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€62 COXE’S TRAVELS IN RUSSIA.
Dutch towns, canals were to be cut through the principal ftreets, and lined with ave-
nues of trees; but it has never been carried into execution ; and under the Empreis
Anne, the imperial refidence was removed to the Admiralty quarter... The nobility
foon followed the example of the fovereign; and, excepting fome public edifices, and
the row of houfes fronting the Neva, the Vaflili-Oftrof is the worlt part of the city, and
contains more wooden buildings than all the other quarters.
Succeeding fovereigns have continued to embellifh Peterfburgh, but none more than
the prefent Emprefs, who may be called its fecond founder. Notwithitanding, how-
ever, all thefe improvements, it bears every mark of an infant city, and is ftill only
an immenfe outline, which will require future Empreffes and almoft future ages to
complete*.”? The ftreets in general are broad ¢ and fpacious; and three of the prin.
cipal {treets, which meet at the Admiralty, and reach to the extremities of the fuburbs,
are at leaft two miles in length. Moft of them are paved; but a few are {till fuffered
to remain floored with planks. In feveral parts of the metropolis, particularly in the.
Vafiili-Oftrof, wooden houfes and habitations, fcarcely fuperior to commen cottages,
are blended with the public buildings; but this motley mixture is far lefs common than
at Mofcow.
The brick houfes are ornamented with a white ftucco, which has led feveral travellers
to aflert that they are built with ftone; whereas, unlefs I am miitaken, there are only
two {tone ftructures in all Peterfburgh; the one the church of St. Ifaac, of hewn gra-
nite, and marble columns, not yet finifhed ; the other the marble palace, conftructed at
the expence of the Emprefs, on the banks of the Neva. Her Imperial Majefty gave this
fuperb edifice to Prince Orlof; and, at his death, purchafed it from his executor for
2,000,000 of roubles. ‘The ftyle of architecture is magnificent but heavy; the front
is compofed of polifhed granite and marble, and finifhed with fuch nicety, and in a ftyle-
fo fuperior to the contiguous buildings, that it feems to have been tranfported to the
prefent fpot, like a palace in the Arabian tales, raifed by the enchantment of Aladdin’s
lamp{. It contains forty rooms upon each floor, and is fitted up ina ftyle of fuch
{plendour, that the expence of the furniture amounted to 1,500,000 roubles.
The manfions of the nobility are vaft piles of building, but not in general upon fo
magnificent a fcale as feveral 1 obferved at Mofcow: they are furnifhed with great coft,
and as elegantly as thofe at Paris or London. They are fituated chiefly on the fouth fide
of the Neva, either in the Admiralty quarter, or in the fuburbs of Livonia and Mofcow,
which are the fineft parts of the city.
The views upon the banks of the Neva exhibit the moft grand and lively fcenes I ever
. beheld. That river is in many places as broad as the Thames at London; it is alfo
deep, rapid, and as tranfparent as cryftal; and the banks are lined with handfome
buildings. On the north fide, the fortrels, the Academy of Sciences, and Academy
of Arts, are the moft flriking objects: on the oppofite fide are the imperial palace, the
Admiralty, the manfions of many Ruffian nobles, and the Englifh line, fo called, becaufe
the whole row is principally occupied by the Englifh merchants. In the front of thefe
buildings, on the fouth fide, is the Quay, which {tretches for three miles, except where
it isinterrupted by the Admiralty ; and the Neva, during the whole of that fpace, has
been lately embanked by a wall, parapet, and pavement of hewn granite ; a magnifi-
cent and durable monument of imperial munificence. ‘The canals of Catherine, and of
* Wraxall’s Tour, p. 231.7
+ They are moftly as broad.as Oxford-ftreet : thofe with canals much broader.
+ In this palace Staniflaus, the abdicatediking of Poland, died.
the
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