Fun with Maps ISSUE 2025-094

By Steve Kovacs (Introduction by Chuck Gibson)

LOVELAND, OH (May 27, 2025) – In today’s edition of Fun with Maps, we recognize the anniversary of the founding of St. Petersburg, Russia in 1703.      

Window to the West

How to turn a largely feudal, agriculture-based society into a modern state?

Russia’s Tsar Peter the Great started that process by being more open to the west and learning from them.  He founded a new city on the Lena River and the Baltic Sea, St. Petersburg, on May 27, 1703. 

It has easy to access shipping lanes to north and west Europe and thus became a window to the west.  This also marks the beginning of the Russian Empire.

St. Petersburg became the cultural capital of nation, and it largely remains so to this day.

The city was the capital of the Russian Empire up to the Bolshevik Revolution and then the political capital permanently moved to Moscow in 1917.

After Lenin died, the city was renamed to Leningrad in 1924, and then back to St. Petersburg in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

Here is an early map of St. Petersburg by Homann from 1730.

Steve Kovacs and his wife Theresa reside in Loveland, Ohio where they raised their two children. He is a passionate collector of antique maps.

Visit his antique map boutique world-on-paper online. Watch for his daily feature Steve Kovacs: Fun with Maps here on Loveland Beacon.