Saint Petersburg (Sankt Petersburg in Russian; formerly Petrograd in 1914-24, then Leningrad until 1991) is a city located in north-western Russia on the Baltic Sea. In the past it was a major cultural center of Europe. With over four million inhabitants, it remains Russia's second city.
St. Petersburg is a major Russian port. The city was founded by tsar Peter the Great after conquering the land from Sweden in 1703, and named after the apostle St. Peter. It was built in the location of the former Swedish fortress of Nöteborg, in the marshlands where the river Neva drains into the Gulf of Finland. It was the national capital of Russia under the tsars.
During World War I, the name St. Petersburg was seen to be too German and the city was renamed Petrograd. In 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution broke out in Petrograd. The nearby German armies forced a move of the capital to Moscow, which has been the capital of Russia ever since. In 1924, the city was renamed Leningrad. During World War II it was besieged by the German army from September 8, 1941 until 27 January 1944 (though a land link to the rest of Russia was established on January 18, 1943). Some 800,000 of the city's three million inhabitants are estimated to have perished.
The original name - St. Petersburg - was restored after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The name of the oblast (administrative province) of which the city is capital remains, however, Leningrad.
A famous landmark in St. Petersburg is the Hermitage art museum, which includes the tsars' Winter Palace.
Links: