1. The foundation of the city

During the course of the Northern War with Sweden, Russia's forces gradually moved from Lake Ladoga down the Neva River to the Swedish fort of Nienchanz. After an 8-day siege on May 1 1703, the Swedish garrison surrendered. To protect the newly conquered lands on the Neva delta Peter the Great needed a fortress, but Nienchanz was small and badly damaged. Looking for a site for his new fortress Peter the Great chose the Island of Enisaari (Hare's Island), which was known to the Russians as Zayachii ostrov. On May 16 1703 (May, 27 by the modern calendar) St. Petersburg's fortress (the Peter and Paul Fortress) was founded and that day became the official birthday of the city. Several days later a wooden Cabin of Peter the Great was built, and became the first residential building in the new city.

The original clay walls and bastions of the fortress were completed by the end of summer 1703 under the careful supervision of the Tsar and his close associates. The builders of the fortress (mostly soldiers and peasants) worked in very primitive conditions, since the climate was very damp, good housing nonexistent and food in very short supply. Working from dawn to dusk, they died in great numbers, but the war still went on and the fort had to be completed as soon as possible.

By August 1703 the new settlers in Peter's city had already encountered the infamous St. Petersburg floods. Due to the boggy nature of the terrain, the area was considered unhealthy for a town, but it had tremendous strategic importance, so Peter the Great continued constructing the city despite all the losses and extra expenditures. For its first few years the St. Petersburg of Peter the Great was limited to a small town around the fortress, but by 1712 it had grown enough to become the new Russian capital.

2. Peter and Paul Fortress

The Peter and Paul Fortress was the first structure to be built in Peter the Great's newly founded city of St. Petersburg in May, 1703. Located on one of the city's 42 islands, the fortress has six bastions named after some of the prominent individuals who supervised their construction, including one dedicated to Tzar Peter himself. The original walls were built of clay and the present-day brick walls were added later between 1706 and 1740. All construction work on the fortress was carried out under the close supervision of St. Petersburg's first architect Domenico Trezzini and the Tzar himself. Construction on The Peter and Paul Cathedral began in 1712, but was only completed some 21 years later in 1733, eight years after Peter the Great's death. For a long time the Cathedral was the city's main church and until 1917 it was the burial and resting place of the Russian tzars.

Though ideally positioned to sustain an enemy attack, the fortress was never actually involved in any fighting. It was, however, used to house the city garrison and a section of the complex was soon converted into a high security political prison. Peter the Great's rebellious son Alexei was its first inmate. The fortress soon began to play a significant role in the lives of the people of St. Petersburg. Not only did it help them to keep track of the time with its traditional 12 o'clock cannon shot, introduced by Peter the Great himself, but blank cannon shots fired from the fortress also helped to warn of the infamous floods that have always threatened the lives and property of the city's residents In 1917 the fortress became one of the city's major revolutionary centers. On October 26, 1917 members of the Provisional Government were arrested at the Winter Palace and brought to the Peter and Paul Fortress. These deputies were to be some of the last inmates of the Old Regime's infamous political prison. During the Soviet era the fortress was turned into a museum.

Petrovskiye Gate (Petrovskiye Vorota)

The Petrovskye (Peter's) Gate was built between 1717 and 1718 by St. Petersburg's first architect Domenico Trezzini. The gate, distantly reminiscent of a triumphal arch, is decorated with a large relief by K.Osner. The relief's biblical storyline - "Apostle Peter striking down Simon the Wise" - was to commemorate the Russian victory over Sweden in the Northern War. Note the two-headed eagle, the Russian Coat of Arms, immediately above the arch. The Peter And Paul Cathedral. The Peter and Paul Cathedral was built between 1712 and 1733 by Domenico Trezzini on the same site as a wooden church erected in 1703, the year that Peter the Great founded St. Petersburg. First to be built was the cathedral's bell-tower with its gilded spire, which quickly became the focal point of the fortress and the surrounding area. The rest of the Cathedral was completed later and is perhaps one of the more unusual Russian Orthodox Church buildings in the city. The bell-tower makes the Peter and Paul Cathedral the tallest building in St. Petersburg (122.5 meters or 404 feet 3 inches high). The gilded spire of the Cathedral is topped with a weather vane depicting an Angel with a Cross. The bell tower also shows an old clock face, newly restored and chiming precisely on the hour! The cathedral's interior is decorated in the baroque style of the early 18th century. The elaborately decorated gilded iconostasys (icon wall) was made in Moscow between 1722 and 1726 entirely from wood. All of the Russian tzars from Peter the great onwards (with the exception of Peter II and Ivan) are buried in the Cathedral. Peter the Great's tomb sits in the South-Eastern corner of the church near the icon wall and is adorned every day with fresh flowers, while the newly installed tombs of Nicholas II and his family lie in the South-Eastern corner, in the St. Catherine's chapel.

"The Angel" as a Symbol of the City. The weather vane sitting atop the gilded spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral has over the years become a symbol of the city of St. Petersburg. Locals often refer to it simply as "the Angel". Constituting the highest point in downtown St. Petersburg (at 122.5 meters - 404 feet 3 inches) the Angel is said to both watch over and protect the Venice of the North. A careful program of restoration of both the Angel and its mechanism was completed in 1996 and now visitors to the fortress can again see the Angel keeping vigil over Peter the Great's city.

The Grand Dukes Mausoleum(Velikokniazheskaya Usypalnitsa) By the turn of the 20th century the interior of the Peter and Paul Cathedral was already filled with tsarist tombs, so a new Mausoleum was constructed between 1896 and 1908 to accommodate any further Imperial graves. However, very few members of the Romanov dynasty were buried there as the Revolution of 1917 ended their rule over Russia.

The Commandants Cemetery(Komendantskoye kladbishche)

Between 1703 and 1917 all the commandants of the Peter and Paul Fortress were buried within its walls, in the Commandants' Cemetery near the eastern wall of the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

The Commandant's House(Komendantsky dom)

The house was built in the 1740s to accommodate the commandant of the fortress. It was in this house in 1826 that the Decembrists' Uprising was investigated and where those rebels were tried by the Supreme Criminal Court. Five of the uprising's organizers were later executed while others were sent to do hard labor in Siberia. Nowadays, the Commandant's House serves as an exposition hall, displaying permanent and temporary exhibitions on the history of St. Petersburg.

The Engineers House(Inzhenerny dom)

The Engineers' House was built between 1748 and 1749 to accommodate the engineers of the St. Petersburg garrison. Today it is occupied by a temporary exhibition organized by the City History Museum.

The Statue of Peter the Great (by Mikhail Shemiakin)

Mikhail Shemiakin's statue of Peter the Great is one of the most controversial monuments to be erected in St. Petersburg in the last 10 years. The American sculptor of Russian descent presents the "alter ego" of Peter the Great in his statue, who apart from being a great reformer was also a cruel and ruthless man. Feel free to compare this statue to the more famous and patriotic Bronze Horseman on Ploschad Dekabristov.

The Prison of Trubetskoy Bastion(Tyurma Trubetskovo Bastiona) Having never taken part in any real wartime action, it was decided to convert part of the fortress complex into a high-security political prison. Peter the Great's own rebellious son Alexei was among the first inmates of the prison. This "Russian Bastille" was to see many prominent inmates, including the leaders of the Decembrists Uprising, the writer Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Vladimir Lenin's elder brother Alexander. Many of the above were imprisoned in the Trubetskoy Bastion, built between 1870 and 1872, which was converted into a museum this century to showcase the horrors of the Tsarist regime and which now offers tours to curious visitors.

The Mint (Monetny Dvor)

The Mint was established in the early 18th century by Tsar Peter the Great. It is one of only two places in the entire country where Russian coins, medals and badges are minted (the other place being the capital, Moscow). The Mint, now a busy high-security plant, has remained within the fortress walls out of a healthy St. Petersburg respect for tradition.