Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg, which has also been called Petrograd and Leningrad, is Russia’s second-largest city, trailing only Moscow. It sits on the Neva River where it meets the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. Despite its size, its 1,439 square kilometers make it Russia’s smallest administrative division by area. As of 2021, the city proper held 5,601,911 residents, while the broader metropolitan area counted over 6.4 million people. It ranks as Europe’s fourth-most populous city, the most populous on the Baltic Sea, and the northernmost city in the world with more than one million inhabitants. Once the capital of the Russian Empire and a key Baltic port, it now functions as a federal city.

Tsar Peter the Great founded the city on 27 May 1703, building it on the site of a captured Swedish fortress and naming it after the apostle Saint Peter. In Russia, it is tied to the rise of the Russian Empire and the country’s emergence as a European power. It served as the capital of the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from 1712 to 1918, with a brief interruption when Moscow took over from 1728 to 1730. After the October Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks relocated their government to Moscow. Following Lenin’s death in 1924, the city was renamed Leningrad. During World War II, it endured the siege of Leningrad, the deadliest siege in history. In June 1991, just months before the Soviet Union dissolved, a citywide referendum supported restoring the original name.

As Russia’s cultural hub, Saint Petersburg welcomed over 15 million tourists in 2018. It is a major economic, scientific, and tourism center for both Russia and Europe. Known today as “the Northern Capital of Russia,” it houses federal bodies like the Constitutional Court and the Heraldic Council of the President, along with the National Library of Russia, and is the planned site for the Supreme Court. It also hosts the headquarters of the Russian Navy and the Leningrad Military District. Its historic center and related monuments form a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city is home to the Hermitage, one of the world’s largest art museums, and the Lakhta Center, Europe’s tallest skyscraper. It was a host city for the 2018 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2020.

Regarding its name, Peter the Great’s name day falls on 29 June, when the Russian Orthodox Church commemorates apostles Peter and Paul. The consecration of a small wooden church in their names, built alongside the citadel, made them the heavenly patrons of the Peter and Paul Fortress, while Saint Peter became the city’s eponym. When Peter renamed the site in June 1703, he never issued an official spelling; his own letters used variations like Санктьпетерсьбурк (Sanktpetersburk), mimicking German, and Сантпитербурх (Santpiterburkh), mimicking Dutch, reflecting his multilingualism and fondness for Holland. The name later normalized to Санкт-Петербург (Sankt-Peterburg). An older English spelling, Saint Petersburgh, survives in a London street near St Sophia’s Cathedral, named after the Tsar’s 1814 visit.

The lengthy name, with three roots and 14 to 15 letters, proved unwieldy, prompting many shortenings. The first governor-general, Menshikov, may have coined the nickname Петри (Petri). By the 1740s, Mikhail Lomonosov used a Greek-derived Петрополис (Petropolis) in its Russified form Petropol’ (Петрополь). The combo Питерпол (Piterpol) also appeared. Eventually, the prefix “Sankt-” was dropped except in formal documents, where the abbreviation “СПб” (SPb) became common. In the early 19th century, a Slavic variant, Petrograd (Петроград), emerged, used by Alexander Pushkin. On 31 August 1914, after war with Germany began, Tsar Nicholas II officially renamed the city Petrograd to remove the German words Sankt and Burg. This also shifted the eponym from Saint Peter to Peter the Great, the founder. After Lenin’s death on 26 January 1924, it became Leningrad (Ленинград), meaning “Lenin City.” On 6 September 1991, a citywide referendum restored the original name, Sankt-Peterburg. In English, it is known as Saint Petersburg. Locals often call it Piter (Питер). After the October Revolution, the name Red Petrograd (Красный Петроград) appeared in print until the 1924 renaming. The referendum on 12 June 1991 saw 55% support for “Saint Petersburg” and 43% for “Leningrad”; renaming it Petrograd was not an option. The change took effect on 6 September 1991. The surrounding oblast, however, retains the name Leningrad.