LENINGRAD

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 158, 22 September 1941, Page 6

LENINGRAD

CITY BUILT ON SWAMPS

Leningrad, formerly Petrograd, and before that, St. Petersburg, Avas founded bj r Peter the Great in 1703 on the marshes of the rivei' Neva, 011 the site of a fortress capturcd from the Swedes.

Determined to "open a window to the west," the greatest of Russian Tsars built the new city 011 piles driven in the marshes, and in 1712 created it the capital .of Russia, superseding Moscow, which had opposed Peter's reforms.

The whole sile of the citj r is swampy, and the task ol building it on piles cost the lives of s'o many labourers that Leningrad has the reputation of being "built on bones."

Peter's choicc of the site of the capital ignored all the physical disadvantages. He wanted simply a

"western window" and an outlet to the Baltic. On the swamps, drained by a multitude of canals, a great and beautiful city arose, for more than two centuries the centre of civilisation and culture in Russia. The work of building employed the best Russian ancl European architects for over a century in the styles of the period, and flew cities of Europe had a greater architectural, unity than St. Petersburg in its prime. In few were greater extremes of riches and poverty to be seen.