Saint Petersburg (Russia)

V

Recreation

There are many parks and gardens in Saint Petersburg and its metropolitan area. The Catherine Palace at Petrodvorets is surrounded by parks that are famous for their pools and fountains; the parks at Pushkin rank among the finest creations of Russian gardening. Within the city proper are the Summer Gardens, located outside the Summer Palace; the Botanical Gardens, with an English-style park; and the enormous parks on the islands of Krestovsky and Elagin. Saint Petersburg is also home to a zoo, a planetarium, the Yubilieny Sports Palace, and the Kirov Stadium, which seats 80,000 people.

VI

Economy

During the Soviet period, when the country had a centrally planned economy, Saint Petersburg’s major enterprises were all owned and controlled by the state. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, many of these enterprises began to privatize. Converting the city’s inefficient operations into potentially profitable businesses has been a lengthy and expensive process, especially since Saint Petersburg had an outdated industrial base at the time the Soviet Union dissolved. However, as a major port and industrial center, Saint Petersburg’s role in the national economy has increased significantly since Russia lost the use of the ports of the Baltic states, which had been part of the Soviet Union.

Saint Petersburg is a leading producer of modern heavy machinery, including turbines, turbo-generators, tractors, excavators, and nuclear-powered equipment. Among its other industrial products are electrical equipment, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, textiles, tobacco, furniture, and paper. Saint Petersburg also has a major shipbuilding industry that produces tankers, fish-processing ships, and icebreakers.

Saint Petersburg's location on the Baltic Sea makes it an ideal port city. The city has both a river port and a seaport. The river port is located at the end of two artificial waterways, the Volga-Baltic Waterway and the White Sea-Baltic Canal; these waterways link the Baltic to the Caspian, Black, and Azov seas. The seaport is located on the Neva inlet of the Gulf of Finland. Saint Petersburg is also served by five major railway lines and by Pulkovo Airport, located 18 km (11 mi) south of the city. Two major roads extending south connect Saint Petersburg to other parts of Russia, while another major route extends north to Finland.

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Although extensive, Saint Petersburg’s public transportation system is barely adequate for the population. The quickest and most reliable form of transportation is the subway system, which opened in 1955 and has four lines that extend to key parts of the city. There are also buses, trolley buses, and streetcars.

VII

Contemporary Issues

Like other parts of Russia, Saint Petersburg has suffered from a variety of social and economic problems since the collapse of the USSR. Crime, especially petty theft and vandalism, has risen significantly in the city, and because Russia has been slow to develop a legal framework for its market economy, official corruption is widespread. A continued decline in real wages, combined with persistent failure by employers to pay them, has kept the standard of living down. Health care is free but the quality is low, and air and water pollution from heavy industry take a toll on the population’s health.

The rapid increase in private automobiles (from 56 per 1000 households in 1990 to 119 in 1995) has caused growing traffic congestion in the city, a problem aggravated by the poor condition of the roads. Because of strong winds from the Baltic Sea, flooding is a constant problem, especially in the low-lying areas. Since its founding in 1703 the city has experienced more than 250 floods.

VIII

History

The Saint Petersburg region was originally inhabited by Swedes. It was conquered by Russia during the Great Northern War (1700-1721) fought between Sweden and a coalition of countries led by Russia. In 1703 Russian tsar Peter the Great chose a site on Zayachy Island in the Neva River and began the construction of the Peter and Paul Fortress, named after the two saints. Although the site was cold, damp, and poorly protected, Peter was determined to build a new capital in the Neva delta to replace Moscow, which had served as Russia’s capital since the origins of the Russian state in the 1300s. Peter wanted an outlet to the Baltic Sea and intended to make Saint Petersburg a modern, Western-style city that would serve as Russia's “window on Europe.” Although the fortress was originally a primitive earthen structure, stone was brought in when construction of the city began. Saint Petersburg was built at great human cost. Hunger and cold killed nearly 100,000 people during the first years of its construction. The imperial capital—including the Russian court, the Senate, and the foreign embassies—was moved to the new city in 1712. Peter and the rulers after him commissioned Dutch and Italian architects to build the city’s beautiful palaces, and an influx of Western scholars and artisans helped make Saint Petersburg a cultural as well as political center.

Saint Petersburg was at the forefront of Russia's industrialization, which began in the late 19th century. The first steamships and the opening of the Moscow-Saint Petersburg railway line in 1851 provided the impetus for the growth of the city's industry, which by 1900 included more than 100 metallurgical factories. A new port was constructed in 1885, expanding the city's potential for international trade. During the boom of the 1890s the number of banks in Saint Petersburg, including those owned by foreigners, grew rapidly.

Saint Petersburg has witnessed some of the most dramatic political events in Russia’s history. In 1825 a group of Russian military officers called the Decembrists tried to instigate a rebellion in the city to prevent the accession to the throne of Nicholas I, favoring Nicholas’s brother Constantine instead. Five of the rebel leaders were hanged. In January 1905 a huge parade of demonstrators marched toward the city’s Winter Palace to voice their grievances with Emperor Nicholas II; the imperial guard responded by opening fire on the crowd. Nationwide outrage over the massacre, which became known as Bloody Sunday, turned into a full-scale, although ultimately unsuccessful, revolution against the monarchy (see Russian Revolution of 1905).

Continued opposition to imperial rule led to the Russian Revolutions of 1917, which began with a spontaneous uprising by workers and soldiers in the city (then known as Petrograd). The revolution culminated in a seizure of power by the Bolsheviks (later renamed the Communists) and the establishment of a new Soviet government headed by Vladimir Lenin. With World War I still underway, the Bolsheviks deemed Petrograd too vulnerable to German invasion to remain the Russian capital. They also considered the city too symbolically linked to imperial rule. Thus, the Bolsheviks made Moscow the capital of the new Soviet state. After Lenin’s death in 1924, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honor.

From September 1941 to January 1944, during World War II, Leningrad was besieged by invading German troops, who blocked the supply of food and fuel to the city. Leningrad's only link to the rest of the country was across the frozen waters of Lake Lagoda or by air. About 1 million people are believed to have died as a result of disease, starvation, and bombings, and more than 10,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged (see Leningrad, Siege of). After the war, Soviet authorities undertook to rebuild the city and restore important buildings and palaces, an expensive project that has continued since the Soviet Union collapsed and the new government of independent Russia took power in 1991. The end of Communism led to the creation of multiple political parties in Saint Petersburg—as elsewhere in Russia—and the establishment of a democratic city government.

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