SAINT-PETERSBURG FOUNDATION UNDER PETER I IN 1703-1724

Abstract

The relevance of the article is conditioned by the need to develop the program of St.-Petersburg agglomeration up to the year 2030, the largest in the North-West of Russia, which takes into account historical features of origins and formation of this agglomeration. The aim of the article is to study the initial stage of the formation of St.-Petersburg agglomeration (later Metropolitan) in the 1703–1720s. The methodology of studying this problem includes a comprehensive urban planning, functional and landscape analysis based on historical cartography and archival documents. It is shown that the regular type of St.-Petersburg agglomeration founded by Tsar Peter The Great is based on the pre-existing rural settlement system (combines native Russian territories and partially-conquered lands in 1702–1709) in the years 1703–1720. This process includes three stages of primary formation, with the territorial development of province and agglomeration with a significant advance in comparison with the center emergence and formation. At the same time, the future agglomeration center is the center of the province and the capital of Russia, the city of St.-Petersburg. It was formed with a chronological lag as compared to the development of subordinated territories in the future. In parallel with these processes within the unique rapid formation of St.-Petersburg, its structure began to form two sub-agglomerations. Thus, first were formed administrative territories, their nodes and tracks, and then their unifying center. This formation of the province and agglomeration, their center and spatial-functional sub-centers is non-standard for the world history of agglomerations. The results of this study can be useful for historians of urban planning as well as for modern specialists in the field of urban planning and urbanism.