to be designed by an Italian, under thesupervision of a Dutchman, continued by a German and so on until itscompletion. Each of these workers contributed their own racial and nationalcharacteristics to each of their roles in building the city. Peter wanted his capitaland window to be laid out and built along the lines of a great Occidentalcapital. The Russians saw this development of a Western capital in their Russiaas an abandonment of their past and as an invasion of the West; consequently,St. Petersburg was not accepted and feared by the rest of Russia. [St.Petersburg] had to be as different as possible from the old metropolis whichsymbolized Old Mother Russia, and which the plebeian classes still consideredtheir capital.(Voyce 12) The capital of Russia commonly was seen as overly Western and couldnot effectively and accurately represent Russia as a nation. Not only were somany Russian lives were taken by the city in its construction. But the graves thatlay underneath the pillars supporting the city were remembered and martyred, somuch so that some Russians believed that the city was built upon the destructionof Russia and its people. Peters vision of his Western city was at the expense ofmany of the Russian citizens involved in the physical dangers of building thecity, and the dangers of living in the city. Annually the city of St. Petersburgcommonly succumbed to floods of the river Neva. The Slavophile view of the citywas that of an accursed monument to the impending destruction of Russianculture.(Leiter 34) The inhabitants of the capital were often victimized by thisnatural disaster, contributing more to the mythology of Petersburg as anunnatural and evil city. This was also how Pushkin, the author of The BronzeHorseman, a work seen as the greatest poem in Russian History,(Lavrin 114)felt about the dark-hued, unreal city.(Leiter Preface) Pushkins main character, Evgeny, represents the beguiled and exploitedoccupants of St. Petersb...
