Map of St. Petersburg 70 years before it was founded by Peter I

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Compiled between 1635 and 1645. In fact, the city was founded back in 1611 by the Swedes and was the city of Nyen (i.e., Neva; variant of the name - Nyenstadt) with the Nyenskans fortress on the right bank of the Neva, in the Okhta region, and a whole conglomerate of settlements spread around. In the second half of the 17th century. the population of Nyen has reached 2000 people.

There was a town hall, a hospital, two churches, a Swedish and a German, and across the Neva, on the site of the present Smolny monastery, there was also an Orthodox church.

There were many good sawmills in Nyen and reliable ships were built. Merchants from all over Northern Europe came to the city for the traditional three-week August fair. From Novgorod, Tikhvin, Ladoga, rye, oats, peas, pork, beef, lard, oil, salmon, tar, tar, hemp, flax and timber were brought here. Eastern fabrics, which were very popular in Europe, also came through Novgorod: silk, plush, damascus, as well as skins, leathers, furs and canvases. And metals were imported from Northern Europe: iron, copper, lead, mirrors, English and Dutch cloth, German woolen fabrics, velvet and hats.

The infrastructure of "Big Nyen" included 40 villages, both Izhora and Russian, and several Swedish estates. On Vasilievsky Island, along the banks of the Malaya Neva, the village of Khirvisari was located. It can be assumed that at the very beginning of the 18th century, before these territories came under the control of Peter I, the population of "Big Nyen" was at least 4000-5000 people, which was quite a lot in those days.

However, Russian historiography preferred to erase 92 years from the history of the city and presented the case in such a way that by the time the Russian troops appeared here, the mouth of the Neva was deserted “shores of desert waves” on which Peter stood, “the great thoughts of the greats”, and decided to establish a capital city of St. Petersburg.

In spite of the "desolation" of the Neva banks, the arrived Russian nobles settled in houses that previously belonged to the local Swedish nobility (for example, the estate of the Swedish major Erich Berndt von Konow became the Summer Garden); brick for the construction of the Peter and Paul Fortress was produced right there, in Nyen; food was supplied from the villages of "Greater Nyen".

From the books of S. V. Sementsov