Saint-Petersburg was founded by the young emperor Peter the Great on May 27th of1703, with the aim of protecting the northern borders of Russia from Sweden on one hand, and also to create a "new Russia", more European and less Moscow. After carefully chosen a place in the swampy delta of the Néva, Saint Petersburg was born on the island of Zaiatchi by saying the famous phrase: "Here is a city". And the city became the new capital of Russia, the first building constructed as the Peter and Paul fortress.

To create this Saint-Petersburg , he invited many foreign architects who built the city in incredibly short time. Peter the Great saw Saint Petersburg as the "Venice of the North", a city run channels, and for this reason in particular that all the streets of the island Vassilevski are rectigniles and are called "lines". Unfortunately (or fortunately for that matter), his project failed.
 
After the death of Peter the Great, Saint Petersburg has experienced a long series of emperors and empresses who have made the city grow. Among the most famous, Elizabeth I (1741-1761), daughter of Peter the Great, has become famous for its number of dresses (it seems that it had over 15,000!) And as instigator of the baroque said "Elizabethan ", Which was installed in St. Petersburg by the Italian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli Originally, inter alia, the Winter Palace, the magnificent Hermitage.

The Tsarina next Catherine II the Great (1762-1796), became during his 30 years reign of Russian Empress's most famous, though it was German and spoke the Russian language throughout his life with a terrible accent . With it began the era of classicism and the Enlightenment Russian. She brought to Saint Petersburg many Italian architects (Giacomo Quarenghi, Antonio Rinaldi) and french (Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe) who have built new palaces, in the classical style this time.

The czars have succeeded then, some large and certainly more memorable than others, but everyone has helped to expand and build the city. Saint-Petersburg and beaming s'embellissait. Everything changed in the early twentieth century, during the reign of Nicolas II when St. Petersburg was called "cradle of the revolution", before the great turning point in 1917. The barrel of the cruiser Aurora gave the signal for the storming of the Winter Palace, before the exile of the czar and the royal family in Yekaterinburg, and their murder a few months later. The Soviets then took power, and change the name of Saint Petersburg to Petrograd, then Leningrad. And the city lost forever (well, until now) the role of capital of Great Russia. Now, it must be content with the title of Nordic Capital and second largest city of Russia, Moscow had resumed his duties ancient capital.

The twentieth century has been difficult for the city: Suppression of the intelligentsia, poets, writers, painters, the second World War has had a devastating effect, after the infamous siege of Leningrad, which lasted 900 days and caused the Death of 2 million (!) people. This long period of obscurantism continued during the years of the Cold War, especially with the "blocking" cultural and artistic under Brezhnev.
 
In 1991, the light comes back, Leningrad becomes Saint Petersburg, and gradually began its resurrection. It is now once again the cultural capital of Russia, since it is not economic or political capital. But in truth, everything can still change: after the Yeltsin years, placed under the sign of Moscow (and tennis), the coming to power of Vladimir Putin could tilt the balance more on the side of Saint Petersburg (and judo :-).

The tricentenary of Saint Petersburg, celebrated with great pomp in 2003, was an opportunity to restore the facades of downtown and retype highways governmental ... without, unfortunately, that the suburbs or even inside the buildings downtown are benefiting. In short, a huge feast of frontage held under the slogan (unofficial) "dear Saint-Pétersbourgeois, be nice, do not hinder us to celebrate the tricentenary of your city". If the headlamps are focused on the town, making back tourists to discover its wonders, its people have actually benefited little.