Latest / The Romanov Dynasty: Rise, Power, and Bloody End — Fexingo History / Peter the Great and the Founding of St Petersburg
Transcript
- Lucas: Welcome back to the Romanov series. Today we're going to talk about something that's been looming in the background of a lot of our episodes — the founding of Saint Petersburg. And I don't mean just a quick history lesson. I mean the sheer audacity of building a capital city from scratch on a mosquito-infested swamp at the edge of the Baltic. Luna: I've always wondered — why there? Why not just stay in Moscow? Lucas: Great question. And it gets to the heart of who Peter the Great was. By 1703, Peter had been fighting the Great Northern War against Sweden for three years. He wanted a port that could give Russia direct access to Europe — a 'window to the West,' as the saying goes. Moscow was landlocked, cut off from sea trade. So when his forces captured the Swedish fortress of Nyenskans at the mouth of the Neva River, he saw his chance. Lucas: On May 27, 1703 — old style May 16 — Peter personally laid the first stone of the Peter and Paul Fortress on Zayachy Island. That's considered the founding date of the city. He named it Sankt-Peterburg, after his patron saint, not after himself. But make no mistake, this was Peter's city, his obsession. Luna: So he just built a fortress and declared it a city? Lucas: Pretty much. But the scale of what followed is staggering. Peter decreed that thousands of workers — serfs, soldiers, Swedish prisoners of war — be sent to the site. They drained marshes, drove piles into the bog, and hauled stone from as far away as Finland and the Ural Mountains. The conditions were brutal: dysentery, scurvy, the constant cold. It's said that for every pile driven, a man died. The city was literally built on bones. Luna: That's haunting. So the workers were basically disposable? Lucas: In Peter's mind, the goal justified any cost. He needed a modern capital, one that looked and felt European, not medieval like Moscow. He brought in Swiss-Italian architect Domenico Trezzini to design the fortress and later the Peter and Paul Cathedral, where almost all the Romanovs from Peter onward are buried. Trezzini also laid out the city's grid — straight canals inspired by Amsterdam, wide avenues, stone buildings instead of wood. Lucas: Peter actually banned stone construction anywhere else in Russia for a time, to ensure all masons came to St. Petersburg. He even taxed people on the number of stone houses they owned, to fund the building. And he forced the nobility to build palaces there — they had to invest in the city whether they liked it or not. Luna: Wait — he taxed people to make them build houses? That's a new one. Lucas: Exactly. The so-called 'stone tax.' Every ship that entered the port had to bring a certain number of stones as part of its cargo. Every cart arriving from the countryside had to bring three stones. It was the ultimate import duty. And it worked. By Peter's death in 1725, St. Petersburg had over 40,000 buildings, the Admiralty shipyard was launching Baltic Fleet warships, and the city was the new capital, displacing Moscow in 1712. Lucas: But the cost in human life is impossible to ignore. Modern estimates suggest between 30,000 and 100,000 workers died during the first decade of construction. The city's early nickname was 'the city built on bones.' And yet, for all that, it became a wonder — the Venice of the North, with its palaces, canals, and white nights. Luna: It's such a Romanov story — incredible ambition, European vision, and a brutal human price all rolled into one. Lucas: Exactly. And that tension — between enlightenment and autocracy — runs through the entire dynasty. St. Petersburg was Peter's greatest physical legacy, but it also set a pattern: grand projects imposed from above, with little regard for the suffering of ordinary people. It's a pattern we'll see again and again. Luna: Speaking of grand projects — you know, it's funny, but this show is kind of our own project. We put a lot into it because we really believe in telling these stories without interruption. No ads, no sponsors pushing a message. Just the history, as we actually want to talk about it. Lucas: Absolutely. And we want to keep it that way. So if that kind of independent, ad-free history means something to you, the simplest way to support it is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's it — just a small gesture that helps us keep doing exactly what we're doing. Luna: Yeah, every bit helps. And it means we never have to interrupt a conversation like this one to read a script. Lucas: Right. So back to Peter's city. One detail I love: the first ship built at the Admiralty, in 1706, was a 28-gun frigate named 'Standart.' Peter himself worked as a shipwright on it — he wasn't just a ruler giving orders, he got his hands dirty. He wanted to learn shipbuilding firsthand, and he did, traveling incognito to the Netherlands and England years earlier. Luna: That's the Grand Embassy, right? When he went to Europe as 'Peter Mikhailov'? Lucas: Exactly, the Velikiy Posol. That trip from 1697 to 1698 shaped his entire vision. He saw Amsterdam's canals, London's docks, the scientific academies. And he came back determined to drag Russia into the modern age, whether it wanted to go or not. St. Petersburg was the physical embodiment of that determination. It wasn't just a city — it was a statement that Russia was now part of Europe. Lucas: And it worked. Within a generation, St. Petersburg was a thriving port, a center of arts and sciences, and the seat of an empire that would become a major European power. For better and for worse, Peter's swamp city became the symbol of Romanov ambition. Luna: It's incredible to think that out of all that forced labor and suffering, something so beautiful was created. But I guess that's the paradox of the Romanovs, isn't it? Lucas: It really is. And it's a paradox we'll keep exploring. Next time, we'll look at another side of Peter — his reforms, his wars, and the personal cost to his own family. But for now, this is where we leave Petersburg, still standing, still a monument to one man's will.