Saint Petersburg

Leningrad and Petrograd redirect here.

This article is about the Russian city. For the American city, see St. Petersburg, Florida.

Saint Petersburg Санкт-Петербург
—  Federal city  —
The Winter Palace
Flag Coat of arms
Location of Saint Petersburg in European Russia
Coordinates: 59°56′N 30°18′E
Country	Russia
Federal district	Northwestern
Economic region	Northwestern
Founded	May 27, 1703 (1703-05-27)
City raions	Administrative divisions
Area
- Federal city	1,439 km² (555.6 sq mi)
Elevation	3 m (10 ft)
Population (2021)
- Federal city	5,601,911
- Density	3,992.81/km² (10,341.3/sq mi)
- Metro	6,200,000
- Metro Density	3,992.81/km² (10,341.3/sq mi)
Postal code	190000—199406
Area code(s)	812
Website: gov.spb.ru

Saint Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербург, romanized: Sankt-Peterburg, pronounced [ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk], often abbreviated locally as SPb (СПб) formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. As Russia's Imperial capital, and a historically strategic port, it is governed as a federal city.

The city was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on May 27, 1703 on the site of a captured Swedish fortress, and was named after the apostle Saint Peter. In Russia, Saint Petersburg is historically and culturally associated with the birth of the Russian Empire and Russia's entry into modern history as a European great power. It served as a capital of the Tsardom of Russia, and the subsequent Russian Empire, from 1712 to 1918 (being replaced by Moscow for a short period of time between 1728 and 1730). After the October Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks moved their government to Moscow. The city was renamed Leningrad after Lenin's death in 1924. In June 1991, only a few months before the Belovezha Accords and the dissolution of the USSR, voters supported restoring the city's original appellation in a city-wide referendum.

In modern times, the city has the nickname of being "the Northern Capital of Russia" and is home to notable federal government bodies. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As Russia's cultural center, Saint Petersburg is a popular tourist destination. It is considered an important economic, scientific, and tourism center of Russia and Europe.

Name

While not originally named for Tsar Peter the Great, during World War I the city was changed from the Germanic "Petersburg" to "Petrograd" in his honor.

When in June 1703 Peter the Great renamed the site of a captured Swedish fortress after Saint Peter, he did not issue a naming act that established an official spelling; even in his own letters he used diverse spellings, such as Санктьпетерсьбурк (Sanktpetersburk), emulating German Sankt Petersburg, and Сантпитербурх (Santpiterburkh), emulating Dutch Sint-Pietersburgh, as Peter was multilingual and a Hollandophile. The name was later normalized and russified to Санкт-Петербург.

The Bronze Horseman, monument to Peter the Great

It took some years until the Russian spelling of this name finally settled. In 1740s Mikhail Lomonosov uses a derivative of Greek: Πετρόπολις (Петрополис, Petropolis) in a Russified form Petropol' (Петрополь). A combo Piterpol (Питерпол) also appears at this time. Eventually the usage of prefix "Sankt-" ceased except for the formal official documents, where a three-letter abbreviation "СПб" (SPb) was very widely used as well.

A former spelling of the city's name in English was Saint Petersburgh. This spelling survives in the name of a street in the Bayswater district of London, near St Sophia's Cathedral, named after a visit by the Tsar to London in 1814.

In the 1830s Alexander Pushkin translated the "foreign" city name of "Saint Petersburg" to the more Russian Petrograd (Russian: Петроград, Russian pronunciation: [pʲɪtrɐˈgrat]) in one of his poems. However, it was only on August 31 [O.S. August 18] 1914, after the war with Germany had begun, that Tsar Nicholas II renamed the city Petrograd in order to expunge the German words Sankt and Burg. Since the prefix "Saint" was omitted, this act also changed the eponym and the "patron" of the city from Saint Peter to Peter the Great, its founder.

After the October Revolution the name Red Petrograd (Красный Петроград, Krasny Petrograd) was often used in newspapers and other publications. On January 26, 1924, shortly after the death of Vladimir Lenin, it was renamed to Leningrad (Russian: Ленинград, Russian pronunciation: [lʲɪnʲɪnˈgrat]), meaning "Lenin City."

From 1924 to 1991 the city was known as 'Leningrad'. This is a picture of the Saint Petersburg port entrance with an old 'Ленинград' (Leningrad) sign.

A referendum on restoring the historic name was held on June 12, 1991, with 55 percent of voters supporting "Sankt-Peterburg" and 43 percent supporting "Leningrad." Renaming the city Petrograd was not an option. This change officially took effect on September 6, 1991. Meanwhile, the oblast whose administrative center is also in Saint Petersburg is still named Leningrad.

In modern times, Saint Petersburg has the nickname of being "the Northern Capital of Russia," being home to notable federal government bodies. The city has been traditionally called the "Window to Europe" and the "Window to the West" by the Russians. The city is often described as the "Venice of the North" or the "Russian Venice" due to its many water corridors, as the city is built on swamp and water. Furthermore, it has strongly Western European-inspired architecture and culture, which is combined with the city's Russian heritage. Another nickname of Saint Petersburg is "The City of the White Nights" because of a natural phenomenon which arises due to the closeness to the polar region and ensures that in summer the night skies of the city do not get completely dark for a month. The city is also often called the "Northern Palmyra," due to its extravagant architecture.

History

In Russia, Saint Petersburg is historically and culturally associated with the birth of the Russian Empire and Russia's entry into modern history as a European great power. It served as a capital of the Tsardom of Russia, and the subsequent Russian Empire, from 1712 to 1918 (being replaced by Moscow for a short period of time between 1728 and 1730).

Imperial era (1703–1917)

Map of fortifications, Sankt Petersburg, 1722

Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611. The small town of Nyen grew up around the fort. This area was inhabited by a Finnic tribe of Ingrians, and was later called Ingria.

At the end of the seventeenth century, Peter the Great wanted Russia to gain a seaport to trade with the rest of Europe. He needed a better seaport than the country's main one at the time, Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea in the far north and closed to shipping during the winter.

Map of Saint Petersburg, 1744

On May 12 [O.S. May 1] 1703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans and soon replaced the fortress. On May 27 [O.S. May 16] 1703, closer to the estuary (5 km (3 mi) inland from the gulf), on Zayachy (Hare) Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city.

The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia; in some years several Swedish prisoners of war were also involved. Tens of thousands of serfs died while building the city. Later, the city became the center of the Saint Petersburg Governorate. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712, nine years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war. He referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital (or seat of government) as early as 1704.

Nevsky Prospekt from restaurant Lejeune in the late nineteenth century

During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the right bank of the Neva, near the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, it soon started to be built out according to a plan. By 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city center would be on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed but is evident in the layout of the streets. In 1716, Peter the Great appointed Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. Le Blond's design of a geometrical city centered on Vasilyevsky Island, was discarded in favor of Domenico Trezzini's more pragmatic plan.

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, and Twelve Collegia, became prominent in the city architecture of the early eighteenth century. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.

In 1725, Peter died at age fifty-two. Several years later, in 1732, under Empress Anna of Russia, Saint Petersburg was again designated as the capital of the Russian Empire. It remained the seat of the Romanov dynasty and the Imperial Court of the Russian tsars, as well as the seat of the Russian government, for another 186 years until the communist revolution of 1917.

In 1736–1737 the city suffered from catastrophic fires. To rebuild the damaged boroughs, a committee under Burkhard Christoph von Münnich commissioned a new plan in 1737. The city was divided into five boroughs, and the city center was moved to the Admiralty borough, on the east bank between the Neva and Fontanka.

Palace Square backed by the General staff arch and building. As the main square of the Russian Empire, it was the setting of many events of historic significance.

It developed along three radial streets, which meet at the Admiralty building and are now known as Nevsky Prospect (which is considered the main street of the city), Gorokhovaya Street and Voznesensky Avenue. Baroque architecture became dominant in the city during the first sixty years, culminating in the Elizabethan Baroque, represented most notably by Italian Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such buildings as the Winter Palace. In the 1760s, Baroque architecture was succeeded by neoclassical architecture.

Established in 1762, the Commission of Stone Buildings of Moscow and Saint Petersburg ruled that no structure in the city could 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 was not until 1850 that the first permanent bridge across the Neva, Annunciation Bridge, was allowed to open. Before that, only pontoon bridges were allowed. Obvodny Canal (dug in 1769–1833) became the southern limit of the city.

Decembrist revolt at the Senate Square, December 26, 1825

In 1810, Alexander I established the first engineering higher education, the Saint Petersburg Main military engineering School in Saint Petersburg.

In 1825, the suppressed Decembrist revolt against Nicholas I took place on the Senate Square in the city, a day after Nicholas assumed the throne.

Many monuments commemorate the Russian victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812, including the Alexander Column by Montferrand, erected in 1834, and the Narva Triumphal Arch.

By the 1840s, neoclassical architecture had given way to various romanticist styles, which dominated until the 1890s, represented by such architects as Andrei Stackenschneider (Mariinsky Palace, Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, Nicholas Palace, New Michael Palace) and Konstantin Thon (Moskovsky railway station).

With the emancipation of the serfs undertaken by Alexander II in 1861 and an Industrial Revolution, the influx of former peasants into the capital increased greatly. Poor boroughs spontaneously developed on the outskirts of the city. Saint Petersburg surpassed Moscow in population and industrial growth; it became one of the largest industrial cities in Europe, with a major naval base (in Kronstadt), the Neva River, and a seaport on the Baltic.

The Revolution of 1905 began in Saint Petersburg and spread rapidly into the provinces.

On September 1, 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, the Imperial government renamed the city Petrograd, meaning "Peter's City," to remove the German words Sankt and Burg due to anti-German sentiment.

Revolution and Soviet era (1917–1941)

Bolsheviks celebrating May 1 near the Winter Palace half a year after taking power, 1918

In March 1917, during the February Revolution Nicholas II abdicated for himself and on behalf of his son, ending the Russian monarchy and over three hundred years of Romanov dynastic rule.

On November 7 [O.S. October 25] 1917, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, stormed the Winter Palace in an event known thereafter as the October Revolution, which led to the end of the social-democratic provisional government, the transfer of all political power to the Soviets, and the rise of the Communist Party. After that the city acquired a new descriptive name, "Сradle of revolutions," referring to the three major developments in the political history of Russia of the early twentieth century.

In September and October 1917, German troops invaded the West Estonian archipelago and threatened Petrograd with bombardment and invasion. On March 12, 1918, Lenin transferred the government of Soviet Russia to Moscow, to keep it away from the state border. During the Russian Civil War, in mid-1919 Russian anti-communist forces with the help of Estonians attempted to capture the city, but Leon Trotsky mobilized the army and forced them to retreat back to Estonia.

Leningrad in 1935

On January 26, 1924, five days after Lenin's death, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. Later many streets and places were renamed accordingly, with names in honor of communist figures replacing historic names given centuries before. The city has over 230 places associated with the life and activities of Lenin; some of them turned into museums. During the Soviet era, many historic architectural monuments of the previous centuries were destroyed by the new regime for ideological reasons. While that mainly concerned churches and cathedrals, some other buildings were also demolished.

The Saviour Church on Sennaya Square (pre-1917 photo) in Leningrad was one of many notable church buildings destroyed during The Thaw

In the 1920s and 1930s, the poor outskirts were reconstructed into regularly planned boroughs. Constructivist architecture flourished around that time. Housing became a government-provided amenity; many "bourgeois" apartments were so large that numerous families were assigned to what were called "communal" apartments (kommunalkas). In 1935, a new general plan was outlined, whereby the city should expand to the south. Constructivism was rejected in favor of a more pompous Stalinist architecture. Moving the city center further from the border with Finland, Stalin adopted a plan to build a new city hall with a huge adjacent square at the southern end of Moskovsky Prospekt, designated as the new main street of Leningrad. After the Winter (Soviet-Finnish) war in 1939–1940, the Soviet–Finnish border moved northwards. Nevsky Prospekt with Palace Square maintained the functions and the role of a city center. In December 1931, Leningrad was administratively separated from Leningrad Oblast.

World War II (1941–1945)

Citizens of Leningrad during the 872-day siege, in which more than one million civilians died, mostly from starvation, Nevsky Prospect (then known as the 25th October Prospekt).

During World War II, German forces besieged Leningrad following the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The Siege of Leningrad proved one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of a major city in modern history. The siege lasted 872 days, or almost two and a half years, from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944. It isolated the city from food supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga, which could not make it through until the lake froze. More than one million civilians died, mainly from starvation, and there were incidents of cannibalism. Many others escaped or were evacuated, so the city became largely depopulated.

On May 1, 1945 Joseph Stalin, in his Supreme Commander Order No. 20, named Leningrad, alongside Stalingrad, Sevastopol, and Odesa, hero cities of the war. A law acknowledging the honorary title of "Hero City" passed on May 8, 1965 (the 20th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War), during the Brezhnev era. The Hero-City Obelisk bearing the Gold Star sign was installed in April 1985.

Post-war Soviet era (1945–1991)

View of Lermontovski Prospekt, Egyptian Bridge and the Fontanka River, 1972

In October 1946 some territories along the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland, which had been annexed into the USSR from Finland in 1940 under the peace treaty following the Winter War, were transferred from Leningrad Oblast to Leningrad and divided into Sestroretsky District and Kurortny District. Leningrad and many of its suburbs were rebuilt over the post-war decades, partially according to pre-war plans. The 1948 general plan for Leningrad featured radial urban development in the north as well as in the south. In 1953, Pavlovsky District in 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.

Griboedov Canal and the Church of the Saviour on Blood, 1991

Leningrad gave its name to the Leningrad Affair (1949–1952), a notable event in the postwar political struggle in the USSR. It was a product of rivalry between Stalin's potential successors where one side was represented by the leaders of the city Communist Party organization—the second most significant one in the country after Moscow. The entire elite leadership of Leningrad was destroyed, including the former mayor Kuznetsov, the acting mayor Pyotr Sergeevich Popkov, and all their deputies; overall 23 leaders were sentenced to the death penalty, 181 to prison or exile (rehabilitated in 1954). About 2,000 ranking officials across the USSR were expelled from the party and the Komsomol and removed from leadership positions.

The Leningrad Metro underground rapid transit system, designed before the war, opened in 1955 with its first eight stations decorated with marble and bronze. However, after Stalin's death in 1953, the perceived ornamental excesses of the Stalinist architecture were abandoned. From the 1960s to the 1980s many new residential boroughs were built on the outskirts; while the functionalist apartment blocks were nearly identical to each other, many families moved there from kommunalkas in the city center to live in separate apartments.

Contemporary era (1991–present)

View of the city from the Saint Isaac's Cathedral

On June 12, 1991, simultaneously with the first Russian SFSR presidential elections, the city authorities arranged for the mayoral elections and a referendum upon the city's name, when the original name Saint Petersburg was restored.

Meanwhile, economic conditions started to deteriorate as the country tried to adapt to major changes. For the first time since the 1940s, food rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad. This dramatic time was depicted in photographic series of Russian photographer Alexey Titarenko. Economic conditions began to improve only at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

In 1995, a northern section of the Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line of the Saint Petersburg Metro was cut off by underground flooding, creating a major obstacle to the city development for almost ten years.

Moyka River, flowing through Central Saint Petersburg

The Trinity Bridge is a landmark of Art Nouveau design.

Residential building had intensified again; real-estate prices inflated greatly, which caused many new problems for the preservation of the historical part of the city. Although the central part of the city has a UNESCO designation (there are about 8,000 architectural monuments in Petersburg), the preservation of its historical and architectural environment became controversial.

In 2006, Gazprom announced an ambitious project to erect a 403 meters (1,320 ft) skyscraper (the Okhta Center) opposite to Smolny, which could result in the loss of the unique line of Petersburg landscape. Urgent protests by citizens and prominent public figures of Russia against this project were not considered by Governor Valentina Matviyenko and the city authorities until December 2010, when after the statement of President Dmitry Medvedev, the city decided to find a more appropriate location for this project. In the same year, the new location for the project was relocated to Lakhta, a historical area northwest of the city center, and the new project would be named Lakhta Center. Construction was approved by Gazprom and the city administration and commenced in 2012. Completed in 2019, at 462 meters (1,520 ft) high the Lakhta Center is the tallest skyscraper in Russia and Europe, and the northernmost skyscraper in the world.

Geography

The Neva River flows through much of the centre of the city. Left – the Spit of Vasilievsky Island, center – River Neva, Peter and Paul Fortress and Trinity Bridge, right – Palace Embankment with the Winter Palace.

Satellite image of Saint Petersburg and its suburbs

The area of Saint Petersburg city proper is 605.8 square kilometers (233.9 sq mi), while the federal subject covers 1,439 square kilometers (556 sq mi), which contains Saint Petersburg proper (consisting of eighty-one municipal okrugs), nine municipal towns – (Kolpino, Krasnoye Selo, Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Pavlovsk, Petergof, Pushkin, Sestroretsk, Zelenogorsk) – and twenty-one municipal settlements.

Petersburg is 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 sea level to its highest point of 175.9 meters (577 ft) 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 4 meters (13 ft) 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 Saint Petersburg Dam was constructed to prevent floods.

Since the eighteenth century, the city's terrain has been raised artificially, at some places by more than 4 meters (13 ft), making mergers of several islands, and changing the hydrology of the city. Besides the Neva and its tributaries, 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.

Due to its northerly location at c. 60° N latitude the day length in Petersburg varies across seasons, ranging from 5 hours 53 minutes to 18 hours 50 minutes. A period from mid-May to mid-July during which twilight may last all night is called the white nights.

Saint Petersburg is about Template:Convert/LoffAinDbSoff from the border with Finland, connected to it via the M10 highway (E18), along which there is also a connection to the historic city of Vyborg.

Climate

Under the Köppen climate classification, Saint Petersburg is classified as Dfb, a humid continental climate. The distinct moderating influence of Baltic Sea cyclones results in warm, humid, and short summers and long, moderately cold wet winters. The climate of Saint Petersburg is close to that of Helsinki, although slightly more continental (colder in winter and warmer in summer) because of its more eastern location, while slightly less continental than that of Moscow.

Despite St. Petersburg's northern location, its winters are warmer than Moscow's due to the Gulf of Finland and some Gulf Stream influence from Scandinavian winds that can bring temperature slightly above freezing. The city also has a slightly warmer climate than its suburbs. Weather conditions are quite variable all year round.

Average annual precipitation varies across the city, averaging 660 millimeters (26 in) per year and reaching maximum in late summer. Due to the cool climate, soil moisture is almost always high because of lower evapotranspiration.

Demographics

Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia.

During the twentieth century, the city experienced dramatic population changes. From 2.4 million residents in 1916, its population dropped to less than 740,000 by 1920 during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Russian Civil War. The minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians, and Latvians were almost completely transferred from Leningrad during the 1930s. From 1941 to the end of 1943, population dropped from 3 million to less than 600,000, as people died in battles, starved to death, or were evacuated during the Siege of Leningrad. Some evacuees returned after the siege, 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 4.6 million, while the suburban population increased due to privatization of land and massive move to suburbs.

Religion

Saint Petersburg has a variety of religious faiths, with Eastern Orthodox Christianity being the majority. Other Christians are Catholic and Lutheran, while there are also Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and a smaller number of Hindus.

Over 200 religious buildings in the city are owned or run by religious associations. Among them are architectural monuments of federal significance. The oldest cathedral in the city is the Peter and Paul Cathedral, built between 1712 and 1733, and the largest is the Kazan Cathedral, completed in 1811.

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  Kronstadt: the Naval Cathedral on Yakornaya Square

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  the Church of St. Catherine

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  the Saint Petersburg Mosque

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  the Grand Choral Synagogue of St. Petersburg

Government

The city assembly meets in the Mariinsky Palace.

Saint Petersburg is a federal subject of Russia (a federal city). The political life of Saint Petersburg is regulated by the Charter of Saint Petersburg adopted by the city legislature in 1998. The superior executive body is the Saint Petersburg City Administration, led by the city governor (mayor before 1996). Saint Petersburg has a single-chamber legislature, the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly, which is the city's regional parliament.

The Smolny Institute, seat of the governor

According to the federal law passed in 2004, heads of federal subjects, including the governor of Saint Petersburg, were nominated by the President of Russia and approved by local legislatures. Should the legislature disapprove the nominee, the President could dissolve it.

Saint Petersburg is also the unofficial but de facto administrative center of Leningrad Oblast, and of the Northwestern Federal District. The Constitutional Court of Russia moved to Saint Petersburg from Moscow in May 2008.

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.

Administrative divisions

Saint Petersburg is divided into 18 administrative districts:
Аdmiralteysky Vasileostrovsky Vyborgsky Kalininsky Кirovsky Kolpinsky Krasnogvardeysky Кrasnoselsky Kronshtadtsky	Kurortny Moskovsky Nevsky Petrogradsky Petrodvortsovy Primorsky Pushkinsky Frunzensky Tsentralny
Within the boundaries of the districts, there are 111 intra-city municipalities, 81 municipal districts, and 9 cities: (Zelenogorsk, Kolpino, Krasnoe Selo, Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Pavlovsk, Petergof, Pushkin, and Sestroretsk), as well as 21 villages.

Economy

Saint Petersburg is a major trade gateway, serving as the financial and industrial centre of Russia, with specializations in oil and gas trade; shipbuilding yards; aerospace industry; technology, including radio, 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 aluminum alloys); chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and 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); it was founded by machine tool and boilermaker G.A. Lessner in 1904, with designs by Boris Loutsky, and it survived until 1910.

Admiralty Shipyard

Power Machines plant building on Sverdlovskaya embankment in Saint Petersburg

Ten per cent of the world's power turbines are made 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, Izhorskiye Zavody; also registered in Saint Petersburg are Sovkomflot, Petersburg Fuel Company, and SIBUR among other major Russian and international companies.

The Port of Saint Petersburg has three large cargo terminals, Bolshoi Port Saint Petersburg, Kronstadt, and Lomonosov terminal. International cruise liners have been served at the passenger port at Morskoy Vokzal on the south-west of Vasilyevsky Island. In 2008 the first two berths opened at the New Passenger Port on the west of the 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 now grace the public parks of Saint Petersburg and many other cities. 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, Mark Antokolsky, and others, were made there.

Saint Petersburg has a large brewery and distillery industry. Known as Russia's "beer capital" due to the supply and quality of local water, its five large breweries account for over 30 percent of the country's domestic beer production.

The city's many local distilleries produce a broad range of vodka brands. The oldest ones is LIVIZ (founded in 1897). Among the youngest is Russian Standard Vodka introduced in Moscow in 1998, opening a distillery in Saint Petersburg in 2006.

Cityscape

The Admiralty building in St. Petersburg

Lakhta Center, the tallest building in Europe

Kazan Cathedral, an example of Neoclassical architecture

Saint Isaac's Square

Unlike in Moscow, the historic architecture of Saint Petersburg's city center, mostly Baroque and Neoclassical buildings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has been largely preserved; although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

The ensemble of Peter and Paul Fortress with the Peter and Paul Cathedral takes a dominant position on Zayachy Island along the right bank of the Neva River. Each noon a cannon fires a blank shot from the fortress. The Saint Petersburg Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe when opened in 1913, is on the right bank nearby. The Spit of Vasilievsky Island, which splits the river into two largest armlets, the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva, is connected to the northern bank (Petrogradsky Island) via the Exchange Bridge and occupied by the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns. The southern coast of Vasilyevsky Island along the Bolshaya Neva features some of the city's oldest buildings, dating from the eighteenth century, including the Kunstkamera, Twelve Collegia, Menshikov Palace and Imperial Academy of Arts. It hosts one of two campuses of Saint Petersburg State University.

On the southern, left bank of the Neva, connected to the spit of Vasilyevsky Island via the Palace Bridge, lie the Admiralty building, the vast Hermitage Museum complex stretching along the Palace Embankment, which includes the Baroque Winter Palace, former official residence of Russian emperors, as well as the neoclassical Marble Palace. The Winter Palace faces Palace Square, the city's main square with the Alexander Column.

Aerial view of Peter and Paul Fortress

The Field of Mars

Nevsky Prospekt, also on the left bank of the Neva, is the city's main avenue. It starts at the Admiralty and runs eastwards next to Palace Square. Nevsky Prospekt crosses the Moika (Green Bridge), Griboyedov Canal (Kazansky Bridge), Garden Street, the Fontanka (Anichkov Bridge), meets Liteyny Prospekt and proceeds to Uprising Square near the Moskovsky railway station, where it meets Ligovsky Prospekt and turns to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The Passage, Catholic Church of St. Catherine, Book House (former Singer Manufacturing Company Building in the Art Nouveau style), Grand Hotel Europe, Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Great Gostiny Dvor, Russian National Library, Alexandrine Theatre behind Mikeshin's statue of Catherine the Great, Kazan Cathedral, Stroganov Palace, Anichkov Palace and Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace are all along that avenue.

Nevsky Prospekt

Palace Square during Christmas

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

On the territory between the Neva and Nevsky Prospekt the Church of the Savior on Blood, Mikhailovsky Palace housing the Russian Museum, Field of Mars, St. Michael's Castle, Summer Garden, Tauride Palace, Smolny Institute and Smolny Convent are located.

Church of the Savior on Blood, seen from Griboyedov Canal

Smolny Convent, an example of Baroque architecture

Many notable landmarks are to the west and south of the Admiralty Building, including the Trinity Cathedral, Mariinsky Palace, Hotel Astoria, famous Mariinsky Theatre, New Holland Island, Saint Isaac's Cathedral, the largest in the city, and Senate Square, with the Bronze Horseman, eighteenth-century equestrian monument to Peter the Great, which is considered among the city's most recognizable symbols.

Other symbols of Saint Petersburg include the weather vane in the shape of a small ship on top of the Admiralty's golden spire and the golden angel on top of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Palace Bridge drawn at night is yet another symbol of the city.

From April to November, 22 bridges across the Neva and main canals are drawn to let ships pass in and out of the Baltic Sea. It was not until 2004 that the first high bridge across the Neva, which does not need to be drawn, Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. The most remarkable bridges of our days are Korabelny and Petrovsky cable-stayed bridges, which form the most spectacular part of the city toll road, Western High-Speed Diameter. There are hundreds of smaller bridges in Saint Petersburg spanning numerous canals and distributaries of the Neva, some of the most important of which are the Moika, Fontanka, Griboyedov Canal, Obvodny Canal, Karpovka, and Smolenka. The intricate web of canals has led to Saint Petersburg being called Venice of the North. The rivers and canals in the city center are lined with granite embankments. The embankments and bridges are separated from rivers and canals by granite or cast iron parapets.

Aerial view of Peterhof Palace

Southern suburbs of the city feature former imperial residences, including Petergof, with majestic fountain cascades and parks, Tsarskoe Selo, with the baroque Catherine Palace and the neoclassical Alexander Palace, and Pavlovsk, which has a domed palace of Emperor Paul and one of Europe's largest English-style parks. Some other residences nearby and making part of the world heritage site, including a castle and park in Gatchina, actually belong to Leningrad Oblast rather than Saint Petersburg. Another notable suburb is Kronstadt with its nineteenth-century fortifications and naval monuments, occupying the Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland.

Since around the end of the twentieth century a great deal of active building and restoration works have been carried out in a number of the city's older districts. The authorities have recently been compelled to transfer the ownership of state-owned private residences in the city centre to private lessors. Many older buildings have been reconstructed to allow their use as apartments and penthouses.

The Lakhta Center in the city's outskirts was completed in 2019, and at 462 meters (1,520 ft) it is currently the tallest skyscraper in Russia and Europe.

Parks

The "Temple of Friendship" in Pavlovsk Park

Saint Petersburg is home to many parks and gardens. Some of the most well-known are in the southern suburbs, including Pavlovsk, one of Europe's largest English gardens. Sosnovka is the largest park within the city limits. The Summer Garden is the oldest, dating back to the early eighteenth century. It is on the Neva's southern bank at the head of the Fontanka and is famous for its cast iron railing and marble sculptures.

Among other notable parks are the Maritime Victory Park on Krestovsky Island and the Moscow Victory Park in the south, both commemorating the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, as well as the Central Park of Culture and Leisure occupying Yelagin Island and the Tauride Garden around the Tauride Palace. The most common trees grown in the parks are the English oak, Norway maple, green ash, silver birch, Siberian Larch, blue spruce, crack willow, limes, and poplars. Important dendrological collections dating back to the nineteenth century are hosted by the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden and the Park of the Forestry Academy.

In order to commemorate 300 years anniversary of Saint Petersburg a new park was laid out in the northwestern part of the city. The park area includes shrubs, various trees, and flower beds with bright, fragrant flowers. Also in the park is a granite pillar styled as a lighthouse. It is divided into three tiers, symbolizing the three centuries of the glorious history of St. Petersburg.

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  Cameron gallery in Catherine park of Tsarskoe Selo

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  Grotto pavilion in Catherine park of Tsarskoe Selo

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  The Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo

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  Grand Menshikov Palace

Culture

Saint Petersburg has always been known for its high-quality cultural life, with a large number of museums and theatres, as well as its longstanding tradition of world-famous music and literature.

Museums

The State Hermitage Museum (Hermitage Theatre, Old Hermitage, Small Hermitage, and Winter Palace, all part of the current museum complex)

Saint Petersburg is home to more than two hundred museums, many of them in historic buildings. The largest is the Hermitage Museum that features the interiors of the former imperial residence and a vast collection of art. The Russian Museum is a large museum devoted to Russian fine art. The apartments of some famous Petersburgers, including Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Feodor Chaliapin, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Joseph Brodsky, as well as some palace and park ensembles of the southern suburbs and notable architectural monuments such as St. Isaac's Cathedral, have also been turned into public museums.

The Kunstkamera, with its collection established in 1714 by Peter the Great to collect curiosities from all over the world, is sometimes considered the first museum in Russia, which has evolved into the present-day Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The Russian Ethnography Museum, which has been split from the Russian Museum, is devoted to the cultures of the people of Russia, the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire.

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  The State Hermitage Museum

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  The State Russian Museum

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  The Russian Museum of Ethnography

A number of museums provide insight into the Soviet history of Saint Petersburg, including the Museum of the Blockade, which describes the Siege of Leningrad and the Museum of Political History, which explains many authoritarian features of the USSR.

Other notable museums include the Central Naval Museum, and Zoological Museum, Central Soil Museum, the Russian Railway Museum, Suvorov Museum, Museum of the Siege of Leningrad, Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art, the largest non-governmental museum of contemporary art in Russia, Saint Petersburg Museum of History in the Peter and Paul Fortress, and Artillery Museum, which includes not only artillery items, but also a huge collection of other military equipment, uniforms, and decorations. Amongst others, Saint Petersburg also hosts State Museum of the History of Religion, one of the eldest museums in Russia about religion depicting cultural representations from various parts of the globe.

Music

The main auditorium of the Mariinsky Theatre

Panorama of stalls and boxes at the Main Mariinsky Theatre

Among the city's more than fifty theatres is the Mariinsky Theatre (formerly known as the Kirov Theatre), home to the Mariinsky Ballet company and opera. Leading ballet dancers, such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Galina Ulanova, and Natalia Makarova, were principal stars of the Mariinsky ballet.

The first music school, the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, was founded in 1862 by the Russian pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein. The school alumni have included such notable composers as Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Artur Kapp, Rudolf Tobias and Dmitri Shostakovich, who taught at the conservatory during the 1960s, bringing it additional fame. The renowned Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov also taught at the conservatory from 1871 to 1905. Among his students were Igor Stravinsky, Alexander Glazounov, Anatoly Liadov and others. The former St. Petersburg apartment of Rimsky-Korsakov has been faithfully preserved as the composer's only museum.

Scarlet Sails celebration on the Neva River

Dmitri Shostakovich, who was born and raised in Saint Petersburg, dedicated his Seventh Symphony to the city, calling it the "Leningrad Symphony." He wrote the symphony while based in the city during the siege of Leningrad. It was premiered in Samara in March 1942; a few months later, it received its first performance in the besieged Leningrad at the Bolshoy Philharmonic Hall under the baton of conductor Karl Eliasberg. It was heard over the radio and was said to have lifted the spirits of the surviving population. 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. Mravinsky's term as artistic director of the Leningrad Philharmonic—a term that is possibly the longest of any conductor with any orchestra in modern times—led the orchestra from a little-known provincial ensemble to one of the world's most highly regarded orchestras, especially for the performance of Russian music.

The Alexandrinsky Theatre

Saint Petersburg has been home to the newest movements in popular music in the country. The early Soviet jazz bands founded here included Leopold Teplitsky's First Concert Jazz Band (1927), Leonid Utyosov 's TheaJazz (1928, under the patronage of composer Isaak Dunayevsky), and Georgy Landsberg's Jazz Cappella (1929). The first jazz appreciation society in the Soviet Union was founded here in 1958 as J58, and later named jazz club Kvadrat. In 1956 the popular ensemble Druzhba was founded by Aleksandr Bronevitsky and Edita Piekha to become the first popular band in the USSR during the 1950s. 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, which later grew to huge popularity. Since then "Peter's rock" music style was formed.

In the 1970s many bands came out from the "underground" scene and eventually founded the Leningrad Rock Club, which provided a stage to bands such as DDT, Kino, Alisa, Zemlyane, Zoopark, Piknik, and Secret. 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. The Sergey Kuryokhin International Festival (SKIF) is named after him. In 2004 the Kuryokhin Center was founded, where the SKIF and the Electro-Mechanica and Ethnomechanica festivals take place. SKIF focuses on experimental pop music and avant-garde music, Electro-Mechanica on electronic music, and Ethnomechanica on world music.

Today's Saint Petersburg boasts many notable musicians of various genres, from popular Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov, Tequilajazzz, Splean, and Korol i Shut, to rock veterans Yuri Shevchuk, Vyacheslav Butusov, and Mikhail Boyarsky.

Literature

The Pushkin House

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 often 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 by 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, Ayn Rand, Andrey Bely, and Yevgeny Zamyatin, along with his apprentices, The Serapion Brothers created entirely 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 adumbrates the perils encountered during the Stalinist era. Another notable twentieth-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".

Film

Numerous international and Russian movies have been filmed in Saint Petersburg. Well over a thousand feature films about tsars, revolution, people, and stories set in Saint Petersburg have been produced worldwide but not filmed in the city. The first film studios were founded in Saint Petersburg in the twentieth century 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 an 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), Brother (1997) and Tamil romantic thriller film-Dhaam Dhoom (2008). Onegin (1999) is based on the Pushkin poem and showcases many tourist attractions. In addition, the Russian romantic comedy, Piter FM, intricately showcases the cityscape, almost as if it were a main character in the film.

Several international film festivals are held annually, such as the Festival of Festivals, Saint Petersburg, as well as the Message to Man International Documentary Film Festival, since its inauguration in 1988 during the White Nights.

Tourism

With a significant historical and cultural heritage, Saint Petersburg is a popular tourism center in Russia and Europe. The city's eighteenth and nineteenth-century architectural ensemble and its environs are preserved in virtually unchanged form, making it a unique reserve of European architectural styles of the past three centuries. One of the world's most beautiful cities, St. Petersburg combines rich cultural traditions with vibrant contemporary nightlife.

The Amber Room in the Catherine Palace

Saint Petersburg, the "Venice of the North," is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list as "the greatest urban creation of the 18th century."

The city has 221 museums, 2,000 libraries, more than 80 theatres, 100 concert organizations, 45 galleries and exhibition halls, 62 cinemas, and 80 other cultural establishments. Every year the city hosts around 100 festivals and various competitions of art and culture, including more than 50 international ones.

Grand Peterhof Palace and the Grand Cascade

The museum world of Saint Petersburg is incredibly diverse. The city is not only home to the world-famous Hermitage Museum and the Russian Museum with its rich collection of Russian art, but also the palaces of Saint Petersburg and its suburbs, so-called small-town museums and others like the museum of famous Russian writer Dostoyevsky; Museum of Musical Instruments, the museum of decorative arts, and the museum of professional orientation.

Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns

The musical life of Saint Petersburg is rich and diverse, with the city now playing host to a number of annual carnivals. The White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg is famous for spectacular fireworks and a massive show celebrating the end of the school year.

Ballet performances occupy a special place in the cultural life of Saint Petersburg. The Petersburg School of Ballet is named as one of the best in the world. Traditions of the Russian classical school have been passed down from generation to generation among outstanding educators. The art of famous and prominent Saint Petersburg dancers like Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia Makarova, Mikhail Baryshnikov was, and is, admired throughout the world. Contemporary Petersburg ballet is made up not only of traditional Russian classical school but also ballets by those like Boris Eifman, who expanded the scope of strict classical Russian ballet to almost unimaginable limits. Remaining faithful to the classical basis (he was a choreographer at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet), he combined classical ballet with the avant-garde style, and then, in turn, with acrobatics, rhythmic gymnastics, dramatic expressiveness, cinema, color, light, and finally with spoken word.

Education

Saint Petersburg has over 1,000 kindergartens, over 700 public schools and 80 vocational schools in Saint Petersburg. The largest of the public higher education institutions is Saint Petersburg State University, enrolling approximately 32,000 undergraduate students; and the largest non-governmental higher education institutions is the Institute of International Economic Relations, Economics, and Law. Other famous universities are Saint Petersburg Polytechnic University, Herzen University, Saint Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance and Saint Petersburg Military engineering-technical university. However, the public universities are all federal property and do not belong to the city.

The Twelve Collegia of Saint Petersburg State University

Sports

Gazprom Arena on Krestovsky Island

Sport in Saint Petersburg has a long tradition, back to the founding days of Saint Petersburg in the early eighteenth century. The city hosted part of the association football tournament during the 1980 Summer Olympic Games, and also hosted the 1994 Goodwill Games.

The first competition held in Saint Petersburg was the 1703 rowing event initiated by Peter the Great, after the victory over the Swedish fleet. The Russian Navy held Yachting events since the foundation of the city. There are several yacht clubs including the St. Petersburg River Yacht Club and the Neva Yacht Club, the latter being the oldest yacht club in the world. In the winter, when the sea and lake surfaces are frozen and yachts and dinghies cannot be used, local people sail ice boats.

Equestrianism has been a long tradition, popular among the Tsars and aristocracy, as well as part of military training. Several historic sports arenas were built for equestrianism since the eighteenth century to maintain training all year round, such as the Zimny Stadion and Konnogvardeisky Manezh.

Chess was highlighted by the 1914 international tournament, partially funded by the Tsar, in which the title "Grandmaster" was first formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II to five players: Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch, and Marshall.

The city's main football team is FC Zenit Saint Petersburg, who have been champions of the Soviet and Russian league several times, most notably claiming the RPL title in four consecutive seasons from 2018–19 to 2021–22, along with winning the Soviet/Russian Cup five times. The club also won the 2007–08 UEFA Cup and the 2008 UEFA Super Cup, spearheaded by successful player and local hero Andrey Arshavin.

Kirov Stadium formerly existed as Zenit's home from 1950 to 1993 and again in 1995, being one of the largest stadiums in the world at the time. In 1951 a crowd of 110,000 set the single-game attendance record for Soviet football. The stadium was knocked down in 2006, with Zenit temporarily moving to the Petrovsky Stadium before the Krestovsky Stadium was built on the same site as the Kirov Stadium. The Krestovsky Stadium opened in 2017, hosting four matches at the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, including the final. The stadium then hosted seven matches at the 2018 FIFA World Cup, including a semi-final and the third-placed playoff. It also hosted seven matches at UEFA Euro 2020, including a quarter-final. The stadium was going to host the 2022 UEFA Champions League final, however UEFA removed St Petersburg as host in February 2022, citing the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Hockey teams in the city include SKA Saint Petersburg in the KHL, HC VMF St. Petersburg in the VHL, and junior clubs SKA-1946 and Silver Lions in the Russian Major League. SKA Saint Petersburg is one of the most popular in the KHL, consistently being at or near the top of the league in attendance. They play their home games at Ice Palace Saint Petersburg.

The city's long-time basketball team is B.C.E. Spartak Saint Petersburg, which launched the career of Andrei Kirilenko. BC Spartak Saint Petersburg won two championships in the USSR Premier League (1975 and 1992), two USSR Cups (1978 and 1987), and a Russian Cup title (2011). They also won the Saporta Cup twice (1973 and 1975). Legends of the club include Alexander Belov and Vladimir Kondrashin. BC Zenit Saint Petersburg also play in the city, being formed in 2014.

Transportation

A section of the Western High-Speed Diameter

Saint Petersburg is a major transport hub. The first Russian railway was built there in 1837, and since then the city's transport infrastructure has kept pace with the city's growth. There is an extensive system of local roads and railway services, a large public transport system that includes the Saint Petersburg tram and the Saint Petersburg Metro, and several riverine services that convey passengers around the city efficiently and in relative comfort.

The city is connected to the rest of Russia and the wider world by several federal highways and national and international rail routes. Pulkovo Airport serves most of the air passengers departing from or arriving to the city.

Roads and public transport

Tram passing by Kronverksy Avenue

Narvskaya station of the Saint Petersburg Metro, opened in 1955

Saint Petersburg has an extensive city-funded network of public transport (buses, trams, and trolleybuses). Trams used to be the main means of transport; in the 1980s this was the largest tram network globally, but many tracks were dismantled in the 2000s.

Trolleybus on Nevsky Prospekt

Buses carry up to three 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. Metro stations are often elaborately decorated with materials such as marble and bronze.

Traffic jams are common in the city due to daily commuter traffic volumes, intercity traffic, and excessive winter snow. The construction of freeways such as the Saint Petersburg Ring Road, completed in 2011, and the Western High-Speed Diameter, completed in 2017, helped reduce the traffic in the city. The M11 Neva, also known as the Moscow-Saint Petersburg Motorway, is a federal highway, and connects Saint Petersburg to Moscow by a freeway.

Saint Petersburg is an 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, Kyiv and Odesa and E105 towards Petrozavodsk, Murmansk, and Kirkenes (north) and towards Moscow and Kharkiv (south).

Waterways

Hydrofoil docking in Saint Petersburg upon arrival from Peterhof Palace (2008)

The city is also served by passenger and cargo seaports in the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea, the river port higher up the Neva and tens of smaller passenger stations on both banks of the Neva river. It is a terminus of both the Volga–Baltic and White Sea–Baltic waterways.

The first high bridge that does not need to be drawn, the Template:Convert/LoffAoffDbSmid Big Obukhovsky Bridge opened in 2004. Meteor hydrofoils link the city center to the coastal towns of Kronstadt and Shlisselburg from May through October. In the warmer months many smaller boats and water-taxis navigate the city's canals.

The shipping company St. Peter Line operates two ferries that sail from Helsinki to Saint Petersburg and from Stockholm to Saint Petersburg.

Rail

The Sapsan high-speed train runs between Saint Petersburg and Moscow.

The city is the final destination for a web of intercity and suburban railways, served by five different railway terminals (Baltiysky, Finlyandsky, Ladozhsky, Moskovsky, and Vitebsky) as well as dozens of non-terminal railway stations within the federal subject. Until 2001, the Varshavsky Rail Terminal served as a major station; it now is a railway museum. Saint Petersburg has international railway connections to Helsinki, Finland, Berlin, Germany, and many former republics of the USSR.

The Moscow – Saint Petersburg Railway opened in 1851, and is 651 kilometers (405 mi) long. In 2009 Russian Railways launched a high speed service for the Moscow–Saint Petersburg route. The new train, known as Sapsan, is a derivative of the popular Siemens Velaro train; various versions of this already operate in some European countries.

Intercity and suburban rail terminals of Petersburg
Vitebsky Station   Moskovsky Station   Baltiysky Station   Finlyandsky Station   Ladozhsky Station

Air

Saint Petersburg is served by Pulkovo International Airport.

Pulkovo International Airport

Pulkovo airport was opened to passengers as a small aerodrome in 1931. Now it is the 3rd busiest in Russia after Moscow's Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo. As a result, the steadily increasing passenger traffic has triggered a massive modernization of the entire airport infrastructure. One of the oldest air carriers of the Russian Federation Rossiya is registered in Saint Petersburg and is the largest and the base carrier of Pulkovo Airport.

There is a regular rapid-bus connection (buses 39, 39E, K39) between Pulkovo airport and the Moskovskaya metro station as well as 24/7 taxi service.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Bonavia, Michael. London Before I Forget. The Self-Publishing Association Ltd, 1990. ISBN 1854210823
• Brodsky, Joseph. Less Than One: Selected Essays. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1987. ISBN 0374520550
• Georgano, Nick. Cars: Early and Vintage, 1886–1930. Crescent Books, 1990. ASIN B004H3YU5M
• Hanson, Victor Davis. The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won. Basic Books, 2017. ISBN 978-0465066988
• Hughes, Lindsey. Peter the Great: a Biography. Yale University Press, 2004. ISBN 978-0300103007
• Orttung, Robert W. From Leningrad to Saint Petersburg. Palgrave MacMillan, 1995. ISBN 978-0312120801
• Richmond, Simon, and Regis St Louis. St Petersburg City Guide. Lonely Planet Publications, 2018. ISBN 978-1786573650
• Wade, Rex A. The Russian Revolution, 1917. Cambridge University Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1107130326
• Williams, Harold Whitmore. Russia of the Russians. Kessinger Publishing, 2008 (original 1915). ISBN 978-1437275971
• Williams, Paul. Saint Petersburg: The City of White Nights. P-2 Art Publishers, 1997. ISBN 5890910310
• Wilson, Derek. Peter the Great. St. Martin's Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0312550998
• Zubkova, Elena. Russia after the War: Hopes, illusions, and disappointments, 1945–1957. Routledge, 1998. ISBN 978-0765602275

External links

All links retrieved February 21, 2025.

• Saint Petersburg, Russia, 2010 AerPano
• Saint Petersburg, 1900: a photographic travelogue of the capital of Imperial Russia by Bob Atchison
• Welcome to St. Petersburg! Saint-Petersburg.com
• St. Petersburg through the ages Roscongress Foundation (formerly the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum Foundation).
• Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments UNESCO World Heritage Convention

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