Fr : version française / En: english version

Babel and Babylon

Babel and Babylon

Aztec cities

Aztec cities

Heavenly Jerusalem

Heavenly Jerusalem

The Fujian Tulou

The Fujian Tulou

Utopia

Utopia

Romorantin, capital of a kingdom...

Romorantin, capital of a kingdom...

The city of brotherly love

The city of brotherly love

Saint Petersburg, Peter's great city

Saint Petersburg, Peter's great city

Industry, socialism and utopia

Industry, socialism and utopia

Taking technology to new heights

Taking technology to new heights

Home sweet home

Home sweet home

A towering challenge...

A towering challenge...

New towns

New towns

Conjuring capitals

Conjuring capitals

Auroville: "divine anarchy"

Auroville: "divine anarchy"

Private cities

Private cities

Dubai: miracle or mirage?

Dubai: miracle or mirage?

All eyes on the horizon

All eyes on the horizon

View of the Neva downstream between the Winter Palace and the Academy of Sciences
Grigory Kachalov

© wikicommons

Saint Petersburg

Although founded by Peter the Great, the city actually takes its name from Peter the Apostle. The Tsar ordered construction of the Peter-and-Paul Fortress in 1703 in a marshy area of the Neva delta to which the Swedes long laid claim. Three years later, he decided to make it his new capital, due to its location as a Baltic port, often free of ice and linked to the rest of the country by canals. The Tsar aimed to modernize the country by giving Russia a "window on the west".

To achieve his goals, Peter had tens of thousands of serfs press-ganged into building the city, often in horrendous conditions. The Tsar wanted to create a European-style stone city, in contrast to the wooden buildings typically found in Russia. He therefore put an Empire-wide ban on stone construction to ensure he could have all the country's stonemasons working on the new project. Churches were to have conventional bell towers rather than the onion-shaped domes typical of Orthodox churches.

In 1712, the country's main institutions were moved to Saint Petersburg. The Tsar forced noble families to move to the city and build homes that matched the new style of construction, at their own expense. By 1714, 50,000 lodgings had already been filled. During the 18th century, the Tsarinas Elisabeth and Catherine II continued the work of their predecessor Peter (including the Winter Palace and Nevsky Prospect) and the city became the country's intellectual capital. Canals, wide avenues and matching architecture in the city center lent the place grandiose appeal. Many starving peasants sought refuge there following the agrarian reform: a number of riots broke out in the city throughout the 19th century. The 1905 and 1917 revolutions saw the rise of Bolshevism: Saint Petersburg lost its status as a capital and was renamed Petrograd, then Leningrad following Lenin's death. The city did not regain the name Saint Petersburg until 1991.

Saint Petersburg, Peter's great city

Built as a seat of government, like Teotihuacan, or for political or religious reasons like the first urban centers in North America, cities were also a driver for economic growth. The economy was therefore one of the key motivating factors behind the construction of cities such as Saint Petersburg.

The Bronze Horseman

The Neva now is clad in granite
With many a bridge to overspan it;
The islands lie beneath a screen
Of gardens deep in dusky green.
To that young capital is drooping
The crest of Moscow on the ground,
A dowager in purple, stooping
Before an empress newly crowned.
I love thee; city of Peter's making;
I love thy harmonies austere,
And Neva's sovran waters breaking
Along her banks of granite sheer;
Thy tracery iron gates; thy sparkling,
Yet moonless, meditative gloom
And thy transparent twilight darkling;
And when I write within my room
Or, lampless, read, - then, sunk in slumber,
The empty thoroughfares, past number,
Are piled, stand clear upon the night;
The Admiralty spire is bright;
Nor may the darkness mount, to smother
The golden cloudland of the light,
For soon one dawn succeeds another
With barely half-an-hour of night.

Extract from The Bronze Horseman by Alexander Pushkin (1833), translated by Oliver Elton

Built in the early 18th century in a marshy region through the use of piles (which locals claim were in fact the bones of laborers), Saint Petersburg was the brainchild of one man, Tsar Peter I (the Great), and gave Russia a port on the Baltic Sea, fostering new trade relations with Europe.