Founding

About the foundation of the city

Human presence on the territory of modern St. Petersburg can be traced back to the last melting of the glacier that covered this territory. About 12 thousand years ago, the ice retreated, and people followed it. Information about the Slavs (Ilmen Slovenes and Krivichi) is known from the VIII—IX centuries .

They were engaged in slash-and-burn agriculture, cattle breeding, hunting and fishing, and made armed raids on other peoples. At the beginning of the IX century, these lands became part of the old Russian state, forming part of the territory of Veliky Novgorod called Vodskaya Pyatina, the area on the right along the Neva river was called Karelian land, on the left-Izhora land. In the VIII—XIII centuries there was a waterway "from the Varangians to the Greeks" from Scandinavia through Eastern Europe to Byzantium. During this period, the Novgorod Republic constantly waged war with the Swedes.

On July 15, 1240, at the confluence of the Izhora river with the Neva river, a battle took place between the Novgorod militia under the command of Prince Alexander Yaroslavich and the Swedish army. In 1300, the Swedes at the confluence of the Ohta river in the Neva river was built fortress Landskrona, but a year later it was taken by a combined team of Novgorod and local Karelians and razed to the ground.

On the site of the former fortress for a long time there was a Novgorod torzhishche "Neva mouth", that is, the market. In the XV century, the Izhora land as part of the Novgorod Republic was annexed by the Grand Duchy of Moscow. As a result of defeat in the war with Sweden by Stolbovsky peace 1617 the territory on the Neva river became part of Swedish Ingria, commercial and administrative centre which was the city Nien around the fortress Nyenskans, built in 1611 on the site of Landskrona.

As a result of the Northern war of 1700-1721, the Neva river valley was recaptured from Sweden and became part of the Russian Empire under the Nishtadt peace Treaty of August 30 (September 10), 1721. On may 16 (27), 1703, the city of Saint Petersburg was founded at the mouth of the Neva river, not far from Nien. This day dates from the laying of the Peter and Paul fortress by Tsar Peter I, the first building of the city, on hare island. It was supposed to block the fairways of the two largest branches of the river Delta: the Neva and the Bolshaya Nevka. In 1704, the fortress of Kronstadt was founded on the island of the Gulf of Finland Kotlin to protect the sea borders of Russia. Peter I attached great strategic importance to the new city in providing a waterway from Russia to Western Europe.

In the first quarter of the XVIII century, the name was written as San (K)t-Peter-burh. When the city appeared, no special act defining the name of the city was adopted, but the letters of Peter I and the official newspaper Vedomosti almost always mention the name "San (K) t-Peter-burh" in accordance with the Dutch version (Netherlands)( Sankt Pieter Burch — "City Of St. Peter"). The spelling "Saint Petersburg" was first recorded in the newspaper "Vedomosti" in July 1724.

In the first ten years of existence, the main part was the City island (modern Petrograd island), there were Gostiny Dvor, Trinity Church, many office buildings, craft settlements and military units. The first industrial enterprise was the Admiralty shipyard, opened in 1705 on the Admiralty side (the left Bank of the Neva), where later were built galley yard, Winter and Summer palaces of Peter I with a Summer garden.

In 1712, St. Petersburg was proclaimed the capital of Russia, and since 1713, all persons serving the Royal court had to settle in it. The government Senate moved here. By the decree of Peter the Great of January 16, 1712, engineering and artillery schools were established in the city. In 1712, he issued a decree on the creation of the General plan of St. Petersburg. It was from this time that Vasilievsky island, which was to become the center of the city, and the Vyborg side began to be actively built, and the construction of suburban palaces of Peterhof, Yekaterinburg, Oranienbaum was launched. In 1719, the St. Petersburg Admiralty hospital was opened.

By 1725, Smolny yard, Foundry yard, water saw mills, brick, wax, gunpowder, weapons, trellis, leather and other factories, food enterprises were built. In 1724, the Mint was transferred from Moscow. In 1725, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences was founded, where the first Russian newspaper "St. Petersburg Vedomosti" was published in 1728.