Вопрос 1. Foundation of St.-P. The names of the city. The capital city Leningrad – hero city.

St-P was founded in the Neva river delta, which had always been a very important water way. At the end of the 17 cent., when PTG ascended the throne he realized what it is very important to return this plot of land to Russia, so he started a war with Sweden – Northern War (1700-1721). It ended up with Russian victory & PTG opened a window to Europe (exit to connections with Europe) & decided to create Main Navel & trading port. During the war on the 16 (27) of May 1703 after our troops had captured the Swedish fortress Nienshans our city was founded. PTG commissioned to build a Russian fortress & it was given the name St-P. Nowadays it’s P’n’P Fortress.

The city started growing fast & in 1712 became the capital (until 1918), that’s why there are a lot of beautiful palaces, cathedrals, squares and parks.

The next major developments after PTG are associated with the reign of his daughter – Elizabeth & with her leading architect Rastrelli. During the 1740s & 1750s he designed a series of magnificent buildings in ‘Elizabethan baroque style’ (Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, Smolny convent, palaces for the Stroganovs & other aristocrats, Winter Palace).

Another remarkable person is Catherine II, she continued developing the city like an European state in the neo-classical style by the Quarengi, Rinaldi, Vallin de la Mothe, Cameron.

The last ruler to shape city was Catherine’s grandson Alexander I, who presentes a Russian variant of European neo-classicism of the Napoleonic era. Military honours were shown at Palace square with Alexander Column & Rossi’s General Headquarters.

City has had several names. The original name is St-P, when in 1914 it was renamed Petrograd. (because of German sounded name & WWI started in 1914 & the main enemy of Russia was Germany, so government didn’t want to have a German name to the city).

In 1924 Lenin died & city was renamed in his honor as Leningrad, because his political activities were strongly connected with the city (he guided the Main Revolution, October 1917).

In 1991 the original name was returned. Lenin wasn’t popular any more, but local people didn’t want to rename city, because Leningrad is associated with the heroism of citizens during the siege. So the city underwent 900 days of starvation, artillery bombings & hardships. Almost 1250000 people died (half of population). So Gitler planned to capture the city at the beginning & celebrate his victory in Astoria Hotel at the beginning of sept 1941, instead of that siege was started & lasted until 22 of Jan 1944. more than 10000 buildings were destroyed during air raids of Germans, who wanted to destroy main architectural buildings, but there were Russian guns all around the main buildings, which saved most important buildings. Olga Bergoldz: “Nobody is forgotten & nothing is forgotten”. So the original name was returned not only to the city, but also to the streets, squares, and theatres.

Also it is known as the Northern Venice (because it is situated on 42 islands, they used to be 1001 islands), Northern capital or cultural capital (a lot of museums…)

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1332