“On the shore of the desert waves He stood, full of great thoughts, And looked into the distance.” The great king dreamed of a great city. And he built it. City of Peter. There is no trace left of those whose sweat and blood St. Petersburg was built. But magnificent palaces, squares and canals remained. This novel is about how young St. Petersburg was born and lived. The new novel by the famous Leningrad writer V. Druzhinin tells about the founding and first builders of St. Petersburg. The heroes of the novel: Peter the Great, Menshikov, architects Domenico Trezzini, Mikhail Zemtsov and others.< /p>