ST. PETERSBURG: The Cultural Capital and Most EUROPEAN RUSSIAN CITY

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St Petersburg is the cultural capital of Russia and its most European city. In this video, I do an overview of its history from Peter the Great to modern-day Russia.

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SCRIPT EXCERPT

Saint Petersburg formerly known as Petrograd and Leningrad, is a city on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea.

It was built upon 42 islands and has over 300 bridges connecting them

It is Russia's second-largest city after Moscow.

With a population of roughly 5.4 million, it is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, as well as the world's northernmost city with over 1 million residents.

While it is no longer the actual capital of the country it is still considered to be its cultural center associated with the birth of the Russian Empire and Russia's entry into modern history as a Great European power.

We cannot truly understand St Peterburgs importance to Russia without looking back at its history.

Go back in time to start of the city and old Russia

Between 1236 and 1242 the Mongolians were invading Europe.
And after they left, what was left behind was much changed, especially in Russia.

Respect for civic values and any notion of democracy was wiped away from Russian psyche with over 200 years of oppressive rule under the Golden Horde.

Russia as a country united but its rulers adopted the same autocratic practices and regime style embodied by the despotic Asian rule they had just come out from best embodied by Ivan the Terrible.

It took another 200 years for a ruler to come around who was willing to open Russia back up to western influences and to try to reform it.

Arguably the most influential ruler in Russian history
Peter the Great came to power in 1696 with the burning desire to change the country and pull it out of backwardness.

St Petersburg was his attempt at modernising.

During the great Northern War Russia marched on to a place called Nieva Schanzk which was held by Sweded.

It soon surrendered and Peter decided that this was going to be the location of his city and founded St Petersburg on the 16th of May 1703.

Prior to St Petersburg the only major sea port in the country was located in Arkhangelsk where access was severely limited due to the White Sea completely freezing over half of the year.

St Petersburg was to be the new port connecting Europe to Russia giving it a chance to export its goods and create a navy ending its landlock.

However most of the Russian aristocracy at the time was appalled with the chosen location.

It was considered A swampy desolate bog prone to flooding, ice bound in winter and infested with mosquitos during the summer.

And almost uninhabited with just a couple of small fishing villages along the shores of lake Ladoga and along the banks of the Nieva.

The first priority when founding the city was to engineer a fort to protect the settlement from the Swedes.

And this was the Peter and Paul fortress the first version of which was constructed using earth and wood.

Peter forced people from all over the country to work on his settlement including criminals that were destined to be relocated to Siberia

Working on the city in the early years of its construction was as good as a death sentence.

The laborers lacked food, housing, and adequate tools and many died from malaria, scurvy, dysentery and even Swedish attacks.