When WWI broke out in August 1914 it was decided to change the name of the Russian capital from the Germanic St. Petersburg to the more Russian equivalent, Petrograd. Germany was now Russia's enemy and all of the forces within the country's power had to be employed to defeat her. Most of the city's industry began to work to support the war effort and many of Petrograd's buildings, including a large portion of the Winter Palace, were turned into hospitals. Most construction work in the city stopped.

The war did not progress well for Russia. The Tsar's government discredited itself and political tensions began to rise. To further exacerbate this situation, food supplies to the Russian capital deteriorated significantly towards the end of 1916. (Located at the north-western edge of the Russian Empire, Petrograd was supplied with food via the railway network, which suffered severe breakdowns during the war, making it increasingly difficult to supply the city with provisions.) Petrograd stepped into the New Year with its inhabitants infuriated with waiting in long lines to buy food at the city's stores. The combination of social unrest and the wartime grievances brought about the February revolution of 1917 and the abdication of Nicholas II. At the time of the revolution the Tsar was in Mogilev at the army headquarters and his family at Tsarskoye Selo (now Pushkin).

The political and economic crisis continued throughout 1917 and in the fall the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, grasped political power. On October 25 (November 7) 1917 blank shot fired by the cruiser "Aurora" gave the signal to the waiting workers and soldiers to storm the Winter Palace, the current residence of the democratic, but largely inefficient Provisional Government. Most of the ministers were arrested and thus began 73 long years of Communist rule.

At the beginning of 1918 Civil War (1918-1921) broke out and the revolutionary soldiers and workers of Petrograd became the core of the Red Guard, which later turned into the Red Army. While the men were leaving the city for the fronts of the Civil War, a significant portion of the population migrated to the countryside, where families inevitably found it easier to provide to feed them. The population dropped from 2.3 million in 1917 to 722 thousand by the end of 1920.

By the beginning of 1918 German troops were so close to Petrograd that the Bolshevik government under Vladimir Lenin decided to move the capital to Moscow, which was still a long way from the German front. Petrograd was abandoned by the government and many of the city's street names were altered according to the revolutionary fashion of the day. Palace Square became Uritski Square (after an assassinated Bolshevik politician) and Nevsky prospect became the Prospect of 25 October (after the October Revolution). A number of Revolutionary monuments were erected, but most of them were poorly designed and constructed and did not last long.

After the end of the Civil War the city of Petrograd started to recover under the New Economic Policy (NEP), which had been proclaimed by the Bolsheviks and allowed certain elements of a market economy to operate. In 1924 the name of the city was changed to Leningrad, a symbol of its transition to a socialist city.

A socialist city: Leningrad
(1924-1941)

Shortly after the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin died, the city was renamed Leningrad (supposedly by public demand). During the years of the Revolution the population of the city had dropped dramatically and the city was slow to recover from the rigors and tragedies of the war.

In the late 1920s mass construction of cheap housing for workers became a very prominent feature of the Leningrad landscape. Many cultural centers, "palaces of culture", were built to provide the city's people with entertainment, clubs and other social activities. In terms of architecture most of what was built was rather modern and less than inspiring. The large apartments that had been constructed during St. Petersburg's Imperial era were turned into "communal" (shared) apartments, housing several families. Life was not easy in the socialist city of Leningrad, but the population was to suffer even greater hardships during WWII and the dramatic 900-day Siege of Leningrad.

The 900-day Siege of Leningrad (Blokada)
(1941-1944)

Less than two and a half months after the Soviet Union was attacked by Nazi Germany, German troops were already approaching Leningrad. The Red Army was outflanked and on September 8 1941 the Germans had fully encircled Leningrad and the siege began. The siege lasted for a total of 900 days, from September 8 1941 until January 27 1944. The city's almost 3 million civilians (including about 400,000 children) refused to surrender and endured rapidly increasing hardships in the encircled city. Food and fuel stocks were limited to a mere 1-2 month supply, public transport was not operational and by the winter of 1941-42 there was no heating, no water supply, almost no electricity and very little food. In January 1942 in the depths of an unusually cold winter, the city's food rations reached an all time low of only 125 grams (about 1/4 of a pound) of bread per person per day. In just two months, January and February of 1942, 200,000 people died in Leningrad of cold and starvation. Despite these tragic losses and the inhuman conditions the city's war industries still continued to work and the city did not surrender.

Meanwhile, the city lived on. The treasures of the Hermitage and the suburban palaces of Petrodvorets and Pushkin were hidden in the basements of the Hermitage and St Isaac's Cathedral. Many of the city's students continued their studies and even passed their finals exams. Dmitry Shostakovich wrote his Seventh "Leningrad" Symphony and it was performed in the besieged city.

In January 1943 the Siege was broken and a year later, on January 27 1944 it was fully lifted. At least 641,000 people had died in Leningrad during the Siege (some estimates put this figure closer to 800,000). Most of them were buried in mass graves in different cemeteries, with the majority in the Piskariovskoye Memorial Cemetery, resting place to over 500,000 people and a timeless reminder of the heroic deeds of the city.

Post-war reconstruction

The war was not yet over, but Leningrad had already started to recover from the tragic years of the Siege and all the damage it wrought on the city. Some of the city's museums, such as the Cabin of Peter the Great for instance, reopened as early as 1944. By the time the victorious Soviet army marched back into the city, Leningrad looked fresh and clean, and the ruins of some of its most celebrated buildings had been covered with temporary cardboard walls, in an attempt to depicting their pre-war appearance. The whole city, the whole country, had dreamt of a revival and it did come.

Despite the enthusiasm of the people, a significant part of the national economy was ruined by the war and the population had to endure many more long months of harsh conditions and bleak prospects. Food rationing was a common feature throughout the 1940s and due to the destruction of 2.8 million sq. meters of city housing and the damage to a further 2.2 million sq. meters, housing became a major problem. Up until the 1960s most of the people Leningrad still lived in so-called "communal" (shared) apartments.

Against all the odds the city was transformed. Unlike many other cities Leningrad was not modernized, but restored to its pre-war Imperial glory. The palaces of Peterhof and Pushkin were almost completely destroyed during the siege and millions of rubles went into their meticulous restoration and reconstruction.

Some of the city's suburban palaces, such as Aleksandrovsky Palace of Nicholas II in Pushkin, still await restoration. Leningrad's museums reopened swiftly the war, having undergone speedy restoration. But a carefully preserved blue Bombardment Warning sign, painted on the side of a building on Nevsky Prospect, and the green mounds of the Piskariovskoye Memorial Cemetery mass graves still remind us of the tragic past of the city.

St. Petersburg today

The 1970s and the early 1980s were a period of stability for the Soviet Union and for Leningrad. Though political freedoms were greatly limited, most of the city's population enjoyed relative prosperity. When the government initiated the reforms known worldwide as Perestroika, stability rapidly disappeared and the population began experiencing economic hardship as the government quibbled over reforms. In 1991, after a city-wide referendum, the city of Leningrad returned to its original name - St. Petersburg.

Now, after the turn of the new millennium St. Petersburg is still in a transition period, both economically and socially. While the city's industries are still in recession, services and retail sales are gradually improving and more and more foreign businesses are being attracted to the city's new business climate. Although still far behind Moscow in economic terms, St. Petersburg became a modern, rapidly growing commercial city. In 2003 St. Petersburg successfully celebrated its 300-th anniversary.

People of our city look optimistically in the future, hoping, that all bad stayed behind their backs. Every year more and more tourists come to Saint-Petersburg to see the beauty of that strong and beautiful city.