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"Handsome, Petrov's hail, and stand firm.
Steadfast as Russia...".
A.S. Pushkin, "The Bronze Horseman" (1833)
St. Petersburg (this article is in Russian — Санкт-Петербург) — is the second million-strongest city in Russia[ru] in terms of population (Moscow comes first, Novosibirsk third). It is a city of federal significance. Administrative center of the Northwestern Federal District.
On May 27, Russia celebrates St. Petersburg Day.
In total, according to the population census, as of January 1, 2023, there were 16 million cities in Russia: Moscow - 13,098 million people; St. Petersburg — 5,598 million people; Yekaterinburg - 1,539 million people; Kazan — 1,315 million people; Nizhny Novgorod — 1,213 million people; Krasnoyarsk — 1,197 million people; Chelyabinsk — 1,183 million people; Samara — 1,164 million people; Ufa — 1,158 million people; Rostov-on-Don — 1,136 million people; Krasnodar — 1,121 million people; Omsk — 1,111 million people; Voronezh — 1,052 million people; Perm — 1,027 million people; Volgograd — 1,026 million people.
St. Petersburg is a special, "premeditated" city, as Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky said. It is unlike any other city in the world[ru] for quite objective historical and geographical reasons.
St. Petersburg, located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, is the European gateway of Russia, its strategic center, directly bordering the countries of the European Union.
The city was conceived on the model of Venice and Amsterdam. It is located on 42 islands, where more than 60 rivers and rivulets flow; there are 20 channels and channels and more than 300 bridges, of which more than 20 are drawbridges. The number of pleasure boats, motor boats, and motor ships in St. Petersburg is growing every year, and it is unforgivable not to use the opportunity to explore the city from the water.
The comparison with the "city on the water" did not arise by chance. In the XVIII century, gondolas traveled along the rivers and canals of the city, so St. Petersburg is often called the Venice of the North, where more than 10% of the total surface area is occupied by inland waters.
There are a lot of bridges in St. Petersburg that give the city a special charm and beauty, each with its own name and a special story. For example, the widest bridge in the center of St. Petersburg is the Blue Bridge - 99.5 meters.
Since ancient times, the path "from the Varangians to the Greeks" has passed along the Neva River, this territory had an extremely advantageous position. People have lived[ru] on the site of present-day St. Petersburg since ancient times. First they were Paleoeuropean tribes, then Western Indo-Europeans, the ancestors of the Baltic-Finnish peoples. Since the 8th century, the area has been inhabited by Eastern Slavs. The territory passed from Novgorod Rus to the Moscow Principality, even managed to be part of Sweden in the XVII century under the peace treaty of 1617. At the same time, Sweden conducted successful trade through these territories, and Russia tried to return the occupied lands[ru], which failed during the Russian-Swedish war of 1656-1658.
In August 1700, Peter I Great[ru] declared war on Sweden. In November 1702, the Swedes retreated from Lake Ladoga, the largest lake in Europe, located 60 kilometers from the Baltic Sea, under the onslaught of the Russian army, leaving the fortress of Nienschanz on a small island at the source of the Neva. Later, this fortress was renamed Shlisselburg. In the XV — XVII centuries, there were many settlements on the site of the historical center of the city and at the convergence of the Okhta and Neva rivers, including the Nien fortress.
In May 1703, under the onslaught of Peter I's troops, the garrison of the Swedish fortress surrendered. As a result of these victories, the entire Neva River Delta returned to Russian control.
After the liberation of the lands from the Swedes, it became necessary to create a reliable fortress here, at the mouth of the Neva River on Zayachy Island (Yeni-Saari). From this point, the fortress could cover the fairways of the main branches of the delta — Neva and Bolshaya Nevka with cannon fire.
Walking along this island, Peter I suddenly stopped, cut out two turfs, put them in a cross and said: "There should be a city here!". Peter I ordered to mark the place where he made the historical decision with a stone slab with the inscription: "From the incarnation of Jesus Christ in 1703, on May 16, the reigning city of St. Petersburg was founded by the great tsar Tsar and Grand Duke Peter Alekseevich." At that time, an eagle appeared in the sky and began to soar above the tsar, it followed Peter everywhere, and then disappeared. After the foundation of the city, Peter I ordered the installation of wooden gates, which were supposed to serve as the entrance to the fortress. When the gate was erected, the eagle reappeared and landed on the crossbar of the gate. When Peter the Great passed under the gate for the first time, the eagle sat on his shoulder, and since then it has been constantly next to the emperor.
The eagle is the messenger of the gods, a symbol of power in the mythologies of various peoples of the world. The fact that this bird appeared during the founding of the city confirms the divine origin of the king and his city.
Peter the Great planned the construction of a harbor that would allow trade to begin with northwestern Europe, and such a location of the fortress allowed full control of the sea gates of the new city and ships approaching the shore. Surrounded by water, the fortress was difficult to storm, which made it reliable and safe. Peter I drew the plan of the future fortress personally. From here, the Russian tsar "cut a window to Europe", the country[ru] received access to the Baltic Sea.
Peter I often called the city a "Paradise", and entrusted the construction to his associate Alexander Danilovich Menshikov, to whom he wrote: "... And we would like to see you here, so that you too may enjoy the beauty of this Paradise (in which you were and still are a good participant in your labors) in return for your labors, you will be a partaker with us, which I wish from the bottom of my heart[ru]."
The fortress received its name — "St. Peter Burkh" - on the day of the Holy Trinity, May 27 (May 16, old style), 1703. According to Christian legend, the Apostle Peter was the keeper of the keys to paradise, which also seemed symbolic to the Russian tsar, since the city bearing the name of his heavenly patron was supposed to become the "key to the Baltic Sea." A few years later, the fortress was named Peter and Paul Fortress — after its main cathedral.
The first residential building of the new city was a summer one-story wooden house for Peter the Great built by carpenters on the banks of the Neva River (on Petrovskaya Embankment) on May 24-26, 1703, a summer one-storey wooden house for Peter the Great, with walls painted with oil paint imitating bricks. The tsar lived in it until 1708. This is the oldest building in St. Petersburg.
From the first days of its foundation, the city has become the starting point for the development of Russia. Due to its geographical location, St. Petersburg was easily protected from enemies, therefore it served as an important center of trade. St. Petersburg has become a symbol of the power and development of the Russian Empire. It was here that the main events significant for the country took place.
St. Petersburg is the first city in Russia that developed according to a pre-developed plan. This determined the high urban planning level and contributed to the formation of urban ensembles characteristic of the late XVIII century — early XIX century. In 1703, by royal decree, the "Office of the Buildings" was created, which supervised all the work, but was actually headed by Peter I.
Thanks to the efforts of thousands of workers, the fortress on the islands has turned into a beautiful city. During the first ten years of construction, office buildings, craft settlements, and military units were erected on Gorodsky Island (modern Petrogradsky Island), this area of St. Petersburg land was considered the main one.
On June 29, 1703, the foundation of the wooden church in the name of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul was laid. And in the autumn of the same year, the first temple in the city called Troitskiy was built here. It was named in memory of the date of the foundation of the fortress, it was laid on the feast of the Holy Trinity.
Soon, the city began to grow on the neighboring Birch Island: berths, an exchange, shopping malls and other buildings appeared.
Peter the Great attached great importance to the new city for providing a waterway from Russia to Western Europe. The first merchant ship from Holland arrived in November 1703. The opening of the Maritime Academy contributed to the development of maritime traditions in the Northern Capital. Peter I himself placed all his residences near the water; if necessary, special channels were laid through which ships could approach the palace.
Trinity Square, on which the cathedral stood, became the first city pier where ships approached and unloaded. It was on the square that the first Gostiny Dvor and St. Petersburg tavern appeared. The new city Island and Zayachy, where the fortress stood, were connected by a drawbridge. Soon, buildings began to appear on the other side of the river, and on Vasilyevsky Island. In Peter the Great's time, bears lived on the outskirts of the city, so Vasilievsky Island was called Bear Island.
On June 24, 1710, Tsarskoe Selo was founded near St. Petersburg
Vasilievsky Island is the largest in the Neva Delta. Its western side, facing the Gulf of Finland, is the central link of the "marine facade" of St. Petersburg, and the eastern tip — Strelka — is included in the panorama of the citywide center. The key position between the main water area of the Neva River and the exit to the Gulf of Finland predetermined its important role in the development of St. Petersburg.
The development of Vasilyevsky Island began several centuries before the emergence of the northern capital. The first fixation of the island's name also dates back to that time. According to the "Census salary book for Veliky Novgorod of the Vodskaya Pyatina" in 1500, fishermen lived on Vasiliev Island, there were arable land. One version of the origin of its name refers to the Novgorod man Vasily Seleznev, its first owner. There are also scientific[ru] hypotheses explaining the name on behalf of several Novgorod posadniks: Vasily Kazimir and Vasily Ananyin. There is also a version about the origin of the name on behalf of one of the first settlers of the island — a certain fisherman Vasily. "In ancient times, Vasily, a fisherman, lived on the island with his wife, Vasilisa. The name of the island came from them."
Settlements existed along the Malaya Neva, near the mouth of the Smolenka River and on the right bank of the Smolenka River. In the XVII century, under Swedish rule, the island was also called Dammarholm — Pond Island. Probably, they meant ponds formed on the tributaries of the Smolenka River. At that time, the island belonged to the Swedish military commander Ya. Delagardi, whose manor was located on the Arrow. There was also a Finnish name for the island: Hirvisaari — Moose Island. In its transformed form, it is found in documents as the name of the village of Girvisaria, where pilots lived until 1712.
Soon after the founding of St. Petersburg, the island was again called Vasilyevsky Island. According to historian A. Bogdanov, there was a fortification on the western tip of the island, where Peter I sent orders and orders to artillery captain Vasily Korchmin, with a laconic inscription: "To Vasily on the island." So Vasily Korchmin contributed to the revival of the old toponym with his name. From 1704 to 1714, the island was owned by the Governor-General of St. Petersburg, Prince A.D. Menshikov, hence the name Princely or Menshikov. And later, from 1727 to 1730, there was an official name — Preobrazhensky Island. According to the administrative division of St. Petersburg, since 1737, the territories of Vasilyevsky and the neighboring island of Golodaya were part of the Vasilyevsky police unit.
There are 16 acts and decrees (orders) issued personally by Peter the Great regulating the settlement of Vasilyevsky Island. In Peter the Great's time, Vasilievsky Island was a relatively elevated and built—up eastern part, where the stock exchange is now located, and the western part is a huge swampy swamp. Naturally, the settlement of the island did not go smoothly. People were reluctant to climb into the swamp.
The territory of modern St. Petersburg was heavily swampy, so for the construction of urban buildings located outside the fortress, it was necessary to drain the marshes along the banks of the Neva River. Such unskilled work was carried out by "working people" — peasants who arrived for 3 months to work out their natural labor service. The "shift" method operated from 1704 to 1717, then it was replaced by a cash tax and the invitation of freelance workers. On average, about 20 thousand people were involved in the construction annually. There is an opinion that at that time there was a high mortality rate[ru] among builders, but no evidence of this has been found.
In the autumn of 1704, the construction of the second most important structure, the Admiralty Shipyard with fortifications, began at the mouth of the Neva River. At the end of 1706, in order to protect the Peter and Paul Fortress from shelling from the opposite shore, Peter I issued an order to build a Kronverk.
Bishop Mitrofan of Voronezh was the patron saint of the young Tsarevich Peter. Having already grown up, Peter initiated him into his affairs and asked for his help. It was St. Mitrofan who advised the future emperor to build a new city of St. Petersburg with the help of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God.
As long as she is there, as long as the Orthodox pray in front of her, not a single enemy foot[ru] will set foot on the land of the Northern Capital," the holy elder told the tsarevich.
The entire Russian army of Peter I prayed in front of the image of the Kazan Mother of God in 1709 before the Battle of Poltava, one of the most important battles of the Northern War with the Swedes. In 2 hours, Peter the Great's army won a complete victory. The Poltava victory and the capture of Vyborg finally strengthened the position of St. Petersburg.
By decree of Peter the Great on January 16, 1712, engineering and artillery schools were established in St. Petersburg.
In the same year, Peter I issued a decree on the creation of the General Plan of St. Petersburg, according to which Vasilyevsky Island was chosen as the center of the city. Port facilities, lighthouses, and the building of Twelve Colleges were built here.
The building of the Twelve Colleges:
In 1712, the royal court and official institutions began to slowly move from Moscow to St. Petersburg, and in 1713 the Senate moved here. From that time until 1918, St. Petersburg was the capital. Although an official decree on the transfer of the capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg has not been issued. For almost 200 years, St. Petersburg was the capital of the Russian Empire, and this city is still called the Northern Capital.
On March 4, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars decided to return the capital from St. Petersburg (Petrograd) to Moscow.
There was very little stone for construction, so on November 4, 1714, the tsar issued a decree to those entering St. Petersburg "On the import of wild stones." According to the decree, each wagon entering the city had to deliver at least 3 large paving stones or an equivalent amount of money, and each ship entering the harbor had to deliver at least 30 stones. This decree was in effect for a long 60 years, and, of course, the merchant people did not like it very much, but there was no other way out. But even despite the decree on the import of stones, for a very long time the streets of the city were paved with wood, as a cheaper and more affordable material. In the early years of the city's existence, the streets of St. Petersburg were unpaved, which made them impassable in spring and autumn, as well as after rains.
At that time, work was underway on paving roads with cobblestones on Gorodovy Island (Petrograd side). Under pain of confiscation and exile, Peter the Great forbade the construction of stone buildings in other cities of Russia. This is how buildings were built for the highest and central authorities: the Senate, the Synod and the colleges.
In 1714-1715, construction began on the Vyborg side, as well as the suburban palaces of Peterhof, Ekaterinhof and Oranienbaum.
In 1717, a decree was issued obliging each house owner to sweep the pavement at his house. This is the first decree on the protection of the urban environment from pollution.
In 1718, the first 4 oil lanterns were lit on the embankment near the Winter Palace.
All paving works have become the responsibility of the population of the capital. The decree of June 18, 1718 stated: "... in the streets and alleys, each resident should pour sand and stone against his yard, paving smoothly, according to the decree, as shown by the masters."
The decree of September 3, 1718 demanded that "residents against their yard early in the morning, while people will not walk down the street ... they swept away all rubbish from bridges, and the stone that breaks out of its place was corrected, and that there was no litter on the streets...". Those who did not comply with these rules were punished: they were fined "two pieces of money per fathom in the width of his yard." Those who took garbage and various sewage to the Neva, Fontanka, Moika and other rivers and channels were especially severely punished. For such offenses, the perpetrators were whipped, and in some cases, "so that others would not be offended," they were referred to hard labor.
Numerous government decrees and orders, as well as strict police supervision, have produced results. By the end of the reign of Peter I, a significant part of the streets were either paved with stone or covered with wooden floors; the streets were kept properly clean.
In 1719, the first public museum of Russia, the Kunstkammer, opened in St. Petersburg, admission was free for everyone, and visitors were treated. Now it is called the Peter the Great Museum of Ethnography. Today, in the small courtyard of the museum there are authentic statues of idols from Southern Colombia.
In the first ten years of St. Petersburg's existence, the main part of the city was the City (now Petrogradsky) Island, where office buildings, craft settlements and military units were located. The island was connected to the Peter and Paul Fortress (fort) by means of a drawbridge. Later, the left bank of the Neva River began to be built up, where the Summer Palace of Peter I and the Summer Garden were located. The author of the fence of the Summer Garden was the architect of St. Petersburg, Yu.M. Felten, the son of Peter the Great's chief cook, oberkuchenmeister Johann Felten.
The Peter and Paul Cathedral with an angel on the main spire deserves special attention. It was this cathedral that became a kind of monument to Russia's access to the Baltic, thanks to which trade with Western European countries was conducted through St. Petersburg; the royal Navy received significant development.
The construction was supervised by the most talented Russian architects and foreign engineers invited by the tsar; representatives of Italy, Switzerland, France and other countries left a noticeable architectural mark here.
Nevsky Prospekt became the main thoroughfare of the city. A huge number of monuments were built in the capital of the Russian Empire, which made up magnificent ensembles. The Palace Square with the Winter Palace and the building of the General Staff, St. Isaac's and Kazan Cathedrals, the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, the arrow of Vasilyevsky Island with the Exchange building, the Admiralty are widely known.
Other enterprises also appeared in Peter Burkh: Foundry Yard, Sestroretsk Arms Factory, Mint, Trellis manufactory, Silk Manufactory, Tannery on the Vyborg side, sugar factory, glass factories, grinding and grinding factory and many other factories, factories and manufactories.
St. Petersburg, as Peter the Great intended, was built as an international city. The principles of tolerance and religious tolerance have always been and are the basis for the development of the city and the enrichment of its culture. This is confirmed by the most beautiful buildings in St. Petersburg dedicated to various religions: Orthodox churches and temples of other faiths. Since the beginning of the XVIII century, Germans, Finns, Swedes, Armenians, Tatars and representatives of other nationalities began to settle in St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg has changed several names in its more than three hundred years of history. For several decades, the name of the city "St. Petersburg" was written in different ways: either together, then separately, then with the letters[ru] "g", then with "x", then with "e", then with "i". And in the written evidence of that time, names such as "Piterpol" and "S. Petropolis". Peter I himself called him in letters in the Dutch manner — "St. Petersburg", since Holland, namely Amsterdam, was something special for Peter I, the best. Later, the name was changed in the German manner to "St. Petersburg", also at first the city was called Petropavlovsk, and sometimes Petropavlovsk. This option is considered the first name of the city. But already in 1720 the city became known as St. Petersburg. In the common people, St. Petersburg is simply called St. Petersburg.
Peter the Great not only cut a "window to Europe", but also created a base for his fleet by building St. Petersburg. The streets were specially planned to be wide and spacious so that ship pine could be transported unhindered. Residents of shipbuilding towns are not verbally familiar with such a layout.
But there is one street in St. Petersburg that stands out from the general ensemble — this is Repin Street. With its narrow size, it can give even Venetian alleys a head start. The street originated in 1720, the distance between the houses there is only 5.8 meters. Its length is 790 meters. It originates from the beautiful and quiet Rumyantsev Garden on the University Embankment of the Neva River, crosses Bolshoy Prospekt and goes out to the Middle Avenue of the island. The Menshikov market was located on the site of the Rumyantsev Garden. An alley stretched from it towards the French Settlement. It was an area where artisans and craftsmen from France and Germany, invited by Peter, settled.
Repin Street is one of the most charming corners of St. Petersburg. This street appeared spontaneously and was not even planned according to all urban planning plans. It appeared solely because of the design decision of the first architect of the city, Jean-Baptiste Leblon. Another attraction of this street is the historical paving stones. It is made of diabase, and the drawing is called "fern".
Until recently, the street looked patriarchal and cozy, but dilapidated, like a frame from an old Italian movie. Time seemed to have stopped on her. That is why domestic cinematographers liked her so much. Repin Street can be seen in 23 films. The first meeting of the Master and Margarita from Bulgakov's novel, according to director Vladimir Vladimirovich Bortko, took place not in Moscow, but here on Vasilievsky Island. And cinematic Margarita, whose role was played by St. Petersburg actress Anna Leonidovna Kovalchuk, also walked along the cobblestones of this street. It was on Repin Street that the moment of Tarakanov's robbery was filmed in the adventure film "The Property of the Republic" and a fragment when the Marquis and Innokenty were walking along the alley. St. Petersburg director Sergei Olegovich Snezhkin filmed "A Woman's Romance" and the finale of the series "Killer Force" here. And then the actor Konstantin Yurievich Khabensky walked along it. There is a wonderful film based on the book by Vadim Shefner, a native and writer of Vasilievsky Island, "The Lucky Loser". It shows how the characters go out by boat into the bay along the Smolenka River through the Malaya Neva and enter the Rumyantsevsky Garden from Repin Street. The film "Once upon a Time there was a Tuner" with Roland Antonovich Bykov, the perestroika hit "Sideburns", a fragment of the film "Schliemann's Gold" and other popular films were also shot here. He also lived[ru] here before his arrest, the people's favorite film actor Georgy Stepanovich Zhzhenov, who worked at Lenfilm for 17 years.
Much more important are the real heroes who trampled the streets with worn-out heels: this is the great fabulist and librarian — Ivan Andreevich Krylov, Russian writers Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov and Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, literary critics Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky and Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, Russian composer Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, Russian painter Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov and Ukrainian[ru] painter and poet Taras Grigoryevich Shevchenko, Russian mathematician and mechanic Sofya Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya, Soviet musicians Boris Borisovich Grebenshchikov and M.V. Naumenko.
In the time of Peter the Great, the street served as a technical entrance to houses, to the so-called "backdrops". It had no name. Locals called the passage Sandy Lane, as there was a small elevation here — a sandy ridge of the ancient sea. It went slightly downhill to the Neva River, was convenient for passage. That's why the people paved the path here. The road itself suggested itself, along which a couple of harnessed horses could pass.
In 1865, the famous merchant, a major gold miner and philanthropist S.F. Solovyov built a water tower with a reservoir. From here, water was supplied to the fountains of the Solovyevsky Garden (now Rumyantsevsky), which was built at the expense of a merchant, to which the street faces. The need for a water pump disappeared in 1876, when a water supply network appeared on Vasilyevsky Island.
As the development progressed, with the advent of the 1st line of Vasilyevsky Island, the walking trail gradually expanded. Later, rows of houses and courtyards that grew up on both sides of Pesochny Lane turned it into a full-fledged access road. On March 5, 1871, Pesochny Lane became known as Solovyevsky Lane, in honor of merchant Stepan Fedorovich Solovyov.
We are talking about the Rumyantsev garden. At first, there was just a warehouse of building materials, formed from the grandiose construction of the Menshikov Palace. Then a spontaneous market appeared, which was nicknamed, respectively, Menshikov. The place for the market was suitable, close to the Neva River, it was convenient to bring goods by ship, there were no bridges then. Canal diggers were fed and heated here (instead of lines, Peter the Great planned to dig canals everywhere as in Amsterdam).
The entire view of Repin Street is from the roof of house No. 9 on Sredny Prospekt Vasilyevsky Island:
Since the end of the XVIII century, the parade ground of the Cadet Corps has been located on the site of the market, in 1818 an obelisk "To the Victories of Rumyantsev" was erected (the monument was moved from the Field of Mars). To complete the ensemble, only a landscaped promenade area was missing.
Merchant Stepan Solovyov solved this problem. He managed to get permission from the authorities to arrange the park. He took over the expenses by hiring architect N.N. Kovrigin. It didn't cost him cheap — 25,000 rubles in silver. The motive for such an altruistic act was certainly not entirely selfless. Solovyov owned an apartment building on the corner of the 2nd line and decided to decorate the view from the window in this way so that the apartments would be more expensive.
In Soviet times, in 1927, the garden master R. Carrer carried out the redevelopment of the park area, giving it a modern appearance.
St. Petersburg can be completely different, beautiful and imperial with a rich cultural heritage. It can be darkly bandit, with rather dubious individuals living in the area of Apraksiny Dvor and the Haymarket. It can be built up to the sky, as in the Devyatkino district, or it can be scary and tragic. Moreover, it is scary not from some kind of ghosts, but from tragic events that affected the aura of the place.
The alley had a rich and very sad history. During the heavy winter of 1941-1942, the Vasileostrovsky Morgue was located here, where Leningrad residents who died of exhaustion and diseases[ru] were taken. The alley was packed with corpses, which exhausted people barely had time to bury. Crematoriums did not have time to burn. There were many such places in the city — several houses in each district. The Morgue was even saved on Blood[ru]... The Moscow Victory Park should also be considered a necropolis. The ashes left after burning people were dumped by trucks[ru] into local ponds. Eternal memory of the dead... The whole city, every building and every tree, is a monument to the people who lived here.
In 1952, Solovyevsky Lane changed its name again and turned into Repin Street. After the war[ru] and reconstruction work, the idea arose to rename the lane and give it the name of the great Russian artist Ilya Efimovich Repin. At one time, the artist lived nearby on the 4th line of Vasilievsky Island, and also headed the Academy of Arts, located next to the Rumyantsev Garden. But then they thought that I.E. Repin was a large-scale personality and it was not respectable to call the lane by his name. So they made it a street. And now we have Repin Street, the narrowest street in St. Petersburg. When you walk along Repin Street, you really get the feeling of a very old, old Petersburg. Time seems to have stopped here. Three-storey old outbuildings, low arches, no road noise. Lots of cats and few people.
The street attracts many tourists with its atmosphere. Diving onto Repin Street from the noisy Sredny Prospekt, you find yourself in an amazing corridor of silence: on both sides it is protected from the outside world by houses of various sizes and shapes — tall, painted in the characteristic "St. Petersburg" yellow and small two- and three-storey mansions and bizarre architectural structures that are difficult to attribute to at least one of the known types of urban development. The blank walls "with traces of former windows" are suddenly replaced by multi-caliber arches of either rounded or square shape, and behind each of them hides a cozy courtyard. Some arches end in dead ends of entrances, others loop all the way to the exit to neighboring lines. You can easily get lost in this maze.
If you are tired of the hustle and bustle of the city and the noise of cars, do not be lazy to look into this secluded corner of the Northern capital. Here you will not only relax from the hustle and bustle, but you will be able to get in touch with the true spirit of St. Petersburg. And fans of Anthony Pogorelsky's work may well wander here for a longer time — suddenly the very portal that was described in the story "The Black Hen, or the Underground Inhabitants" will open?
On September 10 (August 30, 1721), the Peace of Nishtadt was concluded between Russia and Sweden, which ended the Northern War, which lasted 21 years. The principality passed to Russia by an official treaty, the country gained access to the Baltic Sea, annexed the territory of Ingria (Ingermanland), part of Karelia, Estonia and Livonia.
In commemoration of this event, the Senate and the Synod decided to present Peter Alekseevich with the title of Emperor of All Russia with the following wording: "as usual, such titles were publicly presented to them by the Roman Senate for the noble deeds of their emperors and signed on the statutes for memory in eternal childbirth."
On November 2 (October 22, 1721), a mass was held in the Trinity Cathedral of St. Petersburg, and then the text of the peace treaty concluded with the Swedes was read out. Feofan Prokopovich delivered a sermon, describing all the famous deeds of the tsar, for which he deserves to be called the Father of the Fatherland, the Emperor and the Great. Following this, senators approached the tsar, Chancellor Count Gabriel Ivanovich Golovkin appealed to Peter I with a request to accept the title of Father of the Fatherland, Peter the Great, Emperor of All Russia. Under the volleys of hundreds of guns of the Admiralty, the Peter and Paul Fortress and 125 galleys introduced into the Neva, Peter I assumed a new title. According to an eyewitness, "everything seemed to be engulfed in flames and one might have thought that the earth and sky were ready to collapse." So Russia became an empire.
The adoption of the imperial title marked a fundamentally important change in the international situation of Russia. Prussia and Holland were the first to recognize the new title of the Russian tsar, followed by Sweden (1723), Turkey (1739), the United Kingdom and Austria (1742), France and Spain (1745), the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1764). These recognitions of the imperial title of the Russian monarch meant recognition of Russia's claims to the role of one of the leaders of world politics at that time.
In the XVIII century, Russia began to pay great attention to the development of fundamental and practical sciences. Many great people lived and worked in this city. Many architects who created their works in different years have immortalized their names for centuries. Denis Diderot[ru] visited here in the XVIII century.
On January 24 (January 13, 1724), Peter I signed the "definition of the Academy" in the Senate building. On February 2 (January 22, according to the Article), 1724, he also approved the draft regulations on the establishment of the Academy of Sciences and Arts and the university under it, compiled by the life physician of the tsar Lavrenty Lavrentyevich Blumentrost. And on February 8 (January 28, 1724), the Senate decree on the establishment of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences was published.
The place chosen for the construction of the new Russian capital has been considered lost for centuries due to piercing winds, mosquitoes, and repeated devastating floods, which led to significant casualties and destruction. Severe floods occurred in the XVIII century (1724 and 1777) and in the XX century (1924). There are still commemorative plaques on the walls of houses in St. Petersburg with flood water levels.
At first, the inhabitants of the city were the inhabitants of these places, sailors and soldiers, then they were joined by settlers who were ordered to move from other regions. By 1725, the number was about 40 thousand people, by 1750 it reached about 95 thousand people, and by the end of the XVIII century, more than 200 thousand people lived in the city.
Many talented and famous foreign architects of that time, J. M. Fontana, N. Michetti, A. Schluter, G. Mattarnovi, M. Zemtsov, and later Francesco Rastrelli, worked on creating the style of the city's streets. At that time, land in the city was distributed free of charge, and by 1725 at least 40 thousand people lived in the city limits.
The official opening day of the Imperial Academy of Sciences is considered to be January 7, 1726 (December 27, 1725 according to the Art.art.), when Екатерина I gave a solemn reception to academicians. On this day, the first solemn academic meeting was held in the house of disgraced Baron Pyotr Pavlovich Shafirov on the St. Petersburg side in the presence of members of the government, the court and the clergy. Academicians J. Herman and G.B. Bulfinger, who spoke at it, noted the creation of the Academy of Sciences in Russia as the largest event of that time.
In 1727, during the reign of Russian Emperor Peter II, the de facto capital of Russia (until 1730) was moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow, although formally St. Petersburg remained the capital.
In 1728, the first Russian newspaper, the St. Petersburg Vedomosti, began to be published at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
Later, other educational institutions appeared, including the Academic University, the Mining College, the Teachers' Seminary, the Page Corps, the theater and surgical schools, as well as the famous Institute of noble maidens in the Smolny Monastery. The first Russian theater, the Academy of Arts, also appeared in St. Petersburg.
In 1730, a strong Aurora borealis was observed in St. Petersburg. Since that time, despite the fact that the place chosen for the city was located in the north — St. Petersburg lies at the same latitude as Magadan, active construction began in the city in accordance with the first Master Plan, the author of which was the Italian (Swiss) architect Domenico Trezzini. With his light hand, the city acquired its characteristic features — perpendicular streets, wide "projects", geometrically defined squares — defining the appearance of the city to this day. The wooden church in the name of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul began to be rebuilt in stone according to the project of D. Trezzini, the reconstruction lasted 21 years.
The new Peter and Paul Cathedral was consecrated on June 29, 1733, on St. Peter's Day. The Apostles Peter and Paul, as the Cathedral and the main court church. According to Orthodox canons, the church is oriented from West to East. The cathedral in its external appearance bears the features of the Baroque ("Petrovsky Manir"), characteristic of the architecture of the first third of the XVIII century. Most of the buildings of that period were made in this architectural style. This style is characterized by multicolor, colorful, highlighting the compositional center and decorating it with porticos, sculptures, ornate architraves and pilasters.
On July 11, 1733, the ceremonial consecration of the Peter and Paul Cathedral took place in St. Petersburg. The architectural monument of the Petrine Baroque was erected according to the design of the architect Domenico Trezzini. The cathedral became the burial place of Russian emperors, as well as their closest relatives. The height of one of the symbols of St. Petersburg is 122.5 m. Until 2012, it was the tallest building in the city.
D. Trezzini is also the architect of the fortress in Kronstadt. In this city, the Kronstadt footstock (a metal plate for measuring the water level in the Baltic Sea) is fixed on July Street, it is from its zero division that all depths and heights in all of Russia are counted.
The symbols of St. Petersburg are the sphinxes on the University Embankment, Smolny Cathedral, and Arts Square. In Soviet times, the cruiser Aurora became the same recognizable symbol.
Petropavlovsk is the Greek version of the city's name. In the XVIII century, the intelligentsia of tsarist Russia was fascinated by antiquity, so this option took root in poetry. Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov[ru] used it in the "Ode on the day of Elizabeth Petrovna's accession to the throne": "Petropavlovsk, imitating the sky, emitted similar rays."
During the reigns of Elizabeth Petrovna[ru] and Catherine II, many new palaces appeared, the Hermitage and Gostiny Dvor, the City Duma and many other historical sites were founded.
The buildings in the form they were from the time of Peter the Great have not been preserved. The first houses were low, and were built up with each epoch. If you see two—storey houses, this is the era of Catherine II[ru].
On May 7, 1780, Catherine II officially granted the coat of arms to St. Petersburg.
In 1782, a monument to Peter the Great, the Bronze Horseman, was erected on Senate Square.
On October 11, 1783, on the initiative of Princess Ekaterina Dashkova and by decree of Empress Catherine II, the Imperial Russian Academy was created in St. Petersburg. Unlike the Academy of Sciences, where exact sciences were studied, the new center became a place for humanities students studying Russian language and literature. In 1794, thanks to the center, the "Dictionary of the Russian Academy" was published. In 1841, the academy was transformed into the 2nd Department of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, and later into the Department of Russian Language and Literature.
In 1787, the largest piece of malachite in the world was delivered from the Urals to St. Petersburg, the weight of the semiprecious stone was 1504 kg.
In 1795, Russia's first public library, the Imperial Library, was opened.
The "Golden Age" of the city is considered to be the period of the reign of Alexander I at the beginning of the XIX century, the number of inhabitants then was about 400 thousand people.
On November 8, 1800, on the day of St. Michael the Archangel, the Mikhailovsky (Engineering) Castle was solemnly illuminated. For harmony and combination of the castle's appearance with the surrounding urban environment, it has different architectural facades on all four sides.
On June 20, 1803, the first hot air balloon flight in Russia took place. French aeronaut Jean-André Garnerin arrived in Russia with a letter of recommendation from the head of the French Foreign Ministry, Talleyrand. He asked the Russian authorities for permission to arrange a demonstration flight in a hot air balloon. The permission was issued personally by Alexander I. In the garden of the Cadet Corps of St. Petersburg, the balloon was attached to ropes held by soldiers. To admire the spectacle, one had to pay a considerable sum - two silver rubles. The garden was packed with people wishing to fly, and representatives of the imperial court, headed by Alexander I, also arrived. The balloon, in which Garnerin and his wife were, floated over St. Petersburg and landed in the Okhta region.
| «Balloon» — Mr. Credo | |
| «On a big hot air balloon» — Yolka |
During the Patriotic War with Napoleon, the development of the city slowed down. But the State Council and ministries were established, which strengthened the city as an administrative center. The positions of science and the press improved: a Pedagogical Institute and gymnasiums were opened, the Pulkovo Observatory was founded, the Russian Geographical Society began to operate, and the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum was established.
In 1818, according to the project of architect K.I. Rossi, an obelisk in honor of Field Marshal P.A. Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky, created by architect V.F. Brenna in 1799, was installed in the center of Rumyantsevskaya Square, transferred from the Field of Mars. The inscription on the obelisk is "Rumyantseva - victory". There is also a street of Architect K.I. Rossi in the city: width — 22 meters, height of buildings — 22 meters, length — 220 meters.
The street of the Architect Rossi is the only proportional street:
On July 8, 1819, St. Isaac's Cathedral was laid in St. Petersburg according to the design of the architect Auguste Montferrand. Nicholas I himself supervised the construction. New construction technologies for that time were used during the construction of the building, which influenced the further development of the architecture of the 19th and 20th centuries. The construction of the building and the work on its decoration lasted from 1818 to 1858. St. Isaac's Cathedral is considered the latest building in the classical style.
In 1819, street gas lamps were lit for the first time in Russia in St. Petersburg on Aptekarsky Island.
The worst flood was recorded on November 7, 1824 (the water level rose by 4 meters 21 centimeters). More than 420 houses were destroyed, hundreds of residents drowned, and the damage was estimated at 20 million rubles. In the same year, engineer P.P. Bazin had the idea of building a dam across the Gulf of Finland to protect the city from floods.
In the classical era, St. Petersburg was called Palmyra in honor of the ancient trading city, famous for the incredible beauty of architecture. Contemporaries believed that the first person to compare the Northern Capital with Palmyra was the writer Thaddeus Benedictovich Bulgarin on the pages of the Northern Bee.
Back in The History of the Russian State, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin noted that people say "Peter" instead of "Petersburg". This trend was reflected in fiction at the end of the XVIII century. For example, in the works of Apollon Nikolaevich Maikov, N.M. Muravyov, Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev.
At the beginning of the XIX century, A.S. Pushkin lived in St. Petersburg for a long time. On Malaya Morskaya Street, house 10, a three-storey house — the house of the "Queen of Spades" has been preserved.
The middle of the XIX century is remembered for the fact that composer Johann Strauss from Austria worked in the concert hall of the railway station in Pavlovsk (a city within St. Petersburg) for 10 years.
At the end of the XIX century, I.A. Goncharov and F.M. Dostoevsky were published in St. Petersburg, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov and Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, as well as many other prominent figures of culture and art, created.
In 1825, the Decembrist uprising took place on the Senate Square in St. Petersburg. On July 25, 1826, the execution of the leaders of the Decembrist uprising took place in the Kronverk of Petropavlovsk.
Under Nicholas I, the Mariinsky and Tikhvin water systems appeared, and the North Dvinsky Canal was launched in 1828. The monument to Nicholas I is located on St. Isaac's Square, it is the world's first equestrian statue with a rider on two points of support.
On December 10, 1828, by decree of Emperor Nicholas I, the St. Petersburg State Institute of Technology or Technical University, abbreviated SPbGTI (TU), was founded in the capital of the Russian Empire, St. Petersburg. At the dawn of the XX century, the Russian writer Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy studied within its walls, although the count never graduated from it.
St. Petersburg State Institute of Technology:
In 1832, opposite the building of the Academy of Arts, two granite sphinxes were installed at the descent to the water, which guarded the temple of Pharaoh Amenophis III in Thebes for about 3.5 thousand years.
On January 29, 1833, the first city post office appeared in Russia. The place where this postal network was opened was St. Petersburg. The city was divided into 17 postal districts, organizing 45 points in them, which received mail. Ordinary shops, working late into the evening, were perfect for collecting correspondence, which two postmen for each district carried to the post office three times a day. The services of shopkeepers were abandoned in 1848, when special mailboxes were hung around the city.
On April 27 (April 15, 1836), the Decree of Emperor Nicholas I on approval of the "Regulations on the establishment of a company of Shareholders for the construction of a railway from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo with a continuation to Pavlovsk" was published. The founders of the society were the master of ceremonies of His Imperial Majesty's court, Count Alexei Bobrinsky, merchants Benedict Kramer and Ivan Konrad Plit and the Austrian nobleman Franz von Gerstner. On November 11 (October 30, 1837, the grand opening of the first passenger railway in Russia, connecting St. Petersburg with Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsky, took place in St. Petersburg.
During the reign of Nicholas I, there was a renewed need to erect a fortification in the city center. The wave of revolutions that swept through Europe gave the Russian autocrat reason to fear for his safety. In 1849, construction began on the monumental and formidable building of the artillery arsenal designed by architect Peter Tamansky. It is this red brick building that can be seen at this place today. The Emperor personally supervised the construction work. Historical documents confirm that Nicholas I drew the general plan of the building with his own hand. The construction, including the interior decoration, was completed by 1860. Taking the place of the kronverk, the Arsenal also has a polygonal shape.
The coat of arms of St. Petersburg, approved in 1857 and re-introduced in 1991, is the main official symbol of St. Petersburg. The coat of arms of the Vatican, as the city of St. Peter, served as the prototype of St. Petersburg.
In 1865, the first skating rink in St. Petersburg was opened on Sadovaya Street in Yusupovsky Garden, which gave an impetus to the birth of Russian figure skating.
For the first time in Russia, in St. Petersburg, the tradition of firing a blank cannon at noon was born. On February 18 (February 6, 1865), a cannon shot was fired over the Neva River for the first time from the Admiralty yard at exactly noon. In the autumn of 1872, the signal cannon was moved to the Peter and Paul Fortress. The right to make a midday shot is granted from time to time to honorary citizens of St. Petersburg and distinguished guests of the city.
Due to the fact that a very large number of peasants came to St. Petersburg to work, the size of the city and its population greatly increased, and by the end of the XIX century, St. Petersburg became one of the largest industrial cities not only in Russia, but also in Europe.
On September 23, 1873, in St. Petersburg, on Odessa Street, instead of kerosene lamps, the world's first electric lanterns, created by the Russian inventor Alexander Lodygin, were lit. In Europe, electric lamps appeared only four years later. They lit up in Paris in the shops of the Louvre, and then on the square in front of the opera house. The author of the innovation was a Russian engineer Pavel Yablochkov.
In 1879, for the first time in St. Petersburg, the Liteyny Bridge began to be illuminated by street electricity.
Alexander II introduced local self-government, established an elected duma, the Baltic, Warsaw and Finland railway stations started working, and a water supply system appeared. Residential construction accelerated, as 861 thousand people already lived in the city.
Not only did the number of palaces, institutions, cathedrals, theaters and concert halls grow, but industry also developed. Socialist organizations arose, including anarchists and social Revolutionaries, and attempts and murders of members of the royal family took place, including the assassination of Alexander II in 1881.
In 1892, on the 200th anniversary of the founding of St. Petersburg, a competition was announced for the construction of a new drawbridge across the Neva River. The first place was awarded to the author of the famous tower in Paris, Alexandre Gustave Eiffel. But they decided to build the bridge from domestic materials under the supervision of St. Petersburg architects and engineers. The Pulkovo meridian runs along the line of the Troitskiy Bridge.
Alexander III achieved an economic recovery, and the city crossed the millionth mark in terms of population.
In the 19th century, the city continued to be actively built up by such important architects and sculptors as I.E. Starov, A.N. Voronikhin, V.P. Stasov, Giacomo Quarenghi, thanks to whom an amazing combination of various architectural styles is felt in the very heart of the city. It is not for nothing that St. Petersburg is called an open-air Museum and is considered one of the most majestic and harmonious cities in Europe.
The Alexander column, 47.5 meters high and weighing about 700 tons, is held on a pedestal by its own weight and is not specially fixed. The architect of the monument, Auguste Montferrand, strolled past the column every day, confirming its durability and safety.
St. Petersburg publishing houses became famous at the literary exhibition in Florence in 1892.
Under Nicholas II, construction flourished, tram traffic appeared instead of a horse-drawn railway, streets began to be illuminated by electricity and cars[ru] appeared. People got acquainted with cinema. The population has reached almost 2 million people.
In 1901, a football championship was organized in St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg is a city of 3 revolutions.
It was in Tsarist Petersburg in January 1905 (until June 1907) that the first Russian revolution took place.
In 1907, the first bus, then called the omnibus motor, left for the main street of St. Petersburg. In the same year, for the first time, police wands appeared — white canes, for stopping carriages or pedestrians.
On June 25, 1912, a secret Russo-Japanese convention was concluded in St. Petersburg.
On March 5, 1914, the Military Cinematographic (later Scientific and Artistic Cinematographic) Department of the Skobelevsky Committee was established in St. Petersburg, which in 1918 turned into the Petrograd Film Committee, then into Sevzapkino, and in 1934 was named Lenfilm.
On August 31 (August 18, 1914), Nicholas II renamed St. Petersburg to Petrograd, since against the background of the First World War[ru] that was going on at that time, all names with a shade of "non-Russian" caused a sharply negative reaction.
In St. Petersburg, in February 1917, the tsarist government was committed (the February bourgeois-Democratic Revolution), and the main events of the October Socialist Revolution took place here.
At that time, the Bolsheviks called the city "Red Peter". Today, the name "Peter" seems to be one of the most common. Recalling these events, in Soviet times the city began to be called the Cradle of the revolution.
Due to the fact that the city was often renamed, comic names "walked" among Petersburgers: "St. Leninburg", "Leninburg", "Petrolen". In 1917-1918, the intelligentsia of the capital called Petrograd "Chertograd" because of dissatisfaction with the name adopted by Nicholas II.
After the October Revolution, state architectural and planning organizations were established here, which included major Petrograd architects A.I. Gegello, V.G. Gelfreich, A.S. Nikolsky, L.V. Rudnev, I.A. Fomin. The construction of residential buildings and public buildings was launched behind the Narva, Moscow and Vyborg outposts. New types of structures began to appear — houses of culture, clubs, kitchen factories, commune houses. The architecture of this period was called "constructivism".
At the beginning of the 20th century, St. Petersburg was famous for book publishing houses. "Raduga", "Alkonost" and others, which were famous for the high quality of printed products. That is why the city on the Neva was compared to the book capital of Europe — Leipzig.
For example, one of the oldest Russian publishing houses is Lenizdat, which was founded on November 29, 1917. At that time, the Leningrad Publishing House was located in Smolny and was called the Publishing House of the Petrograd Soviet. In 1919 it was renamed Petrogosizdat, and in 1924 it was renamed Lengiz. From 1938 until the end of the 1980s, the publishing house was known as the publishing company of the Order of the Red Banner of Labor Lenizdat of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU. Lenizdat changed with the country, each time focusing on different names and literature. It was in Lenizdat that the first Soviet mass series, the People's Library, appeared, where the works of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, A.S. Pushkin, Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov, Maxim Gorky and other major writers were published. In the 1980s, Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko, Vasily Makarovich Shukshin, Andrey Platonovich Platonov, Daniil Alexandrovich Granin were printed here.
After the revolutions and the coming of Soviet power, this city ceased to be the Russian capital. This happened because the political climate of St. Petersburg, as well as its natural climate, turned out to be very unstable, in order to smooth out the political situation, the Soviet government and the Central Committee of the party moved the capital to Moscow. The transfer of the capital of Russia from Petrograd to Moscow on March 12, 1918 was the last transfer of the capital in the history of modern Russia. The transfer of the capital took place on the basis of a "Notice of relocation to Moscow", which was signed by Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich and then confirmed on December 30, 1922 by the 1st All-Union Congress of Soviets. Thus, when the USSR was formed, Moscow became the capital of the Soviet state.
It was since then that Moscow became and remains the capital of Russia again. After the revolution, the city was embroiled in a Civil War, as a result of which many died, emigrated or left for the countryside.
At that time, St. Petersburg was the second most important city in the country.
Unlike trade, the St. Petersburg industry revived slowly. Light industry enterprises were the first to recover — they had already started working by the summer of 1922. Heavy industry and transport, which remained on the state budget, were in decline until the mid-1920s. At the beginning of 1923, the Putilov plant was almost closed for unprofitability, which was preserved only thanks to the pressure of Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev. Already in May 1924, renamed Krasny Putilovets, the plant produced the first 2 domestic Fordzon-Leninets tractors.
Fords in the fields:
Another historical event that became the reason for changing the name of the city was the death of V.I. Lenin (Ulyanov). By decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad on January 26, 1924; this became a political move, replacing the name of the Tsar with the name of the leader who led the revolution. This name is mainly associated with the Great Patriotic War, although it was official until 1991. People of the older generation call the city “Leningrad”.
The bloody events of revolutions and the Civil War gave way to the “thaw” of the New Economic Policy, the city fell under industrialization. During the Soviet period, housing development was intensively carried out, and mass construction; Palaces of Culture were also opened, and churches, on the contrary, were closed. The Cultural Revolution made a breakthrough from the avant-garde to a kind of socialist realism.
In 1925, the Supreme Economic Council adopted a special program for the restoration of heavy industry in Leningrad, which accelerated the industrial revival of the city. Factories and factories that were gaining momentum opened up more and more jobs. At the same time, wages at Leningrad enterprises were the highest in the country after Moscow. The main percentage of the workforce was made up of rural youth. On the one hand, the thirst for change and the hope of improving their standard of living, coupled with the peasant psychology, turned it into an obedient and trusting mass of the population in relation to the state. On the other hand, the realities of the NEP, under which the Sovburs and Nepmen flourished, often made the new Leningraders irreconcilable opponents of everyone who was able to secure high material wealth for themselves.
Napman from the tax inspector (1930):
With the revival of commodity-money relations and the growth of immigration to the former capital, the percentage of so-called amateurs among St. Petersburg residents has increased. (“Amateur” were those who had an independent source of income, including: benefits, scholarships, pensions, etc. This category also included the unemployed, private traders, and representatives of liberal professions).
In 1926, for every 100 amateurs in Leningrad, there were 85 non-amateurs. By the end of the 1920s, the influx of a large number of men among visitors led to the restoration of the balance between the sexes in Leningrad, disrupted by the war.
The master plan for the development of the city, adopted in 1935, provided for comprehensive development in the area of the former outskirts. But these works were interrupted by the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War.
An important era in the life of Leningrad is the period of 900 days and nights of siege during the war (from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944), during which time more than 12,000 shells and incendiary bombs were fired at the city. The city was blocked by German and Finnish troops. It was then that the heroism and resilience of the Russian people manifested themselves.
If in the fall of 1941 cargo was still delivered to Leningrad by air, then there remained the “Road of Life” across Lake Ladoga, which connected the city with the rest of the country. On December 22, 1942, by Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces, the medal “For the Defense of Leningrad” was established, which was awarded to about 1.5 million defenders of the city.
As a result of the counter offensive of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts on January 18, 1943, the blockade ring was broken, and railway bridges were built over the Neva in February-March. A year later, Leningrad was completely free from the blockade. During the blockade, over 800 thousand inhabitants died.
Due to constant bombing, only every third truck reached the city. During the years of the blockade, residents were not only able to defend their city, but also provided enormous assistance to the front. Even during the blockade, a plan for the restoration of the city was developed. The feat of the Leningrad restorers, who restored the monuments of Leningrad and its suburbs, has no analogues in the history of architecture.
Leningrad, along with Stalingrad, Sevastopol and Odessa, was first named a “Hero City” on May 1, 1945 in Order No. 20 of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. Thus, the Soviet government noted the important contribution to the final victory of all the heroic defenders of these cities. Leningrad, as a city awarded the highest degree of distinction - the title "Hero City", was awarded the highest award of the USSR - the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal. Leningrad was awarded the Order of Lenin on January 26, 1945.
After the Great Patriotic War, when it became necessary to build housing on a massive scale, the city noticeably increased its size. The construction of new buildings also began with renewed vigor. Not just new neighborhoods appeared, but entire districts, such as Grazhdanka, Rzhevka-Porokhovye, Vesyoly Poselok, Kupchino, Avtovo.
In 1951, a new, revised master plan for the development of Leningrad was adopted, in which much attention was paid to the reconstruction and improvement of the city center. Despite the destruction and bleeding, after the war the city retained its position as the cultural and intellectual center of the country, and the buildings were eventually restored in all their glory.
In October 1955, the first electric train of the metro was launched, a month later the 1st stage of the metro, one of the deepest in the world, was put into operation. The average depth of the metro reaches 70 - 80 meters, the deepest station "Admiralteyskaya" is 102 meters deep, the longest escalator is more than 150 meters long, it has about 750 steps. Many metro stations are among the most beautiful in the world, such as “a series of underground palaces of the 20th century.”
A mournful monument dedicated to the Leningrad victims of fascism is the Piskarevskoye cemetery, the grand opening of which took place on May 9, 1960. The “Motherland” monument is the central composition of the memorial. The monument represents a majestic figure of a woman with a garland of oak leaves in her hands, braided with a mourning ribbon - “Motherland” mourns its heroes.
According to the Regulations of May 8, 1965, in which Leningrad was officially awarded the honorary title of “Hero City,” the city was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal, which are allowed to be placed on the city’s flag and coat of arms. Later, on July 18, 1980, the wording “honorary title” was replaced by “the highest degree of distinction - the title “Hero City”.
In 1968, a small planet located 220 million km away. from St. Petersburg, discovered by astronomer Tamara Mikhailovna Smirnova, was named “Leningrad”.
On May 9, 1975, in honor of the 30th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the Memorial to the Heroes - Defenders of Leningrad was opened. It represents an area of 1.2 thousand square meters. m. with a majestic granite obelisk in the center of the torn ring, inside there are sculptural compositions “Defenders of the City” and “Blockade”. In the underground part of the memorial there is a museum containing exhibits and documents reflecting the feat of the defenders of Leningrad and its inhabitants.
In 1978, the Altai radio communication system was released, reminiscent of the current mobile one.
The city reached its population milestone of five million in the mid-1980s, but in the 1990s this figure decreased.
In the city, awarded the highest degree of distinction - the title "Hero City", a memorial obelisk was erected with the text of the award decree, an image of the Gold Star medal and the Order of Lenin. In Leningrad, the obelisk “To the Hero City of Leningrad” was built on May 8, 1985 and installed on Vosstaniya Square. The authors of the monument were architects Vladimir Sergeevich Lukyanov and Alexander Ivanovich Alymov.
Many houses in the historical center breathe history and are worthy of a separate story; the density of the city’s population of geniuses is enormous. Famous historical figures lived and worked in St. Petersburg: Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, M.Yu. Lermontov, Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninov, N.V. Gogol, Ivan Petrovich Kulibin, A.S. Popov, Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, Karl Pavlovich Bryullov and Ilya Efimovich Repin were born.
The climate of St. Petersburg is moderate, transitional from moderate continental to moderate maritime. The most beloved period of the year by residents and guests of the city is the “white nights” (from May 25-26 to July 16-17), when the sun[horo] only briefly sets below the horizon, and daylight hours at the end of June reach 19 hours. Residents of the city and tourists come to the embankments of the Neva at the time when the bridges are raised, allowing sea ships and merchant ships to pass, to enjoy this unforgettable picturesque spectacle. The city's coat of arms features two anchors: Sea and River, symbolizing Russia's largest port on the Baltic Sea and a river port.
Drawbridge:
The living brand of St. Petersburg is a small fish from the herring family - Smelt. It heralds spring and has a cucumber scent. If you hear the expression “smell of cucumbers,” it means smelt season has opened.
In 1990, the historical center of the city and the palace and park ensembles of the suburbs were included in the UNESCO List of World Cultural Heritage: Peterhof with the fountain complex, Tsarskoe Selo, Pavlovsk, Gatchina (a total of 36 cultural and historical complexes of St. Petersburg are included in this list).
St. Petersburg is not only the city itself, but also its famous suburbs. It is enough to name the fountains of Peterhof to feel the enchanting romance and beauty of the City on the Neva.
After the collapse of the USSR, a referendum was held, the results of which allowed on September 6, 1991 to return the historical name of St. Petersburg to the city, but many educational institutions, parks, and various organizations continue to be called Leningrad.
From 1991 to 1996, the city was governed by a mayor, and after that executive power began to belong to the City Administration, formed by the governor.
The 90s of the 20th century turned out to be difficult. Nevertheless, in 1994 the city hosted the Goodwill Games. In the period 1991-2007, many monuments appeared, some historical buildings were reconstructed, but some died under the onslaught of the “remodel”.
In 1994, on November 19, the smallest monument in St. Petersburg was erected - Chizhik-fawn, height - 11 cm, weight - 5 kg.
Chizhik-fawn, where have you been? I drank vodka on the Fontanka.
I drank a glass, drank two - My head was spinning
In 1995, the most unusual memorial plaque was installed on the facade of house No. 11 on Voznesensky Prospekt in St. Petersburg - the Nose of Major Kovalev, a character in the story by N.V. Gogol. The board is made of a gray Putilov slab, in the lower part of which there is an image of a nose. The nose is made of pink Ukrainian marble, delivered from the writer’s homeland.
The Ice Palace was built for the World Hockey Championship in 2000. Since 2001, construction of the Ring Road began, and at the end of 2004 the Bolshoi Obukhovsky (Cable-stayed) Bridge was launched. The expansion of the metro continued.
The city is also famous for its range of motorboating and sailing sports. The St. Petersburg Economic Forum has become an annual tradition and has acquired a global scale.
The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation is located in St. Petersburg.
On September 22, 2012, the birth of the 5 millionth resident was celebrated, although up to a million more unregistered migrants lived in the city. According to the 2021 administration, the actual population of St. Petersburg reached 7 ml. Human.
In Europe, St. Petersburg is the 4th most populous city (after Istanbul, London and Moscow), the 2nd city in Europe that is not the capital of a state, and also the northernmost city on the planet with a population of more than a million people. The territory of St. Petersburg is about 1,500 square meters. km., with the city area being larger than the territory of Austria.
Currently, St. Petersburg has the unofficial status of the “Cultural Capital” of Russia, which is quite justified. The city is a platform for the development of art, science, and culture. There are about 8 thousand architectural monuments under state protection in St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg is famous for its palaces, museums, theaters, universities, architectural ensembles, parks, and monuments, which play a significant role in the life of the city and the country.
The city constantly operates 2,000 libraries, more than 200 museums and their branches: the famous largest museum in Russia, the State Hermitage (about 3,500,000 works of art and monuments of world culture, it is believed that it will take more than 3 years to examine the entire collection, and if all exhibits are exhibited in one row - then you need to walk more than 25 km) and the Russian Museum (the most extensive museum of Russian art), the Museum of Anthropology, the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, the Central Naval Museum, 80 theaters, including the world famous: Mariinsky, Alexandrinsky and Mikhailovsky theaters, exhibition complexes, cultural and leisure institutions, cinemas. Every year the city hosts various festivals and exhibitions.
Currently, St. Petersburg is one of the most actively developing regions of Russia, with enormous investment potential. The city has an exceptionally favorable geopolitical position, a developed diversified economy, and an efficient transport and transit complex. St. Petersburg is home to enormous human and intellectual potential and powerful innovative and industrial resources.
St. Petersburg is the largest scientific center in Russia. The city is home to the St. Petersburg Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which unites over 60 academic institutes and other research institutions. The scientific and educational potential of St. Petersburg is approximately 15% of the total potential of Russia, which determines its federal and global significance. In terms of the number of people employed in the scientific and educational sphere in relation to the total population of the city, St. Petersburg ranks second in the Russian Federation.
St. Petersburg is a recognized center of higher education in Russia. The city is home to dozens of public and private higher educational institutions, among the most famous of them is the St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University "LETI".
Today St. Petersburg strives to be as convenient as possible not only for its residents, but also for tourists. New houses, roads, new hotels and inns are being built. There is an increasing interest in the history of St. Petersburg, in its culture, in the famous people who lived and worked here.
The temple, built in memory of the death of Alexander II according to the design of the architect Alfred Parland, is considered one of the main attractions of the city on the Neva. But not all townspeople know that the Savior on Blood keeps many mystical mysteries and secrets. How the temple turned into a morgue and influenced the collapse of the USSR, where an icon capable of predicting the future is kept, and why crosses are kept under water.
At one time, the location of the temple played an important role in its history: they say that in order to save the decoration of the temple from the Bolsheviks, the townspeople removed the crosses from it and lowered them to the very bottom of the Griboyedov Canal. Later, when the danger had passed, and they began to restore the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, but could not find the crosses that crowned the temple, the unthinkable happened: a random passer-by who knew the legend approached the team of restorers and advised them to look for decorations in the water. The workers decided to try and sent a team of divers to examine the bottom - to everyone’s surprise, the crosses turned out to be exactly where the stranger had indicated.
Another interesting legend associated with the Savior on Spilled Blood and the materialization of thought occurred already at the very beginning of the 1990s. For a long time, one of the main attractions of the city on the Neva stood in scaffolding for decades, which gave rise to many anecdotes and was even reflected in poems and songs. In the wake of the wave, there was an ironic belief among the townspeople that as soon as the forests were removed from the Savior, the entire Soviet Union would collapse. It may seem like a fable to some, and others will write it off as a coincidence, but the fact remains: in 1991 the temple was “liberated” from scaffolding, and a little later, in August of the same year, the end of Soviet power came.
Many people know that one of the main churches of the Northern capital is a real museum of mosaics; under its roof is the richest and largest collection of mosaics, on which the most famous domestic masters worked - Vasnetsov, Nesterov, Belyaev, Kharlamov, Zhuravlev, Ryabushkin and others. It is worth noting that mosaics are the main decor of the temple, because even the iconostasis of the Savior on Spilled Blood is mosaic. It may also seem curious that precisely because the works of art took a very long time to make, the opening of the temple and its consecration were delayed for a good ten years.
It's no secret that in wartime (and under Soviet rule), the churches and temples of the city worked in an unusual mode for them - cowsheds were equipped somewhere or enterprises were located. So, during the siege, Spas-on-Blood turned into a real morgue. The bodies of dead Leningraders were brought from all over the city to the district Dzerzhinsky morgue, which the temple temporarily became, confirming its historical name. One of the functions of the attraction in those difficult times was the storage of vegetables - some townspeople with a sense of humor even nicknamed it “Savior-on-potatoes”. At the end of the war, the Savior on Spilled Blood was not returned to its religious function; on the contrary, it began to be used as a storage facility for the scenery of the Maly Opera House, which is now known as the Mikhailovsky Theater.
The magic of numbers really exists, and the St. Petersburg temple quite successfully proves this - for example, guides who want to add some mystical charm often turn to numerology and talk about the fact that the height of the central structure is 81 meters, which fully corresponds to the year of the death of Alexander II . Another number 63 is not only the height to which one of the domes rises, but also the age of the emperor at the time of the attempt on his life.
In addition to the famous ghost of the Griboyedov Canal embankment, there is another mystical and mysterious legend (neither proven nor disproved): as if under the roof of the Savior on Spilled Blood there is an icon on which the fatal years for Russian history appeared - it says 1917, 1941 and not only . It is believed that the icon has power and is capable of predicting turning points for the history of Russia, because other fuzzy silhouettes of numbers can be seen on the canvas - perhaps they will appear as a new tragedy approaches.
It's no secret that the Savior on Spilled Blood was built on the site where the last attempt on the life of Emperor Alexander II took place on March 1, 1881. Immediately after the tragic events, the City Duma proposed to build a small chapel here, but the new Emperor Alexander III ordered not to limit himself to the chapel and to build a magnificent temple on this site. The sovereign also ordered that an untouched section of the pavement be left inside the future cathedral, where the blood[ru] of his father was shed.
On April 1, 2025, in St. Petersburg, in the very center of the city on Gorokhovaya Street, the "Museum of the Homeless" (the so-called institution dedicated to the homeless) will open. The exhibition will focus on stories about the homeless people of the Northern Capital, or rather, their collective images from different centuries and their fate. You will be able to see the wonder woman of the 14th century, the robber and convict of the post-Petrine times, the inhabitant of a flophouse of the late 19th century, the Soviet scourge, the homeless man of the late 1990s and other interesting characters. Anton Borodin, the museum's creator, is confident that in this way the museum will help remove the stigma from the acronym HOMELESS (without a fixed place of residence), and people will take a fresh look at the serious social problem hidden behind the four letters. Entrance to the museum will be paid for: part of the money will be used to pay for the work of the institution, and part will be used to help people who find themselves in a difficult life situation. A similar museum exists in London.
The International Recognition Day of St. Petersburg is celebrated on November 2.
This holiday has been celebrated since 2011. On this day, November 2, 1721, Peter the Great proclaimed himself emperor. To the sound of the Admiralty's guns, he assumed a new title, which marked the transformation of Russia into an empire.
This event was an important step in changing Russia's international standing. The first to recognize the new title of the Russian tsar were Prussia and Holland, followed by Sweden, Britain[ru] and other countries, which confirmed Russia's status as one of the leading countries in world politics. Therefore, it was decided to set this date as the Day of International Recognition of St. Petersburg.
The territory that Russia conquered from the Swedes had nothing to do with a modern city. At that time, there were practically no urban buildings here, except for individual defensive structures. Thus, the Russian emperor had to solve two difficult tasks: to conquer the land and equip it, creating a full-fledged city that would become the capital of the Russian Empire. And he solved them.
E. Ozerova:
Among swamps, roads and blizzards,
Like a giant from a fairy tale,
Petersburg appeared to the world,
Caressed by a wave of love[ru]!
His sculptures and palaces,
Fountains, squares, parks,
Its fences and bridges,
Ship on the Fontanka,
His crosses, his granite -
The centuries-old pattern is so durable! –
Everything delights and captivates
In the light of the white night.
I love you, my city,
I don’t know of a more beautiful place!
My life is one with you,
Given as an inheritance!
Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg:
