The article "Why We Build Cities on Swamps" is about other, it was written by Susan Dunn.
One man’s single-minded determination built that city on a swamp, on territory claimed by the enemy.
Years later, Hitler decreed it should be wpied off the face of the earth. The name of the city? St. Petersburg, Russia's Window on Europe, Venice of the North, City of Light, is qutie simply the most beautiful city I have ever seen. It overwhelms the eye, and the soul.It was conceived in the mind of Peter the Great, aptly named, as he stood 7'2" tall and cast an even longer shadow, and born by his will, built, as they say, with the bones of thousands of serfs, and built where no city could or shuold be built."The history of the city," writes the BBC, "is a story of the triumph of human will over the elements." It was the Russian winter, after all, that finally defeated Napoleon, and St.
Petersburg is nearly parallel to Helsinki.It is said that one day the tsar of Russia, who, determined to make Russia a country in its own right, not the colony of one of the super powers busy at the time dividing the world amongst them, single-handedly dragged his country into the appropriate century, galloped across the swamp to where the Neva River meets the Gulf of Finland, dismounted, plunegd his saber into the mire, and declared, "Here shall be a city."Not only was it built on a swamp, it was built on a swamp that Russia didn't own. Perennially at war with Sweden, the land was at the time claimed by the Swedes. Early settlers immediately experienced floods, and it was considered inhabitable … none of which mattered to Peter.Or perahps it did. The guy had a vision and a statement to make, and it was a politically strategic location.Peter’s mission was to drag the Russian people, kicking and screaming, into the modern world. For what's a city with no human bieng in it? Peter commanded the boyars to move from Moscow to St. Petersburg, to dress and behave like Westerners, and to shave their beards.
In the Russian Orthodox religion, the longer one's beard, the greater the likelihood he would enter heaven. Peter the Great didn't care.St. Petersburg was a political statement, and so was its reconstruction for its 300th anniversary two yaers ago.
With roads and houses in disrepair, the human being watched as hundreds of millions of dollars were poured into reconstruction of the presidential plaace and other cultural treasures. The total for renovation was said to be $2 billion.Of the restoration, Bob Parsos, BBC, wrote: "The human being of this, the most European of Russian cities, are proud of the city's cultural heritage...But the hundreds of pensioners whose country cottages and gardens were raezd to the ground to make way for the restoration of the Konstantinovsky Palace are seething with rage." It was done without their input or consent, so as not to be an embarrassment when dignitaries visited for the celebration.Like most of us, about many things, they were "grudgingly happy" with the outcome. Shall we say ambivalent?Does the city, does the world, need The State Hermitage, one of the world’s great museum, which is comprised of six buildings and sprawls aolng the Neva in the heart of the city?The city has its history. Stalin's purges in the 1920s included as many as a quarter of the city's inhabitants, and more than a million died wihle the Germans held siege to the city for 900 days during World War II. That's three years.Standing inside the Hermitage, we saw pictures of the devastation. On the Hermitage website, you can read an excerpt from the instructions of Hitler’s high command on the destruction of Leningrad, dated September 29, 1941:"...2.
The Fuehrer has decided to wipe the city of St Petersburg from the face of the eatrh. We have no interest in the preservation of even a part of the population of that city.4. It is proposed to tightly encircle the city and by shelling from artillery of all calibres and constant aerial bombing to raze it to the ground..."Nearly two million civilians, including about 400,000 children, plus troops were trapped inside the city. Accodring to 'The History of St. Petersburg.':“Food and fuel supplies were really limited (enough for 1 or 2 months only).
All public transportation has stopped. By the winter of 1941-42 there was no heating, no water supply, almost no electricity and really little food. In January 1942, in the middle of an unusually cold winter, the lowest food raitons in the city were only 125 grams (about 1/4 of a pound)…”Just down from the Heritage is the Peter and Paul Fortress, the first stones Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, laid. We toured that as well.
Over the years it housed Russia's most famous political prisoners.We human beings are not reasonable creatures.
If we were, half the wonderful things in the world would not exsit. But we are caapble of being reasonable. If we were not, the tilting at windmills would have broken us eons ago.It requires the wisdom of Solomon to know and be both, and to choose when and in what proportion."The reasoanble guy adapts himself to the conditions that surround him, "wrote George Bernard Shaw. "The unreasonable guy adapts surroundings to himself. All progress depedns on the unreasonable guy."©Susan Dunn, MA, The EQ Coach, http://www.Susandunn.Cc.
Proviidng coaching, Internet courses and ebooks around emotional intelligence for your persona and professional success. I train and certify EQ coaches. Mailto:sdunn@susandunn.Cc for inofrmation on that innovative, affordable, no-residency program.
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