The Bronze Horseman

So I was looking up images of St. Petersburg and I came across the picture of the sculpture, "The Bronze Horseman" which I had quite honestly forgotten all about. So then I started looking up some information and I found this poem of some sort that I guess kind of tells the tale of the establishment of St. Petersburg. What I though was super interesting about this work is the sense of pride and love that is associated with St. Petersburg. The writer says, "I love thee, city of Peter's making" and makes other references to his or her love for St. Petersburg and I was pretty surprised to see such an emotional attachment to St. Petersburg. I had assumed that the relocation of the Russian capital to St. Petersburg had completely disturbed and fractured the Russian identity and that Russian people felt distanced and detached from the new capital. But I guess that this poem or work proved me wrong. This work demonstrates a sense of pride, ownership over and entitlement to St. Petersburg, in the way that the capital was acquired from the Swedes, which did undeniably reveal Russian military power, but I was still pretty surprised to find such a celebration and embrace of this foreign territory. While I still think that Peter was not interested in benefiting the lives of the Russian people, I guess that the establishment of St. Petersburg did, to a certain extent, unite the people and form a sense of Russian nationalism. I mean, I'm a little skeptical of the Russian people's embrace of St. Petersburg just because I think about what would happen if all of a sudden the US acquired some new land and just decided to relocate the capital, the CENTER of the country to this random new land, and I think that while it is the ultimate way for a country to show it's power, I think that it would do more internal damage to the country than it would unite or help the country.