"The City of Order" (1800-1855) 

Short rule of Paul I. Government reformation of Alexander I. City reformation. Decembrists rebellion and political changes. The culture of St. Petersburg. Science progress.

After Catherine the Great's death her son Paul I ascended the throne introducing some ultra-conservative policies. Catherine's governmental reforms were paused, St. Petersburg's local administration was reduced. The Orthodox Church was not pleased with his acceptance of catholic Maltic Cross order.

Knowing father's fate Paul was permanently afraid of being assassinated. To be protected Mikhailovsky (Engineer) palace was built for him, called the Mikhailovsky Castle. However, that did not help, and on March 12, 1801 Paul I was assassinated in his own bedroom. The coup was planned by his son Alexander, who had sworn to continue the policies of his grandmother, Catherine the Great in strengthening the Russian Empire.

After crowning Alexander I had introduced a series of reforms. In 1802 Alexander approved a system of ministries with ministers reporting directly to the monarch; in 1810 the State Council was formed. Bureaucracy flourished in the country. Soon St. Petersburg became a very bureaucratic, ordered city and its traditional regular street layout and heavy policing just contributed to such an image.
 
During the reign of Alexander I the Russian army has successfully stopped Napoleon's invasion in "National War of 1812" and entered Paris (1812-14). The captured French standards were put in the newly built Kazan Cathedral, where the Russian Army Commander, Field-Marshall Golenischev-Kutuzov, had been buried in 1813.

In the Russian Imperial capital a peak of architectural ensembles and perfectionist "classical" designs began. "The face of the city" was remodelled in 1806-23 - the Admiralty was rebuilt, the complex of the Stock Exchange and the Rostral Columns were built on the Spit of Vasilievsky Island, Arts Square with the Mikhailovsky Palace (1819-25) was designed by Carlo Rossi. In 1818 the construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral began and completed only 40 years later.

When Alexander I suddenly died (they say, he became a monk and went away to Siberia) in December 1825, a political crisis erupted. A group of young army officers dreaming of the Constitution started a revolt, hoping that Nicholas I, Alexander's younger brother, would agree to sign it for the country. They brought their soldiers to the Senate Square by the Bronze Horseman, but remained inactive. The uprising was cruelly crushed, the five organizers were executed and the rest exiled to Siberia.

Due to the Decembrist rebellion the new Emperor, Nicholas I, adopted the most conservative policies. The idael of the new Emperor - army and order - appeared almost everywhere. Bureaucracy and regulation penetrated to all spheres of life. State peasants were military dressed and made them military settlers, though they were not considered to be in serfdom. This military system was well-reflected in the Imperial capital, St. Petersburg. Even civil educational institutions looked like military schools.
      
Paradoxically, culture flourished under this repressive regime. Alexander Pushkin wrote some of his best poetry, before being killed in a duel in 1837. Mikhail Glinka, one of the first great Russian composers, wrote his best opera music. Feodor Dostoyevsky lived in St. Petersburg starting from 1837 and in 1844 started his career as a writer.

Despite its obvious economic backwardness, which resulted in a humiliating defeat in the Crimean War (1853-56), Russia was gradually moving down the way of technical progress. In 1837 the first Russian railroad was opened connecting St. Petersburg and Tsarskoje Selo and in 1851 the first train arrived from there in Moscow. In 1850 the first permanent bridge over Neva was opened.

The city became more magnificent. The ensemble of Palace Square was completed with the construction of the General Staff building (1819-29) and the Royal Guards Staff building (1837-43); Alexander's Column (1830-34) decorated the Square. It stands under its own mass. In 1839-44 the Mariinsky Palace (nowadays the City Hall) was built for Nicholas' beloved daughter Maria. St. Isaac's Cathedral, the main temple of the Russian Empire, was finally completed only in 1858, when Nicholas I had already died and his son Alexander II was on the throne.