St.Petersburg in pocket. Photoalbum (A5). The series “Welcome”. — St.Petersburg.: Publishing Company “Welcome”, 2007. ISBN 5-93024-052-8 Содержание / Contents.

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Contents:

Saint Petersburg was conceived by Peter 1 as exemplary city with right and geometrically adjusted proportions, as a standard of town-planning. High art of architects, who lived and worked in Saint Petersburg, inspired the schemes of Peter's drawings. Their creative power realized in stone and made the city lively and warm. Petersburg became not only one of the most beautiful cities in the world, but may be the most lyrical one. The city gave birth and attracted talents, over 1600 memorial plaques are justly installed in the city. Saint Petersburg is the city on water, it covers over 10 % the territory. Length of the main waterway of the city — the Neva river — is 32 km within the city. There are 10 lakes, 66 rivers and 38 canals within administrative boundaries of Saint Petersburg. They divided the city into 42 islands connected with 620 bridges, 22 of them are drawbridges. Bridges is one of the symbols of the city on the Neva river. Magic “white” nights became the other romantic symbol of Saint Petersburg. At this exciting period on the main embankments of the city at night it is as lively as in the daytime. The period of white nights lasts from 25 May till 16 July. The night from 21 to 22 July is the shortest one during a year. It is proceeded by day, when sun shines nearly 19 hours…White night. Light. Only hardly seen light haze in the air witnesses about time of the day. The smooth surface of the Neva, as it were of glass, quietly floating transit ships on the Neva, palaces and mansions, reflecting in the water, bastions of Peter and Paul Fortress, the Spire of the Cathedral, patterned banisters of embankments… Separated apart wings of bridges look frozen in the air… This spectacular sight, even if you saw it many times, captivates by its unique charm. If in such white night you go up to the observation gallery of St. Isaac's Cathedral, you will see the city, made of certain straight lines, of unshakable grey granite, austere and majestic city, with its gilded spires, that powerfully ascended to heavens among flat lowland, so marshy and swampy some time…