Vasilyevsky Island

This guide to Vasilyevsky Island in Saint Petersburg starts with Peter the Great's plan to turn the island into a Russian Amsterdam, its streets replaced by wide canals, a job he handed to his lieutenant Prince Alexander Menshikov. You'll hear the story historians tell about why the canals turned out too narrow to use, and what the records actually show about when four modest canals were dug and later filled in. Look for the streets still called Lines, numbered as if each one were a bank of water.