This is a book on the history of St. Petersburg at one of the most important stages of its development - during the time of Catherine II. The Empress loved her capital immensely. That unforgettable appearance of the city that we know and love began to take shape precisely during her reign: granite embankments, bastions of the Peter and Paul Fortress, the Bronze Horseman, the lattice of the Summer Garden, buildings in the style of classicism, which came here precisely thanks to Catherine, who valued grace and rigor , the airiness of these white and yellow buildings. After all, they fit so perfectly into the vast urban space of this, as Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote, “the most deliberate city”... The American professor from Richmond George Munro, who fell in love with St. Petersburg at first sight and devoted years to studying it, reveals in this book what was not visible behind the magnificent facades of the palaces. He studies that everyday life, everyday life, without which the life of a city cannot be complete. The author writes in detail, with attention and interest, about how the capital was transformed, how it was supplied, how its administration, trade, industry were organized, what its inhabitants did 250 years ago.