When Alexander II
was crowned as Russian Emperor, the country was
trying to cope with a humiliating defeat in the
Crimean War. Something had to be done to boost
the national economy and ensure political
stability. A series of reforms was undertaken
under the supervision of Alexander II. The
Russian serfs were freed in 1861, although
peasants had to pay for their land. Then followed
a military reform, a legal reform (a trial by
jury was introduced) and the city administration
reform, which allowed St Petersburg a higher
degree of self-government.
Despite the scale of the reforms
some revolutionaries considered Alexander to be
too conservative. After a series of assassination
attempts, on March 1, 1881 Alexander II
was fatally wounded and died the same day. The
marvelous Church of Our Savior on the
Spilled Blood (1883-1907) was built on the spot
where Alexander II was assassinated. Some of the
reforms (and the constitution which was ready to
be signed) were repealed or curtailed by his
enraged son Alexander III and a period of
repressions and conservatism followed.
Meanwhile,
St. Petersburg was becoming a capitalist city. The
number of factories and plants (both Russian and
foreign) grew quickly, while Nevsky Prospect and downtown streets were
filled with banks and company offices. By the
1890s construction was booming and new
multi-storey apartment buildings were mushrooming
all over the city. During this period the famous Mariinsky theater (for a time called the
Kirov theater ) was built along with a number of
palaces for Grand Dukes, the Liteiny
bridge (where the first street lights in the city
were installed ) and monuments to Catherine the
Great, Nicholas I and the poet Alexander Pushkin.
Next: "Silver
Age" city (turn-of-the-century St. Petersburg)
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