Page 92 - A History of the World in 25 Cities

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Saint Petersburg was founded in 1703 by the Russian tsar, Peter the
Great. He wanted Russia to become a great trading nation. He knew that to become a true international power, Russia needed a seaport that faced Europe. So, he created the new city of Saint Petersburg on barren marshland, using ‘serfs’ from the local countryside. They were forced to drain the swamps and drive building piles into the ground. Many lost their lives in terrible conditions.
The summer in Saint Petersburg is famous for its ‘White Nights’. The city’s northern location means that the sun doesn’t set between the months of May and July, so it never gets completely dark. In the dead of night, the sun sits low in the sky, giving the city streets a pearly white glow.
In 1917, the Russian Empire was huge, covering one- sixth of the land surface of the entire planet. (Only two other empires have ever been bigger – the Mongol and the British.) It stretched from the western border with
Germany all the way to the Pacific Ocean in the east, 8,000 kilometres away! Its population was around 164
million, of which 80 per cent were peasants, people who farmed land for the wealthy landowners.
If you were a worker or a peasant in Russia in 1917, then life was hard indeed. Poor people lived in
terrible conditions in both the countryside and cities.
In the countryside, peasants were often treated no better than
the animals. In cities like Saint Petersburg, it was not uncommon for up
to 15 workers to share one smelly, damp apartment. Rooms would smell very bad because of the mixture of dirt, rubbish and sewage from the outside streets.
Workers were terribly paid, never earning enough money to escape poverty. Saint Petersburg had many soup kitchens that helped the poor survive.
Life in
In NuMbers
54O
OOO
Number of serfs who built the city over the first 18 years:
Hours a serf worked each week: