28 April — Peter I conducted reconnaissance of the mouth of the Neva and the islands of its delta. Hare Island, located at the widest point of the Neva and separated from the neighboring Birch (now Petrograd) Island by a deep channel, was chosen as the site for the construction of a new fortress named Sankt-Piter-Burkh. The plan of the future fortress was drawn by Peter I himself. Work on its construction began on 16 May, led by A.D. Menshikov.
24–26 May — on the bank of the Neva near the fortress, a house was hewn for Peter I—one of the first buildings of Petersburg.
29 June — a wooden Church of Saints Peter and Paul was laid in the fortress. Later the fortress came to be called the Peter and Paul Fortress, and the future city Sankt-Piter-Burkh.
By autumn — the construction of the fortress was largely completed; on Birch Island, piers, an exchange, trading arcades, and other buildings were erected.
In autumn, about 20,000 diggers worked on the city’s construction. The next year, Peter I issued a decree to send another 20,000 people to the works. “Diggers” was the name given to laborers sent from various towns of Russia. They received rations of bread and cash pay (half a ruble per month). The diggers worked in three shifts. In the first shift, workers came from Staraya Russa, Toropets, Rzhev, Velikiye Luki, Kholm, Rostov, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Suzdal, Shuya, Zvenigorod, Uglich, Kineshma, and Vologda. In the second shift, from Smolensk, Dorogobuzh, Roslavl, Vyazma, Mozhaisk, Bryansk, Kursk, Oryol, Rylsk, Trubchevsk, Mtsensk, and Kromy. In the final shift, from Alatyr, Kazan, Kerensk, Kasimov, Nizhny Novgorod, Arzamas, Sviyazhsk, Simbirsk, Samara, Syzran, Saratov, Ufa.
With the founding of Petersburg, a new road was laid to it from Novgorod. At the same time, a postal route was established from Moscow south to Bila Tserkva; the post riders on it, who traveled on horseback, were assigned as if by a conscription levy; this post was the first organized outside the authority of the Yamskoy Prikaz and was subordinated to the Little Russia Prikaz. Around the same time, several new routes were established, and a decree was issued on returning to the yam stations those coachmen who, having left them, had settled in the posads and taken up trades and commerce.
From this year, a single principle of staffing the army with soldiers was introduced—the conscription levy. Conscription levies were announced irregularly by the tsar’s decrees depending on the needs of the army.
The export of tar, seal skins, and all fishery products of the Arkhangelsk coast was granted to Prince Menshikov; at the same time, the Vologda merchants Okonishnikovs received a monopoly on the sale of flaxseed.