Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1800
St Petersburg has grown exponentially in its first century, and its population reaches 220,000. By
this time, the city has gained all the glory of a cosmopolitan capital.
1801
Tsar Paul is murdered in his bedroom in the fortress-like Mikhailovsky Castle. The coup places his
son Alexander on the throne. He vows to continue the reformist policies of his grandmother.
1812-14
Alexander I oversees victory in the Napoleonic Wars and troops occupy Paris. Monuments are
strewn about St Petersburg, including the Alexander Column and Narva Gates.
1824
The city experiences its worst flood when water levels rise more than 4m. At least 500 people are
killed, thousands are injured and more than 300 buildings are destroyed.
1825
Alexander I dies. Reformers assemble on Senate Sq to protest the succession of conservative Nich-
olas I. The new tsar brutally crushes the Decembrist revolt, killing hundreds.
1836
Construction of Russia's first railway line, from St Petersburg to Tsarskoe Selo, the imperial family's
summer residence, begins. Initially trains are horse-drawn.
1837
Poet Alexander Pushkin is shot in a duel with the Frenchman d'Anthès and later dies at his Moyka
River house in St Petersburg, an unfathomable loss to Russian literature, still mourned today.
1849
Author Fyodor Dostoevsky is exiled to Siberia for four years of hard labour after participating in dis-
cussions with a liberal intellectual group, the Petrashevsky Circle.
