A space between two worlds: St. Petersburg in the early eighteenth century

In May 1703, Tsar Peter I of Russia is alleged to have led a small military foray to the Baltic coastline, near the mouth of the river Neva. Accounts of this occasion, both contemporary and retrospective, vary considerably on the precise chronology of the decision-making process and the question of whether the tsar himself was actually present. Regardless of the precise details, the area was claimed (or, some argue, reclaimed) in the name of Russia and plans were made to build a fortress in order to consolidate the Russian presence. This foundation and the associated myths, which have been explored by many writers and historians over the intervening centuries, feature in most discussions of St. Petersburg’s history. One such myth, which presents Peter creating his new city out of nothing, in a wilderness, was essentially poetic license on the part of later writers such as Vasilii Trediakovskii and Aleksandr Pushkin. In fact, the area was the site of a Swedish fortress known as “Nienschants,” the town of Nien, with a population of around four thousand, and a number of smaller settlements nearby that existed before the city was founded. Indeed, given the paucity of usable stone in the region, the ruins of the old fortress likely provided material used in the initial stage of St. Petersburg’s construction, particularly in the foundations of buildings.