Quotation from the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle: "Cities should be built in such a way that its residents can live safely and happily". Peter I was obviously guided by a different principle, when he built Russia's northern capital on marshland. Still, St. Petersburg has now been here for almost 300 years, amazing the world with its unique masterpieces.

Natalya Smolina

WE ARE BUILDING... BY DESTROYING?

The 1930s - the period of excesses by those in power which held the population in terror - was also a fateful time for many of St. Petersburg's cathedrals and churches. The Church of the Assumption (at 7a Rastanny Proezd) had the misfortune to be destroyed; it was built between 1910 and 1912, consecrated in 1918, but demolished in the 1930s. Kazan Church, built in memory of the war of 1812, which once stood on Voronezhsky Street, was also destroyed at that time. The Church of SS Peter and Paul (at 120 Prospekt Obukhovskoy Oborony) was remarkable for being designed by A. Zakharov, the architect of the Admiralty; it was completed in 1826, but had ceased to exist a hundred or so years later, despite having the status of a "state-preserved" building. Not all churches were destroyed, however; some have survived to this day, albeit with a much altered appearance. At 24 Kamskaya Street is The Church of the Resurrection, where the Russian poet Alexander Blok's funeral service was held on 10 August 1921. The great Russian scholar and publicist M. Stasyulevich is buried in the church's crypt; as the founder of the magazine "The European Herald" he used to hold banquets once a week, which were attended by the magazine's staff - the Russian authors Turgenev, Goncharov, Saltykov-Shchedrin and Aleksey Tolstoy. The press where "The European Herald" was printed was at 28 5th Line on Vasilevsky Island, a building now occupied by a technical college for publishing and printing. The Church of the Veil (at 50 Borovaya Street) also still exists, but it is not easy to recognise today - it was built in the traditional Russian style in 1889-93, but no longer has its bell-tower, cupolas or any decoration. It is now just a building....Having delved into the past and looked at the present, it would be illogical not to say something about the future - what awaits the silent witnesses of man's building activities? There is a project to rebuild Perinny Row, which runs parallel with the western side of "Gostiny Dvor". We are accustomed to seeing Perinnaya and Dumskaya Streets in their present layout, but in 1797-8 a structure of a storey and a half, designed by Quarenghi, was built there; it was financed by merchants who rented stalls in Gostiny Dvor and consisted of market rows with open arcades. In 1802-6 a pavilion with a Doric portico, designed by L. Ruska, was added to the end of the building. In the 1930s the building was reconstructed, then demolished thirty years later to make way for the Metro. The Portico was rebuilt in 1972, but the market row still waits to learn its fate...

HOUSES CHANGE THEIR APPEARANCE

In the first half of the 18th century, many houses were built to "model" designs, one of them conceived by architect M. Zemtsov: they consisted of one-storey residential houses "on cellars" (a semi-basement or lower ground floor) and were arranged in terraces with nine windows along the front. You can actually still see one of these buildings right in the city centre, at 31 Bolshaya Morskaya Street; if you ignore the two upper floors and the buildings to either side, there before you is a little 250 year-old house. Its owners were not ordinary people, either - Prince V. Dolgoruky settled here with his young wife Yekaterina immediately after their wedding: she was the daughter of Prince F. Baryatinsky and one of the outstanding beauties at the court of Catherine II. In 1801 the house was bought by A. Naryshkin, director of the Imperial Theatres, whose devil-may-care attitude and innate extravagant hospitality drove him into debt. So in 1820 the house passed to Prince A. Lobanov-Rostovsky, husband of Princess S. Lopukhina; their son Nikolay sold it to an Englishman in 1882, but in 1902 The Imperial Navy Club bought it for its own use for a sum of 730,000 roubles.

THE DEMOUTTE HOTEL IN PUSHKIN'S TIME

The house at 40 Moika Embankment is associated with prominent statesmen, the Decembrists and Alexander Pushkin; there was a hotel there, founded in the 1760s by a French wine-merchant, F-Y. Demoutte. There was no shortage of guests - a room was provided for anyone who wanted one, depending on his means; the proprietor prospered on account of rich merchants, travellers and foreign envoys. Concerts were sometimes given in Demoutte's inn, and musical instruments made by the leading masters - Amati, Stradivarius, Steiner - could be bought there. In 1796 a new three-storey hotel was built for Demoutte on 27 Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street: its facade had the severe look characteristic of residential buildings of the classicist period. The rooms cost between 25 and 40 roubles a month. The hotel continued to bear its founder's name for many decades after his death in 1802. ..Perhaps now that we have at last turned back to God, we have begun to rebuild what we have done away with? A great deal, unfortunately, is now irretrievable: this is what we decided to do for our future generations - remove what was not pleasing, unnecessary and superfluous... these were masterpieces, part of our history and our memories. However, as we see, what goes around comes around: we are now attempting to find what we have lost, obeying the inexplicable call of our hearts...