[2] She ordered its construction, and had it inscribed with the phrases Petro Primo Catharina Secunda MDCCLXXXII in Latin and Петру перьвому Екатерина вторая, лѣта 1782 (Petru pervomu Ekaterina vtoraya, lěta 1782) in Russian, each meaning 'Catherine the Second to Peter the First, 1782', an expression of her admiration for her predecessor and her view of her own place in the line of great Russian rulers.

Having gained her position through a palace coup, Catherine had no legal claim to the throne and wanted to represent herself as Peter's rightful heir.

In correspondence with Catherine the Great, Denis Diderot suggested French sculptor Étienne Maurice Falconet, a friend of his, for the commission.

[citation needed] On 7 August 1782, fourteen years after excavation of the pedestal began, the finished statue was unveiled in a ceremony with thousands in attendance.

[3] The statue portrays Peter the Great sitting heroically on his horse, his outstretched arm pointing towards the River Neva.

[5] For the pedestal, a rapakivi granite monolith boulder known as the Thunder Stone (Russian: Гром-камень, romanized: Grom-kamen) was found at Lakhta, 6 km (3.7 mi) inland from the Gulf of Finland in 1768.

[7] As it was embedded to half its depth in the ground and the area was marshy terrain, the Russians had to develop new methods to dig up and transport the colossal stone.

Marinos Carburis (Μαρίνος Χαρμπούρης), a Greek from the Island of Kefallonia and serving as lieutenant-colonel in the Imperial Russian Army, offered to undertake the project.

Making the feat even more impressive was that the labour was done entirely by humans; no animals or machines were used in bringing the stone from the original site to the Senate Square.

[8] After Carburis devised the method, it took 400 men nine months to move the stone, during which time master stonecutters continuously shaped the enormous granite monolith.

[4] The Bronze Horseman is the title of a poem written by Aleksandr Pushkin in 1833, widely considered to be one of the most significant works of Russian literature.

Evgenii curses the statue, furious at Peter the Great for founding a city in such an unsuitable location and indirectly causing the death of his beloved.

In 1903 the artist Alexandre Benois published an edition of the poem with his illustrations, creating what was considered a masterwork of Art Nouveau.