"Why admire a structure that killed thousands of Ukrainian serfs during its construction."
LOL. And after that Ukrainian serfs discovered America, landed the first man on the moon, invented electricity, the television, found the cure for polio, and invented the internet.
""Why admire a structure that killed thousands of Ukrainian serfs during its construction." "
"LOL. And after that Ukrainian serfs discovered America"
only a Russian could laugh at the genocide of ukrainians.
" St. Petersburg looms large in Ukrainian history and culture. Ukrainians first arrived there in substantial numbers in 1709, after Hetman Ivan Mazepa's defeat at the Battle of Poltava where he fought to free Ukraine from Russian rule. To punish what he saw as disloyalty, Peter condemned tens of thousands of Kozaks to build canals and drain marshes, clear forests, drag stones to pave the streets, cut, hew and haul lumber to the banks of the Neva and drive piles, build docks. The slaves lived in crowded, filthy huts in the midst of swamps and squalor. Many died from malaria, scurvy and dysentery. In the wintertime, they froze. According to estimates from Peter's time, at least 100,000 people died building his city."