Designed to coincide with the 300th anniversary of the most cosmopolitan city, St. Petersburg, this is a lovely online exhibit on Russia's emergence as a modern empire that began with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and continued unabated for three centuries. The exhibit itself was underwritten by the Boris Jordan Family, with additional support from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Appropriately, each section of the exhibit has been divided largely by various rulers (such as Catherine the Great and Emperor Alexander I), and includes an essay that provides viewers with a broad portrait of the various cultural, political, and technological transformations made within each era. The essays are well complemented by a number of visual accompaniments, such as an intricate 17th-century view of Moscow from the New York Public Library and a portrait of the Muscovite ruler Tsar Mikhail Romanov.