Count Tormasov began military service in 1762. During battles against the Turkish army in the Russo-Turkish war of 1787-1791 he was raised to the rank of major-general. He took part in suppressing the Polish uprising in 1794 and in the capture of Tadeusz Kosciuszko.
In the 1800s he was military governor of Kiev, then of Riga, and finally commander-in-chief of Georgia.
At the beginning of the Napoleonic war of 1812, he was commander of the 3rd Western Army which, on 15 July, defeated units of the Austrian corps under K. Schwartzenberg at Kobrin. For his successful actions in battles at Krasny he was awarded Russia's highest decoration, the order of St Andrew.
Count Tormasov's report to the Committee of Ministers (1814) contained a broad programme for the rebuilding of Moscow and assistance for the city's population. Having expressed his approval and support, Alexander I instructed that additional funds be allocated to level streets and to compensate house owners for land taken in order to straighten side-streets and give the city squares a more symmetrical design, etc. Streets in the Arbat, Pyatnitskaya, Sretenskaya and Tverskaya areas were straightened and paved. In 1818, Red Square received one of its chief adornments—the commemorative statue of Kuzma Minin and Dmitri Pozharsky, designed by the sculptor I.P. Martos.
Repairs to housing, hospitals, bakeries, administrative and public buildings made rapid progress. In 1817, the architect O.I. Bove rebuilt the Kremlin Water Tower, which had been blown up during the French withdrawal; in 1816 the architect D.I. Zhilyardi erected a new belfry for the Ivan the Great bell tower, the old one having been destroyed; in 1817-1819, Zhilyardi also rebuilt the Moscow University building on Mokhovaya Street, the old building having been destroyed by fire. The city was adorned with other new buildings: the Manege (1817), the Gubernia High School (No. 1 for boys) on the corner of Volkhonka and Bolshoi Znamensky Lane, and the Synod printing press on Nikolskaya Street. During this same period, Petrovskaya Square and Teatralnaya Square were under construction, and the river Neglinnaya was enclosed within a pipe.
A.P. Tormasov was buried in the cemetery of the Donskoi Monastery in Moscow.
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