Petersburg Paradise in the Swamp: Myths About a Dramatic Wonder of the World

Tsar Peter the Great grabbed Russia by the scruff of the neck and dragged the struggling Europe into it. He literally forced his subjects to contribute stones to the
building a European capital, Saint Petersburg. First there were the canal patterns of Amsterdam. Russia, the second Rome, deserved more grandeur. Unparalleled (diaeresis on second e) palaces, churches and boulevards broke through the small-scale Amsterdam pattern.
The resistance to this European tumor on Russian soil continued underground. Death and myths haunt the city. Literature, poetry (diaeresis on e), music and theatre fill the streets.
That the city still exists is a wonder of the world. Saint Petersburg has often been buried in literature. 'Living in Petersburg is like sleeping in a coffin,' the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam already knew. And myself? I am not a resident of Petersburg, not even a visitor, but an eternal tourist.