In Russia, as in other countries, prostitution has existed for a very long time. There were periods when it was banned, and there was a period when it was legalized. In my opinion, it is high time to legalize it again in our time, but first, let's talk about what prostitution was like in the past. In the old tsarist times, prostitution was fought against, but gently, mostly by religious methods of condemnation. There was a word — "depravity," "harlot." Harlots were unmarried girls who were looking for "their" men with the aim of creating a family and did not disdain sex (they wandered).

But active struggle against prostitution in Russia was started by Peter I, with the aim of stopping the spread of "French diseases" (venereal diseases, especially syphilis).

One of the military articles of 1716 provided for lifelong forced labor on galleys or the death penalty for incest, sodomy, bestiality, and rape of minors.

The fight was continued by Catherine II, and later by Paul I. Prisons for prostitutes were created, and sometimes they were exiled far from Moscow and Saint Petersburg, for example to Irkutsk.

Under Paul, they were forced to wear yellow dresses to distinguish them from decent women. This color became associated with prostitutes; later they were issued yellow tickets. But this did not yield results in the fight against diseases, as prostitution went underground.

Nicholas I solved this problem. By a special imperial decree, prostitution in Russia was legalized, with strict medical and police control established over it. Twice a week, prostitutes had to undergo medical examinations at police stations.

This was quite humiliating; women were treated like cattle. At the same time, all of them were registered as informants and their testimonies brought considerable benefit to investigators.

Women who sold their bodies in brothels were called "ticketed," and those who worked independently, picking up clients on the street, were called "blank ticket" prostitutes.

In exchange for a passport, women received a yellow ticket. It was called yellow because low-quality paper was used for the certificate, so it quickly turned yellow. Besides the prostitute’s personal data, the passport contained pages with marks about visits to doctors.

Probably everyone has heard about the Red Light District in the capital of the Netherlands, but there was one in St. Petersburg as well. Its location was not far from the city center. The center of St. Petersburg’s debauchery was considered to be the current Kazanskaya Street and Fonarny Lane. These two streets, with a total length of less than two kilometers, have a notorious reputation in the city. Among the people, the exit of Kazanskaya Street to Nevsky Prospect was called "Minetny" (a slang term). Almost all the tenement houses on Kazanskaya Street had connections with representatives of the oldest profession; with a rich imagination, one can look at the historical buildings located there today in a completely different way.

Of course, there were many people who complained; the emperor claimed that they could solve the issue themselves by refusing to rent apartments and rooms to women with yellow tickets. But technically, the plan was unfeasible, as it was impossible to undercut the price. It would seem that more than 100 years have passed since then, but the situation has not fundamentally changed. Sometimes the news reports another raid on a tolerance apartment on Kazanskaya Street. A little time passes, and as in Blok’s poem, "everything repeats as before." The century has changed, the state system has changed, but the essence has not gone anywhere.

The decline of the "Red Light" district came with the decision of the governor, who simply evicted all women with yellow documents to the outskirts of the capital, far from the city center. Now, only the name of Fonarny Lane remains from the former quarter, but people remember and know.

Sources:

https://dzen.ru/a/XCuSAV2S0gCrrZFh

https://pantv.livejournal.com/684147.html