Saint Petersburg
Northern capital of Russia

    St Petersburg, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, was the capi-tal of the Russian Empire for a little over two centuries (1712—1918). The history of the city began in 1703, when Peter the Great founded the Ss Pe-ter and Paul Fortress on Zayachy (Hare) Island in the Neva delta. Its ca-thedral became the burial site for the royal family, while the Trubetskoi Bastion was converted into a prison for political offenders.
    Another island, Vasilyevsky, became a very important part of the city. In 1713 a port began to function on its spit. In front of it there arc two ros-tral columns that were to serve as beacons for ships. Their tops have metal howls, which are fueled by gas and are lit during national festivals. The mighty allegorical figures at the bases of the columns symbolize the Volga, Dnieper, Neva and Volkhov rivers.
    The historical and architectural centre of St Petersburg is Palace Square, one of the largest in Europe. The Winter Palace is the earliest building on the square. It is a masterpiece of Baroque architecture and is one of the five interconnected buildings comprising a museum complex known as the Hermitage. The pivot of the square is the Alexander Column put up in hon-our of the victorious end to the Patriotic War of 1812 against the Napole-onic invasion. This is the tallest triumphal column in the world (47,5 metres).
    One of the largest squares in St Petersburg, which forms the modern aspect of the city's centre, is St Isaac's Square. Its cathedral is an ex-tremely important landmark in St Petersburg, determining together with the Ss Peter and Paul Cathedral and the Admiralty the city's silhouette. The in-tegral parts of the square's architectural complex are the equestrian statue of Nicholas I, the Mariinsky Palace and the Astoria Hotel. Close to St Isaac's Square is Decembrists' (formerly Senate) Square that owes its name to the Decembrists' uprising taken place there tin 14 December 1825. An important role in the formation of the square's en-semble is played by the equestrian monument to Peter the Great, known as the Bronze Horseman, which has become a kind of symbol of the city.
    Being a capital, St Petersburg had highly-developed religious culture with a great number of Orthodox churches. Unfortunately, not all of them have survived. The gem of the church architecture of St Peters-burg is the Smolny Convent Cathedral, a remarkable example of Russian Baroque style Another religious monument of interest is the Church of the Resurrection of Christ (or the Saviour-on the-Spilt-Blood) that was built on the spot where Emperor Alexander II was mortally wounded by a revolutionary terrorist on 1 March 1881.

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