On May 27, 1703, the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great, cut two strips of turf on a desolate swamp taken from the Swedes at the mouth of the River Neva, laid them across one another and declared "Here there shall be a city". That city was
St Petersburg.
The picture below shows
Peter the Great Meditating the Idea of Building St Petersburg at the Shore of the Baltic Sea by Alexandre Benois, 1916
Peter the Great hated the Kremlin, where as a child he had witnessed the brutal torture and murder of his mother's family. When he built his capital at St Petersburg the Tsar forbade even the slightest repair on stone buildings in Moscow asserting that every mason was needed in the new city.
The beautiful Saint Petersburg was designed by Italian, German and Scottish architects and engineers, and built in record time by conscripted peasants from all over Russia; a number of Swedish prisoners of war were also involved in some years under the supervision of Alexander Menshikov. Tens of thousands of serfs died building the city.
Within nine years, the city was completed and St Petersburg became the Russian capital in 1712.
Peter the Great ordered all Moscow nobles, merchants, and middle-class professionals to pack up their belongings and move to the newly created city. The Tsar also encouraged foreigners to move there to offer their advice and skills.