Saint Petersburg

St Petersburg is the youngest among well-known European cities - its tercentenary was celebrated in 2003. For more than two hundred years it was the brilliant capital of the immense Russian Empire pushing the old patriarchal Moscow into the background. Having lost the official status of the capital in 1918, it has still remained the country's cultural and spiritual centre. It was in St Petersburg that the new type of Russian man was being formed, the greatest triumphs were celebrated and the events that influenced the destiny of Russia and the world as a whole took place. Not a single Russian city caused such admiration and was an object of such damnation as St Petersburg; there is no other city in Russia with which the brightest hopes and the darkest prophecies were associated. St Petersburg is unique indeed. Created by the powerful will of Peter the Great as "a window on to Europe", it reminded by its sudden emergence to European countries about the forgotten Russia that had been withdrawn, in their opinion, to the boundary of the Christian world. The Tsar founded the city "to curb the haughty neighbour", to ensure for Russia an outlet to the Baltic Sea and "to gain a foothold upon the coast". It was here, in the new capital that Peter the Great overcame the country's centuries-long isolation, strengthened its influence and proclaimed Russia as an Empire becoming its first Emperor. Peter, preoccupied with grandiose imperial plans, was inspired by the image of "eternal" Rome...