Tales of st. Pete

This city has plenty of charm and once you’re there, it’s very hard to leave

An old British wisdom has it that moors are often a shelter of crea­tures from the after-world. St. Petersburg was built in the strange Baltic land, where waters of the Neva River furi­ously fall into the sea; a marshy place that was never before consid­ered suitable for living. Never­theless, the town though built ‘on the bones’ of the numerous builders is marvellous.

Each town obviously has its dark side, and St. Pete is no exception. Ask any native inhabitant of the city, and you are sure to learn something about local ghosts and wraiths. And if you’re able to turn on your imagi­nation, you’ll find out more by your­self. Don’t be afraid, though; the ghosts are said to be peaceful and melancholic. Below, several tales and historical anecdotes of St. Petersburg are given; try to walk through the city with open eyes and ears – and you’ll feel that they are rather believable.

Peter the Great

Though St. Petersburg was not named after its founder, Peter the Great is the most encountered person in the city mythol­ogy. The first story concerning Peter and the city depicts the tsar’s birth. When the crown-prince was born, one of the greatest philosophers and poets of the time, Simeon Polotsky, predicted the boy would found a great town and advised that he be called Peter. That’s how the name for the future city was chosen. The place was fixed later, when the coastline of the Baltic sea was taken by Russian troops led by Peter; then, a little fortress, St. Petersburg, was built on the spot that later grew into the magnificent town we know now.

Many tales and rumours are also connected with Alexander Menshikov, the closest friend and associate of Peter. When the tsar ordered the construction of the houses of 12 Ministries (Vasilievsky Island), he appointed Menshikov to look over the con­struction works and then left for Holland for a year. Menshikov, however, found the place assigned for building the Houses too suitable for his own estate and actually built his palace on the place predefined for the ministerial houses. As for the 12 Ministries, the building was constructed nearby, but facing the Petropavlovskaya Fortress, not the Neva. When Peter returned home and saw the results of the work, he nearly beheaded Menshikov. Si­milar stories are typi­cal in describing Peter’s court.

It is believed that the great founder of St. Petersburg has never actu­ally left his city; he has become the first ghost of this city, both by number of encounters and by significance. Among those people who saw Peter the Great were many later Russian tsars and ordinary people too. Paul I, being only a crown-prince, encountered Peter on his walk near the Senatskaya Square; the ghost stopped for a while and said to Paul: “Here you will see me again.” This hap­pened to be the place where Cathe­rine II decided to place the famous Bronze Horseman.

When the monument was in­stalled, a new wave of tales and leg­ends about Peter the Great was launched. The first of them proves the choice of the place by describ­ing the fabulous scene: Peter was riding his beloved horse Lisa, when he decided to jump over the Neva to the Vasilievsky Island. He shouted: “In the name of God and myself!” – and successfully landed on the other bank. “In the name of God and myself!” cried Peter once again and jumped back. The third time was fatal, for Peter shouted: “In the name of me and God!” and instantly froze on the starting point, which would later become the Senatskaya Square. Alexander Pushkin later wrote the fa­mous poem The Bronze Horseman where a model situation of the encounter with Peter the Great was described.

Paul I

This tsar spent most of his life in line for the throne in the status of the crown-prince; perhaps, that’s why he eventually became a neuras­thenic. Along with his mental dis­ease, Paul was very mystically-minded. That’s probably why the palace he built in St. Petersburg, the famous St. Michael’s Castle, is called the most haunted place in the city.

The decision to build a new palace came to Paul when he be­came the Emperor (1796). Like any neurotic man, Paul was afraid of possible conspiracies in his moth­er’s Winter Palace (now the Hermitage Museum). Neverthe­less, Paul fell a victim of the con­spiracy; the castle didn’t save him from death. Until 1913, on the fron­ton of the castle there was an inscription saying “Long live your house and God bless it.” By coinci­dence or not, the inscription con­tained 47 characters in Russian, the exact number of years of Paul’s life.

Other strange stories are associated with Paul’s attitude to exercising army troops. Parades were endless, while the uniform was rather old-fashioned for the time (thanks to Paul’s idiosyncrasy towards revolu­tionary French fashions and cul­ture). One day, when Paul was in bad humour, he examined one of His Majesty’s Life Guard regiments; as he didn’t like the soldiers’ look and per­formance, he got in rage and shout­ed “About turn! Backward march! To Siberia!” Obedient soldiers and offi­cers marched through the town to the Moscow road, which led to Siberia; they were forgiven and re­turned only several hours later.

Soviet Tales

Many more tales are associated with the modern history of St. Pete, or rather Leningrad in this case. Not far from Liteiny bridge, on the left bank of the Neva, stands Smolny, once the headquarters of the revo­lutionary forces (1917) and now the residence of the Governor. During 1960s and 1970s, Grigory Romanov, then the Secretary of the St. Petersburg CPSU office, ruled the town; several tales and fables remain from those times. A perfect specimen is the story about the marriage of Romanov’s daughter; as the story goes, to celebrate the wedding, the tsar’s precious porcelain service was taken from the Hermitage Museum. Mikhail Piotrovsky, the director of the Hermi­tage, refused to approve the undue use of the dishes and plates, but finally was forced to surrender. But when Romanov’s “men in black” from Liteiny entered the museum, they found the porcelain service on dispute guarded by an armoured knight ghost! Scared out of their wits, the Mayor’ people stepped back, but soon the knight was him­self bit by the guard dogs of the museum. The ghost appeared to be one of the museum’s experts willing to prevent the takeover of the pre­cious showpiece.

Anton Razmakhnin

The Moscow News 20/07/2008