Officially, the year of foundation of St. Petersburg is 1703 (May 23). In some historical sources, the date is May 16, and this is not a mistake, but simply a date according to the old calendar. Until 1914, the city was called St. Petersburg, after which it was called Petrograd and Leningrad. Petersburg returned its historical name only on the sixth of September 1991.
The foundation of St. Petersburg was marked by the construction of a fortress in 1703 by Peter the Great, which was called St. Peter Burkh.
It was laid on the Ingermanland land, which was recaptured from the Swedes.
The author of the fortress project is Tsar Peter the Great himself.
The northern capital became known by the name of the fortress that Peter the Great gave it in honor of the Apostle Peter.
After they built a wooden house for Peter, whose walls were painted under a brick.
On the modern Petrograd side, the city began to grow in a short time. After a couple of months, the first church was built, which was called Trinity.
The founding date of St. Petersburg, or rather the laying of the fortress, coincided with the feast of the Holy Trinity, which is why the first church received its name. Trinity Square, where the cathedral stood, was the first marina to which ships moored. It was here that the first inn and a guest yard were built.
In addition, there were military units, a craft settlement, as well as office buildings. The new island and the Hare, on which the fortress was located, were connected using a drawbridge. After a short period, the opposite coast of the Neva and Vasilievsky Island began to be built up.
The foundation of St. Petersburg for Tsar Peter the Great became something similar to Amsterdam, to which he treated somehow in a special way. The city was originally named in the Dutch manner - St. Peter Burch. Two decades later, he received the current official name. It is worth noting that already in 1712 the tsar’s court moved to Petersburg from Moscow, followed by other official institutions. After that, the entire Russian Empire was transferred to St. Petersburg, which for almost two centuries was its capital. That is why even today it is called the northern capital of Russia.
The foundation of St. Petersburg, which is associated with the construction of the Peter and Paul Fortress, was of particular importance. The first buildings of the city served as the overlap of the delta branches of two rivers - Bolshaya Nevka and Neva. Already in 1704, the fortress of Kronstadt was erected on the island of Kotlin . Its goal was to protect Russian maritime borders. It is worth noting that both fortresses played a rather large role both in the history of St. Petersburg and in the history of the Russian Empire as a whole.
The foundation of St. Petersburg was of great importance. Peter the Great, establishing a city on the Neva, pursued very important strategic goals. First of all, providing a waterway from the Russian Empire to Western Europe. In addition, the commercial port, which was located on the opposite side of the Peter and Paul Fortress, on Vasilievsky Island, played an important role.