CITY LEGENDS

Legend of name

The city of Petersburg is named in honour of the Founder - Peter I the Great ...

According to the popular legend, on May, 16th, 1703 tsar Peter I, examining the Hare island (or Enisaari), cut out two layers of turf, has combined it crosswisely and has said: "Here to be to a city!"

Ostensibly there was on that place where there is a Peter and Paul Fortress at present. Then, trusting in the brilliant future of the town, Peter has appropriated to it own name. Beautifully, but, alas, a lie.

Actually the city has arisen less grandiosely, and, under the certificate of numerous researchers, Peter wasn't present at all at its foundation.

Moreover, the national belief that the city is named in honour of the tsar-worker, also has nothing in common with true.

Peter Alekseevich Romanov was born on June, 29th, 1672 in day of sacred Peter and Pavel.

To name a fortress in honour of the heavenly patron Peter I wanted long before the city basis. This fortress should become a navy key standing at the sea gate as to St. Peter it was assigned a part the gatekeeper the heavenly under Christian legends.

And in 1703 in the delta of Neva he has based a fortress in honour of Saint Peter. But in a memory of each Petersburg inhabitant remains that the city named in honour of greatest of autocrats of Russia for ever.

It is necessary to notice what more accurate to name a fortress not "Petropavlovka" as it does the majority of townsmen, but the St.-Petersburg Fortress.

In the first 200 years of the city existence in all imperial Decrees, in all documents it was always written: the St. Petersburg fortress, however in the XX century the city changed a name and a fortress also changed the name three times, so that it have started to name Peter and Paul. And then and at all - simply Petropavlovka.

Source: Sindalovski N.A. "Legends of St.Petersburg"