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During the first years in the life of St Petersburg, one of the most vital tasks was defending the new town, particularly from the sea. With this aim in mind, Peter the Great stationed two earthen gu...
Ligovka is the popular name for one of the most notorious districts of St Petersburg – a haunt of debauchees, thieves, prostitutes and other social outcasts. Many post-revolutionary artists depicted ...
Peter the Great transferred the fishermen from the various crown lands to this district near St Petersburg, which became known as Rybnaya Sloboda (1716). The local factory produced the bricks used to...
The Field of Mars is a wide meadow in the centre of St Petersburg, lying between the Summer Garden, Marble Palace and the Pauline Guards Barracks. In the eighteenth century, it was used to hold vario...
Yelagin Island was originally known as Mouse Island when St Petersburg was founded (1703). The Russian vice-chancellor Baron Pyotr Shafirov had a summer cottage on the island during the reign of Pete...
The Haymarket ( Sennaya Ploschad ) occupied the plot of land on Sadovaya Street between Spassky and Tairov Lanes. One of the busiest squares in St Petersburg, it was created by cutting down a tract o...
External fortifications defending the Peter and Paul Fortress from the north. Originally consisted of a bastion and two half-bastions joined by courtines and surrounded by a moat with water and earth...
In 1711, Peter the Great presented an estate at the spot where the River Neva flowed into the Gulf of Finland to his wife Catherine. Unlike such official residences as Peterhof and Oranienbaum, Ekate...
Many leading masters of architecture and garden art – Mikhail Zemtsov, Nicola Michetti and Jean-Baptiste-Alexandre Le Blond – contributed to the Summer Garden. For thirteen years, all work on the ens...
Promontory in the east of Vasilyevsky Island between the Bolshaya and Malaya Neva. One of the most beautiful architectural ensembles in St Petersburg. Domenico Trezzini’s original plan for the city e...