St Petersburg's structures lay over the skeletons of the press-ganged servant workers who worked to build it, making it the label "the city built on bones." Historians approximate that 100,000 18th-century slaves are buried underneath the city's stunning Italianate estates and large Parisian-style streets.
They passed away of cold, appetite, illness, or, if they were truly unfortunate, wolves. They were drawn from all around the Russian Empire at the time. They dedicated their lives for the magnificence of Imperial Russia, and the city they built, St Petersburg, stands as a testimony to the Russian state's single-mindedness.
Its extravagant palaces radiate European elegance and were actively built in a Western way to bring Russia closer to Europe.
Still, more than 3 centuries later, Russia has yet to finish this journey, and St Petersburg is a witness to the trouble of the journey.
Let's take a look at what else makes Saint Petersburg such a unique place.