saint petersburg formerly known as petrograd and leningrad is a city on the neva river at the head of the gulf of finland and the baltic sea it was built upon 42 islands and has over 300 bridges connecting them it is russia's second largest city after moscow with a population of roughly 5.4 million is the fourth most populous city in europe as well as the world's northernmost city with over 1 million residents while it is no longer the actual capital of the country it is still considered to be its cultural center associated with the birth of the russian empire and russia's entry into modern history is a great european power we cannot truly understand st petersburg's importance without looking back at its history between 1236 and 1242 the mongolians were invading europe and after they left what was left was much changed especially in russia respect for civic values and any notion of democracy was wiped away from russian psyche with over 200 years of oppressive rule under the golden horde after the invaders finally left russia as a country united by its rulers adopted the same autocratic practices and regime style embodied by the despotic asian rule it took another 200 years for a ruler to come around who was willing to open russia back up the western influences and to try to reform it arguably the most influential ruler in russian history peter the great came to power in 1696 with the burning desire to change the country and pull it out of backwardness saint petersburg was his attempt at modernizing during the great northern war russia marched onto a place called nieves shanks which was held by sweden it soon surrendered and peter decided that this was going to be the location of his city and founded saint petersburg on the 16th of may 1703 prior to saint petersburg the only major seaport in the country was located in arkhangels where access was severely limited due to the white sea completely freezing over half of the year saint petersburg was to be the new port connecting europe to russia giving it a chance to export its goods and creating a navy ending its landlock however most of russian aristocracy at the time was appalled with the chosen location it was considered a swampy desolate bog prone to flooding icebound in winter and infested with mosquitoes during the summer and almost uninhabited with just a couple of small fishing villages along the shores of lake ladoga and along the banks of the neva the first priority when found in the city was to engineer a fort to protect the settlement from the swedes and this was the peter and paul fortress the first version of which was constructed using earth and wood peter forced people from all over the country to work on his settlement including criminals that were destined to be relocated to siberia working on the city in the early years of its construction was as good as a death sentence the laborers lacked food housing and adequate tools and many died from malaria scurvy dysentery and even swedish attacks the fortress was completed within 5 months and it is estimated that as many as 30 000 people perished building it and founding the city by september 1704 saint petersburg was unofficially referred to as the new capital of russia while they didn't want to leave their homes in moscow russian aristocracy had no choice but to relocate to the new capital as peter ordered them otherwise they would face penalties and lose their titles creating a baltic fleet was one of the main priorities during the following decade 50 000 shipwrights and craftsmen arrived in the city saint petersburg grew rapidly over the next three decades it was a new city in an old country built and designed according to modern european standards employing architects from france and italy easily the biggest issue faced by its inhabitants were the sudden and often occurring floods this issue was a major hurdle to the credibility of the city floods were a constant threat haunting the city for most of its history there was also a countrywide shortage of stonemasons all of them were commissioned to work in saint petersburg building a stone was banned everywhere else in the country anyone traveling to saint petersburg was required to bring stones with them to provide construction materials by 1720 there were about 60 000 houses including many palaces that had been built one could almost mistake the city for paris or london at that point probably the grandest project of this time was the conscious it housed anatomical collections purchased in europe and the minerals and fossils found in siberia also the academy of sciences was officially opened on november 2nd 1725 a time of intense construction for the city came at the end of the great northern war in 1721 the victory established that sardom of russia the new european power and was the start of a major decline for the swedish empire russia now possessed corellia ingria livonia estonia and kurland these newly acquired lands included multiple new ports with access to the sea such as narva riga and present-day talent but saint petersburg was a thriving city by now and no longer a joke it was a busy naval base manned by more than 7000 russian sailors and so petersburg was to remain russia's primary port and capital things briefly took a turn for the worse when peter ii took control of the country he established his court in moscow to the delight of many aristocratic families this meant a massive exodus from the city with the population being cut down in half from what it was during peter the great's reign the city was in danger of being forgotten luckily peter ii did not reign for long as he was soon replaced saint petersburg once again served as the capital and work on the city resumed by the time of elizabeth's reign the city was beginning to be noticed by travelers and tourists where australia's winter palace with its 250 meter long focade which overlooks the neva is one of the main symbols of the city completed just after death of elizabeth australia was the master of blending traditional russian style with signature italian baroque and it can still be witnessed in many of the buildings around the city standing today then came catherine the great thanks to her by 1790 saint petersburg was larger than moscow the pace of its expansion dwarf thought of any other russian city she was not afraid to spend the state funds on new buildings or art most of the major buildings that define saint peter's book to this day were completed during her reign and by her death in 1796 catherine had collected some 4 000 paintings many of which are stored in saint petersburg's museums within only one century saint petersburg had achieved what other great cities took centuries and had become one of the great capitals of the world french had become fashionable although russian german english dutch italian greek turkish and swedish were also heard religions also varied orthodox protestants catholics lutherans calvinists and even muslims in 1811 during tsar alexander's reign saint petersburg was counted the fifth largest city in europe with 336 000 inhabitants napoleon's invasion commenced on 24th of june 1812 a final author of peace was sent to saint petersburg shortly before commencing the attack napoleon never received a reply so he gave the order to proceed into russian poland in the end saint petersburg was untouched by napoleon's forces as moscow was perceived to be more important by napoleon petersburg moscow railway opened in the autumn of 1851 it was the longest double track railway in the world and carried passengers on an overnight journey connecting the old russia with the new by 1850 saint petersburg was experiencing the first positive effects of the industrial revolution the cotton spinning industry was thriving and heavy industry was stimulated by the crimean war however with massive population growth came multiple outbreaks of diseases that swept through the country such as cholera typhus and even the plague slowing growth considerably in the 1890s saint petersburg became the largest manufacturing complex in the russian empire with its architectural treasures left as prey to pollution its skyline was spoiled by soot coming from workshop chimneys overall russia was increasingly in turmoil russian serfs were less and less willing to be treated like slaves this led to riots rebellions and assassination attempts on the tsar as well as the creation of a number of revolutionary groups such as the people's will who after five failed assassination attempts managed to kill the tsar alexander on march 13 1881 and what today is considered to be the first ever recorded suicide bombing in saint petersburg in order to regain control back over the country tires were looking backwards trying to return russia to its all autocratic rule and limit western democratic ideas from seeping into the country however technology was marching forwards against them by 1882 there was a telephone system in moscow and by 1911 there were more than 56 000 subscribers in saint petersburg alone for most of 1905 st petersburg was in a state of of evil as revolutionaries students workers and professional unions consolidated their attack on autocracy the most infamous event was called the bloody sunday when on sunday 22nd of january 1905 unarmed demonstrators were fired upon by soldiers of the imperial guard as they marched towards the winter palace to present a petition to tsar nicholas ii the official figure was kept low but the tall or dead or badly wounded was close to 1 000 people many see the events that occurred on that fateful day as key leading up to the revolution of 1917 bloody sunday was followed by months of disruption and bloodshed these were largely disputes over conditions unfair treatment wages and working hours but then as it seems the day was saved by world war one russians had to come together in order to face the threat coming from germany there was no more time for strikes saint petersburg was a city mobilized for war an anti-german fever ran high excited mobs started destroying german shop fronts and looting stocks as the authorities turned the blind eye the working day was extended up to 12 hours in machine plants and 13 hours in textile mills accidents multiplied in the insufferable heat and inflation devoured the wages saint petersburg was her name to petrograd because they thought it sounded too german in the first five months of the first world war russia lost nearly 2 million men as the germans advanced in the summer of 1915 trained loads of soldiers thousands daily were carried to the front while the wounded along the countless refugees floated into the capital the effort for the great war came to a halt in russia after the october revolution of 1917 and was instead replaced by the russian civil war the insurrection was led by vladimir on 24th of october the government shut down numerous newspapers closed the city of petrograd in an attempt to style the coupe this led to minor armed skirmishes but the next day a full-scale uprising erupted as a fleet of bolshevik sailors entered the harbor and tens of thousands of soldiers rose up in support of the bolsheviks then on 7th of november the bolsheviks stormed the winter palace ending the political power of the existing regime in the city in early 1918 the germans once again advanced the petrograd and even attempted to bomb the city it became apparent the petrograd was too vulnerable to remain the capital and the bolsheviks moved the government to moscow as the great war ended and the capital was moved petrograd had become a ghost town cholera returned in the spring of 1918 as efforts to repair sanitation stagnated the economic situation was aggravated by the end of the war resulting in 200 000 factory workers being laid off so bad was the situation that the unemployed were offered free passage on the railways to allow them to escape to the countryside in search of food petrograd's population of two and a half million in 1917 fell to around 740 000 by early 1920s the city was more extensive than berlin or paris but in those capitals populations were on the increase after the war while petrograd was an abandoned half ruined museum on 26th january 1924 five days after lenin's death petrograd was renamed leningrad the city has over 230 places associated with the life and activities of lenient some of them were turned into museums including the cruiser aurora a symbol of the october revolution and the oldest ship in the russian navy during stalin's tyrannical drive for modernization the standard of living declined further times were really tough as 44 percent of household income went on food and people lived in constant fear of stalin's paranoid dictatorial regime in which doing anything remotely suspicious could get you exiled and sent to siberia towards the end of the 30s an incessant hiss outdoor loudspeakers spewing uninterrupted party propaganda polluted the leningrad streets in the spring of 1941 the nazis massed enormous forces on stalin's western front churchill warned the kremlin about hitler's intentions soviet agents sent incontestable evidence of an impending invasion even german soldiers defected to warn the russians but stalin trusted hitler on june 22 1941 the largest invasion ever mounted began five thousand aircraft three thousand tanks and five and a half million troops swept into soviet territory along a three thousand kilometer wide front thousands of old men women and teenagers took trenches and tank traps to protect the southwestern approaches to leningrad evacuation of industrial machinery began in the first weeks of the invasion and by the time rail and road links were cut nearly 100 ordinance factories and well over 150 000 workers had been moved east the enemy forces and circled leningrad luftwaffe attacks became more sustained and shells pounded the city shaking the ground the siege of leningrad proved one of the longest most destructive and most lethal sieges of a major city in modern history when members of the militia went to collect the dead from the apartments they sometimes found limbs missing a teenager asked his grandmother to death to eat her innards another scavenged an unburied body to mince it a black market opened up for human flesh things started to turn around in autumn of 1942 as the city started cultivating food and growing it on any available patch of land this was enough to stave off starvation for some four months on 23rd of january 1944 the last german shell fell on leningrad the war had not yet been won but leningrad had been saved in protecting the city two million russians had been killed in a siege that lasted 872 days or almost two and a half years luckily saint petersburg was also considered of only secondary importance to hitler and he sent the bulk of his forces further east to fight in stalingrad extensive damage to the city required building on a scale on scene since the days of peter the great and stalin's tyrannical reign ended in march 1953 with his death there was continued determination to repair and maintain historical buildings in the city and contain the country's most distinguished art collections over the next 50 years life in the old capital has started looking more like life we know today especially with music and culture imported from america in the late 50s and early 60s russian economy was booming natural gas had been discovered in siberia technology for industry developed and great strides were made in agricultural production for the ordinary citizen the years 1955 to 1975 were arguably the most prosperous under communism the first supermarkets opened there was peace and more than 27 000 cars were driving on the streets of leningrad by 1963 loudspeakers were mounted on mobile traffic control units urging pedestrians to take care living standards rose and leningrad was once again saint petersburg as decided by a popular vote then the iron curtain fell the year 1992 began with a catastrophe food shortage and deprivation were much worse than they had been under communism as most people lost their jobs prices were swinging widely the cost of a toilet roll was 15 rubles same as the price of admission to an orchestral concert but both were a steal compared to the price of an orange at 350 rubles as the 1990s dragged on there was further increase in gang warfare in saint petersburg with drug trafficking and arms dealing saint petersburg dam was finally finished on november 28 2011. the construction of the flood prevention complex had started in 1978 and became one of the longest running projects in russian history finally st petersburg was protected from the baltic sea despite the economic instability of the 1990s not a single major theater or museum was closed in saint petersburg on the contrary many new ones opened up the preservation of cultural treasures has always been at the heart of saint petersburg so much glory of russia has been created in peter's city its literature its music its dance and even its political vision as such saint petersburg is likely to remain the cultural capital of russia with the hermitage still being one of the largest museums in the world and the city receiving over 15 million tourists in 2018. trying to learn the history of st petersburg is the same as trying to learn the history of russia you can't have one without the other when i started working on this project i didn't realize i'd be covering most of russia's history in just one video most of the info i presented in this video i found by reading jonathan miles saint petersburg listening to russia the wild east by martin six smith and the history of russia by great courses on audible links to those books in my description now have a guess where this is and i'll see you in the next video your perspective out what's up