Moscow plague riot of 1771

Plague Riot (Чумной бунт in Russian) was a riot in Moscow in 1771 between September 15 and September 17, caused by an outbreak of bubonic plague.

The first signs of plague in Moscow appeared in late 1770, which would turn into a major epidemic in the spring of 1771. The measures undertaken by the authorities, such as creation of forced quarantines, destruction of contaminated property without compensation or control, closing of public baths, etc., caused fear and anger among the citizens. The city's economy was mostly paralyzed because many factories, markets, stores, and administrative buildings had been closed down. All of this was followed by acute food shortages, causing deterioration of living conditions for the majority of the Muscovites. Dvoryane (Russian nobility) and well-off city dwellers left Moscow due to the plague outbreak.

The first outbursts of mass protest against the measures undertaken by the authorities took place on August 29 and September 1 in a neighborhood of Lefortovo. By early September, the rumors of an imminent uprising had already been circulating. An attempt by the Archbishop Ambrosius of Moscow to prevent the citizens from gathering at the Icon of the Virgin Mary of Bogolyubovo () in Kitai-gorod as a quarantine measure served as an immediate cause for the Plague Riot. On September 15, huge crowds of Muscovites began to flow towards the Red Square at the sound of the alarm bell. Pushing aside a military unit, they burst into the Kremlin and destroyed the Chudov Monastery (archbishop's residence) and its wine cellars. Archbishop Ambrosius managed to escape to the Donskoy Monastery.

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