David Dessler is a longstanding international relations researcher and professor, who held faculty responsibilities at the College of William and Mary for many years. Among David Dessler’s activities on behalf of the Virginia institution was traveling to Russia in 2001 and coordinating a study-abroad program. A highlight of the trip was a visit to St. Petersburg, a city that had been a trading and industrial hub for centuries and is defined by its location on the Neva River.
When it was created in 1703, the site was viewed as an inhospitable location for a metropolis. Its islands and marshes, which feed the Gulf of Finland, were thick with mosquitoes and susceptible to flooding, and the winters were fiercely cold. The new capital was initially constructed on piles under the order of Tsar Peter the Great, with so many forced laborers perishing in the process that it was known as a city "founded on skeletons.”
The reason for its creation was that the land was strategic in providing Russia with a northern port, and the land had recently been won from Sweden. Its foundation also had a religious element, with Peter the Great marking a crucifix at the spot where he wanted a church erected in honor of Sts. Peter and Paul. This original wooden cathedral was the one in which Peter the Great was buried when he died, as well as members of the succeeding Romanov dynasty. At the center of the nascent city was a shipyard that housed Admiralty buildings and pointed in a direction of naval- and trading-focused growth.
