In the 10th
centure, in 1571, 1626 and 1671 , great fires destroyed whole quarters of
Mooscow. In March 1669 when Tsar Alexis was forty , his first wife, Tsaritsa
Maria Miloslavskaya died. On May 30, 1672,at one o clock in the morning a large
healthy boy was born. The baby Peter, four weeks old, was christened on june 29.
In the first decade of its existence, first saw Kotlin Island and decided to build a
fortress there to protect St. Petersburg from the sea. In 1703, Peter I had opened
Russia’s “window on the West”. St. Petersburg grew rapidly, there were 34,500
buildings in the city. By 1711, two additional seaports, Riga and Reval, along
with St. Petersburg, As a result by 1714 St. Peterburg became an important
commercial port.