ST PETERSBURG 



real connection between Russia and its capital was 

 established through the Neva, which since it was 

 connected by canals with the upper Volga, became 

 the real mouth of the immense basin of the chief 

 river of Russia and its numberless tributaries. 

 Owing to this connection St Petersburg became, 

 and has remained for more than 150 years, the 

 chief port of Russia for the export of raw pro- 

 duce and the import of manufactured goods. 

 Foreign trade and the centralisation of all admin- 

 istration in the residence of the emperor have made 

 of St Petersburg a populous city with more than a 

 million inhabitants and covering 42 sq. in., on the 

 banks of the Neva and the islands formed by its 

 branches the Great Neva, the Little Neva, the 

 Great Nevka, the Little Nevka, and scores of 

 others. 



The Great Neva, the chief branch, which has 

 within the city itself a width of from 400 to 700 

 yards, and carries every second 1,750,000 cubic 

 feet of very pure water, is a most beautiful river. 

 It is so deep that large ships can lie alongside its 

 granite embankments. But it is rather shallow at 

 the mouth, with a narrow and sinuous channel 

 across the bar, so that Cronstadt, built on 

 an island 16 miles to the west of St Petersburg, 

 remains both the fortress and the port of the 

 capital. Since 1885 a ship-canal, 22 feet deep, admits 

 ships to the Galernaya Harbour in the south-west 

 corner of St Petersburg, and two-thirds of the 

 foreign vessels unload within the city itself. The 

 main body of the city, containing more than 

 one-half of it - inhabitants as well as all the chief 

 streets, stands on the mainland, on the left bank of 

 the Neva ; and a beautiful granite quay, with a 

 long series of palaces and mansions, stretches for 

 24 miles from the timber-yards in the east to the 

 New Admiralty in the west. Only two permanent 

 bridges cross the Neva ; the other two, built on 

 boats, are removed in autumn and spring, as well 

 as when the ice of Lake Ladoga comes down the 

 Neva in the beginning of May. The island 

 Vasilievsky, between the Great and Little Nevas, 

 has at its head the Stock Exchange, surrounded 

 by spacious storehouses, and a row of scientific 

 institutions, all facing the Neva the Academy of 

 Sciences, the University, the Philological Institute, 

 the Academy of Arts, and various schools and 

 colleges. On the Peterburgskiy Island, between 

 the Little Neva and the Great Nevka, stands the 

 old fortress of St Peter and St Paul, facing the 

 Winter Palace, and containing the Mint and the 

 cathedral wherein the members of the imperial 

 family are buried ; its old-fashioned casemates are 

 used as political prisons. It has behind it the 

 arsenal, and a series of wide streets bordered by 

 small, mostly wooden houses, chiefly occupied by 

 the poorer civil service functionaries. Farther up 

 the mainland on the right bank of the Neva 18 

 covered by the poorer parts of the city, but con- 

 tains some public buildings and a great number of 

 factories. Numerous islands, separated from each 

 other by the small branches into which both Nevkas 

 subdivide, and connected together by a great 

 number of wooden bridges, are covered with beauti- 

 ful parks and summer-houses, to which most of the 

 wealthier and middle-class population repair in the 

 summer. The main part of St Petersburg has for 

 its centre the Old Admiralty ; its lofty gilded spire 

 and the gilded dome of St Isaac's Cathedral are 

 among the first sights caught on approaching St 

 Petersburg by sea. Three streets radiate from it, 

 east-south-east, south-east, and south ; the first of 

 them the famous Nevskiy Prospect ; while four 

 canals describe irregular half-circles which intersect 

 these three streets at right angles. The street 

 architecture, with its huge brick houses covered 

 with stucco and mostly painted gray, is rigid and 



military in aspect. But the canals and the bridges 

 which span them, the width of the chief streets, 

 and an occasional glimpse of the Neva or of some 

 broad square break the monotony. 



A spacious square, planted with trees, encloses 

 the Old Admiralty on three sides. To the east 

 of it rise the huge and magnificent mass of the 

 Winter Palace, the Hermitage Gallery of Art, 

 and the semicircular buildings of the general staff, 

 which surround a square facing the palace, and 

 adorned by the Alexandra column, a shaft of red 

 granite 84 'feet high. To the west of the Admiralty 

 is the Petrovskiy Square, where prances the well- 

 known statue of Peter I. the work of Falconet 

 on an immense block of granite brought from 

 Finland. The cathedral of St Isaac of Dalmatia, 

 in the south of it, is an almost cubic building ( 330 

 feet long, 290 broad, and 310 high), surmounted by 

 one large and lofty and four small gilded domes. 

 This church, erected by Nicholas I., is devoid of 

 architectural beauty, but its peristyles of immense 

 red granite monoliths give it a character of rude 

 majesty. Its interior decorations are very rich, and 

 it contains pictures painted by the best represen- 

 tatives of Russian art during the last half century. 

 A somewhat stiff monument to Nicholas I. by 

 Baron Clodt stands on a large square to the south 

 of the cathedral. 



The Nevskiy Prospect is one of the finest streets 

 of the world, not so much for its houses they are 

 of a very mixed and mostly vulgar architecture as 

 for its immense width and length, the crowds which 

 overflow its broad trottoirs, and the vehicles which 

 glide over its wooden pavement. It runs for 3200 

 yards, with a width of 130 feet, from the Admiralty 

 to the Moscow railway station, and thence with a 

 slow bend towards the south for another 1650 

 yards, to reach again the Neva near the Smolnyi 

 convent. About midway in its first part it passes 

 by the Kazan cathedral, the Gostinoi Dvor a two- 

 storied building containing numerous shops the 

 public library, the square of Catharine II. adorned 

 with a gorgeous but tasteless statue of the empress, 

 and the Anitchkoff Palace. It crosses the Fontanka 

 on a broad bridge adorned by four groups in bronze 

 of wild horses with their tamers. 



The climate is less severe than might be expected, 

 but it is unhealthy and very changeable on the 

 whole. The average temperatures are 15'4 F. in 

 January, 64 in July, and 38-6 for the year. Still, 

 the Neva remains frozen for an average of 147 days 

 every year. A short but hot summer is followed 

 by a damp autumn and very changeable winter, 

 severe frosts being followed by rainy days in the 

 midst of winter, and returning in April and May 

 after the first warm days of the spring. 



The population has rapidlv increased during the 

 19th century, and attained, with the suburbs, 

 1,267,023 in December 1897, as against 918,016 in 

 1881. But it decreases very much during the 

 summer (849,315 in July 1889), chiefly because 

 masses of peasants who come to work in the 

 factories in winter time return to their villages in 

 summer. Thus in July 1889 the population of the 

 city proper was 724,102; in December, 924,466; in 

 July 1890, 731,336 ; in December 1890, 956,226. 

 The sanitary arrangements being very imperfect, 

 typhoid fever and European cholera are endemic, 

 and their attacks are especially severe upon new- 

 comers. The mortality is high : from 31 to 39 

 per thousand before 1885, but since only 28. The 

 birth-rate has for many years been 31 '2 to 31 '6 

 per thousand. Before 1885 the deaths exceeded 

 the births. The great majority of the population 

 belong to the orthodox Greek Church ; about 10 

 per cent, are Protestant, chiefly Germans and 

 Finns ; 3 per cent. Roman Catholics ; and 2 per 

 cent. Jews. 



