Patriarch Kirill Says Peter The Great Built St. Petersburg Not As Window On Europe But As Bastion Against Pernicious Influence Of The West – OpEd

For more than two centuries, Russians have taken it as a fundamental truth that Peter the Great built his capital in St. Petersburg as a window on Europe to integrate Russia into Europe. But now, in yet another rewriting of Russian history in the Putin era, Patriarch Kirill has offered an alternative explanation.

The Russian...