Founded in 1703 in the westernmost corner of Russia’s territory, St. Petersburg was laid out according to the urban planning ideals of Western European enlightenment.
Built mainly by imported Italian and German architects, it was called Russia’s “window to the West.”
Through that window, plenty of insidious European ideas made their way into previously isolated Russia. Along with enlightenment, those ideas included Marxism — which earned its first Russian converts in the city’s industrial workers.
Russian nationalists, meanwhile, criticized St. Petersburg as an alien, non-Russian presence in the body of Mother Russia. Therefore, while St. Petersburg served as the imperial capital from 1703 to 1918, Moscow retained its status as the cradle of the Russian czars.
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