Fyodor Yakovlevich Alekseev was often called the "Russian Canaletto" and is considered one of the founders of the Russian urban landscape.

Sometimes, looking at old paintings, it feels like you have traveled back in time and found yourself in an ancient square or a bustling merchant street, where merchants stroll leisurely in long caftans and fur hats. At times, you even feel like a witness to the terrible flood in St. Petersburg in 1824. All these picturesque canvases were created by Fyodor Yakovlevich Alekseev. His works shape the classic image of St. Petersburg in the early 19th century in Russian art.

The artist also often depicted provincial cities. In the 1790s, at the request of Catherine II, he traveled to the south of the Russian Empire to capture the places the empress visited during her journey to Crimea in 1787. There, Alekseev created numerous watercolor sketches and studies, which later became the basis for paintings such as "View of the City of Nikolaev" and "Square in Kherson" in St. Petersburg. These canvases amazed viewers with their accuracy, as the artist sought to convey the maximum details of everyday life in the Russian Empire, including random passersby or a lazy janitor.

However, Alekseev gained nationwide fame with a series of paintings from the Moscow suite, depicting Moscow's alleys, squares, and especially the surroundings of the old Kremlin. Until the end of his life, Fyodor Alekseev worked at the Academy of Arts, continuing to create new paintings.

On November 19, 1824, St. Petersburg experienced the most destructive flood in its history, and Alekseev decided to capture it. Just a few days after his last work, on November 23, 1824, the artist passed away.