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Neva swamp, where the most of them died of fever,
contagious diseases, or hunger. To compel the masons to
seek employment in this place only, he prohibited the
erection of stone houses in the whole empire, under a
penalty of confiscation of property and banishment to
Siberia, and also commanded every nobleman who owned
more than thirty peasant families to build a house in
this new capital, the situation and size of which were
exactly determined as the conditions of the individuals
brought them under one or another class of
householders. Perhaps in remembrance of what he owed to
Holland, he gave to the city, when it was built, his name in
its Dutch form, Piterburg.
It has developed into a city of luxury, where the
number of servants in proportion to the number of the
inhabitants exceeds that of any other city in Europe. In
1870 the number of families in Berlin which had three
domestics was two per cent of the whole number, in St.
Petersburg it was twelve per cent; and for that year the
percentage of families in Berlin having eleven domestics
was not given, but the number of such families in St.
Petersburg was one per cent.
Driving from the railway station into St. Petersburg,
you constantly expect to see the Neva before you—St.
Petersburg and the Neva being so closely connected in
our minds. But no! this is only a canal, and that only the
river Fontanka, which empties into the Neva. Finally,
the mighty stream lies before you, broad as an arm of
the sea, ice-bound and covered with snow, between the
tall quays and the islands, on one of which towers the
fortress of Petro-Pavlovsk, with its gilded spire
glistening in the sun. Then a world of reddish yellow
palaces is disclosed, which, like all the Russian
government buildings, awaken surprise by their wonderful
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