Founding of Saint Petersburg (1703): Peter the Great's Capital

Saint Petersburg was founded on 27 May 1703 (16 May in Russia’s Julian calendar), when Tsar Peter I began building a fortress on a small island in the Neva delta, on land just captured from Sweden. Within a decade the fortress had become the core of a planned city that replaced Moscow as Russia’s capital. Built on marshland at great human cost, Saint Petersburg became Peter’s “window on Europe” and the seat of the Russian Empire for two centuries.

Background

In the early 17th century Russia lost its narrow access to the Baltic Sea to Sweden, which by the Treaty of Stolbovo in 1617 took Ingria, the region around the mouth of the Neva. For most of the century Russia’s only seaport was Arkhangelsk on the White Sea, far to the north and frozen for much of the year.

Peter I wanted a Baltic port for trade and a base for a navy. After his Grand Embassy to the Dutch Republic and England in 1697–1698, he was also convinced that Russia should learn from the maritime nations of western Europe. In 1700 he joined Denmark and Saxony-Poland in the Great Northern War against Sweden.

After a crushing defeat at Narva in 1700, the Russian army regrouped and advanced into Ingria while Charles XII of Sweden campaigned in Poland. In October 1702 the Russians took the fortress of Nöteborg (renamed Shlisselburg) where the Neva flows out of Lake Ladoga. On 1 May 1703 (Old Style) they captured the Swedish fort of Nyenskans and its trading town, Nyen, near the river’s mouth.

The founding

Nyenskans stood several kilometres upstream and was hard to defend. Peter and his commanders chose a new site on Hare Island (Zayachy Island), a small island in the delta that commanded the main channels of the river. On 16 May 1703 (Old Style), the feast of the Holy Trinity, work began there on a wooden and earth fortress. This date, 27 May in the Gregorian calendar, is celebrated as the city’s birthday.

The fortress was named after Saints Peter and Paul, and the settlement around it took the name Sankt-Piter-Burkh, a Dutch-influenced form honouring Saint Peter, the tsar’s patron saint. Legend says Peter cut two strips of turf and laid them crosswise, declaring that a town would stand there, and that an eagle circled overhead. These stories were recorded later and are not supported by contemporary sources.

Within days carpenters built Peter a small log cabin nearby, which survives as the oldest building in the city. In 1704 the Admiralty shipyard was founded on the left bank of the Neva, and the fortress of Kronshlot was built on a shoal near Kotlin Island to protect the approaches from the sea. It was later expanded into the naval base of Kronstadt.

Building on the marshes

The site was low, marshy, cold and often flooded, and the region was still a war zone. Swedish forces tried to retake it, without success, in 1703–1708. Building a city there required vast amounts of labour and materials.

Tens of thousands of conscripted peasants were sent each year from all over Russia, along with soldiers and Swedish prisoners of war. They worked with simple tools, often lived in poor shelters, and suffered from disease, cold and food shortages. Swedish prisoners and skilled craftsmen were also employed, and foreign architects and engineers were recruited.

The number of deaths is unknown. Figures of 100,000 or more were often repeated by later writers, and the city gained the reputation of being “built on bones”. Many modern historians think these numbers are exaggerated and place the toll in the tens of thousands, but the suffering involved is not in doubt.

The defensive walls of the Peter and Paul Fortress were rebuilt in stone from 1706. To make sure there was enough stone and masons, a decree of 1714 banned building in stone elsewhere in Russia for several years. Every ship and cart arriving in the city was also required to bring a quota of stones.

Floods were a constant danger. The Neva overflowed its banks within months of the founding and many times afterwards, sometimes washing away timber, stores and houses. Peter was also determined to make his subjects comfortable on the water. For much of his reign there was no permanent bridge across the main stream of the Neva, and residents were expected to cross by boat; the first floating bridge across the river was built only in 1727, after his death.

The Admiralty quickly became the city’s industrial heart. Thousands of workers built warships there, and in the following decades it launched many of the vessels of the new Baltic Fleet. Ironworks, sawmills, rope walks and powder works grew up nearby to serve the navy and the army.

Planning a European city

From the beginning Peter wanted a city that looked unlike Moscow, with straight streets, canals, and buildings in Western styles. The Italian-Swiss architect Domenico Trezzini, who arrived in 1703, designed many of the early buildings, including the stone Peter and Paul Cathedral and the Twelve Collegia, the home of Peter’s new government ministries. The French architect Jean-Baptiste Le Blond drew up an ambitious plan for the city in 1716–1717, which was only partly carried out.

Peter’s close associate Alexander Menshikov served as governor-general and built a large palace on Vasilyevsky Island. The Summer Palace and Summer Garden, the Kunstkamera, Russia’s first public museum, and the Alexander Nevsky Monastery were all begun during Peter’s lifetime. In 1724 Peter decreed the founding of the Academy of Sciences, which opened in the city after his death.

Nobles, merchants and craftsmen were ordered to settle in the new city and build houses there, at their own expense and often against their will. Many resented being forced to leave Moscow for a damp, distant and expensive frontier town.

Becoming the capital

The Russian victory at Poltava in 1709 made the new city secure, and the capture of Vyborg, Riga and Reval in 1710 removed the Swedish threat. The royal court and government moved to Saint Petersburg in stages from about 1712, and by the end of Peter’s reign it functioned as Russia’s capital. The Senate, created in 1711, and the new colleges sat there.

By Peter’s death in 1725 the population was roughly 40,000. Under his grandson Peter II the court returned to Moscow from 1728, but Empress Anna brought it back in 1732. Saint Petersburg remained the capital of the Russian Empire until the Bolshevik government moved to Moscow in March 1918.

Key people

• Peter I (1672–1725), Tsar and from 1721 Emperor of Russia, who chose the site and drove its construction.
• Alexander Menshikov (1673–1729), Peter’s favourite and the city’s first governor-general.
• Domenico Trezzini (c. 1670–1734), Italian-Swiss architect of the Peter and Paul Cathedral and the Twelve Collegia.
• Jean-Baptiste Le Blond (1679–1719), French architect who drafted a master plan for the city.

Myths and facts

Myth: Peter laid the first stone in person while an eagle hovered overhead. The turf-and-eagle story appears in accounts written decades later. Contemporary records only show that work on the fortress began on the feast of the Holy Trinity in May 1703.

Myth: Hundreds of thousands died building the city. Very large figures were repeated for centuries, but they are not supported by records. Most historians accept that deaths were numerous, possibly tens of thousands, without being able to give an exact figure.

Myth: It was named after Peter the Great. The city was named after Saint Peter the Apostle, although the link with the tsar’s own name was obvious to everyone.

Legacy

Saint Petersburg became one of Europe’s great capitals, famous for its palaces, canals and white nights. Catherine the Great commissioned the Bronze Horseman, the equestrian statue of Peter by Étienne Maurice Falconet, unveiled in 1782. Alexander Pushkin’s poem The Bronze Horseman (1833) made the city’s founding and its battle with the floods of the Neva a central theme of Russian literature.

The city was renamed Petrograd in 1914 and Leningrad in 1924, and returned to the name Saint Petersburg in 1991. Its historic centre has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1990.

Timeline

• 1617: Sweden gains Ingria and the Neva mouth by the Treaty of Stolbovo.
• 1702, October: Russian forces capture Nöteborg, renamed Shlisselburg.
• 1703, 1 May (Old Style): The Swedish fort of Nyenskans surrenders.
• 1703, 27 May: Work begins on the Peter and Paul Fortress, the city’s founding date.
• 1704: The Admiralty shipyard and the Kronshlot fort are founded.
• 1712: The court begins moving from Moscow to Saint Petersburg.
• 1714: A decree bans stone building elsewhere in Russia to supply the new city.
• 1725: Peter the Great dies; the city has around 40,000 inhabitants.
• 1728–1732: The court returns briefly to Moscow before settling in Saint Petersburg again.

Why it matters

The founding of Saint Petersburg symbolised Peter the Great’s effort to turn Russia towards Europe. The city gave Russia a port and a navy on the Baltic, housed the government of the empire for two centuries, and became a centre of Russian science, art and literature.