Photo Guide: Leningrad [antikvár]

You are about to read a guidebook of Leningrád. You will be taken round a city to which many thousands of tourists flock every year. If you have already arrived in Leningrád, this guide-book will help you find your way around, choose the best excursions and rambles through the city, and, in addition, will stay with you as a photographic souvenir of its many noteworthy and beautiful sights. If, however, you are only dreaming about such a trip and this guide-book is your first introduction to the city on the Neva, we hope that after reading it you will decide to make your dream come true. Either way, we are glad to welcome you to Leningrád, one of the world's most beautiful cities, the city of white nights, of breathtaking architectural ensembles, museums and monuments, the city of three revolutions, the Hero-City. People first entering Leningrád are awestruck by its beauty, and many are the admiring comments they have bestowed on it. It has been called the Palmyra of the North, the Romé of the North, and the Venice of the North. Of course, such comparisons honour it, but however much it lends itself to comparison with other beautiful cities, Leningrád has its own unique character and its own unparalleled history. On May 16 (27 old style) 1703 Tsar Peter the Great laid the foundations of a fortress on the small Hare Island (Zayachy Ostrov) in the estuary of the river Neva, in order to guard his 'window into Europe'. By recovering the ancient territories wrested fro m her by foreign invaders, Russia had gained an outiét to the Baltic Sea and, with it, great new opportunities to develop its political, commercial and cultural ties with the countries of Western Europe. The fortress was named St Petersburg and was the beginning of the city to which it subsequently gave its name. When the Cathedral of Sts Peter and Paul was built in the fortress, the latter was renamed the Peter and Paul Fortress (Petropavlovskaya Krepost) accordingly. The city grew up on the islands and along the Neva banks which were thickly forested and covered with treacherous swamps. There was no quarry stone available nearby, and Peter the Great issued a special edict prohibiting the erection of stone structures in other towns in Russia for the time being, decreeing that every visitor coming to St Petersburg by road had to bring with him three stone blocks, and everyone arriving by boát, between 10 and 30 blocks. The young city, which was declared capitaloftheRussianstate in 1712, was built in accordance with a well-planned design by architect Pyotr Yeropkin. It moved first from the Peter and Paul Fortress to the islands nearby (subsequently called the Petersburg Side-Peterburgskaya Storona) and then to Vasilyevsky Island. It was here that the Twelve Collegia Building, the Kunstkammer (Russia's first museum) and Menshikov's Palace were built. The Customs House, goods depots and port were alsó sited here. At the