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St. Petersburg has always seemed like an impossible capital, rising from the frozen mists and flooded marshes of the Neva River on Russia's western edge. It is the emerging capital of an ancient country. Founded in 1703 by the sheer will of its charismatic founder, the murderous megalomaniac Peter the Great, St. Petersburg's dazzling but chaotic reputation was soon forged by the brutal rule of its earlier rulers. The city, with its series of different incarnations – St. Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningrad and back to St. Petersburg again – has been a place of constant contradictions. It was a window to Europe and Enlightenment thought, but much of Russia's glory was pioneered here: its literature, music, dance and, for a time, its political vision. It gave birth to artistic geniuses such as Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Pavlova and Nureyev. Yet despite the dazzling palaces, fairy-tale balls and enchanting gardens, the blood of thousands of people was spilled on the city's snow-covered streets. It was a hotbed of war and revolution, a place of siege and starvation, a crucible of brutal brutality by rulers hungry for power. In this book, Jonathan Myers reconstructs the three-hundred-year drama of this absurd yet brilliant city, which continues to this day when-once again-its fate hangs in the balance. This is an epic story of murder, massacre and madness played out in tragic and glorious circumstances. It is an unforgettable portrait of a city and its people.