Episode 2: Peter the Great

Last Updated on February 22, 2023 by Hannah Henderson

The man who built his city out of nothing

The building of the beautiful city of St Petersburg at the dawn of the 18th century was all down to the willpower of one man: Peter the Great. Hear how he drove tens of thousands of serfs and prisoners of war to dig into marshland on the banks of the River Neva and plant the foundations of his dream city: an elegant array of palaces and cathedrals set to rival anything he had seen on his travels to Amsterdam and London. Find out about the man who dreamed of sophistication, yet watched his henchman torture his own son to death for opposing him.

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More information about St Petersburg coming soon.

Listen to the POdcast

Links & Reading

Useful websites for tourists
St Petersburg City Tourist Information Bureau
St Petersburg.Com (Tourist Information)

2 guidebooks to St Petersburg
Eyewitness Travel Guide to St Petersburg
Lonely Planet Guide to St Petersburg

Travel Book
Among the Russians by Colin Thubron

History
Russian History, a Very Short Introduction by Geoffrey Hosking
The Romanovs by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Caught in the Revolution by Helen Rappaport

Biography
Peter the Great by Lindsey Hughes
Peter the Great by Derek Wilson
Catherine the Great by Simon Dixon
Catherine the Great by Robert K Massie
Rasputin by Frances Welch
Four Sisters by Helen Rappaport (the 4 daughters of Czar Nicholas II)
The Diary of Lena Mukhina (A diary of the Siege of Leningrad)

Art and Culture
A Short Life of Pushkin by Robert Chandler
Nijinsky by Lucy Moore
Rudolf Nuryev The Life by Julie Kavanagh
Anna of all the Russias The Life of Anna Akhmatova by Elaine Feinstein

Anthologies
St Petersburg A Traveller’s Companion by Laurence Kelly
City Pick St Petersburg edited by Heather Reyes
Literary St Petersburg by Elaine Blair

Novels set in St Petersburg
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Siege by Helen Dunmore
The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore
The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov