St Petersburg has been dubbed the Venice of the North for its palace-lined waterways. It managed to escape the architectural incursions of Stalinism and its grandiose relics of tsarist days are largely intact. Sculpted by islands and the sinuous Neva River, the city is a vista of geometric elegance.
Before the 20th century
Alexandr of Novgorod defeated the Swedes near the mouth of the Neva in 1240 - earning the title Nevsky (of the Neva). Sweden took control of the region in the 17th century and it was Peter the Great's desire to crush this rival and make Russia a European power that led to the founding of St Petersburg. At the start of the Great Northern War (1700-21) he captured the Swedish outposts on the Neva, and in 1703 he founded the Peter & Paul Fortress on the Neva a few kilometres in from the sea. After Peter trounced the Swedes at Poltava in 1709 the city he named (in Dutch style) Sankt Pieter Burkh really began to grow. Canals were dug to drain the marshy south bank and in 1712 he made the place his capital, forcing administrators, nobles and merchants to move here and build new homes. Peasants were drafted in for forced labour, many dying for their pains. Architects and artisans were brought from all over Europe. By Peter's death in 1725, his city had a huge population and 90% of Russia's foreign trade passed through it.
Peter's immediate successors moved the capital back to Moscow but Empress Anna Ivanovna (1730-40) returned to St Petersburg. Between 1741 and 1825 under Empress Elizabeth, Catherine the Great and Alexander I it became a cosmopolitan city with a royal court of famed splendour. These monarchs commissioned great series of palaces, government buildings and churches, which turned it into one of Europe's grandest capitals.
The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and industrialisation, which peaked in the 1890s, brought a flood of poor workers into the city, leading to overcrowding, poor sanitation, epidemics and festering discontent.
Modern history
St Petersburg became a hotbed of strikes and political violence and was the hub of the 1905 revolution, sparked by Bloody Sunday - 9 January 1905 - when a strikers' march to petition the tsar in the Winter Palace was fired on by troops. By 1914, when in a wave of patriotism at the start of WWI the city's name was changed to the Russian-style Petrograd, it housed two million people.
Petrograd was again the cradle of revolution in 1917. It was here that workers' protests turned into a general strike and troops mutinied, forcing the end of the monarchy in March. The Petrograd Soviet, a socialist focus for workers' and soldiers' demands, started meeting in the city's Tauride Palace alongside the country's reformist Provisional Government. It was to Petrograd that Lenin travelled in April to organise the Bolshevik Party. The actual revolution came after Bolsheviks occupied key positions in Petrograd on 24 October. The new government operated from here until March 1918, when it moved to Moscow, fearing a German attack on Petrograd.
The city was renamed Leningrad after Lenin's death in 1924. It was a hub of Stalin's 1930s industrialisation programme and by 1939 had three million people and 11% of Soviet industrial output. But Stalin feared it as a rival power base and the 1934 assassination of local communist chief Sergey Kirov was the start of his 1930s Communist Party purge.
When the Germans attacked the USSR in June 1941 it took them only two-and-a-half months to reach Leningrad. As it was the birthplace of Bolshevism, Hitler hated the place and swore to wipe it from the face of the earth. His troops besieged it from September 1941 until late January 1944. Many people had been evacuated; nonetheless, between 500,000 and a million died from shelling, starvation and disease. By comparison the US and UK suffered about 700,000 dead between them in all of WWII.
After the war, Leningrad was reconstructed and reborn, though it took until 1960 for its population to exceed pre-WWII levels. In 1991 the Soviet Union was officially proclaimed 'dead' and residents of Leningrad voted to rename the city St Petersburg. Foreign investment gave the city a boost and, corny as it may sound, St Petersburg did re-establish itself as Russia's window on the West. But it wasn't all plain sailing: although the people were freer and the shops were stocked, many didn't have the money to enjoy the new prosperity and the crime rate soared.
Recent history
Happily, in the new millennium these problems are starting to be left behind. Vladimir Putin's election to the presidency in March 2000 has upped the city's profile (he's spent most of his life in St Petersburg and is very fond of the city), and its infrastructure and architectural treasures are getting a thorough seeing to. St Petersburg's 300th birthday in 2003 brought new confidence, and today Russia's largest port is an exciting cultural and international city.
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Grand Hotel Europe
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One of Russia’s most spellbinding national landmarks, The Grand Hotel Europe will indeed captivate ...
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Top Attractions
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Mendeleev Museum
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Nabokov Museum
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Temple Of The Assumption
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People's Will D-2 Submarine Museum
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A Perfect Day
By Simon Richmond
Piter (as locals call St Petersburg) is a late to bed rather than an early to rise city. So, although a dawn stroll along the Neva is a lovely idea, chances are I wouldn't be doing it - unless I was in town during the White Nights of June and July when the sun barely sets anyway. Let's start then with a leisurely post-breakfast mooch from Dvortsovaya pl (Palace Sq), along the Moyka River, past the riotously polychromatic Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood and through the swirling iron gates of the Mikhailovsky Garden to the rear entrance of the Russian Museum for an essential fix of the masterworks of Russian art.
After I follow the Griboedov canal, across Nevsky pr and past the wide open arms of Kazan Cathedral and the golden winged griffins of Bankovsky bridge, to lunch with the students from the nearby university at trendy Face Café, or, if the weather is fine, on the roof terrace of Terrassa.
In the afternoon I head to Loft Project Floors (Loft Proekt "Etazhi"), the city's most exciting contemporary art gallery with several exhibition spaces occupying four floors of a former bakery. Nearby, Pushkinskaya 10, for decades underground central for Piter's avant garde artists and musicians, is also worth a look - not least for its Temple of Love, Peace and Music, a charming tribute to John Lennon and the Beatles. Later I board a river boat beside the Anichkov Bridge over the Fontanka River for a relaxing late afternoon tour along Piter's network of waterways.
The evening's cultural fix is a performance at the historic and beautiful Mariinksy Theatre. After the show, if I'm still hungry, there's the old standby of Café Idiot, or the more contemporary delights of Sadko. The night winds up at Achtung Baby, one of the city's most happening DJ bars, for dancing and vodka toasts to the dawn of yet another glorious St Petersburg day.
St Petersburg experiences a maritime climate similar to the Baltic nations, having lighter winters and slightly cooler summers than other regions of Russia further east and inland. The real climatic culprit is the chilly Gulf of Finland wind, which makes a warm hat and scarf a necessity.
Average weather
Main Currency
Currency: Russian Ruble (RUB)
Symbol: R
Transport
Getting around
Though less majestic than Moscow's, the St Petersburg metro leaves most of the world's other undergrounds for dead.
The best way of getting around the city by road is by bus, trolleybus (an electric bus) or tram. Each requires payment of an inexpensive talony (ticket), which are sold in kiosks at major interchanges, by hawkers at the train stations, and often in strips of 10 by drivers. Or, if you invest in a transport map or get to know which of the 200 or so routes you need, the marshrutka system is the local favourite.
Getting there and away
St Petersburg is Russia's second largest air hub, although it lags far behind Moscow in terms of the number of long-haul connections. It's well-connected throughout Europe and the former Soviet Union, but from Asia, Australasia and the Americas you'll usually have to change planes in either Moscow or another European hub to fly into St Petersburg.
St Petersburg has one bus station serving Tampere, Vyborg, Pskov, Novgorod, Moscow, Novaya Ladoga, Petrozavodsk and many smaller destinations. Many short and long-distance buses also leave from outside the Baltic station.
The main international rail gateways to St Petersburg are Helsinki, Warsaw and Berlin. The city has five stations, all south of the Neva River and central to the city. The newest station Ladozhsky services Finland and trains on the Helsinki railway line.
Foreigners can legally drive on almost all of Russia's highways and can even ride motorcycles. You'll need to be 18 years old and have a drivers' licence, along with an International Driving Permit.
Ferries link St Petersburg with Helsinki and, sporadically, other Baltic ports.
Health & Legal Requirements
Dangers and annoyances
St Petersburg's streets are as safe or dangerous as any European city - most say safer. However, caution must be excercised.
Pickpockets are an especially common problem, particularly on crowded buses and trolleys that run along Nevsky pr and metros during rush hour. Karmaniki (pickpockets) work in small gangs, usually three: one to divert your attention, a second to steal your wallet, and a third to whom it is passed.
Don't use a bum bag; they're easily cut with a razor and announce that you have something to steal. Keep your valuables, such as a camera, in your bag (not over your shoulder). And be alert in crowds. Assume any displays of anger or altercations to be diversionary tactics and act accordingly.
Some debonair male tourists at upscale bars have been picked up by young enterprising ladies who have later drugged and robbed them. Be suspicious of excessive interest in you, or of money and job-related questions. (The average Russian is rarely interested in the details of your job.)
One problem is the growth throughout Russia of the skinhead and neo-Nazi movement. You are unlikely to encounter any of these, but any violence tends to be focused on Hitler's birthday on the 20th of April - this is a good day for non-white visitors to the city to be very careful, avoid more obscure areas of the city and stick together with friends. That racially motivated attacks have gone uncondemned by the local authorities is a cause for worry. Non-white travelers should not go to the suburbs and preferably go out with friends in the evening rather than walk alone all year round.
fast facts
| Full name | St Petersburg |
|---|---|
| Currency | Russian Ruble, RUB (R) |
| Population | 5000000 |
| Languages |
Russian (official) |
| Time zone(s) | GMT/UTC: +3 |
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