Description
Crisscrossed by rivers and canals, this “Venice of the North,” as Goethe dubbed it, is of unique good looks. Never before has that good looks been captured as eloquently as at the pages of this sumptuous volume. From the stately mansions lining the fabled Nevsky Prospekt to the magnificent palaces of the tsars at the outskirts of town, including Peterhof, Tsarskoe Selo, Oranienbaum, Gatchina, and Pavlovsk, photographer Alexander Orloff’s portrait of St. Petersburg does full justice to the vision of its founder and namesake. The text, by art historian Dmitri Shvidkovsky, chronicles the history of town’s making plans and construction from Peter the Great’s time to the reign of the last tsar, Nicholas II. Somebody who has ever visited–or dreamed of visiting–town of “white nights” will in finding St. Petersburg impossible to resist.