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Sunday, 22.07.2007
700 years of St. Petersburg - Landskrona, Nevskoye Ustye, Nienshanz
This luxury class museum housed in a gleaming new business centre is dedicated to the local history of the city's founding in 1703, at a time when the Neva estuary was inhabited by a mix of Finnish and Slavic groups and even German settlers, and was under Swedish rule.
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The aim of the exhibition is to put an end to the widespread belief that Peter the Great founded his city on virgin territory.
What caused a business centre to open a museum? Perhaps tax rebates for cultural activities prompted the idea...
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But to return to our topic: Nienschanz and Landskrona were Swedish fortresses erected by IKEA country to protect its conquests on the Baltic Sea. The Russians had already, before Peter, undertaken a number of attempts to expel the Swedes and recapture the Neva region.
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Krasnogardeyskaya Pl. 2
nearest Metro: Nowotscherkasskaja
Opened from 11am-4pm Uhr, closed Thursdays
Admission: free of charge
Telephone 320 05 18
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The result was that there were continual skirmishes along the Finnish border and by the Baltic. In the shadow of the Swedish fortress walls, markets and towns appeared, and it is these that the museum focuses on. Old maps and charts from Swedish marine archives show the visitor how extensive these settlements were.
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To get some perspective, visitors can examine photos of these same locations as they appear today. Most of these settlements were within today's city boundaries.
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And where today the museum stands, stood the Swedish fortress of Nienschanz, until it was captured and destroyed by Peter the Great in 1703. Its fall cleared the way for the founding of the new Russian capital.
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(ug/.rufo)
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