neighborhood watches, medical and other personnel was hired, dressed in black waxed clothes and housed in separate buildings. while at first the city authorities downplayed the plague, which had reached a peak in early october and then declined, this approach was abandoned when the death toll again started to rise significantly in november. without prior public announcement, a cordon sanitaire was implemented around the city, sealing it off completely from the surrounding countryside from 14/15 november until 21 december 1709. when the plague had fully retreated from königsberg by mid-1710, more than 9,500 townspeople had died, about a quarter of its population. located between danzig and königsberg, the town of elbing (elblag) became infected in late september 1709, probably by shoemakers travelling from silesia. unusual compared to the plague in other places, the elbing plague peaked in october 1709, faded out in the winter, peaked again in the spring 1710, faded in the summer, and peaked for a last time in the fall before vanishing in the winter, having killed about 1,200 people or 15% of the population each year. this led frandsen (2009) to speculate whether it was indeed the plague that raged in elbing, a thorough analysis is however difficult due to the loss of the town's plague records in world war ii. on the other hand, some elbing burghers profited from the plague in the neighboring cities insofar as its skippers were allowed to enter non-infected houses in königsberg and, according to frandsen (2009), "carried out an illegal, but probably very useful and lucrative trade between königsberg and danzig." elbing had protected its population by guarding its walls and enforcing a 40-day quarantine on incoming persons. however, east prussia (the former duchy of prussia, since 1701 a province of the kingdom with the same name), where the plague had first occurred in late 1708 (see above) and returned from 1709 to 1711, lost more than 200,000 and up to 245,000 inhabitants, which was more than a third of its population of ~600,000. the peasants had been weakened by crop failures and pressured by high taxes: while 38.4% of king frederick's subjects lived in eastern prussia, the revenues gathered from this province accounted for only 16.4% of the kingdom's total tax income by the end of the 17th century, thereafter taxes for the peasants were increased by 65% from the outbreak of the war in 1700 until the outbreak of the plague in 1708. when the hard winter of 1708/09 annilihated the winter seed, dysentery and hunger-typhus further weakened the population. as a consequence, according to kossert (2005), "the peasants were easy pray for the plague, as their physical condition was miserable," and 10,800 farms were completely deserted. especially hard-hit were regions with a substantial non-german population: masuria in the south as well as the eastern counties with a substantial lithuanian peasant population. about 128,000 people died in the ämter (rural districts) of insterburg, memel, ragnit and tilsit, and the number of villages populated completely by lithuanians sank from 1,830 before the plague to 35 thereafter. while indigenous, including lithuanian population was included in the subsequent repopulation measures, the ethnic make-up of the province changed with the settlement of mostly german-speaking immigrants, most of whom were protestants seeking refuge from religious prosecution (exulanten). brandenburg in november 1709, when the prussian king frederick i returned to berlin from a meeting with russian tsar peter the great, the king had a strange encounter with his mentally deranged wife sophia louise, who in a white dress and with bloody hands pointed at him saying that the plague would devour the king of babylon. as there was a legend of a white lady foretelling the deaths of the hohenzollern, frederick took his wife's outburst seriously and ordered that precautions be taken for his residence city. among other measures, he ordered the construction of a pest house outside the city walls, the berlin charité. while the plague eventually spared berlin, it raged in the northeastern regions of brandenburg, affecting the new march (neumark) in 1710 and the uckermark, where prenzlau was infected on 3 august 1710. there, the prussian military enforced a quarantine and nailed up houses where infected people lived. by january 1711, 665 people had died of the plague in prenzlau and were buried on the city walls, and the quarantine was lifted on 10 august 1711. pomerania in august 1709, the plague arrived in the small swedish pomeranian town of (alt-)damm (now dąbie) on the eastern bank of the oder river, rapidly killing 500 inhabitants. stettin (now szczecin), the capital city of swedish pomerania located on the opposite bank of the river, reacted by isolating the town with a guarded cordon sanitaire. precautions taken in stettin since the arrival of the plague in danzig included restrictions for travellers, especially soldiers' families returning from swedish-occupied poland after the lost battle of poltava (8 july 1709), and a ban on fruits in the town's markets, since fruits were believed to transmit the disease. according to zapnik (2006), the returning soldiers' wives who had contact with the plague-stricken areas around poznań were most likely the transmitters of the plague to pomerania. after the outbreak in damm, the mail route connecting stettin with stargard in the adjacent prussian province of pomerania via damm was relocated to podejuch. despite the precautions, the plague broke out in warsow, just north of stettin, and by the end of september also inside stettin's walls, transmitted by a local woman who had provided food to her son in damm. as in danzig (see above), the city council downplayed the plague cases to not impair stettin's trade, but also set up a health commission and pest houses and hired personnel to deal with the infected. the situation was aggravated in october 1709, when the swedish army corps commanded by the swedish pomeranian ernst detlev von krassow entered pomerania. krassow's corps, together with units of the polish king stanislaw i, had failed to reinforce the army of king charles xii of sweden in poltava as their eastward advance was blocked by russian and polish-lithuanian forces near lemberg (lviv, lwow). when charles was defeated at poltava, many polish-lithuanian magnates switched from supporting stanislaw i to supporting augustus the strong, and under pursuit by russian and saxon forces, krassow's corps retreated westward through plague-stricken poland, taking with them the abandoned polish king as well as his court and wife. against the will of the prussian king, whose troops were occupied in the war of the spanish succession, they crossed through the prussian new march and prussian pomerania to reach damm in swedish pomerania with the main army and the swedish border near wollin, gollnow and greifenhagen with smaller units on 21 october. krassow, who on his march was followed and monitored by prussian officials, denied having infected soldiers in his corps when confronted with suspicions. in a meeting with prussian official scheden, he justified his choice to march through infected damm and probably infected gollnow by responding that gollnow was not infected at all, and that the situation in damm would be dealt with by setting up a military corridor through the town separating the army from the inhabitants; horn from krassow's corps added reports that in damm, after the death of 500 people, none of the remaining 400 inhabitants had died for three weeks. contrary to krassow's assurances, part of his corps was indeed infected with the plague, and the retreat from the infected polish territories was carried out in disorder. according to zapnik (2006), "hordes of unrestrained soldateska, without adequate supplies and driven by fear of pursuit by their adversaries, behaved in a way more resembling their treatment of enemy territory when they had entered swedish pomerania." in addition to damm, and stettin, where 2,000 people died, the plague from 1709 to 1710 ravaged pasewalk, killing 67% of its inhabitants, anklam, and kammin in swedish pomerania and belgard in prussian pomerania. from 1710 to 1711 the plague afflicted stralsund, altentreptow, wolgast which lost 40% of its inhabitants, and wollin, all in swedish pomerania, as well as stargard and bahn in prussian pomerania and prenzlau across the border with brandenburg (all in 1710). in 1711, the plague spread to greifswald. lithuania, livonia, estonia painting of the plague in vilnius depicts virgin of mercy holding broken arrows of god's wrath. it hangs inside the church of st. peter and st. paul, vilnius. in the years 1710 and 1711, 190,000 people were infected half of which died. the main lithuanian city, vilnius suffered from the plague from 1709 to 1713. between 23,000 and 33,700 people died in the city in 1709 and 1710; that number continued to rise in the following three years, when many of the starving from the lithuanian countryside, which was ravaged by hunger and other diseases, took refuge within its walls. in swedish estonia and swedish livonia (both of which capitulated to the russian tsar in 1710), the death toll between 1709 and 1711 was up to 75% of the population. the largest city there was riga, guarded by a garrison of 12,000, which after the battle of poltava was targeted by the forces of the tsardom of russia under boris sheremetev. a siege was raised by november 1709; however, when the plague broke out in the city in may 1710, it soon spread from the defendants to the russian siege forces, causing the latter to retreat behind a cordon sanitaire. when the plague spread to swedish dünamünde upstream on the düna (daugava) river, thwarting riga's defendants' hopes for relief, and plague and hunger became so widespread in the city that only 1,500 men of the garrison were still alive, on 5 (o.s.) / 15 july they surrendered the city to sheremetev, who reported to the tsar 60,000 deaths in riga and 10,000 deaths among his own forces. while frandsen (2009) dismisses the number for riga as "most likely a heavy exaggeration" and instead gives a rough estimate of 20,000 deaths by the end of the plague in october, sheremetev's number of russian plague deaths seem to be "closer to the truth." dünamünde surrendered on 9 (o.s.) / 19 august, when only some officers and 64 healthy and ~500 sick ordinary soldiers were left. the contemporaries believed that the plague in riga continued because, when the russian forces lifted the siege, the influx of fresh air swirled and further distributed the plague's bad air throughout the city. some russian measures, however, really contributed to the spread of the plague: sheremetev allowed 114 swedish government officials to leave for dünamünde and from there for stockholm with all their families and households, taking the plague with them; also captured sick soldiers were sent to the isle of ösel (øsel, saaremaa) off the estonian coast, while the healthy were integrated into sheremetev's corps. refugees from dünamünde also carried the plague to ösel, where the fortress of arensburg was depopulated by the disease. the primary city of swedish estonia, reval (tallinn), was approached by a russian force of 5,000 commanded by christian bauer in august 1710, and due to a decision by the local officials and nobles, capitulated on 30 september without actually being attacked. behind its walls was a population of ~20,000 people in august, composed of the regular inhabitants, soldiers, refugees and the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, which had been demolished by the defendants on 18 august. by mid-december, about 15,000 of them had died of the plague, and the number of inhabitants was reduced to 1,990 inside the walls and 200 in the adjacent villages. the rest had either fled elsewhere, or in the case of the surviving swedish troops and some citizens, had been allowed to leave by ship after the surrender, carrying the plague to finland. finland, gotland and central sweden a commemorative plaque on the gate of old church park in helsinki. translation of the finnish text: "at this site was the cemetery where in 1710, during four months, 1185 inhabitants of helsinki were buried. a terrible plague, having come from abroad, killed then two thirds of the inhabitants of helsinki. – the eternal god is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms. (deuteronomy 32:27)" from livonia and estonia, refugees brought the plague to central sweden and finland, at that time still an integral