The extent of ground covered by the city is about 81 square versts, or 20 millions of square sashes, reckoning 7^ feet to the sashe. Of these 20 milUons, 1,800,000 are occupied by houses ; about 900,000 of stone, and as many of wood. All the rest, that is, more than nine-tenths of the gi'ound, consists of fields, gardens, water, streets, courtyards, and open squares. The courts of the houses take up 2^ millions of square sashes. Every house in St. Petersburg has, therefore, on an average, a courtyard, somewhat larger than the house itself. The sm'face of the canals and rivers contains about one million ^a^Af'^, that of the streets l,^,00,OuO, the open places four millions. The streets and squares or places contain nearly six millions together, and Avould therefore require not less than a thousand millions of paving-stones to cover them, if we allow to every stone on an average half a square foot of surface. If a company of a hundred paviers were therefore constantly at work, holidays excepted, and if every man could lay down 150 stones a-day, they would have employment for 200 years, to pave every public place. As St. Petersburg has been scarcely a hundred years in existence, it is no great wonder that it is not all paved.
The churchyards cover an extent of 124,000 square sashes, the gardens 5^ millions, the fields enclosed in the city, 3-| millions. The three Admiralty divisions occupy a surface of two millions of square sashes, or one-tenth of the whole territory of the city. If this be compared with the data before given of the value of the iynmovable property in the different parts of the city, it will be seen that these three Admiralty divisions, or one-tenth of the superficial extent, possess IJ more immovable value than the other nine-tenths, or that a given space within the Admu-alty divisions is worth twelve times as much as the same space elsewhere.
At the death of Peter the Great, Petersburg had 75,000 inhabitants, in 1840, 5i)0,000. In 115 years, therefore, the population has increased six-fold. On an average it has doubled every 40 years. If it continue to increase at the same rate, in 1900 it will amount to more than a milHon, and approach that of London. The rate of increase has not, however, been constantly the same. Under Catherine the Second it was slow ; in the latter half of the last century, very rapid. The greatest impulse seems to have been given in the first quarter of the present century. From 1800 to 1830, it rose froni 220,000 to 450,000. The destruction of Moscow probably contributed in part to this remarkable increase.
If Moscow, on account of its 1000 churches, is called " the Holy," Petersburg may be, and perhaps in secret is, called the Unholy, on account of its want of them. St. Petersburg at the utmost has 51 churches, only 34 of which are of the orthodox Russian Greek church. In the interior of Russia there are many towns of not more than 30,000 inhabitants, wliich contain as many churches and cloisters as the capital with its halfmillion. Among the seventeen non-orthodox, are nine Lutheran, one Enghsh, one Dutch, one Finnish, one Swedish, and the rest are German. Among the nonLutheran churches, are Herrnhuters, Armenian, and Catholic churches. The great Catholic church is called simply the Polish, because the greater part of those who attend it are of that nation.
A peculiar kind of artisans in St. Petersburg, and Indeed in all Russian cities, are tlie sculptors in wood, or Rashtshiks. It was to be expected that among the inhabitants of the immeasurable forests of Russia, a pecuUar dexterity in wood-carving would develop itself. Many household utensils which with us are formed of clay or iron, are carved out of wood in Russia ; such as pots, jugs, water-pitchers, he, and many parts of the harness of a cart. For these things there are different places in Russia which supply them in large quantities ; the Rashtshiksf in the towns, work, generally, at tlie ornamental part of the interior of churches, and make frames for the pictures of saints, for which an enormous quantity of wood-carving is wanted.
While in every other kind of mechanical labour the Germans far surpass the Russians, and are so numerous in St. Petersburg that the native workmen cannot be compared to them, the Rashtsliiks are almost all Russians.