Fast Facts:
Peter was 2. 3 metres.
He was very shy and preferred smaller buildings.
He had a summer palace that he only went to four times a year. The upkeep cost the state a lot of money but Peter preferred to live in a small cottage (the green building with the gold embellishments).
The first stone of the Fortress of St Petersburg was laid by Peter the Great in 1700.
During the 18th century there was an era where women reigned the country.
The name of the city was changed twice. One change translated to City of Peter (unfortunately I've forgotten the Russian name for this) and the second was Leningrad. It changed back to St Petersburg in 1991.
St Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia. The first is Moscow. There was often competition between the two cities.
Moscow is the educational and financial city, while St Petersburg is considered to be the cultural city because of the abundance of exhibition houses, 120 state museums, the academy of arts and academy of foreign languages.
There are more than 5 million people living in St Petersburg.
The city is colloquially called the "city of white nights" because of the annual period between May and June where it does not get dark at night.
Alexus was married to Maria and then Natalia during the 17th century. Peter the Great was born from this second marriage. Alexus and Natalia had twelve children. Out of these children Ivan, Sophia and Peter competed for the Russian throne. Sophia wanted power, but because Ivan was the successor to
the throne, she wanted him to rule. For a short period she had power as the Russian Empress, but she was dishonest and gossiped and said Peter wanted her dead. This resulted in a lot of uprisings. Ivan and Peter eventually became ruling emperors at the same time, but Peter's supporters finally managed to give him sole power when he was 16 years old.
At the beginning of Peter's reign, he visited all European countries. He traveled as a peasant and returned from his trip wanting to build a city that would be pretty like the European cities.
The Northern war was against Sweden for 21 years. Peter's aim was to withdraw Swedish rule from St Petersburg and to take original Russian land back.
St Petersburg has more than 100 different islands.
There is one main river, the Neva river, and 65 smaller rivers.
Neva river flows into Baltic Sea and it freezes over in the winter.
It is named Neva because of the Finnish and Swedish influence when the city belonged to Sweden.
There are more than 5000 bridges. The bridges are raised at night. People receive a schedule telling them when it will be raised. It is a joke amongst people that the bridges are raised to keep unfaithful men at their homes.
Peter had more than 16 gifts such as; biology, archaeology etc. He was very handsome, but his personality was contradictory; he was considered to be very cruel.
The St Isaac's Square is dominated by St Isaac Cathedral which has the fourth largest dome in the world. It was in use from 1818 to 1858.
The Church of Resurrection on the Spilled Blood is a Russian-style multicoloured onion-domed church that was built on the spot where Emperor Alexander the Second was assassinated on 1 March 1881. He was killed by terrorists because he wanted to turn Russia into a Republic. It was one of the churches that were due to be destroyed in 1931 during the Soviet Union, but ended up being used as a place to store bodies from the war.
Peter was inspired by the churches of Holland. So the St Peter's and St Paul's Cathedral was designed to look like one of these churches.
This church is inside the Peter and Paul Fortress which was the first structure of the city. The bells of this church came from Holland and the clock from England. The church was just for the royal family and it was dedicated to the victory in the northern war.
To the left of the church is the burial place and to the left of this is the boat house that holds the first boat that Peter owned.
Across from the church is the mint of St Petersburg. This mint is still functioning today.
Since the Soviet Union has ended, people can now worship freely.
Churches were demolished and closed during the Soviet Union, but the people were liberated and in 1994, the reconstruction process began.
St Isaac Cathedral and St Peter and St Paul Cathedral were meant to be demolished, but because all men were sent to fight in the Second World War, these churches were saved.
A few paces down from the fortress is a statue of Peter that is very different to all other images of him. It was created by a US artist who wanted to show Peter's cruel side. The head of the statue is the original size of Peter's head, but the body is not, so the head is out of proportion to the body. Peter had a son named Alexus who tried to dethrone him, Peter threw him in jail which is where he died. People say that this is proof of Peter's cruel side because he put his own son in jail.
On the Neva River is the Spit of Vasilievsky Island which is flanked by two red Rostral columns that used to be used as lighthouses.
The architecture of St Petersburg is flat and narrow. The original architect built canals for the city, but these were filled with sand and turned into roads.
Russians love gardening. They leave their apartments to go to country houses for vacation or weekends.
Many writers have written about Nevsky Prospect, the most popular street in St Petersburg.
Prince Stroganoff was a prince who had a sweet tooth. His palace was turned into a chocolate museum. He could not eat big big chunks of meat, so he had to have his meat cut for him which is how the dish beef stroganoff received its name.
All buildings are different colours in St Petersburg because they used to not use house numbers.
Traditional Russian gifts:
The nesting Russian doll: this is usually made from Linden or Birch tree wood and contains 3-10 pieces. Images of folktales, history, landscapes, buildings or flowers are usually painted in these dolls. Some even open up to contain Vodka inside of them.
Likan box (spelling might be wrong): this is made from pressed cardboard and will often contain precious stones on top.
Russian Easter egg: the Royals used to gift each other with these brass eggs for Easter. They often have surprises inside of them like carriages, flowers etc.
Amber: taken from an area in the Baltic Sea. There is not a lot left so it is rare. It is said to be good for health.
Russian scarves
Fur hats, coats (Most traditional gifts).
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