Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
troubles. Unfortunately, the Russo-Japanese War ended in
humiliating defeat and the people were more agitated than
ever.
Winter Palace (Her-
mitage, Historic Heart)
By January 1905 the capital was a hotbed of political
protest. As many as 100,000 workers were on strike, the city
had no electricity and all public facilities were closed. Nich-
olas and the royals departed for their palace retreat at Tsar-
er Georgy Gapon, an Orthodox priest who apparently lived
a double life as holy man and police agent, organised a
peaceful demonstration of workers and their families to protest against the difficult
conditions. Their petition called for eight-hour work days and better wages, universal
suffrage and an end to the war.
Alexander Nevsky
Monastery (Smolny &
Vosstaniya)
Tsarskoe Selo
(Pushkin)
Singing 'God Save the Tsar', the crowd solemnly approached the Winter Palace,
hoping to present its requests to the tsar personally. Inside, the mood was jittery: pan-
icky guardsmen fired on the demonstrators, at first as a warning and then directly into
the crowd. More than 1000 people were killed by the gunshots or the trampling that
followed. Although Nicholas was not even in the palace at the time, the events of
Bloody Sunday shattered the myth of the Father Tsar. The Last Emperor was finally
able to restore order by issuing the October Manifesto, which promised a constitution-
al monarchy and civil rights; in fact, not much really changed.
At the start of WWI, nationalist fervour led St Petersburg to change its name to the
more Slavic, less German-sounding Petrograd. A hundred years earlier, war with
France had made the Russian Empire a great power, but now yet another European
war threatened its very survival. The empire was fraying at the seams as the old aris-
tocratic order limped onward into battle. Only the strength of the Bronze Horseman
could hold it all together. But Peter's legacy rested on the shoulders of an imperial in-
heritor who was both half-hearted reformer and irresolute reactionary: the combina-
tion proved revolutionary.
