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 converted into a museum of Russian art—the Russian museum; it is one of the handsomest buildings in the city.

In the development of the Russian drama St Petersburg has played a far less important part than Moscow, and the stage there has never reached the same standard of excellence as that of the older capital. On the other hand, St Petersburg is the cradle of Russian opera and Russian music. There are in the city only four theatres of importance—all imperial—two for the opera and ballet, one for the native drama, and one for the French and German drama.

Industries and Trade.—St Petersburg is much less of a manufacturing city than Moscow or Berlin. The period 1880 to 1890 was very critical in the history of the northern capital. With the development of the railway system the southern and south-western provinces of Russia began to prosper more rapidly than the upper Volga provinces; St Petersburg began to lose its relative importance in favour of the Baltic ports of Riga and Libau, and its rapid growth since the Crimean War seemed in danger of being arrested. The danger, however, passed away, and in the last decade of the 19th century the city continued its advance with renewed vigour. A great influx of functionaries of all sorts, consequent upon the state taking into its hands the administration of the railways, spirits, &c., resulted in the rapid growth of the population, while the introduction of a cheap railway tariff, and the subsidizing and encouraging in other ways of the great industries, attracted to St Petersburg a considerable number of workers, and favoured the growth of its larger industrial establishments. St Petersburg is now one of the foremost industrial provinces in Russia, its yearly returns placing it immediately after Moscow and before Piotrków, in Poland. The chief factories are cottons and other textiles, metal and machinery works, tobacco, paper, soap and candle factories, breweries, distilleries, sugar refineries, ship-building yards, printing works, potteries, carriage works, pastry and confectionery and chemicals. The export trade of St Petersburg is chiefly in grain (especially rye and oats), flour and bran, oil seeds, oil cakes, naphtha, eggs, flax and timber. It shows very great fluctuations, varying in accordance with the crops, the range being from £8,000,000 to £10,000,000. The exports are almost entirely to western Europe by sea (from £5,500,000 to £6,500,000), and to Finland (£1,500,000 to £3,000,000). The imports consist chiefly of coal, metals, building materials, herrings, coffee and tea, better-class timber, raw cotton, wood pulp and cellulose, and manufactured goods, and amount to about £14,000,000 annually.

Six railways meet at St Petersburg. Two run westwards along both shores of the Gulf of Finland to Hangöudd and to Port Baltic respectively; two short lines connect Oranienbaum, opposite Kronstadt and Tsarskoye Selo (with Pavlovsk) with the capital; and three great trunk lines run—south-west to Warsaw (with branches to Riga and Smolensk), south-east to Moscow (with branches to Novgorod and Rybinsk), and east to Vologda, Vyatka and Perm. The Neva is the principal channel for the trade of St Petersburg with the rest of Russia, by means of the Volga and its tributaries.

Administration.—The municipal affairs of the city are in the hands of a municipality, elected by three categories of electors, and is practically a department of the chief of the police. The city is under a separate governor-general, whose authority, like that of the chief of police, is unlimited.

Environs.—St Petersburg is surrounded by several fine residences, mostly imperial palaces with large and beautiful parks. Tsarskoye Selo, 15 m. to the south-east, and Peterhof, on the Gulf of Finland, are summer residences of the emperor. Pavlovsk, 17 m. S. of the city, has a fine palace and parks, where summer concerts attract thousands of people. There is another imperial palace at Gatchina, 29 m. S. Oranienbaum, 25 m. W. on the south shore of the Gulf of Finland, is a rather neglected place. Pulkovo, on a hill 9 m. S. from St Petersburg, is well known for its observatory; while several villages north of the capital, such as Pargolovo and Murino, are visited in summer by the less wealthy inhabitants.

History.—The region between Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland was inhabited in the 9th century by Finns and some Slavs. Novgorod and Pskov made efforts to secure and maintain dominion over this region, so important for their trade, and in the 13th and 14th centuries they built the forts of Koporya (in the present district of Peterhof), Yam (now Yamburg), and Oryeshek (now Schlüsselburg) at the point where the Neva issues from Lake Ladoga. They found, however, powerful opponents in the Swedes, who erected the fort of Landskrona at the junction of the Okhta and the Neva, and in the Livonians, who had their fortress at Narva. Novgorod and Moscow successively were able by continuous fighting to maintain their supremacy over the region south of the Neva throughout the 16th century; but early in the 17th century Moscow was compelled to cede it to Sweden, which erected a fortress on the Neva at the mouth of the Okhta. In 1700 Peter the Great began his wars with Sweden. Oryeshek was taken in 1702, and in the following year the Swedish fortress on the Neva. Two months later (29th June 1703) Peter laid the foundations of a cathedral to St Peter and St Paul, and of a fort which received his own name (in its Dutch transcription, “Piterburgh”). Next year the fort of Kronslott was erected on the island of Kotlin, as also the Admiralty on the Neva, opposite the fortress. The emperor took most severe and almost barbarous measures for increasing his newly founded city, which was built on marshy ground, the buildings resting on piles. Thousands of people from all parts of Russia were removed thither and died in erecting the fortress and building the houses. Under Elizabeth fresh compulsory measures raised the population to 150,000, and this figure was nearly doubled during the reign of Catherine II. (1762–1796). The chief embellishments of St Petersburg were effected during the reigns of Alexander I. (1801–1825) and Nicholas I. (1825–1855). From the earliest years of Russian history trade had taken this northern direction. Novgorod owed its wealth to this fact; and as far back as the 12th century the Russians had their forts on Lake Ladoga and the Neva. In the 14th and 15th centuries they exchanged their wares with the Danzig merchants at Nu or Nü—now Vasilyevskiy Island. By founding St Petersburg Peter the Great only restored the trade to its old channels. The system of canals for connecting the upper Volga and the Dnieper with the great lakes of the north completed the work; the commercial mouth of the Volga was thus transferred to the Gulf of Finland, and St Petersburg became the export harbour for more than half Russia. Foreigners hastened thither to take possession of the growing export trade, and to this the Russian capital is indebted for its cosmopolitan character. The development of the railway system and the colonization of southern Russia now operate, however, adversely to St Petersburg, while the rapid increase of population in the Black Sea region is tending to shift the Russian centre of gravity; new centres of commercial, industrial, and intellectual life are being developed at Odessa and Rostov. The revival of Little Russia is another influence operating in the same direction. Since the abolition of serfdom and in consequence of the impulse given to Russian thought by this reform, the provinces are coming more and more to dispute the right of St Petersburg to guide the political life of the country. It has been often said that St Petersburg is the head of Russia and Moscow its heart. The first part at least of this saying is true. In the development of thought and in naturalizing in Russia the results of west European culture and philosophy St Petersburg has played a prominent part. It has helped greatly to familiarize the public with the teachings of west European science and thinking, and to give to Russian literature its liberality of mind and freedom from the trammels of tradition. St Petersburg has no traditions, no history beyond that of the palace conspiracies, and there is nothing in its past to attract the writer or the thinker. But, as new centres of intellectual life and new currents of thought develop again at Moscow and Kiev, or arise anew at Odessa and in the eastern provinces, these places claim the right to their own share in the further development of intellectual life in Russia.

SAINT-PIERRE, CHARLES IRÉNÉE CASTEL, ( (1658–1743), French writer, was born at the château de Saint-Pierre-l'Église near Cherbourg on the 18th of February 1658. His father was bailli of the Cotentin, and Saint-Pierre was educated by the Jesuits. In Paris he frequented the salons of Madame de la Fayette and of the marquise de Lambert. He was presented to the abbacy of Tiron, and was elected to the Academy in 1695. In the same year he gained a footing at court as almoner to Madame. But in 1718, in consequence of the political offence given by his Discours sur la polysynodie, he was expelled from the Academy. He afterwards founded the club of the Entre sol, an independent society suppressed in 1731. He died in Paris on the 29th of April 1743.

Saint-Pierre's works are almost entirely occupied with an acute though generally visionary criticism of politics, law and social institutions. They had a great influence on Rousseau, who left elaborate examinations of some of them, and reproduced