St Petersburg Construction

Few cities had a worse location than St. Petersburg in Russia. In 1703, Russian Tsar Peter I began building a great European city for himself, St. Petersburg. There were three main problems with this city. Firstly, he decided to construct his beautiful capital at the mouth of a river. The land around the site was under water most of the time and was either frozen or flooded. Over 100,000 construction workers died working in such difficult conditions. The second problem was the availability of construction workers. Few people lived in that area and the high death rate meant that Peter needed to bring in a constant supply of replacement workers from other parts of Russia. Using the military service system, he ordered 40,000 men each year to go and work on his capital. The men were expected to provide their own tools and food for the journey, often with soldiers watching over them, and they were chained together to prevent them from running away. Illness was everywhere and punishments went from whipping to death. The final problem was supplying the materials themselves. Whole forests were cleared to provide wood. Hills flattened and lakes filled in. Stone became so hard to find that Peter banned anyone else in Russia from using it. It was a truly impossible city to build and made him unpopular.