It was only in the 1970s that the need to preserve the city's unique cultural heritage was fully recognized. City planners then pioneered new forms of industriai administration, drawing on the city's strength as a scientific and technical centre. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought further changes, some of which were positive - new cafйs and restaurants were opened, bridges and landmarks were illuminated, and cultural venues were constructed. On the other hand, homeless people and beggars, never a feature of the city in late Soviet decades, became fairly widespread, and the crime rate increased significantly.
The Sights
In lieu of a distinctive city centre on the standard Russian medieval model (epitomized by Moscow), St Petersburg's main thoroughfare, Nevsky Prospekt (avenue), particularly the stretch running from the Admiralty to the Moscow Railway Terminal, is considered the city's centre. Central St Petersburg is divided into four sections by the Neva River and its distributaries. The Admiralty Side lies along the left (south) bank of the Neva itself, at this point called the Bolshaya (Great) Neva. Between the Bolshaya Neva and the river's other main arm, the Malaya (Little) Neva, is Vasilyevsky Island, one of the first areas of the city to be developed. The Malaya Neva and the river's extreme right (north) distributary, the Bolshaya Nevka, enclose a group of islands known as the Petrograd Side, while east of the Bolshaya Nevka and north of the Neva proper lies the Vyborg Side.
As the city grew, it displayed a remarkable richness of architecture and harmony of style. Initially the style was one of simple but elegant restraint, represented in the cathedral of the Peter-Paul Fortress and in the Summer Palace. In the mid-eighteenth century an indelible stamp was put on the city's appearance by the architects Bartolomeo F. Rastrelli, Savva I. Chevakinsky, and Vasily P. Stasov, working in the Russian baroque style, which combined clear-cut, even austere lines with richness of decoration and use of colour. To this period belong the Winter Palace, the Smolny Convent, and the Vorontsov palace, among others; outside the city were built the summer palaces of Peterhof (now Petrodvorets) and of Tsarskoye Selo (now Pushkin). After a transitional period dominated by the architecture of Jean-Baptiste M. Vallin de la Mothe and Aleksandr Kokorinov, toward the end of the eighteenth century a pure neoclassical style emerged under the architects Giacomo Quarenghi, Carlo Rossi, Andrey Voroni- khin, and others. The Kazan and St Isaac's cathedrals, the Smolny Institute, the new Admiralty, the Senate, and the
Mikhaylovsky Palace (now the State Russian Museum) are representative of the splendid buildings of this period.
The Admiralty Side formed the nucleus of Peter's original city, and while it has been reconstructed over the years, it has retained much of the original layout and encompasses some of the city's principal sights: the elegant spire of the Admiralty itself, topped by a weather vane in the form of a ship; the Winter Palace and Hermitage; the famous equestrian statue of Peter, known as the Bronze Horseman, created in 1782 by Etienne Falconet; St Isaac's Cathedral, one of the largest domed buildings in the world, visible all over St Petersburg; the Nevsky Prospekt thoroughfare, with its grand Stroganov, Shuvalov, and Anichkov palaces and grand churches; the Summer Garden and Summer Palace; and, intersecting with its radial avenues, the natural channels and canals that so distinguish the city.
The Winter Palace rises like a huge and massive rectangle between Palace Square and the river. The former principal residence of the tsars, the present structure, a baroque masterpiece, was built between 1754 and 1762 by Bartolomeo F, Rastrelli. Both the exterior and the interior of the palace were designed in dazzlingly luxurious style. In 1837 the building was destroyed by fire, and only the adjoining Hermitage survived; the Winter Palace was recreated in 1839 almost exactly according to Rastreili's plans. The striking appearance of the palace is highlighted by white columns against a green background, with golden stucco mouldings; 176 sculptured figures line the roof. The whole complex, now called the Hermitage, or State Hermitage Museum, is a treasury of mostly western European painting and sculpture, an art collection of worldwide significance that originated in 1764 as the private holdings of Tsarina Catherine II. The Hermitage was opened to the public in 1852, and following the October Revolution of 1917 the imperial collections became public property. The Summer Garden, founded on an island in 1704, has parks and gardens that by the end of the eighteenth century contained more than 250 statues and busts, mostly the work of Venetian masters. In the north-eastern portion of the garden stands the Summer Palace, Peter's first building project in the city, erected in 1710-14 in early Russian baroque style and designed by Domenico Trezzini. The Neva embankment is fronted by a fence (1784), the iron grille of which is reputed to be among the world's finest examples of wrought ironwork. So light and delicate is its design that the grillwork almost seems to be suspended in air.
Other city landmarks include the squat, horizontal Peter- Paul Fortress and, soaring above it, the slender, arrow-like spire of the Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul. The cathedral was built in 1712—33 by Trezzini, and the tsars and tsarinas of Russia from the time of Peter (except for Peter II and Nicholas II) are buried here. Trezzini also designed St Peter's (Petrovsky) Gate (1718) as the eastern entrance to the fortress. Just to the east of the Peter-Paul Fortress, where the Bolshaya Nevka begins, the cruiser Aurora is permanently moored as a museum and training vessel for the Naval College. It was the Aurora that in 1917 fired the blank shot that served as the signal to storm the Winter Palace during the October Revolution. Also associated with the 1917 Revolution is one of the most famous features of the Vyborg Side, the Finland Railway Station, which faces the Admiralty Side across the Neva. In April 1917 Lenin returned to Russia via this station and made here his initial pronouncement of a new course that would bring the Bolsheviks to power.
Further Afield
The most famous of the communities around St Petersburg is Petrodvorets (called Peterhof before 1944 and still popularly called by this name}, whose unique garden-park setting, stretching in terraces rising above the Gulf of Finland, contains representative works from two centuries of Russian architectural and park styles. The Great Palace, the former residence of Peter I, stands at the edge of the second terrace, its bright yellow walls contrasting with white stucco decorations and the gilt domes of its lateral wings. Built in the baroque style (171428), it was reconstructed and expanded by Rastrelli from the mid-1740s to the mid-1750s. On the north the building commands a view of the Grand Cascade, a grandiose structure including a grotto, 64 fountains, and two cascading staircases which lead to an enormous semicircular basin containing a giant statue of Samson wrestling with a lion. This statue, symbolizing the military glory of Russia, is a copy of the original statue, which was carried off by the Nazis during the Second World War. In fact, much of the town's treasure was plundered, and this magnificent vista becomes all the more remarkable when it is remembered that much of it is a post- Second World War restoration.