“This is one of the first published maps of St. Petersburg. The hexagonal Peter-Paul fortress is depicted at the center; the similarly fortified Admiralty is across and downriver from it. Vasilevskii Island (left), only just being settled at the time, shows the plan for its “regular” development drawn up for Peter the Great by the Swiss-Italian Domenico Trezzini (ca. 1670–1734), the first architect of St. Petersburg.”
