The imposition of medical precautions led to rioting. Many in Moscow’s terror-stricken population came to believe that the physicians and their medicines had brought the plague to the city. They refused to obey orders forbidding them to gather in marketplaces and churches and to kiss supposedly miraculous icons in hope of protection. Instead, they gathered to seek salvation and solace around these icons. A famous icon of the Virgin at Varvarsky Gate became a magnet; day after day, crowds of diseased people swarmed around her feet. She became the deadliest center of contagion in the city.
