During the years 1798 and 1799 the functions of the St. Petersburg Mint were gradually transferred to the Assignat Bank building, a short distance away. This was necessary because of the rapidly deteriorating conditions of the mint arrangement inside the Peter and Paul fortress walls.
The problems with the fortress mint were actually recognized some years earlier and by the summer of 1796 the Russian minister (ambassador) to Great Britain, Count Semen Vorontsov, had come to terms with Matthew Boulton, the famed English private coiner and industrialist of Soho (near Birmingham), to supply equipment for a new mint. However, Catherine II, whose approval of the project was necessary, died in November 1796 and the matter was left to her son, now Paul I.
At first, Paul ignored the Boulton negotiations, but by the summer of 1797 had decided to reopen the matter. For £11,520 ($51,200) Boulton agreed to sell to the Russian government a complete set of minting machinery and tools. The arrangements, however, hinged upon the British Parliament agreeing to this transfer of technology in an era when the European continent was in upheaval due to Napoleon.
It is said that cash inducements were given to key legislators to ensure that the special act was
