'By the Banks of the Neva' Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Note on Russian dates
- Introduction
- 1 The colony by the banks of the Neva
- 2 Factory matters and ‘the honourable of the Earth’
- 3 ‘In Anglorum templo’: the English Church and its chaplains
- 4 ‘Doctors are scarce and generally Scotch’
- 5 ‘Sur le pied anglais’: shipbuilders and officers in the Russian navy
- 6 ‘Necessary foreigners’: specialists and craftsmen in Russian service
- 7 Masters of the Arts
- 8 ‘Out of curiosity’: tourists and visitors
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Index
1 - The colony by the banks of the Neva
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Note on Russian dates
- Introduction
- 1 The colony by the banks of the Neva
- 2 Factory matters and ‘the honourable of the Earth’
- 3 ‘In Anglorum templo’: the English Church and its chaplains
- 4 ‘Doctors are scarce and generally Scotch’
- 5 ‘Sur le pied anglais’: shipbuilders and officers in the Russian navy
- 6 ‘Necessary foreigners’: specialists and craftsmen in Russian service
- 7 Masters of the Arts
- 8 ‘Out of curiosity’: tourists and visitors
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Index
Summary
The views upon the banks of the Neva exhibit the most grand and lively scenes I ever beheld. The river is in many places as broad as the Thames at London: it is also deep, rapid, and as transparent as chrystal; and its banks are lined on each side with a continued range of handsome buildings. On the north side the fortress, the Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Arts, are the most striking objects; on the opposite side are the Imperial palace, the Admiralty, the mansions of many Russian nobles, and the English line, so called because the whole row is principally occupied by the English merchants. In the front of these buildings, on the south side, is the Quay, which stretches for three miles, except where it is interrupted by the Admiralty; and the Neva, during the whole of that space, has been lately embanked by a wall, parapet, and pavement of hewn granite; a magnificent and durable monument of imperial munificence.
Such were the impressions of the Rev. William Coxe on his first visit to St Petersburg in 1779. A visitor to the city some 200 years later would immediately recognise the scene and locate the buildings described; but if he was unfamiliar with the city's history, he would undoubtedly be puzzled by the reference to the ‘English line’. However, for a century and a half up to the October Revolution, the English Line or Embankment was almost as famous as the Nevskii Prospekt and seemingly a permanent reminder of the link between the British and Peter's city.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- 'By the Banks of the Neva'Chapters from the Lives and Careers of the British in Eighteenth-Century Russia, pp. 9 - 43Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996