On completing his service with the Corps of Pages in 1817, Tuchkov was given the rank of corporal. During the Russo-Turkish war of 1828-1829, he distinguished himself at the siege of the fortress of Brailov, and in battles at the crossing of the Danube. During the Polish campaign of 1830-1831, he took part in storming the advance fortifications of the city rampart of Warsaw.
Having risen steadily up the rungs of the hierarchical ladder, Tuchkov was appointed chief-of-staff of the independent grenadier corps in 1836, by which time he held the rank of major-general. Whereas other representatives of the Tuchkov family won fame on the battlefields of the Napoleonic war of 1812, Pavel Alexeyevich achieved renown as "the driving spirit behind the introduction of public administration in Moscow", a resolution on which was adopted on 20 March 1862. The Six-Vote Duma, which had now become an archaic means of administration, was replaced by elected organs representing all social groups of the population—the General and Administrative Dumas, where the majority of the city's major issues were discussed at joint sessions of councillors representing all the social strata.
Among the important political events of this period were the student disturbances in September-October 1861, which ended in a clash with the police outside the Dresden Hotel on Tverskaya Street and the arrest of students sent to conduct negotiations in the residence of the governor-general.
On the insistent request of the governor-general, a City Statistical Committee was set up which operated independently of the Gubernia Committee. An address bureau was also created similar to the one which existed in St Petersburg. Tuchkov also played an important role in the opening of the Moscow Zoo and the Arnoldo-Tretyakovsky Deaf and Dumb College.
Tuchkov governed Moscow right up to his death, and was buried at the Novodevichy Convent.
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