St PetersburgThe First Three Centuries
Arthur George;Elena George
The city founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and variously known as Sankt Peterburg, Petrograd and Leningrad has been home to some of Russia's greatest cultural figures, including Pushkin, Tchaikovsky and Nijinsky. Well known too for its physical appearance, with baroque palaces, bridges and promenades, the city nonetheless suffered depredations in the 1905 Revolution and the Nazi siege. Arthur George, who lived in St Petersburg for several years, charts the high and low points of this most European of Russian cities. Off-mint.