St Petersburg

I

Introduction

St Petersburg (Russian, Sankt Peterburg), city in north-west European Russia, called Leningrad for most of the Communist period (1924-1991). St Petersburg is on the delta of the River Neva, at the eastern end of the Gulf of Finland. Most of the city is built on both banks of the Neva, and on islands in the river. It is the second-largest city in Russia and one of its major seaports and rail junctions. Population 4,596,000 (2005 estimate).

II

Economy

Canals and natural waterways connect the navigable Neva with the Caspian and White seas and also with the Dnepr and Volga rivers, making St Petersburg the port of exit for much of the Caspian, Ural, and Volga areas. A deep-water channel in the Neva makes the port accessible through the Gulf of Finland to the largest ocean-going ships. Although the harbour is frozen from November to April, ice-breakers keep the channel open except during the severest winter period. St Petersburg is also one of the greatest Russian industrial centres. Power is supplied to factories chiefly from great thermal electric and nuclear power plants. The city is a shipbuilding centre too. Manufactured products include electrical equipment, machinery and tools, agricultural equipment, paper, furniture, textiles and clothing, tobacco, leather goods, and chemicals.

III

Places of Interest

St Petersburg has elaborate palaces, the most famous of which is the Winter Palace. An ornate Baroque building completed in 1762, it was the winter home of the tsars of Russia before the Revolution of 1917. The Winter Palace now houses the Hermitage Museum, which has one of the greatest art collections in the world. Other notable buildings include the cathedral of St Isaac, built from 1768 to 1858; the cathedral of SS Peter and Paul, built between 1712 and 1733; the Summer Palace of Emperor Peter I; the Admiralty Building; and the Fortress of Peter and Paul, built in 1703. The last is the city's oldest building and was used as a political prison during the rule of the tsars. The historic centre of St Petersburg was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1990.

St Petersburg contains more than 1,700 public libraries; the largest, the M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin Library, was founded in 1795 and houses more than 28.5 million volumes. In addition to St Petersburg State University (1819), educational facilities include research societies for special study, some 200 scientific institutes, and other schools of higher learning. The Russian Museum, which contains a notable collection of Russian art, and the Kazan Cathedral are among the city's attractions. St Petersburg also has numerous theatres. The most famous is the Mariinsky Theatre, which was founded in 1860 and was known during the Soviet era as the Kirov Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet; its famous ballet company is still best-known abroad as the Kirov. Others are the Maly Opera Theatre and the Pushkin Academic Drama Theatre.

IV

History

The site of St Petersburg was originally a Swedish fortress commanding the approach to the Neva. In 1703 Peter I captured the area and built the Fortress of Peter and Paul and the fortress at Kronshtadt. He ordered the construction of a new city on the site, to be named St Petersburg after his patron saint. Peter wanted the city to be westernized, considering it “a window on Europe”. In 1713 the royal family moved their residence and the Russian capital from Moscow to St Petersburg. Later in the 18th century the population increased, and the city became one of the cultural centres of Eastern Europe. During the reign of Emperor Alexander I, the marshes were drained, and, with the subsequent increase in building space, the population of the city doubled. The development of harbour facilities in the 19th century resulted in the industrial development of the city.

The poverty of the factory workers, contrasted with the luxury of the Russian court, was a prime cause of revolutionary unrest. The Decembrist uprising in 1825 took place in the imperial capital, and the 1905 Revolution began near the Winter Palace. The 1917 Revolution started with an uprising in the fortress of Kronshtadt, which guards the harbour, and the Bolshevik Revolution began in St Petersburg in October of that year.

In 1914 Emperor Nicholas II changed the German-sounding name of St Petersburg to the Russian name Petrograd, after Russia declared war on Germany. In 1918 the capital of Russia was moved from Petrograd back to Moscow. After Lenin's death in 1924, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honour. Following World War I and the loss of the Russian Baltic provinces, the importance of Leningrad increased, the city being the only Soviet port near Western Europe. During World War II, Leningrad was the scene of heavy fighting during a blockade by German forces from late 1941 to January 1944. About 1.25 million residents died in the fighting and as a result of disease and starvation, and more than 10,000 buildings were totally or partially destroyed. Rebuilt after the war, the city was renamed St Petersburg after the collapse of Communism in 1991.