St. Petersburg

Saint Petersburg (in Russian, Санкт-Петерг, Sankt-Peterburg pronounced[sankt pj strung strung]( listen)), also called Petrograd (Петроград; from 1914 to 1924) and Lenin (Léníград; from 1924 to 1991), it is a Russian city located on the mouth of the river Nevá in the Gulf of Finland. With 5 383 890 inhabitants (2019) is the second most populous and important city in the country, only surpassed by the capital, Moscow. It is also known as the "Venice of the North", through its many channels.

It was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 27, 1703 with the intention of making it "Russia's window to the Western world". From then on it became the capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years. When the Russian Revolution broke out, the city was the center of the rebellion. In March 1918 the capital was transferred to Moscow. In January 1924, after the Bolshevik victory, the creation of the Soviet Union (1922) and the death of Lenin (1924), Saint Petersburg (then called Petrograd) changed its name to Leningrad, in honor of the communist leader Lenin. During World War II, the siege of Leningrad took place, which lasted 29 months, in which the Germans constantly bombarded the city and blocked it so that it could not be supplied. After the defeat of Germany in 1945, the city was named a Hero City by the Soviet authorities. With the disappearance of the USSR, with the consequent collapse of communism, the city was renamed Saint Petersburg and has become an important economic and political center of present-day Russia.

Saint Petersburg is today the second largest city in the Russian Federation and one of the largest in Europe. The city center and other monuments in its surroundings have been considered a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1990. Saint Petersburg is also the seat of the Russian Constitutional Court.

Saint Petersburg hosted the 2018 World Cup and Euro 2020 games.

Toponymy

The name Saint Petersburg is of German origin and means "city of Saint Peter". Peter the Great named it after his patron saint, rejecting that of Petrograd, which the German subjects he had hired to build and work in the shipyards and the city wanted to give him in their honor.

The city changed its name several times: it was called Petrograd (Петроград Petrograd, meaning city of Peter, a Russian adaptation of the German Petersburg) between 1914 and 1924, following the conflict with Germany during World War I, and Leningrad (Ленинград Leningrad after Lenin's death) between 1924 and 1991; and again Saint Petersburg after a plebiscite^{[citation needed]}. Colloquially, Petersburgers and Russians in general call this metropolis Petersburg, even more familiarly, Piter (Russian: Питер)^{[citation needed]}.

History

"The Knight of Bronze" (monition to Peter the Great)

It was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 16 (27), 1703 with the purpose of relocating the capital located in Moscow, and in fact it was the capital of Russia from 1712 to 1918. For this reason and for its geographical location it was nicknamed "the window to Europe". Pedro had lived and studied in the Netherlands for some time, so he decided to name his new city with a name derived from Dutch: Sint Pietersburg (Sankt Piterburj); but it was soon Germanized to Sankt Petersburg.

At the very mouth of the Neva River, the Swedes formerly had a fortress called Nyenschantz (Nevanlinna in Finnish) and a suburb called Nyen. The entire geographical environment of the mouth of the Neva was occupied by marshes before the city was built.

At the end of the 17th century, Russia saw its economic growth stagnant because it was landlocked. The dream of the young tsar, Peter the Great, was to correct the situation by opening a “window on Europe”. Since he could not do it from the south, since the Ottoman Empire prevented access to the Black Sea, he pointed in the opposite direction, to a territory of Sweden near the Baltic. In order to materialize his aspirations, in August 1700 he declared war on the Swedes, the Northern War, who at first managed to repel his attacks. But he did not give up, and in October 1702 he made them withdraw from Ladoga, the largest lake in Europe, which is linked by the Neva to the Baltic, from which it is about 60 kilometers away. Although the Swedes entrenched themselves on the island fortress of Nóteburg, near the point where the river exits the lake, Pedro managed to take that military place and renamed it Shlissel'burg (key city).

Saint Petersburg was, for many years, the capital of the Russian Empire.

Later, a Swedish garrison defended the fort of Nienshants, near the mouth of the Neva. Russia defeated it on April 26, 1703, and assumed control of the entire delta. Without delay, Pedro began building a citadel on nearby Záyachi (hare) island to control the mouth of the river. Thus, on May 16, 1703, just over three centuries ago, he laid the first stone of what is now known as the Fortress of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. This is the accepted date of the founding of St. Petersburg, named in honor of the Apostle Peter, the Tsar's patron saint.

The construction of the city under adverse climatic conditions produced an intense mortality among the workers and required a continuous contribution of new workers. Since the area was so sparsely populated, Peter the Great used his prerogative as tsar to forcefully attract serf workers from all parts of the country. An annual quota of 40,000 serfs came to the city equipped with their tools and their own food supplies. They usually traveled hundreds of kilometers on foot in single file, escorted by guards who, to prevent desertions, did not hesitate to use physical violence. As a consequence of their exposure to the climate, the deficient hygienic conditions and diseases, mortality during these first years was very high, with up to 50% of the workers who arrived dying year after year.

Since the construction of the city began in times of war, the first new building in the city was a military fort that would be called the fortress of San Pedro and San Pablo and that still stands on Záyachi Island on the shore right of the Neva River. The designers of the new fortress were German engineers invited by the Tsar himself, but most of the labor was provided by Russian serfs, also for the drainage work around the river and the palaces and other stone buildings of the outskirts (...). It was the most artificial city in the world, designed to become the capital of Russia. We could make a comparison with Brasilia (Brazil), planned for a similar purpose but at another time and in another style. Another city with relative parallelism is Venice, which was also inspired by Tsar Peter, who prohibited permanent bridges over the Neva to make it resemble the Grand Canal and encouraged the construction of canals in the streets following the pattern of Amsterdam.

The development of a capital city

French, German and Italian architects collaborated with Russian colleagues of great talent to produce “one of the most splendid and harmonious urban centres in Europe”.

Despite the drawbacks of its location in the far north—at the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska, is today—the tsar pushed ahead with his enterprise. He brought the wood from the Ladoga region and from Novgorod. The stones for the buildings he obtained in various ways. One of them was to stipulate that every Russian who introduced commercial products in the town contributed a few as a quota. In addition, he forbade making houses of this material, first in Moscow and then in the rest of his empire, which induced unemployed masons to move to the new town.

According to the Bolshaya Sovietskaya Entsiklopedia (the Great Soviet Encyclopedia), the work proceeded “at a dizzying pace for the time”. Drainage channels, pilings, streets, houses, churches, hospitals, and government offices soon appeared. The same year it was founded, work began on a shipyard, known as the Admiralty, which would become the headquarters of the Russian navy.

St. Peter's and St. Paul's fortress.

In 1710, construction began on the Summer Palace, the summer residence of the tsars. In 1712, the capital passed from Moscow to Saint Petersburg, and with it many official dependencies. As was the case with the transfer of the Moscow Mint to Saint Petersburg in 1724. The first stone palace, built in 1714 and still standing, was occupied by Aleksandr Menshikov, the first governor of the area. That same year, the foundations of the cathedral of the same name were laid in the Peter and Paul Fortress, whose imposing golden spire stands out in the urban silhouette. The Winter Palace was also erected on the banks of the Neva, which was rebuilt on various occasions. Later the current one was built in its place, which has about 1,100 rooms and which today is part of a central state museum, the famous Hermitage.

In its first decade of existence, Saint Petersburg experienced astonishing growth, to the point of an estimated 34,500 buildings in 1714. Palaces and immense buildings continued to be added, many of which demonstrate the great influence of the religion in Russian history.

Among them is the Kazan Cathedral, with its semicircular front colonnade. Its imposing presence contributes to the fact that the most famous artery of the city, Nevsky avenue, is considered one of the greatest avenues in the world. Of a later date is St Isaac's Cathedral, built on 24,000 stilts sunk into marshy soil and boasting a massive dome lined with 100 kilos of pure gold.

Architecture also advanced by leaps and bounds in the suburbs. Thus, in 1714, construction began on a residence for the tsar, the Peterhof Palace, in Peterhof (today Petrodvoréts). At the same time, in the nearby town of Tsarskoye Selo (today Pushkin) the sumptuous palace of Catherine, Empress Catherine I of Russia, was being built. In the second half of the 18th century, two more luxurious mansions were completed on the outskirts: Pavlovsk and Gatchina.

The beauty of the new capital was enhanced by the hundreds of bridges that crossed the river branches and the many canals, which have earned it the nickname of “Venice of the North”. French, German and Italian architects collaborated with talented Russian colleagues to produce “one of the most splendid and harmonious urban centers in Europe” (Encyclopædia Britannica).

19th and 20th centuries

The abolition of serfdom in 1861 by Tsar Alexander II of Russia led to a strong influx of poor immigrants from all regions of the country. Cheap labor allowed a sharp increase in industry in the second half of the 19th century and Saint Petersburg became one one of the largest industrial hubs in Europe. Consequently, radical labor movements arose in turn.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 began in St.Petersburg when the Bolsheviks took over the Winter Palace.

The revolution of 1905 following the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War began in Saint Petersburg and quickly spread to other provinces. As a consequence, Tsar Nicholas II authorized the creation of the first Russian parliament or Duma.

During World War I it was decided that Saint Petersburg was too Germanic a name for the city, so it was changed to Petrograd on August 31, 1914.

In 1917, St. Petersburg saw the first movements of the Russian Revolution. First, Tsar Nicholas II was removed from the throne and the Provisional Government was installed in the city. In October, a second phase of the revolution saw power pass to the soviets and the first Soviet government of Bolsheviks and left Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs), the Sovnarkom, was formed. The Bolshevik leader, Lenin, decided to move the seat of government from Saint Petersburg to Moscow, as it was further away from the World War fronts and anti-revolutionary nuclei. Moscow became the capital from then until today.

When Lenin died in 1924, Saint Petersburg was renamed Leningrad in his honor. The loss of the capital brought a population decline to the city, which was reduced to a third of what it was in 1915.

During World War II, Leningrad was besieged by the armed forces of Nazi Germany (Wehrmacht) from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944, a total of 29 months By order of Adolf Hitler, the city was constantly bombarded and systematically deprived of its supplies. It is estimated that this siege caused the death of more than 1,500,000 people, of whom about 1,000,000 were civilians. On May 1, 1945 (officially May 8, 1945) the city was awarded the title of Ciudad Heroica.

After the war, the city suffered the purges of the Soviet leaders (see Case of Leningrad).

Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union on June 12, 1991, 54% of the population decided to restore the old name of the city, those of 39 emblematic streets and those of six bridges. Three months later, the coat of arms granted to the city by Empress Catherine the Great in 1780 was also recovered.

Geography

The Nevá River flows through much of the city center. Left - the dome of the island Vasilievski. Centre - Nevá River, St.Peter and St. Paul Fortress and the Bridge of the Trinity. On the right - Embarcadero del Palacio with the Winter Palace.

The area of the city of Saint Petersburg occupies 605.8 km², while that of the federal subject extends to 1439 km² and contains the city of Saint Petersburg (consisting of 82 okrugs), nine cities (Kólpino, Krásnoye Selo, Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Pávlovsk, Peterhof, Pushkin, Sestroretsk, Zelenogorsk) and 21 towns.

The city is situated in the north-west of the Russian Federation, in the taiga lowlands along the shore of the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland and the islands of the river delta. The largest of them are Vasilievsky Island (in addition to the artificial island between the Obvodny and Fontanka Channel, and Kotlin in the Neva Bay), Petrogradsky, Dekabristov and Krestovsky. The latter together with Yelagin and Kamenny islands are covered by parks. The Karelian Isthmus, north of the city, is a popular recreation area. South of St. Petersburg it crosses the Baltic cliff (klint) and reaches the Izhora plateau.

The height of the city above sea level in the central areas is 5.1 m, in the peripheral areas of the north it is 5.30 m, while in the peripheral areas, to the south and southwest, is 5.22m. The highest point of the city is in the Duderhof Hills, in Krásnoye Selo, with a maximum height of 176 m. The floods in Saint Petersburg are due to large waves from the Baltic Sea caused by weather conditions such as winds from the Neva Bay. One of the most severe floods occurred in 1824, at 421 centimeters above sea level, which caused three hundred buildings to be destroyed and inspired Aleksandr Pushkin to write the poem The Bronze Horseman. To prevent these natural disasters, the Saint Petersburg Dam was built.

Since the 18th century, the land area of the city has been artificially increased, in some areas up to four metres, merging several islands and changing the hydrology of Saint Petersburg. Along with the Neva and its tributaries, other important rivers of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg are the Sestra, the Okhta and the Izhora. The largest lake is Sestroretsky Razliv to the north, followed by Lákhtinsky Razliv and Suzdal.

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  S. Petersburg on map of the isthmus of Carelia

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  On a Baltic Sea Map

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  Saint Petersburg on a map of Russia

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  Satellite image of Saint Petersburg

Climate

Winter in St. Petersburg

The climate of Saint Petersburg is humid continental (Dfb, according to the Köppen climate classification). This type of weather is due to the geographical location and atmospheric circulation, typical for the St. Petersburg region. The strong moderating influence of the Baltic Sea results in hot, humid, and short summers and long, cold winters.

The total flux of solar radiation is 1.5 times less than in southern Ukraine and twice less than in central Asia. Saint Petersburg enjoys an average of 62 sunny days a year, so most of the year is dominated by cloudy days. The length of the day in Saint Petersburg varies from 5 hours and 51 minutes on December 22 to 18 hours and 50 minutes on June 22. In the city there are the so-called white nights, which appear during the month of May until the end of July, making a total of more than fifty days of this natural phenomenon.

The city is characterized by frequent air mass changes, largely caused by cyclonic activity. Summer is dominated by winds from the west and northwest, while in winter winds from the west and southwest arrive. The maximum average temperature recorded was 37 °C, which took place during the heat wave that occurred in the summer of 2010. The lowest temperature recorded was −35.9 °C in 1883. The annual average temperature is 5, 4°C The Neva River in the city limits usually freezes over in November and December and thaws in April. From December to March there are 123 days covered in snow on average and it reaches 24 centimeters in February. The frost-free period in the city is 135 days on average. Saint Petersburg has a more temperate climate than the outlying towns, but weather conditions are highly variable throughout the year.

Average climate parameters of Saint Petersburg (1991-2020)
Month	Ene.	Feb.	Mar.	Open up.	May.	Jun.	Jul.	Ago.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Temp. max. abs. (°C)	8.7	10.2	15.3	25.3	33.0	35.9	35.3	37.1	30.4	21.0	12.3	10.9	37.1
Average temperature (°C)	-2.5	-2.4	2.3	9.5	16.3	20.5	23.3	21.4	15.9	8.7	2.8	-0.5	9.6
Average temperature (°C)	-4.8	-5.0	-1.0	5.2	11.5	16.1	19.1	17.4	12.4	6.2	0.9	-2.5	6.3
Temp. medium (°C)	-7.2	-7.6	-4.0	1.7	7.2	12.2	15.3	13.9	9.4	4.1	-0.9	-4.5	3.3
Temp. min. abs. (°C)	-35.9	-35.2	-29.9	-21.8	-6.6	0.1	4.9	1.3	-3.1	-12.9	-22.2	-34.4	-35.9
Total precipitation (mm)	46	36	36	37	47	69	84	87	57	64	56	51	670
Nevadas (cm)	15	19	14	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	9	61
Days of rain (≥ 1 mm)	9	7	10	13	16	18	17	17	20	20	16	10	173
Days of snowfall (≥ 1 mm)	25	23	16	8	1	0.1	0	0	0.1	5	16	23	117.2
Hours of sun	22	54	125	180	260	276	267	213	129	70	27	13	1636
Relative humidity (%)	86	84	79	69	65	69	71	76	80	83	86	87	77.9
Source #1: Погода и климат
Source No. 2: NOAA (Horas de sol, 1961-1990)

Demographics

Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia. According to the 2010 census, the population of the federal subject was 4,879,566 or 3.4% of the total population of Russia, up from 4,661,219 (3.2%) recorded in the 2002 census, and by below 5,023,506 recorded in the 1989 census.

Soviet-era apartments in St. Petersburg.

The 2010 census recorded the following ethnic composition: 80.1% Russian, 1.3% Ukrainian, 0.8% Belarusian, 0.6% Tatar, 0.5% Jewish, 0.4% Uzbek, 0.4% Armenian, 0.4% Azeri, 0.3% Tajik, 0.2% Georgian, 0.2% Moldovan, 0.1% Finn and 1.3% other ethnicity. The ethnic origin of the remaining 13.4% of the inhabitants was not specified.

The XX century saw dramatic changes in the population, with large growth but also significant demographic declines. From 2.4 million in 1916 the population fell to less than 740,000 in 1920 during the 1917 Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War. Minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians, and Latvians were almost completely transferred from Leningrad during the 1930s. From 1941 to late 1943, the population dropped from three million to less than 600,000, as people perished in fighting, starved to death during the siege of Leningrad or was evacuated. Following the siege, some of the evacuees returned, but the largest influx was due to migration from other parts of the Soviet Union. The city absorbed about three million people in the 1950s and grew to more than five million in the 1980s. From 1991 to 2006 the city's population dropped to 4.6 million, while the suburban population increased due to the privatization of land and the massive move to the suburbs. Based on the results of the 2010 census, the current population is over 4.8 million. The birth rate is lower than the death rate, people older than 65 make up more than 20% of the population, and the median age is about 40 years.

People in urban areas of St. Petersburg live mostly in apartments. Between 1918 and 1990, nationalized Soviets and tenement residents were forced to share communal apartments (kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared flats in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city in the Soviet Union with the largest number of kommunalkas. Resettlement of the kommunalkas residents is taking place now, although shared apartments are still common. As new suburban cities were built in the 1950s and 1980s, more than half a million low-income families eventually received vacant apartments, and an additional 100,000 apartments were purchased. Although economic and social activity is concentrated in the historic center of the city—the wealthiest part of Saint Petersburg—most people live in nearby areas. For the first half of 2007, the birth rate was 9.1 per 1,000.

Government

The Mariinski Palace, headquarters of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly.

Saint Petersburg is a federal subject of Russia (a federal city). The political life of Saint Petersburg is regulated by the City Constitution approved by the municipal legislature in 1998. The highest executive body is the Administration of the city of Saint Petersburg, headed by the governor (mayor, before 1996). Saint Petersburg has a unicameral legislature, the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly.

According to a federal law passed in 2004, the heads of federal subjects — including the governor of St. Petersburg — are appointed by the President of Russia and approved by local legislatures. If the legislature does not approve the candidate, it is dissolved. The former governor, Valentina Matvienko, was approved under the new system in December 2006. Matvienko was the only female governor in the whole of Russia until her resignation on August 22, 2011. Matvienko represented the elections as a member of the Regional Council of St. Petersburg and widely won allegations of fraud and rigging by the opposition. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev endorsed her position as Chairman of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and her choice for that job. After her resignation, Georgy Poltavchenko himself was appointed deacon the new acting governor. In 2012, following the approval of a new federal law that restored direct elections for the heads of federal subjects, the city charter was modified again to establish direct elections for governor.

Territorial organization

The city of Saint Petersburg is divided into eighteen districts. Saint Petersburg is also the administrative center of Leningrad Oblast and the North-Western Federal District. The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation moved to Saint Petersburg from Moscow in May 2008.

Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast are two different federal subjects, they share a number of local departments of federal executive bodies and courts, such as the Court of Arbitration, the police, FSB, the postal service, the drug control administration, prison service, federal registration service and other federal services.

Economy

Saint Petersburg is a major trade gateway, it is a Russian financial and industrial center specializing in oil and gas trade, shipyards, aerospace, software, radio and electronics, information and computers; machine building, heavy machinery and transportation, including tanks and other military equipment, mining, precision construction, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy (aluminum alloy production), chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, publishing and printing, food and hospitality services, wholesale and retail textile and clothing industries, and many other businesses. It was also the headquarters of Lessner, one of the two pioneering car manufacturers in Russia (along with Ruso-Balt). Lessner, founded by the boiler maker G.A. Lessner in 1904, with designs by Boris Lutski, survived until 1910.

Port of St. Petersburg.

10% of the world's power turbines were made by the LMZ company, which built more than 2,000 turbines for power plants around the world. The main local industries are Admiralty Shipyard, Baltic Shipyards, LOMO, the Kirov Plant, Elektrosila, Izhórskiye Zavody and also registered in St. Petersburg Sovkomflot, St. Petersburg Fuel Company and SIBUR, among other large Russian and international companies.

Saint Petersburg has three major sea cargo ports: Bolshoi Port Saint Petersburg, Kronstadt and Lomonosov. International cruise ships have served at the passenger port at Morskoy Vokzal in the southwest of Vasilyevsky Island. In 2008 the first two posts were opened in the passenger port in the west of the island. The new port is part of the city's "Marine Façade" development project and is due to have seven berths in operation by 2010.

A complex system of river ports on both banks of the Neva River is interconnected with the system of seaports, making Saint Petersburg the main link between the Baltic Sea and the rest of Russia via the Volga-Baltic Canal.

St. Petersburg Coin House.

The Saint Petersburg Mint (Monetny Dvor), founded in 1724, is one of the largest mints in the world, producing Russian coins, medals and insignia. St. Petersburg is also home to Russia's oldest and largest foundry, the Monumentskulptura, which made thousands of sculptures and statues that now grace the city's public parks and many others. Monuments and bronze statues of tsars, as well as other important historical figures and dignitaries, and other world-famous monuments, such as sculptures by Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Pavel Antokolski and others, were made there.

In 2007, Toyota opened a Camry plant after investing 5 billion rubles (about $200 million) in Shushary, one of the southern suburbs of St. Petersburg. Opel, Hyundai and Nissan have also signed agreements with the Russian government to build auto plants in Saint Petersburg. The automotive and automobile industry has grown in importance in the city over the past decade.

St. Petersburg is home to a significant brewery and distillery industry. It is known as the "beer capital" of Russia, due to the supply and quality of local water, contributing more than 30% of the national beer production with its five big breweries, including the second largest brewery in Europe from Baltika, Vena (both operated by BBH), Heineken International, Stenka Razin and the Tinkoff brewery (SUN-InBev).

The city has a large number of local distilleries producing a wide range of vodka brands. The oldest is Liviz (founded in 1897). Among the most recent are the Russian Standard vodka, which was presented in Moscow in 1998 and inaugurated in 2006 a new distillery in Saint Petersburg (in an area of 30,000 square meters and a production rate of 22,500 bottles per hour) of 60 millions of dollars. In 2007, this brand was exported to more than 70 countries.

St. Petersburg has the second largest construction industry in Russia, including commercial housing and highways.

In 2006 the budget of the city of Saint Petersburg was 179.9 billion rubles and is scheduled to double by 2012. The gross regional product of the federal subject, as of 2005, was 667.905 million rubles largest in Russia after Moscow, Tyumen Oblast and Moscow Oblast, or 145,503.3 rubles per capita, 12th among Russia's federal subjects, and contributed mainly retail trade wholesale and retail, repair services (24.7%), as well as the transformation industry (20.9%), transport and telecommunications (15.1%).

The city's revenues in 2009 amounted to 294.3 billion rubles and expenditures were 336.3 billion rubles. The budget deficit amounted to about 42 billion rubles.

Culture

Museums

The Russian Museum

The Kunstkamera Museum

St. Petersburg is home to more than two hundred museums, many of them housed in historic buildings. The largest of the museums is the Hermitage Museum, with interiors of the former imperial residence and a vast collection of art and founded by Catherine II. The Russian Museum is a large museum dedicated to Russian art in particular. The apartments of famous Petersburgers such as Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Feodor Chaliapin, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Ajmatova, Mikhail Zóschenko or Joseph Brodsky, as well as some complexes of palaces and parks have also been converted into public museums. from the southern suburbs and notable architectural landmarks such as St. Isaac's Cathedral.

The Kunstkamera, with its collection created in 1714 by Peter the Great of curiosities from around the world, is considered Russia's first museum, which is now the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The Russian Museum of Ethnography, which has been separated from the Russian Museum, is dedicated to the cultures of the peoples of Russia, the former Soviet Union and the Russian Empire.

Other notable museums include the Central Naval Museum, located in the building of the former stock exchange, and the Zoological Museum, the Railway Museum, the Museum of the Siege of Leningrad, the Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art, the largest non-profit organization government of museums of contemporary art in Russia, St. Petersburg Museum of History in the Peter and Paul Fortress and the Artillery Museum, which in fact includes not only artillery items, but also a huge collection of other military equipment, uniforms and decorations.

The St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, also formerly known as the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, was founded in 1882 and is currently the oldest symphony orchestra in the country.

Architecture

Saint Petersburg has three skyscrapers: the Leader Tower (140 m), Alexander Nevsky (124 m) and Atlantic-City (105 m). All three are located far from the historic center, as current regulations prohibit the construction of tall buildings in the center of the city. The Television Tower, 310 meters high, is the tallest completed building in the city. However, there was a controversial project approved by the city authorities, known as the Ojta Center, to build a 396-meter-tall skyscraper. In 2008, the World Monuments Fund included the St. Petersburg cityscape on the watch list of the 100 most threatened sites due to future construction threatening to drastically alter it. The Ojta project was canceled at the end of 2010 and instead of that project the Lajta Center was started, just outside the city. The complex will include a 463-meter-tall office skyscraper and several low-rise, mixed-use buildings. The Lajta project caused much less controversy and, unlike the previous unbuilt project, it is not considered by Unesco as a potential threat to cultural heritage, as it is located very far from the historic center. Work started in November 2012.

Unlike Moscow, the historic architecture in Saint Petersburg is mostly made up of 18th and 19th century Baroque and Neoclassical buildings that have been largely preserved, although a large number of buildings were demolished after the Bolshevik seizure of power, during the siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest building still standing is a wooden house built by Peter I in 1703 on the banks of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1990, the Historic Center of Saint Petersburg and the annexed monumental ensembles in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites.

The Peter and Paul Fortress complex, with the Peter and Paul Cathedral, occupies a commanding position on Zayachi Island along the right bank of the Neva River. Every noon, a cannon fires a blank shot from the fortress. The Saint Petersburg Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe when it opened in 1913, is situated on the Right Bank. The isthmus of Vasilievsky Island, which divides the river into two large arms, the Bolshaya Neva and the Malaya Neva, is connected to the northern bank (Petrogradsky Island) via the Birzhevoy Bridge and occupied by the former St. Petersburg. The southern shore of Vasilyevsky Island along the Bolshaya Neva features some of the city's oldest buildings, dating back to the 18th century. , including the Kunstkamera, the Twelve Colleges of Saint Petersburg, the Menshikov Palace, and the Imperial Academy of Arts. The city is home to one of the two campuses of the Saint Petersburg State University.

On the south bank, to the left of the Neva, connected to the Vasilyevsky Isthmus and through the Palace Bridge, are the Admiralty building, the vast complex of the Hermitage Museum that stretches along the Palace Quay, includes the baroque Winter Palace, the former official residence of the Russian emperors, as well as the neoclassical Marble Palace. The Winter Palace faces Palace Square, the city's main square with the Alexander Column.

Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan.

Cathedral of Saint Isaac.

The Church of the Saviour on the shed blood.

Nevsky Prospect, also located on the left bank of the Neva, is the main avenue of the city. It starts at the Admiralty and runs east, next to the Palace Square. Nevsky Prospekt crosses the Moika River (with the Green Bridge), the Griboedova Canal (Kazansky Bridge), Sadovaya Street, the Fontanka (Anichkov Bridge), crosses Liteyny Prospekt and continues to Vosstaniya Square near the Moskovsky railway station., where it meets Ligovsky Prospekt and reaches the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. The Passage, the Catholic Church of Saint Catherine, the House of the Book (headquarters of the Singer Corporation sewing machine manufacturer), the Grand Hotel Europe, the Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the Gostiny Dvor, the National Library Rusa, the Alexandrinsky Theater behind the statue of Catherine the Great in Mikeshin, the Kazan Cathedral, the Stroganov Palace, the Anichkov Palace and the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, all located along this avenue.

The Alexander Nevsky Monastery, intended to house the relics of Saint Alexander Nevsky, is an important center of Christian education in Russia. It also contains the Tikhvin Cemetery with graves of many notable Petersburgers.

Many notable landmarks lie to the west and south of the Admiralty Building, including Trinity Cathedral, Mariinsky Palace, Hotel Astoria, the famous Mariinsky Theatre, New Netherland Island, St. Isaac's Cathedral, the largest in the city, and Senate Square, also known as Decembrist Square with the Bronze Horseman, a 17th century equestrian monument XVIII to Peter the Great, who is considered one of the most recognizable symbols of the city.

Beloselski-Belozerski Palace.

Other symbols of St. Petersburg include the weather vane in the shape of a small ship on top of the golden spire of the Admiralty and the golden angel on top of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. The Palace bridge is another symbol of the city. Every night during the sailing period from April to November, 22 bridges over the Neva and the main canals are optically highlighted for ships entering and leaving the Baltic Sea. There are hundreds of small bridges in Saint Petersburg spanning numerous canals and tributaries of the Neva; some of the most important of which are the Moika, the Fontanka, the Griboyedov Canal, the Obvodny Canal, the Karpovka and the Smolenka. Due to the intricate network of canals, Saint Petersburg is often called the Venice of the North. The rivers and canals in the city center are granite retaining walls. Embankments and bridges are separated from rivers and canals by granite parapets or cast iron parapets.

The distinctive southern part of the city is home to former imperial residences, such as Petergof, with majestic cascading fountains and parks, Tsarskoye Selo, with the baroque Catherine Palace and neoclassical Alexander Palace, and Pavlovsk, which contains a domed palace of Emperor Paul and one of the largest English-style parks in Europe. Some other residences located nearby and which are part of the world heritage include a castle and a park in Gatchina, which actually belongs to the Leningrad Oblast. Another notable neighborhood is Kronstadt, with its 19th century fortifications and war memorials, occupying Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland.

Since the end of the 20th century, a large number of municipal buildings and assets have undergone restoration work in the older districts of the city. The authorities have transferred former state-owned private residences in the city center to private landlords. Many old buildings have been reconstructed to allow their use as apartments and penthouses.

Sports

Petrovski Stadium.

Gazprom Arena.

The city is home to the football clubs Zenit St. Petersburg, which plays at the Gazprom Arena, and FC Dynamo St. Petersburg, which plays at the Petrovski Stadium (Стадион Петровский); Although Zenit plays in the Gazprom Arena, it was located where the old S.M. Kirov. Saint Petersburg will be one of the venues for the 2018 Soccer World Cup. It also hosts the SKA Saint Petersburg ice hockey club and the Spartak Saint Petersburg basketball club.

• FC Zenit-2 Saint Petersburg plays at the Petrovski Stadium and competes in the Russian Cup and the third division

Equipment	Sport	Competition	Stadium	Creation
Zenit Saint Petersburg	Football	Russian Premier League	Gazprom Arena	1966
FC Dynamo Saint Petersburg	Football	Russian Professional Football League	Petrovski Stadium	1892
SKA Saint Petersburg	Ice hockey	Kontinental Hockey League	Ice Palace	1946
BC Spartak of St. Petersburg	Basketball	Russian Basketball Superlight	Sibur Arena	1935
B.C. Zenit Saint Petersburg	Basketball	Russian Basketball Superlight	Sibur Arena	2003
BC Dinamo Saint Petersburg (extinct)	Basketball	Professional Basketball League (Russia)	Yubileyniy Sports Palace	2004-2006
VC Zenit Saint Petersburg	Volleyball	Russian Superlight Volleyball	Sibur Arena	2017
Saint Petersburg Griffins	American Football	Russian American Football Championship		2005

2018 Soccer World Cup

In 2018, Saint Petersburg hosted several matches of the 2018 World Cup. The group stage, ⅛ final, semifinal, and third place match were played here. All games were held at the stadium on Krestovsky Island. For the fans, the FIFA Fan Festival was organized on Koniushennaya Square.

• 

  Zenit and Zenit-2 Logo.

Education

St. Petersburg State University.

During the 2006/2007 academic year, there were 1,024 kindergartens, 716 public schools and 80 vocational schools in Saint Petersburg. The largest public institution of higher education is Saint Petersburg State University, which has approximately 32,000 bachelor students; and the largest non-governmental institution of higher education is the Institute of International Trade, Economics and Law. Other famous universities that are based in the city are Saint Petersburg Polytechnic University, Herzen University and the Military University of Technical Engineering. However, public universities are federal property and do not belong to the city.

Transportation

Saint Petersburg is a major transportation hub of Russia. The first railway line was built in Saint Petersburg in 1837 and since then the city's transport infrastructure has grown in parallel with the development of the city. Saint Petersburg has an extensive system of local highway and rail services, as well as an extensive public transportation system that includes the tram and the Saint Petersburg Metro. It also has fluvial transport services in which passengers can travel efficiently through the rivers and canals that cross the city.

The city is connected to the rest of Russian and European cities through federal, national or international highways that leave or cross Saint Petersburg. There are also national and international rail routes and for air transport citizens have the Pulkovo Airport.

Railway

Vítebsk station.

Saint Petersburg is the final destination of an extensive network of intercity and suburban railways, and has five different train stations: Baltiysky (1857), Finlyandsky (1870), Ladozhsky (2003), Moskovsky (1847) and Vitebsk (1837). Saint Petersburg has international rail connections to Helsinki, Finland, Berlin, Germany, and all the former Soviet Union republics. The railway line to Helsinki was built in 1870, with a distance of 443 kilometers and three daily trips on a journey that takes approximately three and a half hours with the new Allegro train.

The Moscow-Saint Petersburg line was inaugurated in 1851, with a distance of 651 kilometers. The trip to Moscow now requires approximately three and a half to nine hours.

In 2009 Russian Railways launched a high-speed service on the Moscow-Saint Petersburg route. The new train, known as Sapsan, is a derivative of the popular Siemens Velaro train, of which several versions have been made and are already in service in several European countries. Records for the fastest train in Russia were set on May 2, 2009, traveling at 281 km/h and on May 7, 2009, traveling at 250 km/h.

Since December 12, 2010, Karelian Trains, a joint venture of Russian Railways, and VR (Finnish Railways) have been operating the Alstom Pendolino, which operates high-speed services between St. Petersburg's Finlyandski station and the Helsinki Central Train Station. These services are branded as 'Allegro' trains.

Maritime

The city is served by shipping services through its passenger and cargo ports in the Neva Bay on the Gulf of Finland, the river port located on the upper part of the river, and dozens of small passenger stations on both banks of the Neva. This river is also the terminus between the Volga-Baltic waterway and the White Sea-Baltic Sea canal.

In 2004, the Bolshoi Obukhovsky Bridge was inaugurated, the first one that does not need to be raised and that is 2,824 meters long. There is a network of hydrofoils connecting the center of Saint Petersburg with the coastal cities of Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Peterhof, Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk from May to October. Small boats and water taxis also circulate through the city's canals in the warmer months.

The ring road passes through the Bolshói Obújovski Bridge.

The St. Peter Line company operates two ferries connecting St. Petersburg with the Nordic cities of Helsinki and Stockholm.

Road and public transport

Saint Petersburg has an extensive public transportation network consisting of buses, trams, and trolleybuses, and several routes of marshrutkas, the vans or minibuses that became very popular during the Soviet regime. The St. Petersburg tram is the most used means of transport since the city known as Leningrad implemented the largest tram system in the world in the 1980s. However, during the 2000s several lines were dismantled and their length has decreased.

Interior of the Zvenigorodskaya Station of St. Petersburg Metro.

Buses transport nearly three million passengers every day, serving around 250 urban and interurban routes. The Saint Petersburg Metro was opened in 1955, it has five lines, 64 metro stations, connecting the five railway stations of the city and every day 3.4 million passengers use it. The metro stations are decorated with marble and bronze.

By 2018, new stations will be opened in the Saint Petersburg metro: Prospekt Slavi, Dunaiskaya, Shushari, Begovaya, Novokrestóvskaya, designed with the purpose of facilitating the access of spectators to the stadium during the 2018 World Cup games and matches of Zenit.

On the other hand, traffic congestion is a common problem in the city due to the volume of daily traffic coming from neighborhoods and towns on the outskirts and from the city center itself, interurban traffic and snowfall in winter. The ring road around the city of Saint Petersburg, the A118, consists of 142 km radial highways that were opened to the public in 2006.

St Petersburg is part of a major transport corridor linking Scandinavia with Russia and Eastern Europe. The city is a junction of the European routes E18, towards Helsinki; E20, towards Tallinn; E95, towards Pskov, kyiv and Odesa; and E105 towards Petrozavodsk, Murmansk and Kirkenes (to the north) and towards Moscow and Kharkov (to the south).

Terminal 2 of Pulkovo Airport.

Aerial

Pulkovo Airport serves the city of Saint Petersburg and is located about 17 km south of the city. Three small commercial and cargo airports also operate on the periphery. Pulkovo Airport was opened in 1931 as a small passenger airfield. In 2007 it was the fourth most traveled Russian airport after the Muscovites of Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo; and in 2009 it registered a total of 6.76 million passengers. The airport has two terminals, one for domestic flights and the other for international flights, and is one of the most modern in the Russian Federation.

However, forecasts suggest that in 2025 Pulkovo will handle around 17 million passengers per year, so planning has begun for the construction of a new extension to the north of Terminal 1 that will have 18 gates. Construction works began in November 2010 and are expected to be completed in 2013.

Their contributions to the world

In 1724, one year before the death of Peter the Great —who was 52 years old—, the Russian Academy of Sciences was created by his decree. In 1757 the Imperial Academy of Arts was established, where Russian painters such as Karl Briullov and Ilya Repin (both from the 19th century), which achieved worldwide renown.

In 1819, the University of Saint Petersburg was founded, followed by many other institutions of higher learning. Among them stands out the Smolny Institute (1764), the first institution for the training of women. At the end of the XIX century, a resident of the city, the Russian physiologist and Nobel laureate Ivan Pavlov, formulated the concept of reflex conditioned. And in this same town, the Russian chemist Dmitrij Mendeleev drew up his periodic table of elements, known by his compatriots as Mendeleev's table.

The Imperial Russian Porcelain Factory was founded by Elizabeth I, the Clement, and is the oldest in Russia. Considered one of the few companies that managed to survive war and economic conflicts and that today is recognized internationally with more than 270 years old.

The metropolis also attracted international attention for its cultural life. In 1738 the first professional Russian theater was founded there, the Mariinsky Theater where the dance academy that would become the world famous Mariinsky Ballet is located, Saint Petersburg soon became populated with concert halls, ballet and theater. Illustrious composers such as Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) also settled there.

St. Petersburg also nurtured the spirit of many famous national figures of poetry and prose who lived there. The young Aleksandr Pushkin became, in the opinion of many, "the greatest [national] poet and the father of contemporary Russian literature." The works of this Russian author have been translated into the main languages of the world. Among them is the poem that he dedicated to his adoptive city. And let's not forget Dostoyevsky, who "usually ranks among the best novelists of all time" (The Encyclopædia Britannica), with his novel Crime and Punishment, which takes place in the city of Petersburg. The writer and screenwriter Viktoria Tókareva (1937-) was born and lives in this city.

Featured Characters

Twinned cities

List of sister cities of Saint Petersburg.

Predecessor: Paris

Headquarters of the Sessions of the World Heritage Committee 2013

Successor: Phnom Penh