Narva is a quiet northeastern Estonian town bathed in sea breezes. Though small, with a population of just over 72,000, it occupies a large place in Russian history. It was here in 1700 that, by attacking the Swedes, who were then in control of much of the Baltic coast, Russia launched its final campaign in a centuries-long quest to become a European power. The battle ended in defeat for the Russians, but the war did not; by 1721 Russia had conquered the Baltic territories as far southwest as Riga, the capital of present-day Latvia, and had built a new capital, Saint Petersburg, on the Gulf of Finland. Later in that century, Russia, through a partition agreement with Austria and Prussia, gained control of the rest of the Baltics, and would retain them until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.