Although St. Petersburg is still widely identified with its founder, Peter the Great, few Petrine structures actually remain in the city. During her long reign (1762-1796) Catherine the Great left a far greater impact on the city. According to George E. Munro, St. Petersburg was the model for Catherine's Charter to the Towns, issued on April 21, 1785, which brought about (at least in theory) a coherent system of administration for imperial Russia's towns for nearly a century, until Alexander II enacted the Municipal Reform of 1870. During Catherine's reign some fifty palaces, churches, and government buildings were constructed, while such monuments as the Kazan Cathedral and the public library stem from projects initiated by her.
Munro's book is less concerned with buildings or the imperial court than with governance and the daily life of its residents - what he called "the living, the breathing city that was unplanned and unexpected" (p. 19). In contrast to a long line of Russian historians, including Ivan Ditiatin, Aleksandr Kizevetter, and Paul Miliukov, who found Catherine's governance schemes ineffective, Munro argues that St. Petersburg's administration responded effectively when problems arose: hazardous and polluting industries were moved away from populated areas; free trade was favored but the export of grain was at times controlled or even forbidden to prevent famine and public disorder; numerous regulations were enacted to prevent fires (one example: shop licenses were given in perpetuity only to merchants who built out of brick); paving and street lighting were instituted to make the city safer; public education was adopted in principle; and hospitals and welfare agencies were established. The city's canals, designed to drain bogs, control flooding, and link the city by water transport to the sea and the interior, had become pestilential swamps choked with refuse and alluvial sand. During Catherine's reign, granite embankments were constructed for the canals and the Neva River, and in 1770 Catherine herself issued detailed instructions for the construction of the city's first sewage system. Catherine, in fact, often took an interest in mundane city matters; she required weekly reports on "unusual occurrences" and kept track of wholesale and retail prices for foodstuffs in the local markets. "If one takes responsiveness to stated needs as a better instrument for evaluating St. Petersburg's government," Munro concludes, "it must be admitted that administrative bodies responded surprisingly well in attempting to solve problems. Planning was realistic and took into consideration actual grievances by inhabitants" (pg. 147).
Poor soil and a very short growing season made reliance on regional foodstuffs impractical except for dairy products, berries, mushrooms, and some vegetables. How then was such a large city provisioned? (In a single year, the imperial court alone consumed many tons of meat and poultry and over a half million fish and eggs). Aside from fish, which could be purchased locally and cleaned and cooked on the spot or in sheds along boardwalks, much of St. Petersburg's food supply came by boat, barge, and raft from great distances. Delicacies such as pears, oysters, cured meats, cheese, and fine wines came from Europe. Cattle on the hoof came from Ukraine and the lower Volga valley. Perhaps 70,000-80,000 works came annually on the river and canal boats. "The entire Russian economy benefited from the effort to supply St. Petersburg" (pg. 151).
Typically, eighteenth-century shop owners in Europe and Russia lived upstairs from their street-level shops. This residential pattern, though permitted, did not take hold in St. Petersburg, in part because so much trade was concentrated in the great bazaars. St. Petersburg was unusual in that nearly all of its inhabitants were renters. By estimate, only three or four percent owned the homes in which they lived.
Munro's snapshot of St. Petersburg spans only a few decades, but they are important decades, for the city "surpassed Moscow in population, economic importance, and cultural awareness" (p. 285) during these years. Catherine desired to have a grand capital, but her greater goals were to subordinate social and economic activity to state regulation, facilitate effective administration, and raise revenue. Still, for all of the empress's interest in the city, she could not fully mandate its nature nor control its growth. Munro concludes, "On the surface St. Petersburg was a planned city, but the dynamics of its development far exceeded the capacity of planners to plan or the police to control or an empress to foresee" (p. 287).
Munro has been working on this study for many years, and his thoroughly researched and well-written monograph enhances our understanding of the values and objectives of Catherine the Great while providing exceptional detail for those interested in the history of imperial Russia's great capital.
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