Peter the Great's Work on Building his Dream: St. Petersburg

When Peter the Great stared out at the vast deserted land expanse on the Banks of the Neva River, he envisioned a marvelous city that no one else could imagine. Peter was truly a great visionary, a man who lived his dreams. The building and prosperity of St. Petersburg is, without a doubt, mainly due to the iron will and passion that Peter the Great invested in the city. The amount of resources and people he mustered for the project makes the cost of St. Petersburg immeasurable. It consisted of the efforts of Peter, countless amounts of Russians, and foreigners who were recruited to help. At first, the existence of the city was in jeopardy as the construction commenced during the Great Northern War, when one of the most disciplined fighting forces in the world at the time, Sweden, was at St. Petersburg’s doorstep. However, the glorious victory over Sweden at the Battle of Poltava named Russia as a new superpower, established the prominence of Peter the Great, and secured the safety of St. Petersburg. Peter built a dream with his bare hands and his own mind that exists today as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
 
 

The Great Northern War was a main cause for bringing about the idea of building St. Petersburg, and, eventually securing its existence. Peter declared war on Charles XII of Sweden in hopes of acquiring the Baltic provinces of Ingria and Karelia. The reason behind this was that Peter wanted access to the Baltic Sea in order to build a strong navy and a larger trade with Europe. In order to obtain Ingria, Peter thought it would first be best to take a small town on the border of Ingria called Narva. He expected the task to be relatively easy, but the capricious ways of Charles XII ended up surprising the Tsar and the world.
 
 

Peter first sent over approximately 35,000 men to put the city under siege on October 4th, 1700. The siege was not very effective as cheaply made artillery, the key components in the siege, fell apart. After days of putting Narva under siege there was still no sign of the city falling. To Peter’s dismay, he received a dispatch that Charles XII had landed with a considerable force about 150 miles southwest of Narva. A battle was on the horizon.
 
 

The battle that ensued was a horrible defeat for Russia, and for Peter who was not even there in Narva. Peter anticipated that Charles would spend time recovering from the march and doing reconnaissance and so he departed the night before the battle with his commander-in-chief to speed up recruits coming from the east. Charles XII went against all military logic and attacked immediately upon arrival, despite the odds, and dealt the Russian Army a horrible defeat.
 
 

The Russian loss at Narva was a devastating defeat to Peter the Great because it upset his dreams for gaining access to the Baltic, and humiliated him. Peter’s departure from Narva the night before the battle was seen as a cowardly move, done in fear of Charles XII. The victory for the eighteen-year old Swedish Emperor brought him enormous praise and the respect of Europe. On the other side, the Battle of Narva made Peter look like a weak monarch.
 
 

Despite the misery of defeat, Peter still persevered and acted immediately to assess what went wrong and, more importantly, what had to be done to fix it. One thing was certain to Peter; his army was extremely unequipped and under trained. He set out right away to remedy this problem with the help of his boyar Shermetev, who oversaw much of the army’s modernization. Russia adopted European tactics, bought artillery pieces and established a military academy in St. Petersburg to teach young men how to properly run the new army. Eventually, the Russian army became a well disciplined fighting force under the guide of Peter the Great.
 
 

During this time when Peter the Great was remolding his army, Charles XII diverted his attention to defeating Augustus of Saxon. This move was fortunate for Peter, who had time then to prepare for an inevitable encounter with the Swedish king, and, more importantly, begin the construction of St. Petersburg.
 
 

The building of St. Petersburg was a very bold move by Peter because he started construction in an area that belonged to the ominous Charles XII. It was and is still very uncommon for a city to be built during a war. Nonetheless, Peter the Great’s opportunistic nature got the best of him and he began building the Peter and Paul Fortress on the Banks of the Neva on May 16th, 1703. In apprehension of the return of Charles XII, the building proceeded hastily.
 
 

The Peter and Paul Fortress was erected first. During part of the year the whole region was flooded by water and so was this Island. In necessity, hundreds of tons of earth had to be moved to the location to essentially raise the land from sea level. Eventually, the large base of the fortress emerged, with six large bastions. Peter himself supervised the construction of the sixth bastion. He usually worked on the fortress in the summer months, residing in his small cabin near the building site where he would review architectural plans and take care of the daily problems of construction.
 
 

Peter the Great was reminded of the Swedish threat to his precious city just months after the groundbreaking. A four thousand man army moved in from the north towards the Banks of the Neva. Peter acted decisively and assembled an army of 7,000 men to move against the Swedish menace. He led the expedition himself and defeated the Swedes without much trouble, but Peter still remained wary of troop movements in the area and activity in the Gulf of Finland.
 
 

The engagement pushed Peter to build up his Navy by constructing shipyards in the area of St. Petersburg and on the shores of Lake Ladoga. The move would allow him to have dominance of the seas and give him another force to attack enemy positions on land.
 
 

Besides increasing the strength of his navy, Peter directed much of his attention to the commercialization of St. Petersburg. In fact, when the first Dutch merchant ship arrived, Peter personally went out to greet the ship’s captain. He excluded the ship from Russian tolls and announced that the next two ships to arrive at his ports would receive the same special privileges. This incredible offer helped spread the word of the new Russian port and soon more and more ships were sailing in, looking for the best deals in trade and tariffs.
 
 

Peter moved to create a favorable trade imbalance in the name of export led industrialization. Peter was echoing the European principles of mercantilism that stated that by exporting a great amount and importing little would create wealth in a state. In this respect, Peter was a brilliant economist in offering the best incentives to create business. This growth of the economy was not only present in St. Petersburg or in the area of commercialization, but in all of Russia. State intervention by Peter in the economy led Russia to a large economic boom in the first quarter of the eighteenth century when more than two hundred enterprises arose and created remarkable growth (Anisimov pg 70).
 
 

Meanwhile, the laborious and excruciating work on St. Petersburg kept on going with Peter, “whip in hand,” driving the progress. Skilled and unskilled workers were summoned to the region against their will where they slaved away in horrible conditions. Thousands of laborers drove pilings into the Earth and built houses as more peasants died from not only labor but malnutrition, disease and wild animals. Many workers deserted as wages were rarely paid on time and local officials complained of the conditions behind Peter’s back. If Peter knew about the malcontent of the Russian people, frankly, he did not really care and kept on with his plans for the city.
 
 

Peter also continued the populating of St. Petersburg by calling upon hundreds of merchants and bourgeoisie of Moscow to move to St. Petersburg. Reluctantly, many of merchants and nobility flooded into St. Petersburg with their families by their sides and frowns on their faces. Much resentment of Peter existed among this population, but it was never exposed when Peter was around for fear of angering him, something clearly unappealing.
 
 

To add grandeur to the city, Peter imported all sorts of foreign goods, including animals and plants. He ordered these things to establish a beautiful atmosphere in the city. The famous Summer Gardens, a large park built by Peter, is testimony to his love of nature and the outdoors. The Summer Gardens also contain an array of irreplaceable fountains and statues, for which Peter spent countless rubles.
 
 

As Peter was working on his city, rumor began to spread that the ominous Charles XII would soon be at Russia’s front door. In anticipation of this Peter had sent out a peace offering to Charles which the Swedish King ignored as he concluded his war with the Tartars.
 
 

Shortly after the rejection of the peace treaty, Peter found out that Charles XII intended to invade Russia and march to Moscow. The plans of Charles XII began with the siege of Poltava, which would prove to be an arduous task for the ambitious Swede.

Charles XII (1682-1718)
 

Poltava is a town located by a tributary to the Dnieper, and had been fortified heavily by the Russians since the humiliating defeat at Narva. More or less, the town was ready for a siege, which eventually began in the April of 1709. Spring was the best and sometimes the only time to campaign during this era.
 
 

Right from the start, the Battle of Poltava was tilted in Peter’s favor for a number of reasons. First off, Charles XII had to undergo the hardships of a siege while Peter simply had to defend. Also, the Russian army was nearly four times the size of the Swedish Army; the Swedes had around 19,000 men while the Russians numbered around 40,000 (Massie pg 508). Even when Charles himself, an arrogant man, reached Poltava he was surprised at the improved earthworks and other defenses that surrounded the town. He exclaimed, “What! I really believe that the Russians are mad and will defend themselves in a regular way” (Massie pg 498).
 
 

Prior to the start of the actual battle, a Russian mini-ball injured Charles XII as he was observing the Russian lines in the open. These risky mannerisms were typical of the king, who really thought he was invincible. To his dismay and the dismay of his troops, this belief collapsed the day when he was wounded. The ball hit him in the foot and caused enormous swelling, and a fever that was so severe the doctors swore he was going to die at any moment. To the advantage of the Russians, the blow to Charles was also a massive assault on the morale of the troops who saw the injury as a bad omen for the future.
 
 

The injury did not kill Charles nor put him out of commission. He proceeded with the battle plans as if nothing had changed, and even had some of his men carry him to the lines so he could be with the troops.
 
 

Despite his injury Charles seemed as vigorous as he always had been and ordered an aggressive attack on the Russians. This move could not be described as a bold move, but quite simply a moronic one. Charles XII had no visual of the battlefield because he was on a stretcher so he had to rely on the descriptions of Rehnskjold, his second in command. Perhaps Charles thought that he was dealing with the same Russian army he had seen at Narva when in fact he was facing a very well-trained force. The Russian positions were clearly advantageous with earthworks that flanked the Swedish route of attack and created a deadly crossfire. The Swedes attacked with 5,000 men, starved from the Russian army’s scorched earth policy, against 24,000 Russians and 70 cannon. The decision to charge seemed more absurd than the infamous Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg during the America Civil War, and just like it, the charge at Poltava ended in disaster for the Swedes.
 
 

The Swedes attacked despite the huge disadvantage and were slaughtered by the well-entrenched Russians, who surrounded and brutally killed their foes in close combat. Nearly 10,000 out of the Swedish force of 19,000 perished by the end of the engagement. Peter only lost around 5,000 Russians. The Battle of Poltava had been a disaster for Charles XII and the Swedish Empire, but a triumph for Peter and St. Petersburg.
 
 

The security of St. Petersburg now seemed to be guaranteed by the Battle of Poltava. The engagement marked the decline of the Swedish Empire and Charles XII, who was carried back to Sweden in critical condition. More importantly, the battle established Russia as a great country and Peter as a grand ruler.
 
 

Other benefits of the victory affected St. Petersburg in the form of the 17,000 prisoners of war, who could now be used to help build the city (Massie pg 533). Many of the prisoners were subject to the same, or worse working conditions in St. Petersburg that the Russian peasants had been under a decade earlier. Furthermore, this hard labor for the Swedes came after they were dragged through the streets of Moscow in humiliation as part of the victory parade that took place after Poltava.
 
 

Towards the end of Peter the Great’s life he spent most of his time in St. Petersburg building infrastructure and interacting with the people. It was not uncommon for citizens to see the Tsar riding around on his small, two-person carriage talking to everyone he met and observing life in the city. Peter would also participate in an enormous number of social events, whether it was a marriage, a public event or a party.

Peter’s most important work in the city was the building of infrastructure and his work on the government. He established rules for the assemblies and paid close attention to the proceedings of the senate. Often he would work during the long winter hours to create legislation himself. For example, in the winter of 1720 he would work 14 hour days on drafting Maritime Regulations for the many waters around St. Petersburg.

Peter also worked very diligently on the economy, which affected not only all of Russia but St. Petersburg. His New Economic Policy (NEP) after 1717 consisted of commercialization and industrialization, mirrored after the economic strategies of countries of Western Europe. Peter even liberalized trade, encouraged entrepreneurship and privatized to a certain extent. He acknowledged the value of companies and how they pooled people together to collaborate in order to make their money grow. However, many of the prosperous companies did remain controlled by the state. The Weaving Court, one of the most lucrative companies by 1719, made sails for the ships being built at the Admiralty. The famous Urals industry was founded during Peter’s reign. This region is famous for its metallurgy today, which was spurred by the work of Peter during his time in St. Petersburg.

Peter followed the polices of mercantilism and protectionism as part of his economic package as he regularly oversaw the export of goods going out of St. Petersburg to Europe. Peter’s number one passion was without a doubt the water, and as a result he spent much of his energy on building the trade industry in St. Petersburg. He was often seen down at the docks taking care of business, stopping every once and awhile to talk to sailors or playing them in an occasional game of chess.

As the economy grew in St. Petersburg the industries and companies demanded more education and Peter gave it to them. In 1724 Peter ordered the Governing Senate to establish an Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. The research and development at this institution was significant in establishing renewal for Russia. The reason for this renewal is because there were hardly any Russian intellectuals at the time of the establishment of the Academy of Sciences. Foreigners made up a majority of the Academy during its early stages of development to teach young Russians what they needed to know in order for them, too, to embark on their own intellectual explorations.

Peter’s goal, again, was to modernize and civilize Russia according to Western European standards. The Academy of Sciences was among a series of contributions by Peter that pushed Russia to that goal. Peter also built a zoo in St. Petersburg after admiring one in Paris, he established an art gallery, constructed museums and his book collections eventually turned into a library after his death. His contributions to education and learning, driven by his overactive curiosity, were truly extraordinary.

The impact of Peter the Great’s work on St. Petersburg and Russia is truly astounding. At Peter’s death in 1725, the population of St. Petersburg had reached 75,000 inhabitants. Over the next 150 years the city would become the center of Russia’s Golden Age as culture poured out of, and prosperity illuminated from, the great tsar’s city. Today, with democratization as such a wide spread ideal, it is hard to believe that one leader can direct the affairs of a whole state efficiently. Peter proved that it is possible for one person to take a society, a people, a country and turn it all around. Peter put Russia on a path towards prosperity that lasted throughout the next 150 years. His ideas were derived from a variety of places in Western Europe. But the majority of his work to implement these ideas into Russian society was done in St. Petersburg. The city was his variable for testing his truly advantageous methods.