ernst Biron. Karl Biron was made a general-in-chief for his service in the Crimean campaign of 1737.
On 3 March 1740, under an imperial decree assigning "generals to various places", Biron was appointed governor "in the army and in Moscow". Biron directed his attention primarily to strengthening the Moscow garrison. While he was governor, order in the city was maintained by approximately three thousand troops under the command of one colonel and one major. The following buildings were provided with an armed guard: "sentry posts at Krasnoye Kryltso, and the guardroom, and the gates—in the Kremlin, and in Kitai-Gorod and Byely Gorod, and at the Justice Office, and police stations and other similar places..." There were also sentries posted near the Armoury, "in the new playhouse", by churches and in passages through the city walls near Trubnaya Square.
Following the death of Anna loannovna and the arrest of his brother, Karl Biron was exiled. In 1744 he was granted permission to return to his Livland estates.
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