Everything about Saint Petersburg totally explained
Saint Petersburg (
tr.:
Sankt-Peterburg, ) is a
city and a
federal subject of
Russia located on the
Neva River at the head of the
Gulf of Finland on the
Baltic Sea. The city's other names were
Petrograd (1914–1924) and
Leningrad (1924–1991). It is informally known as
Piter .
Founded by
Emperor Peter the Great on
May 27,
1703, it was the capital of the
Russian Empire for more than two hundred years (1713-1728, 1732-1918). Saint Petersburg ceased being the capital in 1918 after the
Russian Revolution of 1917. It is Russia's second largest and Europe's fourth largest city (by city limit) after
Moscow,
London and
Paris. 4.6 million people live in the city, and over 6 million people live in the city's vicinity. Saint Petersburg is a major European cultural center, and important Russian
port on the Baltic Sea.
Saint Petersburg is often described as the most Western European styled city of Russia. Among cities of the world with over one million people, Saint Petersburg is the northernmost. The
Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a
UNESCO World Heritage Site. Russia's political and cultural center for 200 years, the city is sometimes referred to in Russia as "the Northern Capital" (
severnaya stolitsa). A large number of foreign consulates, international corporations, banks and other businesses are located in Saint Petersburg.
History
On
May 1 1703, during the
Great Northern War,
Peter the Great captured the
Swedish fortress of
Nyenskans on the
Neva river in
Ingria. Few weeks later, on
May 27 1703 (
May 16,
Old Style), lower on the river, on Zayachy (Hare) Island, three miles (5 km) inland from the
gulf, he laid down the
Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. He named the city after his patron saint, the
apostle Peter. The original name was meant to sound like
Dutch due to Peter's obsession with the
Dutch culture. The city was built by conscripted
serfs from all over Russia under the supervision of
Alexander Menshikov and later became the center of
Saint Petersburg Governorate. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712, before the
Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war and annexed the territory to Russia.
During the first few years of its existence the city grew spontaneously around Trinity Square on the right bank of Neva, near the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to develop according to a plan. By 1716
Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city center would be located on
Vasilievsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project wasn't completed, but is still evident in the layout of the streets. In 1716
Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond was appointed chief architect of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great. The style of
Petrine Baroque, developed by Trezzini and other architects and exemplified by such buildings as the
Menshikov Palace,
Kunstkamera,
Peter and Paul Cathedral,
Twelve Collegia, became prominent in the city architecture of the early 18th century. In 1724 the
Academy of Sciences,
University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.
However, in 1725 Peter died. His efforts to push for modernization were completely misunderstood by the old-fashioned Russian nobility. This resulted in considerable opposition, including several attempts on his life and a treason case involving his own son. In 1728
Peter II of Russia moved his seat back to Moscow. But four years later, in 1732, during the reign of
Anna of Russia, Saint Petersburg again became the capital of the
Russian Empire and had remained the seat of the government for 186 years since then.
In 1736-1737 the city suffered from catastrophic fires. In order to rebuild the damaged boroughs, in 1737 a new plan was commissioned by a committee under
Burkhard Christoph von Munnich. The city was divided into five boroughs, and the city center was moved to the Admiralty borough, situated on the left bank between the Neva and
Fontanka. It developed along three radial streets, which meet at the
Admiralty and are now known as
Nevsky Prospekt (which is now perceived as the main street of the city),
Gorokhovaya Street and
Voznesensky Prospekt. The
style of Baroque dominated the city architecture during the first sixty years, culminating in the Elizabethan Baroque, represented most notably by
Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such buildings as the
Winter Palace. In the 1760s the Baroque architecture was succeeded by the
neoclassical architecture.
The Commission of Stone Buildings of Moscow and Saint Petersburg established in 1762 ruled that no structure in the city be higher than the Winter Palace and prohibited spacing between buildings. During the reign of
Catherine the Great in the 1760s-1780s the banks of the Neva were lined with
granite embankments. However, it wasn't until 1850 that it was allowed to open the first permanent bridge across the Neva,
Blagoveshchensky Bridge. Before that, only
pontoon bridges were allowed.
Obvodny Canal (dug in 1769-1833) became the southern limit of the city. Some of the most important neoclassical architects in Saint Petersburg (including those working within the
Empire style) were
Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe (
Imperial Academy of Arts,
Small Hermitage,
Gostiny Dvor,
New Holland Arch),
Antonio Rinaldi (
Marble Palace),
Yury Felten (
Old Hermitage,
Chesme Church),
Giacomo Quarenghi (Academy of Sciences,
Hermitage Theatre,
Yusupov Palace),
Andrey Voronikhin (
Mining Institute,
Kazan Cathedral),
Andreyan Zakharov (
Admiralty building),
Jean-François Thomas de Thomon (
Spit of Vasilievsky Island),
Carlo Rossi (
Yelagin Palace,
Mikhailovsky Palace,
Alexandrine Theatre,
Senate and Synod Buildings,
General Staff Building, design of many streets and squares),
Vasily Stasov (
Moscow Triumphal Gate,
Trinity Cathedral),
Auguste de Montferrand (
Saint Isaac's Cathedral,
Alexander Column). The victory over
Napoleonic France in the
Patriotic War of 1812 was commemorated with many monuments, including Alexander Column by Montferrand, erected in 1834, and
Narva Triumphal Gate.
In 1825 the suppressed
Decembrist revolt against
Nicholas I of Russia took place on the
Senate Square in the city, a day after he assumed the throne.
By the 1840s the neoclassical architecture had given place to various romanticist styles, which were dominant until the 1890s, represented by such architects as
Andrei Stackenschneider (
Mariinsky Palace,
Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace,
Nicholas Palace,
New Michael Palace) and
Konstantin Thon (
Moskovsky Rail Terminal). The
Church of the Savior on Blood designed in the Russian revival style commemorated the place where
Alexander II of Russia was assassinated in 1881.
With the
emancipation of the serfs undertaken by Alexander II in 1861 and the
industrial revolution the influx of former peasants into the capital increased greatly. Poor boroughs spontaneously emerged on the outskirts of the city. Saint Petersburg surpassed Moscow in population and industrial growth and grew into one of the largest industrial hubs and cities in Europe.
The
Revolution of 1905 initiated here and spread rapidly into the provinces. With the start of
World War I, the name Saint Petersburg was perceived to be too German, so in 1914 the city was renamed Petrograd. In 1917 the
February Revolution, which put an end to the Russian monarchy, and the
October Revolution, which ultimately brought
Vladimir Lenin to power, broke out in Petrograd. The city's proximity to the border and anti-Soviet armies forced the Bolsheviks under Lenin to transfer the capital to
Moscow on
March 5 1918. In 1919 during the ensuing
Russian Civil War Nikolay Yudenich advancing from
Estonia was about to capture the city from the Bolsheviks, but
Leon Trotsky ultimately managed to mobilize the population and make him retreat. Many people fled the city in 1917-1920 or were repressed in the
Red Terror, so its population decreased dramatically. On
January 24 1924, three days after Lenin's death, Petrograd was renamed
Leningrad. For decades Leningrad was glorified by the Soviet propaganda as "the cradle of the revolution" and "the city of three revolutions", many spots related to Lenin and the revolutions, such as the
cruiser Aurora, were carefully preserved. Many streets and other toponyms were renamed accordingly.
In the 1920s-1930s the poor outskirts were reconstructed into regularly planned boroughs. The
constructivist architecture flourished around that time. The Soviets nationalised housing and forced many residents to share communal apartments (
kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared apartments in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city with the largest number of
kommunalkas. In 1935 a new general plan was outlined, whereby the city should expand to the south and its center should move there. The constructivism was rejected in favor of the pompous
Stalinist architecture. Stalin ordered the construction of the new city hall on Moskovsky Prospect thus making it the new main street of Leningrad during the Soviet rule.
Since December 1931 Leningrad has been administratively separate from
Leningrad Oblast. At that time it included Leningrad Suburban District, some parts of which were transferred back to Leningrad Oblast in 1936 and turned into
Vsevolozhsky District,
Krasnoselsky District,
Pargolovsky District and
Slutsky District (renamed Pavlovsky District in 1944).
On December 1, 1934,
Sergey Kirov, popular communist leader of Leningrad, was assassinated, which was used to start the
Great Purge.. The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely
expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s.
During
World War II, Leningrad was besieged by
Nazi Germany and
co-belligerent Finland.. The siege lasted 872 days from September 1941 to January 1944. The
Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest, most destructive, and
most lethal sieges of major cities in modern history. It isolated the city from most supplies except those provided through the
Road of Life across
Lake Ladoga, and more than a million of civilians died, mainly from starvation. Many others were eventually evacuated or escaped by themselves, so the city became largely depopulated. For the heroic resistance of the city and tenacity of the survivors of the Siege, in 1945 Leningrad became the first city in the
Soviet Union awarded the title
Hero City. In October 1946 some former Finnish territories along the northern coast of the
Gulf of Finland captured in the
Winter War and
Continuation War were transferred from Leningrad Oblast to Leningrad and divided into
Sestroretsky District and
Kurortny District, including the town of
Terijoki (renamed Zelenogorsk in 1948).
Leningrad and many of its suburbs were rebuilt over the post-war decades, partially according to the pre-war plans. The 1948 general plan of Leingrad offered radial urban development in the north as well as in the south. The
Leningrad Metro, underground rapid transit system which was designed before the war in the 1930s, was opened in 1955 with its first seven stations decorated with marble and bronze. Meanwhile, in 1949-1951 a large number of prominent Leningrad members of the
Communist Party and their families were charged with treason and intention to create an anti-Soviet organization out of their local party cell. Many were imprisoned or executed in the
Leningrad Affair fabricated by the central Soviet leadership.
In 1953
Pavlovsky District of Leningrad Oblast was abolished, and parts of its territory including Pavlovsk merged with Leningrad. In 1954 the settlements
Levashovo,
Pargolovo and
Pesochny merged with Leningrad.
After the death of
Stalin the perceived ornamental excesses of the Stalinist architecture were abandoned. In the 1960s-1980s, as many new residential boroughs were built on the outskirts with few series of
functionalist apartment blocks identical to each other, lots of families moved there from
kommunalkas in the city center in order to live in separate apartments.
Uritsk was re-named
Krasnoye Selo and merged with Leningrad in 1963,
Lomonosov merged in 1978.
On
June 12 1991, the day of the
first Russian presidential election, in a referendum 54% of voters chose to restore the name "
Saint Petersburg" (change later occurring on
September 6 1991). Many other Soviet-era toponyms in the city were also renamed back soon afterwards. In the same election
Anatoly Sobchak became the first democratically elected
mayor of the city.
By the end of 1991 deteriorating
planned economy of the collapsing Soviet Union had put the city on the verge of starvation. For the first time since World War II food
rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad. The city somewhat recovered with the market reforms in Russia. In 1995-2004 a northern section of the Metro's
Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line was cut off by an underground flooding, which was a major obstacle to the city development.
In 1996,
Vladimir Yakovlev was elected the head of the
Saint Petersburg City Administration. The title of the city head was changed in advance from "mayor" to "governor." In 2003, Yakovlev resigned a year before his second term expired.
Valentina Matviyenko was elected governor. In 2006 she was reapproved as governor by the
city legislature.
The residential building had intensified again and had become more architecturally diverse by the 2000s, though real estate prices inflated greatly.
Geography
Kolpino,
Krasnoye Selo,
Kronstadt,
Lomonosov,
Pavlovsk,
Peterhof,
Pushkin,
Sestroretsk and
Zelenogorsk) and 21 municipal settlements.
Saint Petersburg is situated on the middle
taiga lowlands along the shores of the Neva Bay of the
Gulf of Finland, and islands of the river delta. The largest are
Vasilyevsky island (besides the artificial island between Obvodny canal and
Fontanka, and
Kotlin in the Neva Bay), Petrogradsky, Dekabristov and
Krestovsky. The latter together with
Yelagin and
Kamenny island are covered mostly by parks. The
Karelian Isthmus, north of the city, is a popular resort area. In the south Saint Petersburg crosses the
Baltic-Ladoga Klint and meets the
Izhora Plateau.
The elevation of Saint Petersburg ranges from the
sea level to its highest point of at the Orekhovaya Hill in the
Duderhof Heights in the south. Part of the city's territory west of
Liteyny Prospekt is no higher than above sea level, and has suffered from numerous floods.
Floods in Saint Petersburg are triggered by a long wave in the Baltic Sea, caused by meteorological conditions, winds and shallowness of the Neva Bay. The most disastrous floods occurred in 1824 (above sea-level), 1924, 1777, 1955 and 1975 . To prevent floods, the
Saint Petersburg Dam has been under construction since 1979.
Since the 18th century the terrain in the city has been raised artificially, at some places by more than, making mergers of several islands, and changing the hydrology of the city. Besides Neva and its distributaries, other important rivers of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg are
Sestra,
Okhta and
Izhora. The largest lake is Sestroretsky Razliv in the north, followed by Lakhtinsky Razliv, Suzdal Lakes and other smaller lakes.
Saint Petersburg's position on the
latitude of ca. 60° N causes variation in
day length across seasons, ranging from 5:53 to 18:50.
Twilight may last all night in early summer, from June to mid-July, the celebrated phenomenon known as the
white nights.
Climate
Saint Petersburg experiences a
humid continental climate of the cool summer subtype (
Köppen: Dfb), due to the distinct moderating influence of the
Baltic Sea cyclones. Summers are typically cool, humid and quite short, while winters are long, cold, but with frequent
warm spells. The average daily temperature in July is ; summer maximum is about, winter minimum is about . The record low temperature is, recorded in 1883. The average annual temperature is . The River Neva within the city limits usually freezes up in November-December, break-up occurs in April. From December to March there are 123 days average with snow cover, which reaches the average of by February. The frost-free period in the city lasts on average for about 135 days. The city has a climate slightly warmer than its suburbs. Weather conditions are quite variable all year round.
Average annual
precipitation varies across the city, averaging per year and reaching maximum in late summer. Soil moisture is almost always high because of lower
evapotranspiration due to the cool climate.
Air humidity is 78% on average, while
overcast is 165 days a year on average.
Demographics
2002 census recorded a population of the federal subject of 4,661,219, or 3.21% of the total population of Russia. The 2002 census recorded twenty-two ethnic groups of more than two thousand persons each. The ethnic composition was:
Russian 84.72%,
Ukrainian 1.87%,
Belarusians 1.17%,
Jewish 0.78%,
Tatar 0.76%,
Armenian 0.41%,
Azeri 0.36%,
Georgian 0.22%,
Chuvash 0.13%,
Polish 0.10%, and many other smaller ethnic groups, while 7.89% of the inhabitants declined to state their ethnicity.
The 20th century saw hectic ups and downs in population. From 2.4 million in 1916 it had dropped to less than 740,000 by 1920 during the
Russian Revolution of 1917 and
Russian Civil War. The sizeable minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely
expelled from Leningrad by the Soviet government during the 1930s. From 1941 to the end of 1943, population dropped from 3 million to less than 700,000, as people died in battles, starved to death during the
Siege of Leningrad, or were evacuated. After the siege, some of the evacuees returned, but most influx was due to migration from other parts of the Soviet Union. The city absorbed about 3 million people in the 1950s and grew to over 5 million in the 1980s. From 1991 to 2006 the city's population decreased to the current 4.6 million, while the suburban population increased due to privatization of land and massive move to suburbs. The
birth rate remains lower than the
death rate; people over 65 constitute more than twenty percent of the population; and the median age is about 40 years.
People in urban Saint Petersburg live mostly in apartments. Between 1918 and the 1990s, the Soviets
nationalised housing and forced residents to share communal apartments (
kommunalkas). With 68% living in shared flats in the 1930s, Leningrad was the city in the USSR with the largest number of
kommunalkas. Resettling residents of
kommunalkas is now on the way, albeit shared apartments are still not uncommon. As new boroughs were built on the outskirts in the 1950s-1980s, over half a million low income families eventually received free apartments, and about an additional hundred thousand condos were purchased by the middle class. While economic and social activity is concentrated in the
historic city centre, the richest part of Saint Petersburg, most people live in
commuter areas. For the first half of 2007, the birth rate was 9.1 per 1000.
Government
federal subject of Russia. The political life of Saint Petersburg is regulated by the city charter adopted by the city legislature in 1998.
The superior executive body is the
Saint Petersburg City Administration, led by the
governor (mayor before 1996). Saint Petersburg has a single-chamber legislature, the
Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly.
According to the federal law passed in 2004, heads of federal subjects, including the governor of Saint Petersburg, are nominated by the
President of Russia and approved by local legislatures. If the legislature disapproves the nominee, it's dissolved. The current governor,
Valentina Matviyenko, was approved according to the new system in December 2006.
Saint Petersburg city is currently divided into
eighteen districts.
Saint Petersburg is also the administrative center of
Leningrad Oblast, and of the
Northwestern Federal District.
Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, being two different federal subjects, share a number of local departments of federal executive agencies and courts, such as court of arbitration, police,
FSB, postal service, drug enforcement administration, penitentiary service, federal registration service, and other federal services.
The
Constitutional Court of Russia moved to Saint Petersburg from
Moscow in May 2008.
Crime
As in other large Russian cities, Saint Petersburg experiences fairly high levels of
street crime and
bribery. In addition, in recent years there has been a notable increase in racially motivated violence. On the other hand, unlike in Moscow, there have been no major terrorist attacks in Saint Petersburg in recent years.
At the end of the 1980s – beginning of the 1990s, Leningrad became home to a number of gangs, such as
Tambov Gang, Malyshev Gang, Kazan Gang and ethnic criminal groups, engaged in a
racket,
extortion and violent clashes with each other.
Economy
aerospace industry,
radio and
electronics,
software and
computers; machine building, heavy
machinery and transport, including tanks and other military equipment,
mining,
instrument manufacture, ferrous and nonferrous
metallurgy (production of
aluminium alloys),
chemicals,
pharmaceuticals,
medical equipment,
publishing and
printing,
food and
catering,
wholesale and
retail,
textile and
apparel industries, and many other businesses. It was also home to
Lessner, one of Russia's two pioneering
automobile manufacturers (along with
Russo-Baltic),
Lessner; founded by
machine tool and
boiler maker
G. A. Lessner in 1904, with designs by
Boris Loutsky, it survived until 1910.
10% of the world's power
turbines are made there at the
LMZ, which built over two thousand turbines for power plants across the world. Major local industries are
Admiralty Shipyard,
Baltic Shipyard,
LOMO,
Kirov Plant,
Elektrosila,
Izhorsky Zavod; also registered in Saint Petersburg are
Sovkomflot,
Petersburg Fuel Company and
SIBUR among other major Russian and international companies.
Saint Petersburg has three large cargo
seaports: Bolshoi Port Saint Petersburg,
Kronstadt, and
Lomonosov. International cruise liners are served at the passenger port at
Morskoy Vokzal on the west end of the
Vasilevsky Island. A complex system of riverports on both banks of the
Neva river are interconnected with the system of seaports, thus making Saint Petersburg the main link between the
Baltic sea and the rest of Russia through the
Volga-Baltic Waterway.
The
Saint Petersburg Mint (
Monetny Dvor), founded in 1724, is one of the largest
mints in the world, it mints
Russian coins,
medals and
badges. Saint Petersburg is also home to the oldest and largest Russian foundry,
Monumentskulptura, which made thousands of sculptures and statues that are now gracing public parks of Saint Petersburg, as well as many other cties. Monuments and bronze statues of the Tsars, as well as other important historic figures and dignitaries, and other world famous monuments, such as the sculptures by
Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg,
Paolo Troubetzkoy,
Pavel Antokolsky, and others, were made there.
In 2007
Toyota opened a
Camry plant after investing 5 billion dollars in Shuishary, one of the southern suburbs of Saint Petersburg. General Motors, Hyundai and Nissan have signed deals with the Russian government to build their automotive plants in Saint Petersburg too. Automotive and auto-parts industry is on the rise there during the last decade. Saint Petersburg is also known as the "beer capital" of Russia, due to the supply and quality of local water, contributing over 30% of the domestic production of beer with its five large-scale breweries including Europe's second largest brewery
Baltika, Vena (both operated by BBH), Heineken Brewery, Stepan Razin (both by
Heineken) and Tinkoff brewery (SUN-
InBev). Saint Petersburg has the second largest construction industry in Russia, including commercial, housing and road construction.
In 2006 Saint Petersburg's city budget was 179,9 billion rubles, and is planned to double by 2012. The federal subject's
gross regional product as of 2005 was 667,905.4 million
Russian rubles, ranked 4th in Russia, after
Moscow,
Tyumen Oblast, and
Moscow Oblast, or 145,503.3 rubles per capita, ranked 12th among Russia's federal subjects, contributed mostly by wholesale and retail trade and repair services (24.7%) as well as processing industry (20.9%) and transportation and telecommunications (15.1%).
Transportation
Baltiysky,
Finlyandsky,
Ladozhsky,
Moskovsky, and
Vitebsky), as well as dozens of non-terminal railway stations within the federal subject. Saint Petersburg has international railway connections to
Helsinki,
Finland,
Berlin,
Germany, and all former republics of the USSR. The
Helsinki railroad was built in 1870,, commutes three times a day, in a journey lasting about five and a half hours. The
Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway opened in 1851, ; the commute to
Moscow now requires about four and a half to nine hours. Saint Petersburg is also served by
Pulkovo International Airport, and by three smaller commercial and cargo airports in the suburbs. There is a regular, 24/7, rapid-bus transit connection between Pulkovo airport and the
city center.
The city is also served by the passenger and cargo seaports in the Neva Bay of the
Gulf of Finland,
Baltic Sea, the river port higher up Neva, and tens of smaller passenger stations on both banks of the Neva river. It is a terminus of the
Volga-Baltic and
White Sea-Baltic waterways. In 2004 the first high bridge that doesn't need to be drawn, a long
Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. Meteor
hydrofoils link the city centre to the coastal towns of
Kronstadt,
Lomonosov,
Peterhof,
Sestroretsk and
Zelenogorsk from May through October.
Saint Petersburg has an extensive city-funded network of
public transport (buses,
trams,
trolleybuses) and several hundred routes served by
marshrutkas.
Trams in Saint Petersburg used to be the main transport; in the 1980s, Leningrad had the largest tramway network in the world, but many tramway rail tracks were dismantled in the 2000s. Buses carry up to 3 million passengers daily, serving over 250 urban and a number of suburban bus routes.
Saint Petersburg Metro underground rapid transit system was opened in 1955; it now has four lines with 60 stations, connecting all five railway terminals, and carrying 3.4 million passengers daily. Metro stations are decorated in marble and bronze.
Traffic jams are common in the city, because of narrow streets, parking sites along their edges, high daily traffic volumes between the commuter boroughs and the city centre, intercity traffic, and at times excessive snow in winter. Five segments of the
Saint Petersburg Ring Road were opened between 2002 and 2006, and full ring is planned to open in 2010.
Saint Petersburg is part of the important transport corridor linking
Scandinavia to Russia and
Eastern Europe. The city is a node of the
international European routes E18 towards
Helsinki,
E20 towards
Tallinn,
E95 towards
Pskov,
Kiev and
Odessa and
E105 towards
Petrozavodsk,
Murmansk and
Kirkenes (north) and towards
Moscow and
Kharkiv (south).
Built environment and landmarks
The majestic appearance of Saint Petersburg is achieved through a variety of architectural details including long, straight boulevards, vast spaces, gardens and parks, decorative wrought-iron fences, monuments and decorative sculptures. The Neva River itself, together with its many canals and their granite
embankments and
bridges gives the city a unique and striking ambience.
Saint Petersburg's position below the
Arctic Circle, on the same
latitude as nearby
Helsinki,
Stockholm,
Aberdeen and
Oslo (60°
N), causes twilight to last all night in May, June and July. This celebrated phenomenon is known as the "
white nights". The white nights are closely linked to another attraction — the eight
drawbridges spanning the Neva. Tourists flock to see the bridges drawn and lowered again at night to allow shipping to pass up and down the river. Bridges open from May to late October according to a special schedule between approximately 2 a.m. and 4:30 a.m.
The
historical center of Saint Petersburg was the first Russian patrimony inscribed on the
UNESCO list of
World Heritage Sites.
The "historic skyline" of Saint Petersburg was included in the
World Monuments Fund's 2008 Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites in the world because the Russian oil company
Gazprom announced that it would be building a 300-meter-high tower,
Okhta Center, in the city. This project, if completed, would drastically alter the skyline and set a worrying precedent for future development in the historic city. The building of this structure could also jeopardize the city's status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Canals and bridges
Saint Petersburg is built on what originally were more than 100 islands created by a maze of rivers, creeks, canals, gulfs, lakes and ponds and other bodies of water that flow into the Baltic Sea at the mouth of the
Neva river.
A familiar view of Saint Petersburg is a
drawbridge across the Neva. Every night during the navigation period from April to November, 22 bridges across Neva and main canals are drawn to let ships pass in and out of the Baltic Sea.
Today, there are 342 bridges over canals and rivers of various sizes, styles and constructions, built at different periods. Over 800 smaller bridges over smaller ponds and streams are gracing public parks and gardens, the popular places for entertainment and leisure.
Thanks to the intricate web of canals, Saint Petersburg is often called the "
Venice of the North" which is a popular poetic name for the northern capital.
Palaces of the Tsars
Saint Petersburg is known as the city of
palaces. One of the earliest of these is the
Summer Palace, a modest house built for
Peter I in the
Summer Garden (1710–1714). Much more imposing are the
baroque residences of his associates, such as the and the
Menshikov Palace on the Neva Embankment, constructed from designs by
Domenico Trezzini over the years 1710 to 1716. A residence adjacent to the Menshikov palace was redesigned for
Peter II and now houses the
State University.
Probably the most illustrious of imperial palaces is the baroque
Winter Palace (1754 — 1762), a vast stately building with over 600 rooms and dazzlingly luxurious interiors, now housing the
Hermitage Museum. The same architect,
Bartolomeo Rastrelli, was also responsible for three residences in the vicinity of the
Nevsky Prospekt: the
Stroganov palace (1752 — 1754, is now a branch of the
State Russian Museum, the
Vorontsov palace (1749 — 1757, now a military school), and the
Anichkov Palace (1741 — 1750, many times rebuilt, now a palace for children). Other baroque palaces include the
Sheremetev house on the
Fontanka embankment (also called the Fountain House), and the
Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace (1846–1848) on the Nevsky Prospekt, formerly a residence of the
Grand Duke Sergey Aleksandrovich.
Of
Neoclassical palaces, the foremost is
St Michael's (or Engineers') Castle, In 1992 a reunion performance of the 7th Symphony by the (then) 14 survivors was played in the same hall as they done half a century ago. The
Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra remained one of the best known symphony orchestras in the world under the leadership of conductors
Yevgeny Mravinsky and
Yuri Temirkanov.
The Imperial Choral Capella was founded and modeled after the royal courts of other European capitals.
Saint Petersburg has been home to the newest movements in popular music in the country. The first
jazz band in the Soviet Union was founded here by
Leonid Utyosov in the 1920s, under the patronage of
Isaak Dunayevsky. The first jazz club in the Soviet Union was founded here in the 1950s, and later was named
jazz club Kvadrat. In 1956 the popular ensemble
Druzhba was founded by
Aleksandr Bronevitsky and
Edita Piekha, becoming the first popular band in the 1950s USSR. In the 1960s student rock-groups
Argonavty,
Kochevniki and others pioneered a series of unofficial and underground rock concerts and festivals. In 1972
Boris Grebenshchikov founded the band
Aquarium, that later grew to huge popularity. Since then the "Piter's rock" music style was formed.
In the 1970s many bands came out from "underground" and eventually founded the
Leningrad rock club which has been providing stage to such bands as Piknik,
DDT,
Kino, headed by the legendary
Viktor Tsoi,
Igry,
Mify,
Zemlyane,
Alisa and many other popular groups. The first Russian-style happening show
Pop mekhanika, mixing over 300 people and animals on stage, was directed by the multi-talented
Sergey Kuryokhin in the 1980s.
Today's Saint Petersburg boasts many notable musicians of various genres, from popular Leningrad's
Sergei Shnurov and
Tequilajazzz, to rock veterans
Yuri Shevchuk,
Vyacheslav Butusov and
Mikhail Boyarsky.
The
White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg is famous for spectacular fireworks and massive show celebrating the end of school year.
Movies
Over 250 international and Russian movies were filmed in Saint Petersburg. Well over a thousand feature films about tsars, revolution, people and stories set in Saint Petersburg were produced worldwide, but were not filmed in the city. First film studios were founded in Saint Petersburg in the 1900s, and since the 1920s
Lenfilm has been the largest film studio based in Saint Petersburg.
The first foreign feature movie filmed entirely in Saint Petersburg was the 1997 production of Tolstoy's
Anna Karenina, starring
Sophie Marceau and
Sean Bean, and made by international team of British, American, French and Russian filmmakers.
The cult comedy
Irony of Fate (also Ирония судьбы, или С лёгким паром!) is set in Saint Petersburg and pokes fun at Soviet city planning. The 1985 film
White Nights received considerable Western attention for having captured genuine Leningrad street scenes at a time when filming in the
Soviet Union by Western production companies was generally unheard of. Other movies include
GoldenEye (1995),
Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996), and
Brother (1997).
Onegin (1999) is based on the
Pushkin poem and showcases many tourist attractions. Several international film festivals are held annually, such as the
International Film Festival in Saint Petersburg, since its inauguration in 1993 during the White Nights.
Literature
Saint Petersburg has a longstanding and world famous tradition in literature.
Dostoyevsky called it “The most abstract and intentional city in the world," emphasizing its artificiality, but it was also a symbol of modern disorder in a changing Russia. It frequently appeared to
Russian writers as a menacing and inhuman mechanism. The grotesque and often nightmarish image of the city is featured in Pushkin's last poems, the Petersburg stories of
Gogol, the novels of
Dostoyevsky, the verse of
Alexander Blok and
Osip Mandelshtam, and in the symbolist novel Petersburg by
Andrey Bely. According to Lotman in his chapter, 'The Symbolism of Saint Petersburg' in
Universe and the Mind, these writers were inspired from symbolism from within the city itself. The effect of life in Saint Petersburg on the plight of the poor clerk in a society obsessed with hierarchy and status also became an important theme for authors such as
Pushkin,
Gogol, and
Dostoyevsky. Another important feature of early Saint Petersburg literature is its mythical element, which incorporates urban legends and popular ghost stories, as the stories of
Pushkin and Gogol included ghosts returning to Saint Petersburg to haunt other characters as well as other fantastical elements, creating a surreal and abstract image of Saint Petersburg.
Twentieth century writers from Saint Petersburg, such as
Vladimir Nabokov, Andrey Bely and
Yevgeny Zamyatin, along with his apprentices, The
Serapion Brothers, created entire new styles in literature and contributed new insights to the understanding of society through their experience in this city.
Anna Akhmatova became an important leader for Russian poetry. Her poem
Requiem focuses on the tragedies of living during the time of the Stalinist terror. Another notable 20th century writer from Saint Petersburg is
Joseph Brodsky, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987). While living in the United States, his writings in English reflected on life in Saint Petersburg from the unique perspective of being both an insider and an outsider to the city in essays such as, "A Guide to a Renamed City" and the nostalgic "In a Room and a Half".
Sports
Saint Petersburg hosted part of the
football tournament during the 1980
Summer Olympics. The 1994
Goodwill Games were held here.
The first competition here was the 1703
rowing event initiated by Peter the Great, after the victory over the Swedish fleet.
Yachting events were held by the Russian Navy since the foundation of the city.
Equestrianism has been a long tradition, popular among the Tsars and aristocracy, as well as part of the military training. Several historic sports arenas were built for Equestrianism since the 18th century, to maintain training all year round, such as the
Zimny Stadion and
Konnogvardeisky Manezh among others.
Chess tradition was highlighted by the 1914 international tournament, in which the title "Grandmaster" was first formally conferred by
Russian Tsar Nicholas II to five players:
Lasker,
Capablanca,
Alekhine,
Tarrasch and
Marshall, and which the Tsar had partially funded.
Kirov Stadium (now demolished) was one of the largest stadiums anywhere in the world, and the home to
FC Zenit Saint Petersburg in 1950-1989 and 1992. In 1951 the attendance of 110,000 set the record for the
Soviet football. In 2007 Zenit became champions of the
Russian Premier League. Zenit now plays their home games at
Petrovsky stadium
Notable people
As Russia's political and cultural center for 200 years, and its second-largest city, a great many politicians, businessmen, artists, writers, athletes and scientists were born and/or have lived in Saint Petersburg.
Honors
An
asteroid,
2046 Leningrad, discovered in 1968 by
Soviet astronomer
Tamara Mikhailovna Smirnova, is named after the city, when its name was Leningrad.
Education and science
science and
education in Russia and houses the following institutions:
Sister cities
Gallery
Image:Peterhof summer.jpg|Peter the Great's Palace, built in 1714-1725 in Peterhof
Image:Menshikov palace.jpg|Menshikov Palace, the seat of the first Governor
Image:Narva Triumphal Gate.jpg|Narva Triumphal Gate at the Stachek Square.
Image:Sankt-Petersburg Eremitage by night.JPG|The Winter Palace was stormed by Bolshevik communists at night in October 1917
Image:Pantserkruiser Aurora.jpg|The cruiser Aurora, symbol of the October Revolution, now a museum
Image:Sergey Kirov monument in Saint Petersburg.jpg|The monument to Sergey Kirov on Kirov Square of Saint Petersburg
Image:Blokada 03.jpg|Civilians struggled to survive during the Nazi siege of Leningrad
Image:Destroyed flat in st petersburg.jpg|Survivors of the Nazi bombings of Leningrad in WWII
Image:Nevsky under fire.jpg|Bombings of the Nevsky prospekt. Nazi bombings killed thousands of civilians in Leningrad
Image:Pribaltiyskaya hotel.JPG|Hotel Pribaltiyskaya
Image:Hotel Astoria winter.jpg|Hotel Astoria in winter
Image:Quarenghi smolny.jpg|Quarenghi's original design for the Smolny Institute, the office of the Governor
Image:Trinity Bridge.jpg|The Trinity Bridge
Image:Griboyedov Canal 2.jpg|Griboyedov Canal
Image:Neva Bridge Bolsheohtinskiy.jpg|Peter the Great's bridge (former Bolsheokhtinsky)
Image:Neva Vasilyevsky.jpg|Kunstkamera, Palace Bridge, a rostral column and the spire of Peter and Paul Cathedral
Image:Summer Palace Saint Petersburg.jpg|Peter's Summer Palace in the Summer Garden
Image:St-Michael-Castle.jpg|St. Michael's Castle
Image:SPb St.Simeon church.jpg|The church of Sts. Simon and Anna, the patrons saints of Empress Anna (1734, designed by Mikhail Zemtsov)
Image:Saint Petersburg Mosque minaret.jpg|Saint Petersburg Mosque (opened in 1913)
Image:Admiralty.jpg|Spire of the Russian Admiralty
Image:Arch of New Holland.jpg|Arch of the New Holland Island
Image:Russian Museum.jpg|The State Russian Museum, former Mikhailovsky Palace
Image:Nevsky Prospect, St. Petersburg, Russia.jpg|Nevsky Prospekt at night
Image:Alexandratheater.JPG|Alexandrine Theatre is the oldest Russian Drama theatre, named after Pushkin
Image:Gorny.jpg|The building of the Mining Academy (1811) is a Neoclassical masterpiece by Andrey Voronikhin
Image:VO Universitet 12 Kollegiy 15-04-2004.jpg|The Twelve Collegia building of Saint Petersburg State University
Image:Pulkovo observatory.jpg|The Pulkovo Observatory
Further Information
Get more info on 'Saint Petersburg'.
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