Saint Petersburg is a wonderful city founded by Peter the Great in 1703. It all started from Peter and Paul Fortress. The city expanded and developed gradually, becoming the cultural, administrative, scientific and political centre of Russian Empire.

In fact, Saint Petersburg became the capital of Russian Empire in 1712. The history of the city started with glory and confession. The actual transfer of important institutions started already in 1710, but there was one problem. In fact, the city belonged to Sweden. Thereby, that was the only case in history, when the capital of one state was within the borders of another state.

In fact, where was no formal manifesto of moving the capital. However, in 1710 high ranked people and senators started to move to the city on the Neva river. A Persian embassy was established there in 1711. Ministers from Great Britain, France, Holland and Prussia came to Saint Petersburg a year later.

During the Peter’s time, the city developed a lot. Gostiny Dvor, Troitskaya Church, various governmental buildings, as well as military and craft entities were built at that time. The first industrial organization of the city — the Admiralty shipyard — was open already in 1705. Later Winter and Summer Palaces of Peter I were built close to Summer garden. In 1724 Monetny Dvor was also moved from Moscow to St Petersburg. Year later St Petersburg Academy of Science was founded.

Since Peter the Great was oriented towards Europe, the transfer of the capital from Moscow to St Petersburg was logical. Petersburg represented a new western world, while Moscow was considered as something old and eastern.

Despite a temporary reverse transfer of the capital in 1728 during the reign of Peter II, since 1732 up to 1918 Petersburg was officially made the capital once again. During its existence, St Petersburg changed several names, and even nowadays it is often called the Northern capital of Russia.