St. Petersburg: Madness, Murder, and Art on the Banks of the Neva

Miles (The Nine Lives of Otto Katz) writes a fascinating and rich history of the founding of St. Petersburg/Leningrad, beginning with 26-year-old Tsar Peter (Peter the Great) visiting the great cities of Europe, disguised as a workman, ready to learn shipbuilding and navigation from the "ground up." What Peter sees and learns in London, Amsterdam, and other places, he brings back to a Russia tied to tradition. It is the boundless drive and energy that Miles describes so well, that allowed Peter to see his vision come to life in St. Petersburg. Along with this vision came much death and destruction in the building of the city. Throughout the book, Miles undertakes to explore the Western art and architecture that influenced future leaders, especially the Romanovs. Some Russians in the mid-19th century were seeking democratic change; not seeing it in their own country. Miles effectively describes the beginnings of revolutionary transformation in St. Petersburg and the county as a whole with the coming of the 1917 Revolution.