HISTORY
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.
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,
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| Map of Saint Petersburg, 1744 |
The Russian Academy of Sciences was founded in St. Petersburg by Peter the Great on January 28 1724, and implemented by Senate decree. It was called the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences until 1917.
In 1725, construction of Peterhof (Dutch for "Peter's Court"), a palace near St Petersburg, was completed. Peterhof was a grand residence, which became known as the "Russian Versailles" after the great French Palace of Versailles on which it was modeled on.
In 1732, Anna of Russia commissioned the architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli to completely rebuild and extend the Apraksin Palace, incorporating other neighboring houses. The palace was constructed on a monumental scale that was intended to reflect the might and power of Imperial Russia. The result was The Winter Palace which was, from 1732 to 1917, the official residence of the Russian monarchs.
A fire in the Winter Palace broke out on December 17, 1837, partially damaging the palace and killing thirty guardsmen. Tsar Nicholas I was responsible for the palace's present appearance and layout. He made many changes to the interior of the building, and was responsible for its complete rebuilding following the blaze.
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| Fire in the Winter Palace, 1837, Watercolour by B. Green, 1838 |
The first public shooting range was founded in St. Petersburg in 1834 for rifles or handguns.
During World War I, when Russia and Germany were fighting each other, Russians thought the name Saint Petersburg sounded too German, so Tsar Nicholas II, on August 31, 1914 decided that the city should be renamed Petrograd.
In 1918, Petrograd ceased to be the Russian capital and the central government bodies moved from there to Moscow.
On January 26, 1924, five days after Lenin's death, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honor. Vladimir Lenin had spent only two years in St Petersburg and moved his capital from there to Moscow yet the Soviets renamed it Leningrad after him.
When German forces severed the last land connection to Leningrad in September 1941, they began the Siege of Leningrad. Over 1 million of the city's civilians died from starvation before the siege ended on January 27, 1944, becoming one of the most lethal battles in world history.
During the Siege of Leningrad, the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra played Tchaikovsky's 5th at a performance to boost morale. During the 2nd Movement, bombs started to fall nearby. The orchestra never stopped playing and continued to the last note.
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| Citizens of Leningrad during the 872-day siege. By RIA Novosti archive |
The name Saint Petersburg was restored to Russia's second largest city on September 6, 1991, which had been known as Leningrad since 1924.
FUN SAINT PETERSBURG FACTS
In every-day Russian, the city is often called just "Piter".
Saint Petersburg is home to more than two hundred museums, many of them hosted in historic buildings.
The world's largest art gallery is the Winter Palace and Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. Visitors would have to walk 15 miles to see the 322 galleries which house nearly 3 million works of art.
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| View of the Winter Palace building By A.Savin |
The Hermitage Museum started off as a retreat where Catherine the Great kept her extensive collection of paintings, drawings and sculptures. It opened its doors to the public for the first time in 1852.
Over five million people live in St. Petersburg as of 2015, making it the second biggest city in Russia.
Due to the intricate web of the numerous canals, Saint Petersburg is often called Venice of the North.
There are many canals in St Petersburg, so the city is sometimes called the Venice of the North.
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