In the paternal line, Count Saltykov was a distant relation of Empress Anna loannovna. In 1714 he was sent to France by Peter the Great for naval training, and there he spent approximately twenty years. In 1733 he was given the title of count and the rank of lieutenant-general.
Count Pyotr Saltykov made his name in military service. Contemporaries describe him as energetic but prudent, quick-witted, resolute in moments of danger, and able to understand the ordinary soldier. In 1759, during the Seven Years' War, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Russian army, which then went on to win brilliant victories in the battles of Palzigand Kunersdorf, routing the hitherto undefeated troops of the Prussian King Frederick the Great.
While Count Saltykov was commander-in-chief of Moscow, post offices were opened in the city and repair work was carried out on the Golovin and Kolomna Palaces, and on the Nikolskiye, Voskresenskiye and Tverskiye Gates in the Kremlin, which by this time had become "so-dilapidated" that they constituted a danger to passers-by. The Kozmodemyansky Bridge was also in a serious state of disrepair. The May floods of 1765, the result of "extraordinary rainfall and the subsequent great overspill of the Moskva River" swept away the Dorogomilovsky, Kras-nokholmsky and Moskvoretsky Bridges, which were, however, quickly rebuilt.
It is also known that the walls of Byely Gorod were dismantled during this same period, and the bricks used, on the orders of Catherine II, to build an orphanage and to "repair the Arsenal".
On 22 April 1764, Saltykov reported to St Petersburg on the opening of the orphanage and the solemn liturgy celebrated to mark this event at the Cathedral of the Dormition in the presence of "all the noble military and civil ranks".
The commander-in-chief also had to devote considerable energy to the organisation of supplies for Moscow. In 1766, for example, as a result of rising bread prices following a crop failure, Saltykov imposed a ban on taking private bread supplies out of the city, and ordered the purchase of flour from estate owners so that the million-strong population of Moscow should not suffer hunger.
The commander-in-chief was also regularly informed on deliveries of wine to Moscow, the city consuming over one and a half million gallons of wine a year.
In August 1771, Moscow suffered an outbreak of plague. Hundreds were dying every day. Landowners, government officials and rich merchants, abandoning their houses and their serfs, left the city. In September, Saltykov departed to his Marfino estate outside Moscow without waiting for permission from the Empress. However it was precisely during his absence, on 16 September, that a plague riot occurred in which Archbishop Ambrose of Moscow was killed. It was only thanks to harsh measures taken by P.D. Yeropkin—he ordered grapeshot to be used to disperse the crowd of rioters—that order was restored in the ancient capital. The very next day the commander-in-chief returned to the city but, on learning of what had happened, Catherine II dismissed him from his post.
Count Pyotr Saltykov died on his Marfino estate outside Moscow. His successor, knowing about his fall from favour, gave no particular instructions regarding the funeral.
Count Saltykov was buried in the village of Nikolskoye near Yaroslavl.
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