Alexander II - on the road to capitalism

When Alexander II was crowned as the Russian Emperor, the country was trying to cope with a humiliating defeat in the Crimean War. Something had to be done to boost the national economy and to ensure political stability. A series of reforms was undertaken under the supervision of Alexander II. The Russian serfs were freed in 1861, although peasants had to pay for their land. A military reform was carried out soon, followed by a legal reform (trial by jury was introduced), university and press reforms as well as the city administration reform, which allowed St. Petersburg a higher degree of self-government. No more gigantic building projects were to be financed by the state. The developers from now on would be the wealthy nobility and bourgeoisie, at their head the Grand Duke Vladimir whose new Palace evoked an Italian palazzo in style. But despite the scale of all the reforms, some revolutionaries considered Alexander to be too conservative. So eventually, after a series of assassination attempts Alexander II was fatally wounded by Narodnik ('the people's will') terrorist bombs on March 1, 1881 and died on the same day. The marvelous Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood (1883-1907) was built on the spot where Alexander II had been assassinated.

After death of Alexander II some of the reforms (and the constitution which was ready to be signed) were repealed or curtailed by his enraged son Alexander III and a period of repression and conservatism followed.

Meanwhile, St. Petersburg was becoming a capitalist city and forefront of Russia's industrialization, which began in the late 19th century. The number of factories and plants (both Russian and foreign) grew quickly. 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 and company offices in Saint Petersburg, including those owned by foreigners, grew rapidly. By the 1890s construction was booming. New multi-storey apartment buildings were mushrooming all over the city. The French Embassy undertook to provide a Catholic church, designed to look like a mediaeval castle. The only Buddhist temple in the whole of European Russia was also built, as was the Great Synagogue. Famous Mariinsky Theatre was built along with a number of palaces for Grand Dukes, the Liteiny bridge (where the first street lights in the city were installed) and monuments to Catherine the Great, Nicholas I and the poet Alexander Pushkin.

Turn of the XX century and Nicholas II - the last Tsar

This period was both brilliant and troublesome. It started with the splendid coronation of Nicholas II in Moscow, which ended with the Khodynka disaster with thousands of casualties. It ended with the cruelest of wars World War I. However, in the early 1900's St. Petersburg was obsessed with celebrations.

In 1902 the bureaucratic St. Petersburg celebrated the 100th anniversary of Alexander I's government reform, which had established Russia's ministries. In May 1903 St. Petersburg celebrated its 200th anniversary. The new Troitsky (Trinity) Bridge was officially opened in the royal presence and then a church service took place on the Senate Square next to the Bronze Horseman, the monument to the founder of the city. The trouble came in 1905. On the 9th of January a peaceful demonstration of workers was fired at by troops at the Palace Square. The events of this day became known as "Bloody Sunday". This led to public outrage which turned into a full-scale, although ultimately unsuccessful, 1905-07 revolution against the monarchy.

On October 17, 1905 Nicholas II had to issue a manifesto proclaiming a number of civil rights and instituting a new parliament, consisting of the Duma and the reformed State Council. The opening of the Duma in 1906 gave fresh grounds for hope to thousands of liberals in the intelligentsia. The district where the Duma was located soon became one of the most popular residential areas.
However, the hope was short lived. The government curtailed many of the freedoms and blocked many of the Duma's initiatives. In the end, after the hardships of World War I had helped to evaporate public patience, the streets of St. Petersburg - Petrograd saw the two revolutions of 1917. But that happened later.

In the meantime, St. Petersburg was the base for many of the most prominent artists, musicians, composers, writers and poets who actually made this period the "Silver Age". From the very beginning, this new city of Saint Petersburg attracted a population from all over Russia and from abroad. Many thousands of non-Russians lived there: Germans, especially from the Baltic provinces, Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Poles, people from the Caucasus and Jews. One of the oldest-established newspapers in the city was the German-language 'Sankt Petersburger Herold' and the first newspaper in the Latvian language was published there in the nineteenth century. The expression 'Petersburg Patriots' was coined to describe those nationalist Estonians who preferred living in the cosmopolitan capital to life at home. With a population of 2 million people, the modern metropolis was about to face new challenges, but the war has changed all the plans.

World War I and the Second Revolution (of February 1917)

When World War I broke out in August 1914, the name �St. Petersburg� - chosen by its founder to give the new foundation a western, international and commercial flavor - was russified as Petrograd in 1915. Now, when Germany was the enemy of Russia and all the forces had to be employed to ensure her defeat, it seemed inappropriate to many that the nation's capital should have a German name. Government newspapers argued that this was in keeping with the decision of their British allies to change the name of the royal house from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.

The main part 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 has stopped. The war did not go too well for Russia. The tsar's government had discredited itself and political tensions started rising. To make things worse, the food supply of the Russian capital deteriorated significantly towards the end of 1916.

Located in the north-western corner of the Russian Empire, Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) was supplied with food via the railway network. With the transportation breakdown caused by the war, it became very difficult to supply such a metropolis. Petrograd stepped into the New Year with its inhabitants infuriated by the long lines in front of food shops. The combination of social unrest and the people's wartime grievances brought about the February revolution of 1917 and the abdication of Nicholas II. (The first unsuccessful revolution had taken place in 1905). At the time of this second revolution the Tsar was in Mogilev at the army's headquarters. The political and economic crisis continued all through 1917.

The Third Revolution of October 25th (now November 7th) 1917

In the fall of 1917 the Bolshevik party led by Vladimir Lenin had captured political power. On October 25 (November 7) the blank shot of the cruiser "Aurora" gave workers and soldiers the signal to storm the Winter Palace. Most of the ministers were arrested and 73-years long Communist rule began. The two revolutions of 1917 in Petrograd changed the course of Russian history.

At the beginning of 1918 the 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 fit men were leaving the city for the fronts of the Civil War, a significant portion of the population migrated to the countryside, where families found it easier to provide for themselves. The population dropped from 2.3 million in 1917 to 722 thousand by the end of 1920. By the beginning of 1918 the German troops were so close to Petrograd that the Bolshevik government of Vladimir Lenin decided to move to Moscow, which was still far from the front. Hence Petrograd was left to be just a regional center while Moscow became a capital again.

To 'defend the city against the advance of the Whites', Red terror was waged against the bourgeoisie, former officers and government officials. The counterrevolutionary mutiny by sailors at Kronstadt on Kotlin Island in 1921, after the end of the civil war, shocked Petrograd and was suppressed by Soviet troops with great severity.

During the 1920�s many of the street names in the city center were altered according to the revolutionary fashion of the day. Palace Square was renamed the Uritsky Square (after an assassinated Bolshevik politician) and Nevsky Prospect became the 25th of October Prospect (after the October Revolution). A number of Revolutionary monuments were erected, but most of them were made of the cheapest materials and did not last long. After the end of the Civil War the city of Petrograd started a recovery under the New Economic Policy (NEP), proclaimed by the Bolsheviks, allowing some elements of the market economy. In 1924 the name of the city was changed to Leningrad, and that was a symbol of its transition to a Socialist city.

A socialist city of Leningrad

Shortly after the Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin had died, the city was renamed Leningrad, supposedly by public demand. The moving spirit in this was Lenin's widow, Nadyezhda Krupskaya, who, despite the strong opposition to any hint of 'personality cult', was the instigator of the innumerable statues of Lenin all over the Soviet Union, and the naming of streets after Lenin, down to the smallest town in the land.

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 common folk with entertainment, clubs and other social activities. Kindergartens, schools and centimes were intended to help free women from 'kitchen serfdom'. In terms of architecture most of what was built was rather modern, quite straightforward, but sometimes still inspirational. The large apartments of the Imperial St. Petersburg were turned into "communal" (shared) apartments, housing several families.

During the years of the Revolution the population of the city had dropped dramatically and the recovery of the once gorgeous city was slow and only partial. From the 1930s onwards economic growth was significant, but came at the very high price of Stalin's regime. The killing of Kirov (head of the Communist Part) in Leningrad, in 1934 was the signal for the beginning of the great purges which culminated in 1937-38 with the infamous 'show trials', and continued until the start of the Second World War.

World War II and the 900-day Siege of Leningrad

This was certainly the most tragic period in the history of this city. It was full of suffering and heroism. For everyone who lives in St. Petersburg, the blockade (siege) of Leningrad is an important part of their heritage, and for the older generation it brings out memories that they will never forget. Less than two and a half months after June 22, 1941, when 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. It lasted for about 900 days, from September 8, 1941 till January 27, 1944.

Two million 887 thousand civilians (including about 400 thousand children) plus troops didn't even consider any calls for surrender. Food and fuel supplies were very limited (enough for 1 or 2 months only). All public transportation has stopped. 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 middle of an unusually cold winter, the lowest food rations in the city were only 125 grams (about 1/4 of a pound) of bread per day. In just two months, January and February, 1942, 200 thousand people (!!!) died in Leningrad of cold and starvation. But a portion of the war industry continued to work and the city did not surrender. Several hundred thousand people were evacuated from the city across Lake Ladoga via the famous "Road of Life" ("Doroga Zhizni") - the only route that connected the besieged city with the mainland. During the warm season people were ferried to the mainland, and in the winter they were transported by trucks that drove across the frozen lake under constant enemy bombardment. Meanwhile, the city lived on. Most students continued their studies and even passed finals. Dmitry Shostakovich wrote his Seventh "Leningrad" Symphony and it was performed in the besieged city.

The treasures of the Hermitage and the suburban palaces were hidden in the basements of the Hermitage and of St. Isaac's Cathedral, while the palaces themselves - namely in Peterhof, Gatchina, Pavlovsk and Tsarskoye Selo (Pushkin) - were destroyed. Some of the treasures of these palaces had earlier been removed to safety in Siberia but much was stolen or destroyed by the invading armies. Anything built of wood in the city was burnt for fuel, but not a single tree in the parks within the inner city was touched. Valuable works were buried in the ground and monuments were packed with sandbags for safety.

In January 1943 the siege was broken and a year later, on January 27, 1944 it was fully lifted. The horrors of the siege are recalled by a sign that survives on one of the houses in the Nevski Prospect: 'Under fire, avoid this side of the street' - and by the moving sight of the Piskaryov cemetery, in which the bodies of 500,000 people lie buried in mass graves. At least 641 thousand people had died in Leningrad during the siege (some estimates put this figure as high as 800 thousand). Most of them were buried in mass graves at various cemeteries.

One �must read� book about the Pavlovsk Palace by Suzanne Massie covers considerable detail about this challenging time in the history of St. Petersburg, including details about Hitler order to raze St. Petersburg to the ground and to kill all of its occupants. But St. Petersburg did survive.