19th Century Paving Tiles in Russia

Had these two images saved on my computer for a while. What do you think about the paved surface? Is it indicative of the pre-1850's?

1820s Moscow: Red Square

1845 Saint Petersburg: St. Isaac's Cathedral

We also have the below image. It has an interesting description:

• The End of European Russia, Crimea and the Russian Provinces in Asia, Circassia and Georgia.

1838

 

[Knowncitizen]

It has the appearance of cobble stone with a different color or cobble size making up the pattern. Think of interlock paving, or it could be a wonderful technology we have lost.

 

[KorbenDallas]

They sure do look like the interlocking type, don't they? I'm wondering whether we have any similar real world examples out there. I don't mean our contemporary ones, but similar in age to the depicted ones.

 

[Cemen]

I'll add a couple of photos. Around 1860-70. The remains of the geometric pavement are still visible.

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[KorbenDallas]

@Cemen, sure looks that way.

Here are a few additional depictions where these tiles appear to be present.

This one is kind of weird... resembles the cracks in the dirt.

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Tiles on the last two images look different. These are more like the ones on the below painting.

• Not sure these fit the time frame. These tiles had to be made of some concrete-like stuff. As far as I understand, the image below pertains to pre-1830.

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Wondering why they either added, or took away characters.

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And I'm wondering what we have going on here. That looks way too heavy for those guys.

 

[Alex12sb]

These are photos from my old album of Moscow. In this photo, there is no trace of the old coating. It's not even a paving stone. It feels like broken stone has been thrown under my feet.

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And in the second photo, you can see the tram rails. Very interesting. after all, the first tram will go only in 1899.

 

[Cemen]

And in the second photo, you can see the tram rails. Very interesting. after all, the first tram will go only in 1899.

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Most likely horse tram rails.

• Konka ( horse-drawn city railway )

 

[KorbenDallas]

Unfortunately the PTB were able to convince us that this explanation is legit. While in reality it makes as little sense as the image below.

Speaking of the possibly interlocking paving tiles. There gotta be a place where at least some remnants of those still exist. I doubt those were only installed on the Red Square and next to Saint Isaac’s Cathedral. There had to be other places too.

 

[Cemen]

Unfortunately the PTB were able to convince us that this explanation is legit. While in reality it makes as little sense as the image below.

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The trams ceased to function and horses were simply harnessed to them. Then the tram was "invented" again. I have no doubts about that.

 

[Aiahavezred]

What is it with all the clean dirt? Everywhere you look in these old photos large plots of clean, flat dirt. Has anyone here ever looked at an empty lot in there city? Its bare for maybe 2 weeks and within a month or so its 3' deep in weeds and wild grass.

 

[AlgulSiento]

View attachment 7544​

Is it that Polytechnical Museam that has been recently excavated and had 2 stories underground ?