In the early 18th century, Russian Tsar Peter the Great on the Neva River began to build a large city. He made this city the capital of Russia. At first, the city was called Petrograd (since 1914). In 1924, after the death of Vladimir Lenin gave him the name of Leningrad. Now it is called St. Petersburg.
After selecting his site (which was also to be a port for his new navy), protection from his enemy Sweden had to be Peter’s first order of business. Accordingly, in 1703 the cornerstone was laid for the first building of the new city, the great fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. When its thirty-foot walls and six bastions were complete, the approach to the city was secure, and Peter turned his attention to the task of building the city itself.
And what a task! Thousands of serfs were transported to the site where they were set to work draining the swamps (Neva after all is the Finnish word for swamp) and hauling stone for the new city. Thousands perished from fire, disease and starvation to accomplish what seemed a mad emperor’s folly.
But Peter, “that mighty lord of fate" in Pushkin’s phrase, was never daunted. A year after the Peter and Paul fortress was begun, work started on the Admiralty (remember. Peter was also building a great navy), and on a summer garden. Three years later Peter began the first buildings of the palace at Peterhof, and in 1711 the first stones were laid on the Nevsky Prospekt, the great road that still connects the Admiralty with the Alexander Nevsky monastery.
By the following year, 50.000 men were working every day to build the city Peter has decided to name after his patron. Was there a shortage of stone? Peter decreed that every citizen must contribute 100 stones a year, and no stone buildings were to be erected anywhere in his empire save in the new city of St. Petersburg.
Finally. Peter deemed the city ready, and proclaimed it the capital of his empire, simultaneously announcing to the horrified Moscow nobility that they must now live in the new capital. Grumbling, but knowing a worse fate might await them if they refuse, the nobles came.
And people have been coming to St. Petersburg ever since.
Peter the Great died in 1725 and was buried in the great fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul (where visitors to this summer's games may see flowers that are still occasionally brought by Russians to his tomb). After Peter came empresses: Catherine I. Anna, Elizabeth, and Catherine II who, like Peter, is called the Great. These women shared Peter's dream, employing great architects from all over Europe and always building, building, building. Their efforts resulted in a Xanadu, competing in beauty with best European cities.
By the 19th century St. Petersburg overcome Moscow in size and became artist and intellectual soul of Russia, which is constantly torn between Europe and the vast old Russia, stretching to the Far East.
Soon after the revolution, Moscow became the capital of the new state, and Lenin heirs changed the name of St. Petersburg into Leningrad. Today the name of the city came back again.