"Verisimilitude" of Astolphe de Custine and "Tall stories" of Alexandre Dumas: urban-planning aspect of two culturologic myths

The article provides for the first time comparative descriptions of Saint Petersburg urban realias by Astolphe de Custine and Alexadre Dumas, pure. It also demonstrates that regardless of current culturologic myths the verisimilitude of the cityscapes descriptions in works by Dumas is higher than in the book by Astolphe de Custine. Methodology of comparative analysis applied in the article may be used for scientific criticism and disillusionment of many other culturologic myths.