Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg (pop. 4,695,400), formerly Leningrad, is Russia's second largest city. Only
Moscow, the capital, has more people. St. Petersburg is a major Russian port and one of the
world's leading industrial and cultural centers. The city lies in northwestern Russia, at the eastern
end of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea.
St. Petersburg was the first Russian city built in imitation of western European cities. Its
magnificent palaces, handsome public buildings, and wide public squares resemble those of such
cities as London, Paris, and Vienna. In the early 1800's, a commission that included noted Italian
architect Carlo Rossi established a design for the center of the city that includes a series of
squares.
The city has had three names. Czar Peter I (the Great) founded it in 1703 as St. Petersburg. After
Russia went to war against Germany in 1914, at the start of World War I, the name was changed
to Petrograd. The country's officials chose this name, which means “Peter's City” in Russian, to
get rid of the German ending burg. In 1922, the Soviet Union was formed under the leadership of
Russia. In 1924, the Soviet Union's Communist government renamed the city in honor of V. I.
Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Communist Party. In 1991—as influence in the Soviet Union
declined—the people of the city voted in a nonbinding referendum to restore the name to St.
Petersburg. In September 1991, the Soviet government officially approved the name change. In
December 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved, and Russia became an independent nation.
The city lies on a marshy lowland where the Neva River empties into the Gulf of Finland, at about
60° north latitude. Because of its far northern location, St. Petersburg has very short periods of
daylight in winter. For about three weeks in June, it has "white nights," during which the sky is
never completely dark.