THE ART & ARCHITECTURE OF ST PETERSBURG at ARTS SOCIETY KENNET & SWINDON

The Annual General Meeting of the Society will take place

promptly at10.30 on

Monday, 18 March at the Ellendune Centre, Wroughton.  

Coffee will be served from 10.00. 

This will be followed at 11.00  by the monthly lecture:

The lecture:  The Art and Architecture of St. Petersburg

This is one of the most remarkable of the world’s great cities. 

Founded over 300 years ago on bleak marshland, it is a testimony to

Peter’s the Great’s attemptto raise Russia to the level of

a leading European imperial and naval power

in the space of a generation.  

Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the city was enriched

with sumptuous palaces and churches.

This lecture will tell the story of this great city

from its creation to the twentieth century,

when – newly renamed Leningrad – the city witnessed both the

Communist Revolution and the bitter Nazi Siege.

Since 1991 the city has been renamed St. Petersburg and many

of its iconic buildings carefully restored to their former glory. 

The lecturer: Andrew Spira is a freelance lecturer with a long interest

in Russian art and history.

He was a curator at the V and A.  

He regularly leads tours to Russia, the Caucasus Republics,

Turkey and Crete – all part of the Orthodox world.