page_title: Field of Mars (Saint Petersburg)
section_title: Petrine park
hierarchical_section_title: Field of Mars (Saint Petersburg) / Imperial period / Petrine park
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Карта Санкт-Петербурга. План Императорского столичного города Санкт-Петербурга, сочиненый в 1737 году. Один из первых городских планов, на котором изображены последствия пожара в Морской Слободе в 1736-1737 годах English: Map of Saint Petersburg (Russia) Français&#160;: Carte de Saint-Pétersbourg. Español: Mapa de San Petersburgo. Deutsch: Karte der Sankt Petersburg. Plan der Kayserl. Residentz Stadt St. Petersburg wie solcher A 1737 aufgenommen worden.
context_page_description: The Field of Mars is a large square in the centre of Saint Petersburg. Over its long history it has been alternately a meadow, park, pleasure garden, military parade ground, revolutionary pantheon and public meeting place.
  The space now covered by the Field of Mars was initially an open area of swampy land between the developments around the Admiralty, and the imperial residence in the Summer Garden. It was drained by the digging of canals in the first half of the eighteenth century, and initially served as parkland, hosting a tavern, post office and the royal menagerie. Popular with the nobility, several leading figures of Petrine society established their town houses around the space in the mid eighteenth century. Under Peter the Great it was laid out with paths for walking and riding, and hosted military parades and festivals. During this period, and under Peter's successors it was called the "Empty Meadow" and the "Great Meadow". Empresses Anna and Elizabeth built their Summer Palaces here, and it was redeveloped into a pleasure park with pavilions and walkways for promenading.
context_section_description: In the early 18th century the land which eventually became the Field of Mars was a marshy area with trees and shrubs, lying between the Neva to the north, and the Mya (now the Moyka) and Krivusha (now the Griboyedov Canal) rivers to the south. With the establishment of the imperial residence in the Summer Garden in 1704, the area became a buffer zone separating the royal property from the rest of the city. Between 1711 and 1721 two canals, the Swan, and the Red, were dug to the east and west respectively with the purpose of draining the land. This created a roughly rectangular parcel of land, initially called simply Pustoi (Russian: Пустой), meaning "Empty" - after the trees that grew here were felled, and from the 1720s, the "Great Meadow" (Russian: Большой Луг).
  A tavern was built in the northwestern part of the land in 1712, being rebuilt in 1714 as a post office. Between 1713 and 1717 the area hosted the royal menagerie, containing various birds and animals, including an elephant. With the construction of the Red Canal, the menagerie was transferred to Hamovaya Street (now Mokhovaya Street). With the completion of the Red Canal in 1721, the western edge of the Big Meadow became a popular site for the nobility to construct large townhouses. Those that settled in the area included Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, Alexander Rumyantsev, Adam Veyde, and Pavel Yaguzhinsky, and Peter the Great's daughter, Elizabeth Petrovna. With the canals dug to carry away water, the land was soon drained, and on the orders of Peter the Great, it was levelled, cleared and sown with grass, with alleys laid out for walking and riding. The Great Meadow became a location for military parades and festivals. Celebrations of the 1721 Treaty of Nystad were held here, with a triumphal arch built to commemorate the treaty. The area became known as "Amusement Field" (Russian: Потешное поле).  The Gottorp Globe was initially installed on the field shortly after its arrival in Saint Petersburg, housed in the former elephant quarters. A special building was constructed for it, and opened to the public for a time, before the globe was moved to the Kunstkamera on Vasilyevsky Island in summer 1726.
caption: The site of the future Field of Mars, shown on an 1737 map of the city
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