Peter the Great
While the Poles fought the Swedes, Peter founded the city of Saint Petersburg in 1703, in Ingermanland (a province of the Swedish Empire that he had captured). It was named after his patron saint Saint Peter. He forbade the building of stone edifices outside Saint Petersburg, which he intended to become Russia's capital, so that all stonemasons could participate in the construction of the new city. Between 1713 and 1728 and in 1732–1918, Saint Petersburg was the capital of imperial Russia.
Demographics of Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg has always been populated mostly by Russians, albeit with several sizeable ethnic minorities, such as Germans, Ukrainians, Finns, and people from Eastern Europe, among others. In 1800 an estimated 200 to 300 thousand lived in the city. After the emancipation of serfs in 1861, former serfs started arriving to the capital as workers, boosting population from half a million to 1439.6 thousand recorded in the census of 1900.