Empress Marie Grand Duchessa Russia Signed Autograph Fantastic Romanov

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Seller: memorabilia111 ✉️ (807) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 176257077203 EMPRESS MARIE GRAND DUCHESSA RUSSIA SIGNED AUTOGRAPH FANTASTIC ROMANOV. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one. Unlike in Moscow, the historic architecture of Saint Petersburg's city centre, mostly Baroque and Neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved; although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years. Marie, Grand Duchess of Russia A PRINCESS IN EXILEーFURTHER MEMOIRS BY MARIE GRAND DUCHESS OF RUSSIA [SIGNED] New York: The Viking Press, 1932. First Edition. Octavo, xii, 306 pages. Maroon cloth on boards with oval title medallion, crown and titling all in bright gilt on front and titling to spine.   Good minus condition. Spine is red with gilt lettering. Boards have minor rubbing and sunning along the spine edges. Text block has minor pen writing on the half-title page, and some foxing on the pages. EX-LIBRIS CLEVELAND PUBLIC LIBRARY STAMP IN BOOK

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (Russian: Великая Княгиня Мария Павловна; 18 April [O.S. 6 April] 1890 – 13 December 1958), known as Maria Pavlovna the Younger, was a granddaughter of Alexander II of Russia. She was a paternal first cousin of Nicholas II (Russia's last Tsar) and maternal first cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (consort of Elizabeth II). She was also both the first grandchild of George I of Greece and the first great-grandchild of his father Christian IX of Denmark. Her early life was marked by the death of her mother and her father's banishment from Russia when he remarried a commoner in 1902. Grand Duchess Maria and her younger brother Dmitri, to whom she remained very close throughout her life, were raised in Moscow by their paternal uncle Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and his wife Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. In 1908, Maria Pavlovna married Prince Wilhelm, Duke of Södermanland. The couple had one son, Prince Lennart, Duke of Småland, later Count Bernadotte af Wisborg. The marriage was unhappy and ended in divorce in 1914. During World War I, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna served as a nurse until the fall of the Russian monarchy in February 1917. In September 1917, during the period of the Russian Provisional Government, she married Prince Sergei Putyatin. They had one son, Prince Roman Sergeievich Putyatin, who died in infancy. The couple escaped revolutionary Russia through Ukraine in July 1918. In exile, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna lived briefly in Bucharest and London, then she settled in Paris in 1920. In the 1920s, she opened Kitmir, an embroidering fashion atelier that achieved some level of success. In 1923, she divorced her second husband, and after selling Kitmir in 1928, she emigrated to the United States. While living in New York City, she published two books of memoirs: The Education of a Princess (1930), and A Princess in Exile (1932). In 1942, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna moved to Argentina where she spent the years of World War II. She returned permanently to Europe in 1949. She died in Konstanz, Germany in 1958. Early life The infant Maria Pavlovna with her mother Alexandra Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna was born 18 April [O.S. 6 April] 1890 in Saint Petersburg. She was the first child and only daughter of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia and his first wife, Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna of Russia, born Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark.[1] The baby was named after her late paternal grandmother, the Empress Maria Alexandrovna, and her paternal aunt, maternal grandaunt, and godmother, the Empress Maria Feodorovna.[2] Maria was not yet two years old when her mother died from complications after giving birth to Maria's younger brother, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia in 1891.[3] Grand Duke Paul was so distraught by the unexpected death of his young wife that he neglected his two small children, who were left in the care of his elder brother, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who had no children of his own. Once he recovered emotionally, Grand Duke Paul took the two children away with him. A commander of the Imperial horse Guards, Grand Duke Paul loved his children, but as was customary at the time, he refrained from showing them spontaneous affection.[4] Maria and her brother were raised by governesses and tutors, but they adored their father who visited them twice a day.[4] The children spent Christmases and later some summer holidays with Grand Duke Sergei and his wife Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna.[5] The couple set aside a playroom and bedrooms for the youngsters at their country home Ilinskoe.[6] Maria Pavlovna's childhood was spent in splendor. Her early memories were of magnificent palaces and lazy country estates populated by armies of servants. Until she was age 6, Maria spoke Russian badly as all of her governesses and the immediate family spoke English.[3] Later she had another governess, Mademoiselle Hélène who taught her French and stayed with her until her marriage. At age 7, she traveled in her personal railway car accompanied by her governess to visit Germany and France. On Sundays, she and her brother were allowed to play with children from aristocratic families.[3] Growing up without a mother and with a frequently absent father, Grand Duchess Maria and her brother Dimitri became very close, relying on each other for affection and companionship.[7] Education Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna and her brother Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich In 1895, Grand Duke Paul began an affair with Olga Valerianova von Pistolkors, a married woman.[7] He was able to obtain a divorce for her, and he eventually married Olga in 1902 while the couple was staying abroad. As they had married by defying Nicholas II's opposition, the tsar forbade them to return to Russia.[7][8] Left fatherless, 12-year-old Maria and 11-year-old Dmitri moved to Moscow placed under the custody of their uncle Grand Duke Sergei and his wife Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna, a sister of the Tsarina Alexandra.[7] Maria and Dimitri resented their aunt and uncle, blaming them for the forced separation from their real father, who had abandoned them. Grand Duke Sergei was strict and demanding, but devoted and affectionate toward the children. Marie wrote in her memoirs: "In his fashion he loved us deeply. He liked to have us near him, and gave us a good deal of his time. But he was always jealous of us. If he had known the full extent of our devotion to our father it would have maddened him."[9] Maria Pavlovna also commented that she could not entirely disagree with those who thought Grand Duke Sergei heartless, self-centered and cruel.[10] Maria had a somewhat strained relationship with her aunt. Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna found difficult to relate to the children, and she was cold and distant toward them.[11] The teenage Maria was described by her maternal aunt Grand Duchess Maria Georgievna of Russia as "full of life and very jolly, but inclined to be self-willed and selfish, and rather difficult to deal with."[12] Grand Duke Sergei, who served as Governor General of Moscow, was a polarizing figure. Targeted by the SR Combat Organization, he was assassinated by a terrorist bomb at the Kremlin in February 1905.[10] The bomber had refrained from an earlier attack because he saw that Grand Duchess Elisabeth, 15-year-old Maria, and her younger brother Dmitri were in the carriage, and he did not want to kill women and children.[13] After the assassination of their uncle, both children were emotionally distraught, particularly Dmitri. Grand Duke Paul claimed the custody of his children, but the tsar made Elisabeth their guardian.[14] Grand Duke Paul was allowed to visit them, but not to return to Russia permanently. After her husband's assassination, Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna regretted treating the children poorly, and she became closer to them. First marriage Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna wearing the traditional dress of ladies of the Russian Imperial court Maria Pavlovna and prince Wilhelm at the time of their marriage in 1908. During the next two years, Maria's aunt turned toward religion and charity work. Planning to retire from court and to form a religious order, Grand Duchess Elisabeth decided to find a husband for her niece. Shortly after Easter 1907, Prince Wilhelm, Duke of Södermanland, the second son of King Gustav V of Sweden and Victoria of Baden, visited St Petersburg, and he was introduced to the 16-year-old Maria Pavlovna. She was plump, mischievous and proud. The prince was tall, thin, dark and distinguished looking "with beautiful grey eyes", Maria recalled.[14] He stayed for dinner, and the following day, Maria was told that he wished to marry her. Pressed by her aunt to give a speedy answer, Maria agreed to the prince's proposal and found herself engaged to a man she had known for only few hours. The official betrothal was announced in June 1907 at Peterhof palace.[14] Maria Pavlovna wrote later that she felt her aunt had rushed her into the marriage.[14] However, at the time, she enjoyed the attention, and she was eager to escape from the nursery. "Then we will be able to travel together," she wrote to Wilhelm after their engagement. "And to live just as we wish and to suit ourselves. I'm looking forward to a wonderful life – a life full of love and happiness, just as you described to me in your last letters."[12] The marriage had positive political and diplomatic implications for both Russia and Sweden, and Tsar Nicholas II gave his consent. Grand Duke Paul was not consulted.[3] From Peterhof, Maria Pavlovna went to Grand Duchess Elisabeth's rural estate Ilinskoe, near Moscow, where Wilhelm joined them for a month before he left on a cruise to the United States.[14] The young couple maintained their intimacy through letters.[14] Maria imagined herself in love: "It’s lovely to have somebody, even far away, who love you more than anything and whom you love more than everybody on earth“, she wrote to him.[15] In October, Wilhelm returned to Russia joining Grand Duchess Maria and her brother Dimitri who introduced the Swedish prince to their father, Grand Duke Paul, who was permitted to come back to Russia for his daughter's wedding set to take place after she turned age 18 the next April.[16] At Wilhelm's departure, Maria wrote to him: " I love you, so much with every day, every hour more and more. I wish it were April now, how lovely it would be".[16] In her book of memoirs, written more than 20 years later, the grand duchess made different claims: "I was using Wilhelm, in a sense, only to obtain my freedom".[17] As the wedding day approached, she began to have doubts and wished to break off the engagement, but Princess Irene of Hesse, who was visiting her sister Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna, persuaded her otherwise.[18] Soon Maria Pavlovna was again looking forward with enthusiasm to a new life. The wedding took place at Tsarskoye Selo on 3 May [O.S. 20 April] 1908.[18] Swedish princess The Duke and Duchess of Södermanland. Maria Pavlovna is wearing a traditional Swedish dress. After a honeymoon in Germany, Italy and France, the newlyweds went to Sweden, where an official ceremonial reception awaited them with the state flags of Russia and Sweden waving in Stockholm.[3] In the beginning, the marriage looked successful. The couple set up their home in the Swedish countryside in the province of Södermanland.[19] They spent the summer there, returning in October to Stockholm.[19] Maria added Swedish to the other five languages she spoke, and she became popular in her new country. The Swedes felt she worked harder than her husband did. She was well liked by her father-in-law Gustaf V, who appreciated her "effervescence, charm, and unconventionality."[20] Maria Pavlovna, known in Sweden as the Duchess of Södermanland, was pregnant by the fall, but she quickly realized that she had little in common with her husband. Their relationship was cold. She had little interest in him and he in her. The couple's only child was born on 8 May 1909.[21] He was Prince Lennart, Duke of Småland, later Count of Wisborg (1909–2004) In the autumn of 1910, Maria Pavlovna moved with her husband and their son to Oak Hill, a house she had built for herself outside Stockholm.[22] Maria went hunting, attended horse races, practiced winter sports and even played field hockey on her sister-in-law, Crown Princess Margaret's team. She enrolled at the art school and took painting and singing lessons.[22] Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna with her infant son Lennart, her grandmother Queen Olga of Greece and great-grandmother Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna of Russia and a portrait of her dead mother Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna in 1909 Maria occasionally played with her son, who remembered sitting on her lap when they slid down a flight of steps on a large silver tray. She also wrote an illustrated alphabet book for Lennart that was published in 1912.[23] However, life at the Swedish court had as many restrictions on Maria Pavlovna as she had had in Russia. Her husband Wilhelm, as a naval officer, had little time to spend with her.[12] She found him "cold, shy, and neglectful", and when she tried to approach him, he walked away from her in tears.[12] At the end of October 1911, the young couple was sent on a five-month trip to Southeast Asia as representatives to the coronation of the King of Siam. Maria had an opportunity to meet other men. King Vajiravudh and the Duke of Montpensier began to court her, and she enjoyed the flirtation.[23] Relations between the couple cooled even more.[24] She told her husband she wanted a divorce.[25] He was devastated by her decision, begging her to give their marriage another chance, "but since he blamed most of our failure on me, we did not make any progress" Maria wrote.[23] Maria Pavlovna, Prince Wilhelm, and son Lennart in 1911 In the spring of 1912, she received her brother Dimitri, who came to Sweden to take part in the Olympic games.[23] In 1913, they were reunited when she went to Russia to attend the celebrations for the 300-year anniversary of the Romanov family.[26] At a court ball in Moscow, the two danced seven dances in a row and the Tsar sent an equerry to separate them.[26] When she returned to Stockholm, doctors alleged (falsely as it turned out) that Maria Pavlovna had a serious kidney ailment, and she was sent to Capri to recuperate in the winter 1913–1914. She had been there the previous winter as a companion of her ill mother in-law, the Queen of Sweden.[23] She later claimed that the queen's personal physician Axel Munthe made sexual advances to her, so she decided not to return to Capri.[26][27] Instead, she stopped in Berlin, where her brother joined her.[26] They continued for Paris. She wanted her father's help to obtain a divorce.[28] Decades later, she described the horror she had felt toward the Swedish royal family because of their unlimited support of Munthe as the main reason she fled them and filed for divorce from Prince Wilhelm.[29] At age 22, she felt the future looked hopeless and noted that in her diary:[30] "A terrifying thought – year after year with this young geezer and surrounded by that idiotic family! My God!" Relatives in both Russia and Sweden viewed a divorce as unavoidable, and on 13 March 1914, her marriage officially was issolved, an action then confirmed by an edict issued by Nicholas II on 15 July 1914.[28][31][32] Maria left her son behind in Sweden under his father's custody. He was raised primarily by his paternal grandmother, and he saw his mother rarely in the years thereafter.[32] In an interview as an adult, Lennart said his relationship with his mother was distant.[33] In Paris, Grand Duchess Maria re-established ties with her father, who had provided her with three half-siblings. Maria Pavlovna studied at a painting school, and then traveled to Italy and Greece.[28] In the spring 1914, age 24, Maria Pavlovna returned to Russia.[34] She lived near her younger brother Dmitri, to whom she was intensely attached. Troubled by her strong need for him, Dmitri distanced himself somewhat from his sister, hurting her terribly.[25] A few months later, World War I began. World War I, revolution and second marriage Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna with their father Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, Paris 1914 At the outbreak of the war, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna trained as a nurse. With Princess Helen of Serbia, the grand duchess was sent to the northern front, at Instenburg in East Prussia, under command of General Paul von Rennenkampf. For bravery under airplane fire, she was awarded the St George medal.[34] In 1915, after the Russian withdrawal from East Prussia, she took over a hospital at Pskov, where she worked as a nurse. For two and a half years, she treated and bandaged wounded soldiers and officers, even performing simple surgery herself.[32] During the war, her relationship with her aunt improved, and she visited her regularly at the convent Elizabeth had established.[35] Maria Pavlovna was at Pskov when she learned that Dmitri had participated in the murder of Grigori Rasputin on 17 December 1916; she was stunned. "For the first time in my life," she wrote, "my brother appeared to me an individual standing apart from me, and this feeling of unaccustomed estrangement made me shiver."[36] Maria signed a letter along with other members of the Imperial family, begging Nicholas II to reverse his decision to exile Dmitri to the Persian front.[37] Two months later, the February Revolution erupted, and Tsar Nicholas II, Maria's first cousin, abdicated. Maria Pavlovna left Pskov for Petrograd joining her father and his family at Tsarkoe Selo. Earlier in the war, she had been reacquainted with Prince Sergei Mikhailovich Putyatin (1893–1966), the son of the palace commandant at Tsarkoe Selo, the tsar's country residence.[34] They had met as children, and in the spring 1917, a happy affair began between them.[32][34] In the summer, they became engaged, and in love for the first time, Maria Pavlovna married Putyatin in the Pavlovsk Palace on 19 September [O.S. 6 September] 1917.[34] The couple spent the early months of their married life in Petrograd, living at first in Dmitri's palace. When the palace was sold, they moved to a small apartment with Sergei's parents.[34] Prince Sergei Mikhailovich Putyatin, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna's second husband. He graduated from the Page Corps and joined the Life Guards 4th Infantry Regiment. 1914 The successful Bolshevik coup of November 1917 surprised Maria Pavlovna and her husband in Moscow, where they had traveled to remove some of Maria's jewels from the state bank.[38] They returned to Petrograd with their lives, but without the jewels.[38] Later, Serge's parents retrieved Maria's diamonds.[38] In the spring 1918, the couple moved to a cottage in Tsarkoe Selo to be closer to Grand Duke Paul, who was under house arrest. There, the grand duchess tended a vegetable garden and kept a goat.[34] On 8 July 1918, she gave birth to a son, Prince Roman Sergeievich Putyatin. The same day of Prince Roman's baptism on 18 July 1918, but they did not know it, Maria's half-brother Prince Vladimir Paley and her aunt Grand Duchess Elizabeth were murdered by the Bolsheviks.[39] With the situation quickly deteriorating in Russia for the Romanovs under the Bolshevik regime, Maria Pavlovna decided to leave for exile, leaving her baby under the care of her in-laws.[39] With her husband and her brother-in-law Alexander Putyatin, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna left Tsarkoie Selo in late July.[38][39] Without traveling documents and fearing to be arrested at any stop, Maria Pavlovna, her husband and brother-in-law made their way by train during two nights and a day. On 4 August, they reached Orsha, in today's Belarus, joining many other refugees in similar situations.[40] From the train station, they went to the frontier with German-occupied Ukraine. She had concealed, inside a bar of soap, a Swedish document identifying her as a former royal princess of that country.[40] This document allowed her to enter Ukraine.[41] From there, they continued south until reaching Kiev, where new adventures followed. In November, the fugitives made their way to Odessa.[38][42] After reaching Kishinev, Moldavia, they received an invitation from Queen Marie of Romania, Maria's first cousin, who had used Joseph W. Boyle to track them and bring them to safety.[43] Ill with influenza, the grand duchess arrived in Romania, beginning her life in exile.[44] Exile Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna in exile. 1920s In December 1918, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna and her second husband arrived in Bucharest staying at a local hotel.[39] In January 1919, they were given private apartments at the Cotroceni Palace as guests of the Romanian Queen Maria.[39] Tragic news came from Russia. The following month, Maria Pavlovna learned that her father Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich had been assassinated by the Bolsheviks along with three of his cousins.[45] A couple of weeks later, she received the news that her aunt Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna and half-brother Prince Vladimir Paley had been murdered with several other Romanov relatives in the summer 1918.[45] Tsar Nicholas II and his immediate family had been killed a day earlier.[46] Maria Pavlovna's parents-in-law arrived in Bucharest with her son Roman, but once she obtained a traveling visa, Maria Pavlovna left with Putyatin for Paris, finding a house in Passy.[39][46] For the first time in her life, the 28-year-old grand duchess was forced to face everyday problems. "I had never before carried cash with me, nor had I ever written a check. I knew the approximate price of jewels and dresses, but did not have the vaguest idea how much bread, meat and milk cost", she recalled in her book of memoirs. Her first years of exile were financed by the sale of the jewels she had had smuggled to Sweden before escaping Russia.[47] While in Paris in 1919, the grand duchess received a letter from her husband's parents telling her that one-year-old Roman had died of an intestinal disorder on 29 July.[47] Her guilt that she had left him behind prevented her from telling her friends of the baby's existence.[48] Maria Pavlovna was reunited with her brother Dmitri in London. She rented a small apartment with her husband to be close to her brother, but relations between Dmitri and Putyatin soon soured.[47] Determined to find an occupation that would allow her to make a living, she began knitting sweaters and dresses selling them to a London shop.[49] In the spring 1920, Maria Pavlovna returned to Paris to meet with her stepmother Princess Olga Paley and Maria's two half-sisters. She decided to stay in the French capital in order to be close to them.[49] Her brother Dmitri followed her to Paris.[49] From 1921, she devoted a great deal of her time to the Russian Red Cross and philanthropic work.[49] Missing her son Lennart, who had been left in Sweden, Maria and Dimitri went to meet him in Copenhagen in the early summer of 1921.[50] Lennart was age 12 and taller than his mother. Two years later, they were reunited for a brief holiday in Germany.[51] They saw each other again in the autumn of 1927 in Brussels when Lennart was age 18. He always harbored a resentment toward his mother, who had abandoned him, and their relationship remained strained.[51][52] In Paris, Grand Duchess Maria opened a quality embroidering and sewing textile shop named Kitmir. Through her brother, Maria Pavlovna met Coco Chanel in the autumn 1921.[53] Chanel became her main patron buying Kitmir's embroideries for her fashion house.[54] For a time, Kitmir was a success in the Parisian fashion industry.[55] The grand duchess was helped by her mother-in-law Princess Sophia Putyatina, and she employed Russians refugees in order to help them.[56] However, Kitmir was plagued by organizational problems, resulting in the dissipation of Maria's money from the sale of her jewels and leaving her heavily in debt.[57] While she devoted all her energies to her work, Putyatin preferred to spend his time in the company of Russian officers, fast living and squandering money. Disillusioned with her husband, she divorced him in 1923 "over a fundamental difference in attitude," but she continued to offer Putyatin and his relatives financial assistance.[58] After her divorce, Maria Pavlovna continued to work in Paris, but she moved to Boulogne, the south west suburb of Paris, where many Russians had taken residence. She began an affair with the famous fashion designer Jean Patou, who was 10 years older than her and who had with a large fortune.[59] They lived with great luxury, appearing together in Parisian society events and spending time in Biarritz, Deauville and the French Riviera.[59] Rumors of a possible marriage between them spread in 1925, but Patou, a confirmed bachelor, was reluctant to change his lifestyle.[59] In 1926, Kitmir's business began to decline. In 1928, as embroidery began to be out of fashion, Maria Pavlovva sold her workshop to Maison Hurel.[60] Having suffered a defeat, but not surrendering, the grand duchess moved to London in the spring 1928 where she started selling Prince Igor, her own perfume, following in the footsteps of Chanel No. 5 and Patou's perfume Joy.[61][62] Failings in advertising and distribution made that Prince Igor was not a success.[61][62] Undeterred, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna emigrated to the United States hoping for a new start.[62] On 8 December 1928, she set sail for America from Le Havre.[61] In the United States Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna's arrival in New York City was greeted by the press with great enthusiasm and curiosity.[60] She was photographed and interviewed a great deal.[60] Accompanied by an American friend, she went as far as California, spending three weeks in a ranch.[63] In January 1929, while recuperating from an ankle injury, she worked on her memoirs which she had been writing for many years. She sent the manuscript to a number of publishers, and on 18 April 1929, it was accepted for publication.[62] In May 1929, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna started working for the New York department store Bergdorf Goodman.[62] She served as a consultant, purchasing fashionable clothing from France.[62] She then returned to Paris, sold her house in Boulogne, bade farewell to her stepmother and half-sisters, and in August 1929, sailed from Marseilles to the United States. Grand Duchess Maria Pavlona in Los Angeles, 1932 She arrived back in New York with $300, a portable typewriter, and a Russian guitar.[64] She prepared her memoirs for publication, and gave lectures at universities. The Hearst Corporation invited her to write fashion articles and reviews.[62] Her book of memoirs was translated from Russian to English and published in two volumes: the first was titled The Education of a Princess, and the second was A Princess in Exile. They appeared in 1930 and 1932. Both became bestsellers in the United States and in Europe, where they were translated to French and Spanish. The success of her books improved Maria Pavlovna's finances. She also became a popular figure in the lecture circuit. She earned well, but spent freely.[50] Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna always had an interest in photography, and in 1935, she was sent by Hearst to Germany as a photojournalist.[62][64] Part of her job was to take photographs in luxury cruise lines between Europe and New York reporting on the events of first-class, deck society.[64] While living in New York, Maria Pavlovna collected Russian books and surrounded herself with a group of friends that included her half-sister Princess Natalia Paley, the photographer Horst P. Horst, Valentina Sanina, founder of the fashion house Valentina, and Sanina's husband George Schlee.[62] In 1937, Maria Pavlovna visited her son Lennart and his family in Mainau.[52] They bonded over their shared interest in photography, and she got along with his wife, even though the grand duchess had been disappointed when her son renounced his royal status in order to marry a commoner in 1932.[52] Maria Pavlovna, who had little maternal feelings, took no interest in her two grand daughters: Birgitta, then age 4, and Marie Louise, age two.[52] She asked Lennart to call her by her name as she felt embarrassed to have such a grown-up son. Because of Lennart, the King of Sweden, who sympathized with Maria Pavlovna, arranged a Swedish diplomatic passport for her to replace her old Nansen passport. This document gave her a broader freedom of movement.[52][62] In this period, her articles appeared frequently in different publications including Vogue.[62] At Bergdorf Goodman, she created a hat collection.[62] On 15 May 1939, she was interviewed live on the radio during The Lux Radio Theatre broadcast of Tovarich.[65][66] In 1941, the United States entered World War II as an ally of the Soviet Union. The friendly alliance of the U.S. toward the Communist country repulsed her.[62] After 12 years living in the United States, she moved to Argentina with the intention of creating a line of cosmetics with friend Countess Elisabeth de Brunière, née Saroukhanoff, a Russian émigré who worked for Elizabeth Arden in Buenos Aires.[61][67][68] Last years In Argentina, Maria Pavlovna rented a small house with a garden in the Barrio Norte in Buenos Aires and devoted her spare time to painting, even managing to sell several of her works. Argentinian newspapers published her articles about interior design, fashion, and art. The cosmetic line did not take off, but Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna remained in South America. There was a large Russian émigré community in Buenos Aires, and she became close friends with the family of Prince Mestchersky, Prince Michel Aleksandrovich Gortschakov and his wife Princess Olga, née Orlov-Davydow. During weekends, she went to Los Leones, a huge property owned by Prince Karl von Auersperg and his wife Archduchess Elisabeth von Habsburg. In 1942, she received news of the death of her brother Dmitri in Davos, Switzerland. She grieved over his death. He was the only person she had loved.[69] In 1947, Maria Pavlovna's son Lennart came from Germany on a business visit that lasted several months. For the first time, they genuinely got to know each other. Maria told Lennart that she had felt lonely all of her life due to her rootless childhood. She spent much of her adulthood looking for love, having affairs, and finding it hard to fill the empty spaces inside of her.[70] Two years later, Maria Pavlovna returned to Europe, where, at the home of her son on the island of Mainau in Germany, she re-encountered her first husband Prince Wilhelm of Sweden for the first time in many years. They departed as good friends. During the 1950s, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna stayed with friends or appeared unexpectedly in Mainau in the house of her son Lennart with her camera, easel and paints. She died from pneumonia, at age 68, on 13 December 1958 in Konstanz, West Germany. She is buried in a side altar of the palace church in Mainau, next to her brother Grand Duke Dmitri. Saint Petersburg,[a] formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991; see below), is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of roughly 5.6 million residents as of 2021.[4] Saint Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents. As Russia's Imperial capital, and a historically strategic port, it is governed as a federal city. The city was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703 on the site of a captured Swedish fortress, and was named after the apostle Saint Peter.[9] In Russia, Saint Petersburg is historically and culturally associated with the birth of the Russian Empire and Russia's entry into modern history as a European great power.[10] It served as a capital of the Tsardom of Russia, and the subsequent Russian Empire, from 1713 to 1918 (being replaced by Moscow for a short period of time between 1728 and 1730).[11] After the October Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks moved their government to Moscow.[12] The city was renamed Leningrad after Lenin's death in 1924. In June 1991, only a few months before the Belovezha Accords and the dissolution of the USSR, voters supported restoring the city's original appellation in a city-wide referendum.[13] As Russia's cultural centre,[14] Saint Petersburg received over 15 million tourists in 2018.[15][16] It is considered an important economic, scientific, and tourism centre of Russia and Europe. In modern times, the city has the nickname of being "the Northern Capital of Russia" and is home to notable federal government bodies such as the Constitutional Court of Russia and the Heraldic Council of the President of the Russian Federation. It is also a seat for the National Library of Russia and a planned location for the Supreme Court of Russia, as well as the home to the headquarters of the Russian Navy, and the Western Military District of the Russian Armed Forces. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg is home to the Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world, the Lakhta Center, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2020. Toponymy While not originally named for Tsar Peter the Great, during World War I the city was changed from the Germanic "Petersburg" to "Petrograd" in his honour. The name day of Peter I falls on 29 June, when the Russian Orthodox Church observes the memory of apostles Peter and Paul. The consecration of the small wooden church in their names (its construction began at the same time as the citadel) made them the heavenly patrons of the Peter and Paul Fortress, while Saint Peter at the same time became the eponym of the whole city. When in June 1703 Peter the Great gave the site a new name after Saint Peter, he did not issue a naming act that established an official spelling; even in his own letters he used diverse spellings, such as Санктьпетерсьбурк (Sanktpetersburk), emulating German Sankt Petersburg, and Сантпитербурх (Santpiterburkh), emulating Dutch Sint-Pietersburgh, as Peter was multilingual and a Hollandophile. The name was later normalized and russified to Санкт-Петербург.[17][18][19] A proponent of westernising Russia, Peter the Great, the then Tsar, who established the city, originally named it Sankt-Pieter-Burch (Сан(к)т-Питер-Бурхъ) in Dutch manner and later its spelling was standardised as Sankt-Peterburg (Санкт-Петербургъ[b]) under German influence.[20] A former spelling of the city's name in English was Saint Petersburgh, under the influence of burgh. This spelling survives in the name of a street in the Bayswater district of London, near St Sophia's Cathedral, named after a visit by the Tsar to London in 1814.[21] A 14- to 15-letter-long name, composed of the three roots, proved too cumbersome, and many shortened versions were used. The first General Governor of the city Menshikov is maybe also the author of the first nickname of Petersburg which he called Петри (Petri). It took some years until the known Russian spelling of this name finally settled. In 1740s Mikhail Lomonosov uses a derivative of Greek: Πετρόπολις (Петрополис, Petropolis) in a Russified form Petropol' (Петрополь). A combo Piterpol (Питерпол) also appears at this time.[22] In any case, eventually the usage of prefix "Sankt-" ceased except for the formal official documents, where a three-letter abbreviation "СПб" (SPb) was very widely used as well. From 1924 to 1991 the city was known as 'Leningrad'. This is a picture of the Saint Petersburg port entrance with an old 'Ленинград' (Leningrad) sign. In the 1830s Alexander Pushkin translated the "foreign" city name of "Saint Petersburg" to the more Russian Petrograd (Russian: Петроград[b], IPA: [pʲɪtrɐˈgrat]) in one of his poems. However, it was only on 31 August [O.S. 18 August] 1914, after the war with Germany had begun, that Tsar Nicholas II renamed the city Petrograd in order to expunge the German words Sankt and Burg.[23] Since the prefix "Saint" was omitted,[24] this act also changed the eponym and the "patron" of the city from Saint Peter to Peter the Great, its founder.[19] On 26 January 1924, shortly after the death of Vladimir Lenin, it was renamed to Leningrad (Russian: Ленинград, IPA: [lʲɪnʲɪnˈgrat]), meaning 'Lenin's City'. On 6 September 1991, the original name, Sankt-Peterburg, was returned by citywide referendum. Today, in English the city is known as Saint Petersburg. Local residents often refer to the city by its shortened nickname, Piter (Russian: Питер, IPA: [ˈpʲitʲɪr]). Embankment of the Neva at 23:11, 22 June 2013 After the October Revolution the name Red Petrograd (Красный Петроград, Krasny Petrograd) was often used in newspapers and other prints until the city was renamed Leningrad in January 1924. A referendum on restoring the historic name was held on 12 June 1991, with 55% of voters supporting "Saint Petersburg" and 43% supporting "Leningrad".[13] The turnout was 65%[citation needed]. Renaming the city Petrograd was not an option. This change officially took effect on 6 September 1991.[25] Meanwhile, the oblast whose administrative center is also in Saint Petersburg is still named Leningrad. Having passed the role of capital to Petersburg, Moscow never relinquished the title of "capital", being called pervoprestolnaya ('first-throned') for 200 years. An equivalent name for Petersburg, the "Northern Capital", has re-entered usage today since several federal institutions were recently moved from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. Solemn descriptive names like "the city of three revolutions" and "the cradle of the October revolution" used in the Soviet era are reminders of the pivotal events in national history that occurred here. Petropolis is a translation of a city name to Greek, and is also a kind of descriptive name: Πέτρ- is a Greek root for 'stone', so the "city from stone" emphasizes the material that had been forcibly made obligatory for construction from the first years of the city[22] (a modern Greek translation is Αγία Πετρούπολη, Agia Petroupoli).[26][failed verification] Saint Petersburg has been traditionally called the "Window to Europe" and the "Window to the West" by the Russians.[27][28] The city is the northernmost metropolis in the world, and is also often described as the "Venice of the North" or the "Russian Venice" due to its many water corridors, as the city is built on swamp and water. Furthermore, it has strongly Western European-inspired architecture and culture, which is combined with the city's Russian heritage.[29][30][31] Another nickname of Saint Petersburg is "The City of the White Nights" because of a natural phenomenon which arises due to the closeness to the polar region and ensures that in summer the night skies of the city do not get completely dark for a month.[32][33] The city is also often called the "Northern Palmyra", due to its extravagant architecture.[34] History Main article: History of Saint Petersburg For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Saint Petersburg. Imperial era (1703–1917) Swedish colonists built Nyenskans, a fortress at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, which was later called Ingermanland. This area was inhabited by a Finnic tribe of Ingrians. The small town of Nyen grew up around the fort. The Bronze Horseman, monument to Peter the Great At the end of the 17th century, Peter the Great, who was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, wanted Russia to gain a seaport to trade with the rest of Europe.[35] He needed a better seaport than the country's main one at the time, Arkhangelsk, which was on the White Sea in the far north and closed to shipping during the winter. Map of fortifications, Sankt Petersburg, 1722 Map of Saint Petersburg, 1744 On 12 May [O.S. 1 May] 1703, during the Great Northern War, Peter the Great captured Nyenskans and soon replaced the fortress.[36] On 27 May [O.S. 16 May] 1703,[37] closer to the estuary (5 km (3 mi) inland from the gulf), on Zayachy (Hare) Island, he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress, which became the first brick and stone building of the new city.[38] The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia; in some years several Swedish prisoners of war were also involved under the supervision of Alexander Menshikov.[39] Tens of thousands of serfs died while building the city.[40] Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate. Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712, nine years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war. He referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital (or seat of government) as early as 1704.[35] While the city was being built, Peter lived in a three-room log cabin with his wife Catherine and their children.[citation needed] Nevsky Prospekt from restaurant Lejeune in the late 19th century During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the right bank of the Neva, near the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan. By 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed but is evident in the layout of the streets. In 1716, Peter the Great appointed Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg.[41] The style of Petrine Baroque, developed by Trezzini and other architects and exemplified by such buildings as the Menshikov Palace, Kunstkamera, Peter and Paul Cathedral, Twelve Collegia, became prominent in the city architecture of the early 18th century. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences, University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great. In 1725, Peter died at age fifty-two. His endeavors to modernize Russia had been opposed by the Russian nobility. There were several attempts on his life and a treason case involving his son.[42] In 1728, Peter II of Russia moved his seat back to Moscow. But four years later, in 1732, under Empress Anna of Russia, Saint Petersburg was again designated as the capital of the Russian Empire. It remained the seat of the Romanov dynasty and the Imperial Court of the Russian tsars, as well as the seat of the Russian government, for another 186 years until the communist revolution of 1917. In 1736–1737 the city suffered from catastrophic fires. To rebuild the damaged boroughs, a committee under Burkhard Christoph von Münnich commissioned a new plan in 1737. The city was divided into five boroughs, and the city centre was moved to the Admiralty borough, on the east bank between the Neva and Fontanka. Palace Square backed by the General staff arch and building. As the main square of the Russian Empire, it was the setting of many events of historic significance. It developed along three radial streets, which meet at the Admiralty building and are now known as Nevsky Prospect (which is considered the main street of the city), Gorokhovaya Street and Voznesensky Avenue. Baroque architecture became dominant in the city during the first sixty years, culminating in the Elizabethan Baroque, represented most notably by Italian Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such buildings as the Winter Palace. In the 1760s, Baroque architecture was succeeded by neoclassical architecture. Established in 1762, the Commission of Stone Buildings of Moscow and Saint Petersburg ruled that no structure in the city could be higher than the Winter Palace and prohibited spacing between buildings. During the reign of Catherine the Great in the 1760s–1780s, the banks of the Neva were lined with granite embankments. However, it was not until 1850 that the first permanent bridge across the Neva, Annunciation Bridge, was allowed to open. Before that, only pontoon bridges were allowed. Obvodny Canal (dug in 1769–1833) became the southern limit of the city. The most prominent neoclassical and Empire-style architects in Saint Petersburg included: Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe (Imperial Academy of Arts, Small Hermitage, Gostiny Dvor, New Holland Arch, Catholic Church of St. Catherine) Antonio Rinaldi (Marble Palace) Yury Felten (Old Hermitage, Chesme Church) Giacomo Quarenghi (Academy of Sciences, Hermitage Theatre, Yusupov Palace) Andrey Voronikhin (Mining Institute, Kazan Cathedral) Andreyan Zakharov (Admiralty building) Jean-François Thomas de Thomon (Spit of Vasilievsky Island) Carlo Rossi (Yelagin Palace, Mikhailovsky Palace, Alexandrine Theatre, Senate and Synod Buildings, General staff Building, design of many streets and squares) Vasily Stasov (Moscow Triumphal Gate, Trinity Cathedral) Auguste de Montferrand (Saint Isaac's Cathedral, Alexander Column) Decembrist revolt at the Senate Square, 26 December 1825 In 1810, Alexander I established the first engineering higher education, the Saint Petersburg Main military engineering School in Saint Petersburg. Many monuments commemorate the Russian victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812, including the Alexander Column by Montferrand, erected in 1834, and the Narva Triumphal Arch. In 1825, the suppressed Decembrist revolt against Nicholas I took place on the Senate Square in the city, a day after Nicholas assumed the throne. By the 1840s, neoclassical architecture had given way to various romanticist styles, which dominated until the 1890s, represented by such architects as Andrei Stackenschneider (Mariinsky Palace, Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, Nicholas Palace, New Michael Palace) and Konstantin Thon (Moskovsky railway station). With the emancipation of the serfs undertaken by Alexander II in 1861 and an Industrial Revolution, the influx of former peasants into the capital increased greatly. Poor boroughs spontaneously developed on the outskirts of the city. Saint Petersburg surpassed Moscow in population and industrial growth; it became one of the largest industrial cities in Europe, with a major naval base (in Kronstadt), the Neva River, and a seaport on the Baltic. The names of Saints Peter and Paul, bestowed upon the original city's citadel and its cathedral (from 1725—a burial vault of Russian emperors) coincidentally were the names of the first two assassinated Russian emperors, Peter III (1762, supposedly killed in a conspiracy led by his wife, Catherine the Great) and Paul I (1801, Nikolay Alexandrovich Zubov and other conspirators who brought to power Alexander I, the son of their victim). The third emperor's assassination took place in Saint Petersburg in 1881 when Alexander II was murdered by terrorists (see the Church of the Savior on Blood). The Revolution of 1905 began in Saint Petersburg and spread rapidly into the provinces. On 1 September 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, the Imperial government renamed the city Petrograd,[23] meaning "Peter's City", to remove the German words Sankt and Burg. Revolution and Soviet era (1917–1941) In March 1917, during the February Revolution Nicholas II abdicated for himself and on behalf of his son, ending the Russian monarchy and over three hundred years of Romanov dynastic rule. Bolsheviks celebrating 1 May near the Winter Palace half a year after taking power, 1918 On 7 November [O.S. 25 October] 1917, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, stormed the Winter Palace in an event known thereafter as the October Revolution, which led to the end of the social-democratic provisional government, the transfer of all political power to the Soviets, and the rise of the Communist Party.[43] After that the city acquired a new descriptive name, "the city of three revolutions",[44] referring to the three major developments in the political history of Russia of the early 20th century. In September and October 1917, German troops invaded the West Estonian archipelago and threatened Petrograd with bombardment and invasion. On 12 March 1918, Lenin transferred the government of Soviet Russia to Moscow, to keep it away from the state border. During the Russian Civil War, in mid-1919 Russian anti-communist forces with the help of Estonians attempted to capture the city, but Leon Trotsky mobilized the army and forced them to retreat back to Estonia. Leningrad in 1935 On 26 January 1924, five days after Lenin's death, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. Later many streets and other toponyms were renamed accordingly, with names in honour of communist figures replacing historic names given centuries before. The city has over 230 places associated with the life and activities of Lenin. Some of them were turned into museums,[45] including the cruiser Aurora—a symbol of the October Revolution and the oldest ship in the Russian Navy. In the 1920s and 1930s, the poor outskirts were reconstructed into regularly planned boroughs. Constructivist architecture flourished around that time. Housing became a government-provided amenity; many "bourgeois" apartments were so large that numerous families were assigned to what were called "communal" apartments (kommunalkas). By the 1930s, 68% of the population lived in such housing under very poor conditions. In 1935, a new general plan was outlined, whereby the city should expand to the south. Constructivism was rejected in favour of a more pompous Stalinist architecture. Moving the city centre further from the border with Finland, Stalin adopted a plan to build a new city hall with a huge adjacent square at the southern end of Moskovsky Prospekt, designated as the new main street of Leningrad. After the Winter (Soviet-Finnish) war in 1939–1940, the Soviet–Finnish border moved northwards. Nevsky Prospekt with Palace Square maintained the functions and the role of a city centre. In December 1931, Leningrad was administratively separated from Leningrad Oblast. At that time it included the Leningrad Suburban District, some parts of which were transferred back to Leningrad Oblast in 1936 and turned into Vsevolozhsky District, Krasnoselsky District, Pargolovsky District and Slutsky District (renamed Pavlovsky District in 1944).[46] The Saviour Church on Sennaya Square (pre-1917 photo) in Leningrad was one of many notable church buildings destroyed during The Thaw During the Soviet era, many historic architectural monuments of the previous centuries were destroyed by the new regime for ideological reasons. While that mainly concerned churches and cathedrals, some other buildings were also demolished.[47][48][49] On 1 December 1934, Sergey Kirov, the Bolshevik leader of Leningrad, was assassinated under suspicious circumstances, which became the pretext for the Great Purge.[50] In Leningrad, approximately 40,000 were executed during Stalin's purges.[51] World War II (1941–1945) Main article: Siege of Leningrad Citizens of Leningrad during the 872-day siege, in which more than one million civilians died, mostly from starvation, Nevsky Prospect (then known as the 25th October Prospekt). During World War II, German forces besieged Leningrad following the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.[52] The siege lasted 872 days, or almost two and a half years,[52] from 8 September 1941 to 27 January 1944.[53] The Siege of Leningrad proved one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of a major city in modern history. It isolated the city from food supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga, which could not make it through until the lake froze. More than one million civilians were killed, mainly from starvation. There were incidents of cannibalism, with around 2,000 residents arrested for eating other people.[54] Many others escaped or were evacuated, so the city became largely depopulated. On 1 May 1945 Joseph Stalin, in his Supreme Commander Order No. 20, named Leningrad, alongside Stalingrad, Sevastopol, and Odesa, hero cities of the war. A law acknowledging the honorary title of "Hero City" passed on 8 May 1965 (the 20th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War), during the Brezhnev era. The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR awarded Leningrad as a Hero City the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal "for the heroic resistance of the city and tenacity of the survivors of the Siege". The Hero-City Obelisk bearing the Gold Star sign was installed in April 1985. Post-war Soviet era (1945–1991) View of Lermontovski Prospekt, Egyptian Bridge and the Fontanka River, 1972 In October 1946 some territories along the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland, which had been annexed into the USSR from Finland in 1940 under the peace treaty following the Winter War, were transferred from Leningrad Oblast to Leningrad and divided into Sestroretsky District and Kurortny District. These included the town of Terijoki (renamed Zelenogorsk in 1948).[46] Leningrad and many of its suburbs were rebuilt over the post-war decades, partially according to pre-war plans. The 1948 general plan for Leningrad featured radial urban development in the north as well as in the south. In 1953, Pavlovsky District in Leningrad Oblast was abolished, and parts of its territory, including Pavlovsk, merged with Leningrad. In 1954, the settlements Levashovo, Pargolovo and Pesochny merged with Leningrad.[46] Griboedov Canal and the Church of the Saviour on Blood, 1991 Leningrad gave its name to the Leningrad Affair (1949–1952), a notable event in the postwar political struggle in the USSR. It was a product of rivalry between Stalin's potential successors where one side was represented by the leaders of the city Communist Party organization—the second most significant one in the country after Moscow. The entire elite leadership of Leningrad was destroyed, including the former mayor Kuznetsov, the acting mayor Pyotr Sergeevich Popkov, and all their deputies; overall 23 leaders were sentenced to the death penalty, 181 to prison or exile (rehabilitated in 1954). About 2,000 ranking officials across the USSR were expelled from the party and the Komsomol and removed from leadership positions.[55] The Leningrad Metro underground rapid transit system, designed before the war, opened in 1955 with its first eight stations decorated with marble and bronze. However, after Stalin's death in 1953, the perceived ornamental excesses of the Stalinist architecture were abandoned. From the 1960s to the 1980s many new residential boroughs were built on the outskirts; while the functionalist apartment blocks were nearly identical to each other, many families moved there from kommunalkas in the city centre to live in separate apartments. Contemporary era (1991–present) View of the city from the Saint Isaac's Cathedral On 12 June 1991, simultaneously with the first Russian SFSR presidential elections, the city authorities arranged for the mayoral elections and a referendum upon the city's name, when the original name Saint Petersburg was restored. The turnout was 65%; 66.13% of the total count of votes went to Anatoly Sobchak, who became the first directly elected mayor of the city. Meanwhile, economic conditions started to deteriorate as the country tried to adapt to major changes. For the first time since the 1940s, food rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad.[25] This dramatic time was depicted in photographic series of Russian photographer Alexey Titarenko.[56][57] Economic conditions began to improve only at the beginning of the 21st century.[58] In 1995, a northern section of the Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line of the Saint Petersburg Metro was cut off by underground flooding, creating a major obstacle to the city development for almost ten years. On 13 June 1996, Saint Petersburg, alongside Leningrad Oblast and Tver Oblast, signed a power-sharing agreement with the federal government, granting it autonomy.[59] This agreement was abolished on 4 April 2002.[60] In 1996, Vladimir Yakovlev defeated Anatoly Sobchak in the elections for the head of the city administration. The title of the city head was changed from "mayor" to "governor". In 2000, Yakovlev won re-election. His second term expired in 2004; the long-awaited restoration of the broken subway connection was expected to finish by that time. But in 2003 Yakovlev suddenly resigned, leaving the governor's office to Valentina Matviyenko. Moyka River, flowing through Central Saint Petersburg The Trinity Bridge is a landmark of Art Nouveau design. People walking on the main street of Saint Petersburg, Nevsky Prospekt The law on election of the City Governor was changed, breaking the tradition of democratic election by universal suffrage that started in 1991. In 2006, the city legislature re-approved Matviyenko as governor. Residential building had intensified again; real-estate prices inflated greatly, which caused many new problems for the preservation of the historical part of the city. Although the central part of the city has a UNESCO designation (there are about 8,000 architectural monuments in Petersburg), the preservation of its historical and architectural environment became controversial.[61] After 2005, the demolition of older buildings in the historical centre was permitted.[62] In 2006, Gazprom announced an ambitious project to erect a 403 m (1,322 ft) skyscraper (the Okhta Center) opposite to Smolny, which[according to whom?] could result in the loss of the unique line of Petersburg landscape.[citation needed] Urgent protests by citizens and prominent public figures of Russia against this project were not considered by Governor Valentina Matviyenko and the city authorities until December 2010, when after the statement of President Dmitry Medvedev, the city decided to find a more appropriate location for this project. In the same year, the new location for the project was relocated to Lakhta, a historical area northwest of the city centre, and the new project would be named Lakhta Center. Construction was approved by Gazprom and the city administration and commenced in 2012. The 462 m (1,516 ft) high Lakhta Center has become the first tallest skyscraper in Russia and Europe outside of Moscow. Geography Main article: Geography of Saint Petersburg The Neva River flows through much of the centre of the city. Left – the Spit of Vasilievsky Island, center – River Neva, Peter and Paul Fortress and Trinity Bridge, right – Palace Embankment with the Winter Palace. Satellite image of Saint Petersburg and its suburbs The area of Saint Petersburg city proper is 605.8 km2 (233.9 square miles). The area of the federal subject is 1,439 km2 (556 sq mi), which contains Saint Petersburg proper (consisting of eighty-one municipal okrugs), nine municipal towns – (Kolpino, Krasnoye Selo, Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Pavlovsk, Petergof, Pushkin, Sestroretsk, Zelenogorsk) – and twenty-one municipal settlements. Petersburg is on the middle taiga lowlands along the shores of the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, and islands of the river delta. The largest are Vasilyevsky Island (besides the artificial island between Obvodny canal and Fontanka, and Kotlin in the Neva Bay), Petrogradsky, Dekabristov and Krestovsky. The latter together with Yelagin and Kamenny Island are covered mostly by parks. The Karelian Isthmus, North of the city, is a popular resort area. In the south, Saint Petersburg crosses the Baltic-Ladoga Klint and meets the Izhora Plateau. The elevation of Saint Petersburg ranges from the sea level to its highest point of 175.9 m (577 ft) at the Orekhovaya Hill in the Duderhof Heights in the south. Part of the city's territory west of Liteyny Prospekt is no higher than 4 m (13 ft) above sea level, and has suffered from numerous floods. Floods in Saint Petersburg are triggered by a long wave in the Baltic Sea, caused by meteorological conditions, winds and shallowness of the Neva Bay. The five most disastrous floods occurred in 1824 (4.21 m or 13 ft 10 in above sea level, during which over 300 buildings were destroyed[c]); 1924 (3.8 m, 12 ft 6 in); 1777 (3.21 m, 10 ft 6 in); 1955 (2.93 m, 9 ft 7 in); and 1975 (2.81 m, 9 ft 3 in). To prevent floods, the Saint Petersburg Dam has been constructed.[63] Since the 18th century, the city's terrain has been raised artificially, at some places by more than 4 m (13 ft), making mergers of several islands, and changing the hydrology of the city. Besides the Neva and its tributaries, other important rivers of the federal subject of Saint Petersburg are Sestra, Okhta and Izhora. The largest lake is Sestroretsky Razliv in the north, followed by Lakhtinsky Razliv, Suzdal Lakes, and other smaller lakes. Due to its northerly location at c. 60° N latitude the day length in Petersburg varies across seasons, ranging from 5 hours 53 minutes to 18 hours 50 minutes. A period from mid-May to mid-July during which twilight may last all night is called the white nights. Saint Petersburg is about 165 km (103 miles) from the border with Finland, connected to it via the M10 highway (E18), along which there is also a connection to the historic city of Vyborg. Climate Main article: Climate of Saint Petersburg Under the Köppen climate classification, Saint Petersburg is classified as Dfb, a humid continental climate. The distinct moderating influence of Baltic Sea cyclones results in warm, humid, and short summers and long, moderately cold wet winters. The climate of Saint Petersburg is close to that of Helsinki, although slightly more continental (i.e. colder in winter and warmer in summer) because of its more eastern location, while slightly less continental than that of Moscow. The average maximum temperature in July is 23 °C (73 °F), and the average minimum temperature in February is −8.5 °C (16.7 °F); an extreme temperature of 37.1 °C (98.8 °F) occurred during the 2010 Northern Hemisphere summer heat wave. A winter minimum of −35.9 °C (−32.6 °F) was recorded in 1883. The average annual temperature is 5.8 °C (42.4 °F). The Neva River within the city limits usually freezes up in November–December and break-up occurs in April. From December to March there are 118 days on average with snow cover, which reaches an average snow depth of 19 cm (7.5 in) by February.[64] The frost-free period in the city lasts on average for about 135 days. Despite St. Petersburg's northern location, its winters are warmer than Moscow's due to the Gulf of Finland and some Gulf Stream influence from Scandinavian winds that can bring temperature slightly above freezing. The city also has a slightly warmer climate than its suburbs. Weather conditions are quite variable all year round.[65][66] Average annual precipitation varies across the city, averaging 660 mm (26 in) per year and reaching maximum in late summer. Due to the cool climate, soil moisture is almost always high because of lower evapotranspiration. Air humidity is 78% on average, and there are, on average, 165 overcast days per year. Climate data for Saint Petersburg (1991–2020, extremes 1743–present) Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year Record high °C (°F) 8.7 (47.7) 10.2 (50.4) 15.3 (59.5) 25.3 (77.5) 33.0 (91.4) 35.9 (96.6) 35.3 (95.5) 37.1 (98.8) 30.4 (86.7) 21.0 (69.8) 12.3 (54.1) 10.9 (51.6) 37.1 (98.8) Average high °C (°F) −2.5 (27.5) −2.4 (27.7) 2.3 (36.1) 9.5 (49.1) 16.3 (61.3) 20.5 (68.9) 23.3 (73.9) 21.4 (70.5) 15.9 (60.6) 8.7 (47.7) 2.8 (37.0) −0.5 (31.1) 9.6 (49.3) Daily mean °C (°F) −4.8 (23.4) −5.0 (23.0) −1.0 (30.2) 5.2 (41.4) 11.5 (52.7) 16.1 (61.0) 19.1 (66.4) 17.4 (63.3) 12.4 (54.3) 6.2 (43.2) 0.9 (33.6) −2.5 (27.5) 6.3 (43.3) Average low °C (°F) −7.2 (19.0) −7.6 (18.3) −4.0 (24.8) 1.7 (35.1) 7.2 (45.0) 12.2 (54.0) 15.3 (59.5) 13.9 (57.0) 9.4 (48.9) 4.1 (39.4) −0.9 (30.4) −4.5 (23.9) 3.3 (37.9) Record low °C (°F) −35.9 (−32.6) −35.2 (−31.4) −29.9 (−21.8) −21.8 (−7.2) −6.6 (20.1) 0.1 (32.2) 4.9 (40.8) 1.3 (34.3) −3.1 (26.4) −12.9 (8.8) −22.2 (−8.0) −34.4 (−29.9) −35.9 (−32.6) Average precipitation mm (inches) 46 (1.8) 36 (1.4) 36 (1.4) 37 (1.5) 47 (1.9) 69 (2.7) 84 (3.3) 87 (3.4) 57 (2.2) 64 (2.5) 56 (2.2) 51 (2.0) 670 (26.4) Average extreme snow depth cm (inches) 15 (5.9) 19 (7.5) 14 (5.5) 1 (0.4) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 3 (1.2) 9 (3.5) 19 (7.5) Average rainy days 9 7 10 13 16 18 17 17 20 20 16 10 173 Average snowy days 25 23 16 8 1 0.1 0 0 0.1 5 16 23 117 Average relative humidity (%) 86 84 79 69 65 69 71 76 80 83 86 87 78 Mean monthly sunshine hours 18.9 45.5 120.5 177.9 255.6 254.3 267.7 228.1 134.8 61.8 23.0 8.1 1,596.2 Source 1: Pogoda.ru.net[64] Source 2: NOAA [67] Demographics Main article: Demographics of Saint Petersburg Population pyramid of St. Petersburg in the 2021 Russian Census Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia. As of the 2021 Census,[4] the federal subject's population is 5,601,911 or 3.9% of the total population of Russia; up from 4,879,566 (3.4%) recorded in the 2010 Census,[68] and up from 5,023,506 recorded in the 1989 Census.[69] Historical population Year Pop. ±% p.a. 1897 1,264,920 —     1926 1,590,770 +0.79% 1939 3,191,304 +5.50% 1959 3,321,196 +0.20% 1970 3,949,501 +1.59% 1979 4,588,183 +1.68% 1989 5,023,506 +0.91% 2002 4,661,219 −0.57% 2010 4,879,566 +0.57% 2021 5,601,911 +1.26% Source: Census data Vital statistics for 2022:[70][71] Births: 50,663 (9.4 per 1,000) Deaths: 65,137 (12.1 per 1,000) Total fertility rate (2022):[72] 1.28 children per woman Life expectancy (2021):[73] Total — 72.51 years (male — 68.23, female — 76.30) Life expectancy at birth in Saint Petersburg Ethnic composition of Saint Petersburg Ethnicity Year 1939[74] 1959[75] 1970[76] 1979[77] 1989[78] 2002[79] 2010[79] 2021[80] Population % Population % Population % Population % Population % Population % Population % Population1 % Russians 2,775,979 86.9 2,951,254 88.9 3,514,296 89.0 4,097,629 89.7 4,448,884 89.1 3,949,623 92.0 3,908,753 92.5 4,275,058 90.6 Ukrainians 54,660 1.7 68,308 2.1 97,109 2.5 117,412 2.6 150,982 3.0 87,119 2.0 64,446 1.5 29,353 0.6 Tatars 31,506 1.0 27,178 0.8 32,851 0.8 39,403 0.9 43,997 0.9 35,553 0.8 30,857 0.7 20,286 0.4 Azerbaijanis 385 - 855 - 1,576 - 3,171 0.1 11,804 0.2 16,613 0.4 17,717 0.4 16,406 0.3 Belarusians 32,353 1.0 47,004 1.4 63,799 1.6 81,575 1.8 93,564 1.9 54,484 1.3 38,136 0.9 15,545 0.3 Armenians 4,615 0.1 4,897 0.1 6,628 0.2 7,995 0.2 12,070 0.2 19,164 0.4 19,971 0.5 14,737 0.3 Uzbeks 238 - - - 1,678 - 1,883 - 7,927 0.2 2,987 0.1 20,345 0.5 12,181 0.3 Tajiks 61 - - - 361 - 473 - 1,917 - 2,449 0.1 12,072 0.3 9,573 0.2 Jews 201,542 6.3 168,641 5.1 162,525 4.1 142,779 3.1 106,469 2.1 36,570 0.9 24,132 0.6 9,205 0.2 Others 89,965 2.8 53,059 1.6 68,678 1.7 76,228 1.7 113,135 2.3 88,661 2.1 90,310 2.1 277,297 6.7 Total 3,191,304 100 3,321,196 100 3,949,501 100 4,588,183 100 5,023,506 100 4,661,219 100 4,879,566 100 5,601,911 100 1884,678 people were registered from administrative databases, and could not declare an ethnicity. It is estimated that the proportion of ethnicities in this group is the same as that of the declared group. During the 20th century, the city experienced dramatic population changes. From 2.4 million residents in 1916, its population dropped to less than 740,000 by 1920 during the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Russian Civil War. The minorities of Germans, Poles, Finns, Estonians and Latvians were almost completely transferred from Leningrad during the 1930s.[81] From 1941 to the end of 1943, population dropped from 3 million to less than 600,000, as people died in battles, starved to death or were evacuated during the Siege of Leningrad. Some evacuees returned after the siege, but most influx was due to migration from other parts of the Soviet Union. The city absorbed about 3 million people in the 1950s and grew to over 5 million in the 1980s. From 1991 to 2006 the city's population decreased to 4.6 million, while the suburban population increased due to privatization of land and massive move to suburbs. Based on the 2010 census results the population is over 4.8 million.[82][83] For the first half of 2007, the birth rate was 9.1 per 1000[84] and remained lower than the death rate (until 2012[85]); people over 65 constitute more than twenty percent of the population; and the median age is about 40 years.[86] Since 2012 the birth rate became higher than the death rate.[85] But in 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic caused a drop in birth rate, and the city population decreased to 5,395,000 people.[87] Religion Clockwise from left: Kronstadt: the Naval Cathedral on Yakornaya Square, the Church of St. Catherine, the Saint Petersburg Mosque, and the Grand Choral Synagogue of St. Petersburg According to various opinion polls, more than half of the residents of Saint Petersburg "believe in God" (up to 67% according to VTsIOM data for 2002). Among the believers, the overwhelming majority of the residents of the city are Orthodox (57.5%), followed by small minority communities of Muslims (0.7%), Protestants (0.6%), and Catholics (0.5%), and Buddhists (0.1%).[88] In total, roughly 59% of the population of the city is Christian, of which over 90% are Orthodox.[88] Non-Abrahamic religions and other faiths are represented by only 1.2% of the total population.[88] Religion in Saint Petersburg as of 2012 (Sreda Arena Atlas)[89][90] Russian Orthodoxy   50.3% Other Orthodox   1.4% Other Christians   3.2% Islam   1.1% Spiritual but not religious   20.5% Atheism and irreligion   15.4% Other and undeclared   7.6% There are 268 communities of confessions and religious associations in the city: the Russian Orthodox Church (130 associations), Pentecostalism (23 associations), the Lutheranism (19 associations), Baptism (13 associations), as well as Old Believers, Roman Catholic Church, Armenian Apostolic Church, Georgian Orthodox Church, Seventh-day Adventist Church, Judaism, Buddhist, Muslim, Bahá'í and others.[88] 229 religious buildings in the city are owned or run by religious associations. Among them are architectural monuments of federal significance. The oldest cathedral in the city is the Peter and Paul Cathedral, built between 1712 and 1733, and the largest is the Kazan Cathedral, completed in 1811. Government Further information: Politics of Saint Petersburg The city assembly meets in the Mariinsky Palace. Saint Petersburg is a federal subject of Russia (a federal city).[91] The political life of Saint Petersburg is regulated by the Charter of Saint Petersburg adopted by the city legislature in 1998.[92] The superior executive body is the Saint Petersburg City Administration, led by the city governor (mayor before 1996). Saint Petersburg has a single-chamber legislature, the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly, which is the city's regional parliament. The Smolny Institute, seat of the governor According to the federal law passed in 2004, heads of federal subjects, including the governor of Saint Petersburg, were nominated by the President of Russia and approved by local legislatures. Should the legislature disapprove the nominee, the President could dissolve it. The former governor, Valentina Matviyenko, was approved according to the new system in December 2006. She was the only woman governor in the whole of Russia until her resignation on 22 August 2011. Matviyenko stood for elections as member of the Regional Council of Saint Petersburg and won comprehensively with allegations of rigging and ballot stuffing by the opposition. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has already backed her for the position of Speaker to the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and her election qualifies her for that job. After her resignation, Georgy Poltavchenko was appointed as the new acting governor the same day. In 2012, following passage of a new federal law,[93] restoring direct elections of heads of federal subjects, the city charter was again amended to provide for direct elections of governor.[94] On 3 October 2018, Poltavchenko resigned, and Alexander Beglov was appointed acting governor.[95] Saint Petersburg is also the unofficial but de facto administrative centre of Leningrad Oblast, and of the Northwestern Federal District.[96] The Constitutional Court of Russia moved to Saint Petersburg from Moscow in May 2008. Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, being two different federal subjects, share a number of local departments of federal executive agencies and courts, such as court of arbitration, police, FSB, postal service, drug enforcement administration, penitentiary service, federal registration service, and other federal services. Administrative divisions Main article: Administrative divisions of Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg is divided into 18 administrative districts: Administrative divisions of the city of Saint Petersburg Аdmiralteysky Vasileostrovsky Vyborgsky Kalininsky Кirovsky Kolpinsky Krasnogvardeysky Кrasnoselsky Kronshtadtsky Kurortny Moskovsky Nevsky Petrogradsky Petrodvortsovy Primorsky Pushkinsky Frunzensky Tsentralny Within the boundaries of the districts, there are 111 intra-city municipalities, 81 municipal districts, and 9 cities: (Zelenogorsk, Kolpino, Krasnoe Selo, Kronstadt, Lomonosov, Pavlovsk, Petergof, Pushkin, and Sestroretsk), as well as 21 villages.[97] Economy Main article: Economy of Saint Petersburg The Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum is a major Russian investment forum. Saint Petersburg is a major trade gateway, serving as the financial and industrial centre of Russia, with specializations in oil and gas trade; shipbuilding yards; aerospace industry; technology, including radio, electronics, software, and computers; machine building, heavy machinery and transport, including tanks and other military equipment; mining; instrument manufacture; ferrous and nonferrous metallurgy (production of aluminium alloys); chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment; publishing and printing; food and catering; wholesale and retail; textile and apparel industries; and many other businesses. It was also home to Lessner, one of Russia's two pioneering automobile manufacturers (along with Russo-Baltic); it was founded by machine tool and boilermaker G.A. Lessner in 1904, with designs by Boris Loutsky, and it survived until 1910.[98] Admiralty Shipyard Power Machines plant building on Sverdlovskaya embankment in Saint Petersburg Ten per cent of the world's power turbines are made there at the LMZ, which built over two thousand turbines for power plants across the world. Major local industries are Admiralty Shipyard, Baltic Shipyard, LOMO, Kirov Plant, Elektrosila, Izhorskiye Zavody; also registered in Saint Petersburg are Sovkomflot, Petersburg Fuel Company and SIBUR among other major Russian and international companies. The Port of Saint Petersburg has three large cargo terminals, Bolshoi Port Saint Petersburg, Kronstadt, and Lomonosov terminal.[citation needed] International cruise liners have been served at the passenger port at Morskoy Vokzal on the south-west of Vasilyevsky Island. In 2008 the first two berths opened at the New Passenger Port on the west of the island.[99] The new passenger terminal is part of the city's "Marine Facade" development project[100] and was due to have seven berths in operation by 2010.[needs update] A complex system of riverports on both banks of the Neva River are interconnected with the system of seaports, thus making Saint Petersburg the main link between the Baltic Sea and the rest of Russia through the Volga–Baltic Waterway. The Saint Petersburg Mint (Monetny Dvor), founded in 1724, is one of the largest mints in the world, it mints Russian coins, medals and badges. Saint Petersburg is also home to the oldest and largest Russian foundry, Monumentskulptura, which made thousands of sculptures and statues that now grace the public parks of Saint Petersburg and many other cities. Monuments and bronze statues of the Tsars, as well as other important historic figures and dignitaries, and other world-famous monuments, such as the sculptures by Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Mark Antokolsky, and others, were made there. In 2007, Toyota opened a Camry plant after investing 5 billion roubles (approx. 200 mln dollars) in Shushary, one of the southern suburbs of Saint Petersburg. Opel, Hyundai and Nissan have also signed deals with the Russian government to build their automotive plants in Saint Petersburg. The automotive and auto-parts industry is on the rise there during the last decade. Saint Petersburg has a large brewery and distillery industry. Known as Russia's "beer capital" due to the supply and quality of local water, its five large breweries account for over 30% of the country's domestic beer production. They include Europe's second-largest brewery Baltika, Vena (both operated by BBH), Heineken Brewery, Stepan Razin (both by Heineken) and Tinkoff brewery (SUN-InBev). The city's many local distilleries produce a broad range of vodka brands. The oldest ones is LIVIZ (founded in 1897). Among the youngest is Russian Standard Vodka introduced in Moscow in 1998, which opened in 2006 a new $60 million distillery in Petersburg (an area of 30,000 m2 (320,000 sq ft), production rate of 22,500 bottles per hour). In 2007, this brand was exported to over 70 countries.[101] Saint Petersburg has the second-largest construction industry in Russia, including commercial, housing, and road construction. In 2006, Saint Petersburg's city budget was 180 billion rubles (about 7 billion US$ at 2006 exchange rates),.[102] The federal subject's Gross Regional Product as of 2016 was 3.7 trillion Russian rubles (or around US$70 billion), ranked 2nd in Russia, after Moscow[103] and per capita of US$13,000, ranked 12th among Russia's federal subjects,[104] contributed mostly by wholesale and retail trade and repair services (24.7%) as well as processing industry (20.9%) and transportation and telecommunications (15.1%).[105] Budget revenues of the city in 2009 amounted to 294.3 billion rubles (about 10.044 billion US$ at 2009 exchange rates), expenses – 336.3 billion rubles (about 11.477 billion US$ at 2009 exchange rates). The budget deficit amounted to about 42 billion rubles.[106] (about 1.433 billion US$ at 2009 exchange rates) In 2015, St. Petersburg was ranked in 4th place economically amongst all federal subjects of the Russian Federation, surpassed only by Moscow, the Tyumen and Moscow Region.[107] Cityscape Main articles: Landmarks of Saint Petersburg and Kronstadt Lakhta Center, the tallest building in Europe The Admiralty building in St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg has three skyscrapers: Leader Tower (140 m), Alexander Nevsky (124 m) and Atlantic City (105 m) all far from the historical centre. Regulations forbid the construction of tall buildings in the city centre. The 310-meter (1,020 ft) tall Saint Petersburg TV Tower is the tallest completed structure in the city. However, there was a controversial project endorsed by the city authorities, and known as the Okhta Center, to build a 396 meters (1,299 ft) supertall skyscraper. In 2008, the World Monuments Fund included the Saint Petersburg historic skyline on the watch list of the 100 most endangered sites due to the expected construction, which threatens to alter it drastically.[108] The Okhta Center project was cancelled at the end of 2010 and the Lakhta Center project began in the city's outskirts. The complex includes 463-metre-tall (1,519-foot) office skyscraper and several low rise mixed-use buildings. The Lakhta Center project has caused much less controversy. Unlike the previous unbuilt project, it is not seen by UNESCO as a potential threat to the city's cultural heritage because it is far from the historical centre. The skyscraper was completed in 2019, and at 462.5 metres, it is currently the tallest in Russia and Europe. Kazan Cathedral, an example of Neoclassical architecture Saint Isaac's Square Unlike in Moscow, the historic architecture of Saint Petersburg's city centre, mostly Baroque and Neoclassical buildings of the 18th and 19th centuries, has been largely preserved; although a number of buildings were demolished after the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, during the Siege of Leningrad and in recent years.[citation needed] The oldest of the remaining building is a wooden house built for Peter I in 1703 on the shore of the Neva near Trinity Square. Since 1991 the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast have been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The ensemble of Peter and Paul Fortress with the Peter and Paul Cathedral takes a dominant position on Zayachy Island along the right bank of the Neva River. Each noon a cannon fires a blank shot from the fortress. The Saint Petersburg Mosque, the largest mosque in Europe when opened in 1913, is on the right bank nearby. The Spit of Vasilievsky Island, which splits the river into two largest armlets, the Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva, is connected to the northern bank (Petrogradsky Island) via the Exchange Bridge and occupied by the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns. The southern coast of Vasilyevsky Island along the Bolshaya Neva features some of the city's oldest buildings, dating from the 18th century, including the Kunstkamera, Twelve Collegia, Menshikov Palace and Imperial Academy of Arts. It hosts one of two campuses of Saint Petersburg State University. On the southern, left bank of the Neva, connected to the spit of Vasilyevsky Island via the Palace Bridge, lie the Admiralty building, the vast Hermitage Museum complex stretching along the Palace Embankment, which includes the Baroque Winter Palace, former official residence of Russian emperors, as well as the neoclassical Marble Palace. The Winter Palace faces Palace Square, the city's main square with the Alexander Column. Aerial view of Peter and Paul Fortress The Field of Mars Nevsky Prospekt, also on the left bank of the Neva, is the city's main avenue. It starts at the Admiralty and runs eastwards next to Palace Square. Nevsky Prospekt crosses the Moika (Green Bridge), Griboyedov Canal (Kazansky Bridge), Garden Street, the Fontanka (Anichkov Bridge), meets Liteyny Prospekt and proceeds to Uprising Square near the Moskovsky railway station, where it meets Ligovsky Prospekt and turns to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. The Passage, Catholic Church of St. Catherine, Book House (former Singer Manufacturing Company Building in the Art Nouveau style), Grand Hotel Europe, Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Great Gostiny Dvor, Russian National Library, Alexandrine Theatre behind Mikeshin's statue of Catherine the Great, Kazan Cathedral, Stroganov Palace, Anichkov Palace and Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace are all along that avenue. Nevsky Prospekt Palace Square during Christmas The Alexander Nevsky Lavra, intended to house the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky, is an important centre of Christian education in Russia. It also contains the Tikhvin Cemetery with graves of many notable Petersburgers. On the territory between the Neva and Nevsky Prospekt the Church of the Savior on Blood, Mikhailovsky Palace housing the Russian Museum, Field of Mars, St. Michael's Castle, Summer Garden, Tauride Palace, Smolny Institute and Smolny Convent are located. Church of the Savior on Blood, seen from Griboyedov Canal Smolny Convent, an example of Baroque architecture Many notable landmarks are to the west and south of the Admiralty Building, including the Trinity Cathedral, Mariinsky Palace, Hotel Astoria, famous Mariinsky Theatre, New Holland Island, Saint Isaac's Cathedral, the largest in the city, and Senate Square, with the Bronze Horseman, 18th-century equestrian monument to Peter the Great, which is considered among the city's most recognisable symbols. Other symbols of Saint Petersburg include the weather vane in the shape of a small ship on top of the Admiralty's golden spire and the golden angel on top of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The Palace Bridge drawn at night is yet another symbol of the city. From April to November, 22 bridges across the Neva and main canals are drawn to let ships pass in and out of the Baltic Sea according to a schedule.[109] It was not until 2004 that the first high bridge across the Neva, which does not need to be drawn, Big Obukhovsky Bridge, was opened. The most remarkable bridges of our days are Korabelny and Petrovsky cable-stayed bridges, which form the most spectacular part of the city toll road, Western High-Speed Diameter. There are hundreds of smaller bridges in Saint Petersburg spanning numerous canals and distributaries of the Neva, some of the most important of which are the Moika, Fontanka, Griboyedov Canal, Obvodny Canal, Karpovka and Smolenka. Due to the intricate web of canals, Saint Petersburg is often called Venice of the North. The rivers and canals in the city centre are lined with granite embankments. The embankments and bridges are separated from rivers and canals by granite or cast iron parapets. Aerial view of Peterhof Palace Southern suburbs of the city feature former imperial residences, including Petergof, with majestic fountain cascades and parks, Tsarskoe Selo, with the baroque Catherine Palace and the neoclassical Alexander Palace, and Pavlovsk, which has a domed palace of Emperor Paul and one of Europe's largest English-style parks. Some other residences nearby and making part of the world heritage site, including a castle and park in Gatchina, actually belong to Leningrad Oblast rather than Saint Petersburg. Another notable suburb is Kronstadt with its 19th-century fortifications and naval monuments, occupying the Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland. Since around the end of the 20th century a great deal of active building and restoration works have been carried out in a number of the city's older districts. The authorities have recently been compelled to transfer the ownership of state-owned private residences in the city centre to private lessors. Many older buildings have been reconstructed to allow their use as apartments and penthouses. Some of these structures, such as the Saint Petersburg Commodity and Stock Exchange have been recognised as town-planning errors.[110] Parks The "Temple of Friendship" in Pavlovsk Park Saint Petersburg is home to many parks and gardens. Some of the most well-known are in the southern suburbs, including Pavlovsk, one of Europe's largest English gardens. Sosnovka is the largest park within the city limits, occupying 240 ha. The Summer Garden is the oldest, dating back to the early 18th century and designed in the regular style. It is on the Neva's southern bank at the head of the Fontanka and is famous for its cast iron railing and marble sculptures. Among other notable parks are the Maritime Victory Park on Krestovsky Island and the Moscow Victory Park in the south, both commemorating the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War, as well as the Central Park of Culture and Leisure occupying Yelagin Island and the Tauride Garden around the Tauride Palace. The most common trees grown in the parks are the English oak, Norway maple, green ash, silver birch, Siberian Larch, blue spruce, crack willow, limes, and poplars. Important dendrological collections dating back to the 19th century are hosted by the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden and the Park of the Forestry Academy. In order to commemorate 300 years anniversary of Saint Petersburg a new park was laid out. The park is in the northwestern part of the city. The construction was started in 1995. It is planned to connect the park with the pedestrian bridge to the territory of Lakhta Center's recreation areas. In the park 300 trees of valuable sorts, 300 decorative apple trees, 70 limes. 300 other trees and bushes were planted. These trees were presented to Saint Petersburg by non-commercial and educational organizations of the city, its sister-cities, the city of Helsinki, heads of other regions of Russia, German Savings Bank and other people and organizations.[111] Cameron gallery in Catherine park of Tsarskoe Selo   Grotto pavilion in Catherine park of Tsarskoe Selo   The Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo   Grand Menshikov Palace Tourism This section needs to be updated. The reason given is: Needs discussion on how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has affected tourism. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (June 2023) Saint Petersburg UNESCO World Heritage Site Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo Official name Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments Criteria Cultural: (i), (ii), (iv), (vi) Reference 540bis Inscription 1990 (14th Session) Extensions 2013 Area 3,934.1 ha (15.190 sq mi) Saint Petersburg has a significant historical and cultural heritage.[112][113][114][115][116][117][118] The city's 18th and 19th-century architectural ensemble and its environs is preserved in virtually unchanged form. For various reasons (including large-scale destruction during World War II and construction of modern buildings during the postwar period in the largest historical centres of Europe), Saint Petersburg has become a unique reserve of European architectural styles of the past three centuries. Saint Petersburg's loss of capital city status helped it retain many of its pre-revolutionary buildings, as modern architectural 'prestige projects' tended to be built in Moscow; this largely prevented the rise of mid-to-late-20th century architecture and helped maintain the architectural appearance of the historic city centre. The Amber Room in the Catherine Palace Saint Petersburg is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list as an area with 36 historical architectural complexes and around 4000 outstanding individual monuments of architecture, history and culture. New tourist programs and sightseeing tours have been developed for those wishing to see Saint Petersburg's cultural heritage. The city has 221 museums, 2,000 libraries, more than 80 theatres, 100 concert organizations, 45 galleries and exhibition halls, 62 cinemas, and 80 other cultural establishments. Every year the city hosts around 100 festivals and various competitions of art and culture, including more than 50 international ones.[citation needed] Grand Peterhof Palace and the Grand Cascade Despite the economic instability of the 1990s, not a single major theatre or museum was closed in Saint Petersburg; on the contrary many new ones opened, for example a private museum of puppets (opened in 1999) is the third museum of its kind in Russia, where collections of more than 2000 dolls are presented including 'The multinational Saint Petersburg' and Pushkin's Petersburg. The museum world of Saint Petersburg is incredibly diverse. The city is not only home to the world-famous Hermitage Museum and the Russian Museum with its rich collection of Russian art, but also the palaces of Saint Petersburg and its suburbs, so-called small-town museums and others like the museum of famous Russian writer Dostoyevsky; Museum of Musical Instruments, the museum of decorative arts and the museum of professional orientation. The Bolshoi Zal (Grand Hall) of Saint Petersburg Philharmonia Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns The musical life of Saint Petersburg is rich and diverse, with the city now playing host to a number of annual carnivals. Ballet performances occupy a special place in the cultural life of Saint Petersburg. The Petersburg School of Ballet is named as one of the best in the world. Traditions of the Russian classical school have been passed down from generation to generation among outstanding educators. The art of famous and prominent Saint Petersburg dancers like Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia Makarova, Mikhail Baryshnikov was, and is, admired throughout the world. Contemporary Petersburg ballet is made up not only of traditional Russian classical school but also ballets by those like Boris Eifman, who expanded the scope of strict classical Russian ballet to almost unimaginable limits. Remaining faithful to the classical basis (he was a choreographer at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet), he combined classical ballet with the avant-garde style, and then, in turn, with acrobatics, rhythmic gymnastics, dramatic expressiveness, cinema, color, light, and finally with spoken word. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has impacted on tourism. The British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advises against travelling to Russia, including Saint Petersburg, noting there have been reports of fires and explosions in areas close to the city.[119] Media and communications All major Russian newspapers are active in Saint Petersburg. The city has a developed telecommunications system. In 2014, Rostelecom, the national operator, announced the beginning of a major modernization of the fixed-line network in the city.[120] Culture Main article: Society and culture in Saint Petersburg Museums Further information: List of museums in Saint Petersburg The State Hermitage Museum (Hermitage Theatre, Old Hermitage, Small Hermitage and Winter Palace, all part of the current museum complex) Saint Petersburg is home to more than two hundred museums, many of them in historic buildings. The largest is the Hermitage Museum that features the interiors of the former imperial residence and a vast collection of art. The Russian Museum is a large museum devoted to Russian fine art. The apartments of some famous Petersburgers, including Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Feodor Chaliapin, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Joseph Brodsky, as well as some palace and park ensembles of the southern suburbs and notable architectural monuments such as St. Isaac's Cathedral, have also been turned into public museums. The Kunstkamera, with its collection established in 1714 by Peter the Great to collect curiosities from all over the world, is sometimes considered the first museum in Russia, which has evolved into the present-day Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The Russian Ethnography Museum, which has been split from the Russian Museum, is devoted to the cultures of the people of Russia, the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire. The State Hermitage Museum is the largest art museum in the world by gallery space.[121]   The State Russian Museum is the world's largest depository of Russian fine art.   The Russian Museum of Ethnography is one of the largest ethnographic museums in the world.[122] A number of museums provide insight into the Soviet history of Saint Petersburg, including the Museum of the Blockade, which describes the Siege of Leningrad and the Museum of Political History, which explains many authoritarian features of the USSR. Other notable museums include the Central Naval Museum, and Zoological Museum, Central Soil Museum, the Russian Railway Museum, Suvorov Museum, Museum of the Siege of Leningrad, Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art, the largest non-governmental museum of contemporary art in Russia, Saint Petersburg Museum of History in the Peter and Paul Fortress and Artillery Museum, which includes not only artillery items, but also a huge collection of other military equipment, uniforms, and decorations. Amongst others, Saint Petersburg also hosts State Museum of the History of Religion, one of the eldest museums in Russia about religion depicting cultural representations from various parts of the globe.[123] Music The main auditorium of the Mariinsky Theatre Panorama of stalls and boxes at the Main Mariinsky Theatre Among the city's more than fifty theatres is the Mariinsky Theatre (formerly known as the Kirov Theatre), home to the Mariinsky Ballet company and opera. Leading ballet dancers, such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Rudolph Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Galina Ulanova and Natalia Makarova, were principal stars of the Mariinsky ballet. The first music school, the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, was founded in 1862 by the Russian pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein. The school alumni have included such notable composers as Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Artur Kapp, Rudolf Tobias and Dmitri Shostakovich, who taught at the conservatory during the 1960s, bringing it additional fame. The renowned Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov also taught at the conservatory from 1871 to 1905. Among his students were Igor Stravinsky, Alexander Glazounov, Anatoly Liadov and others. The former St. Petersburg apartment of Rimsky-Korsakov has been faithfully preserved as the composer's only museum. Scarlet Sails celebration on the Neva River Dmitri Shostakovich, who was born and raised in Saint Petersburg, dedicated his Seventh Symphony to the city, calling it the "Leningrad Symphony". He wrote the symphony while based in the city during the siege of Leningrad. It was premiered in Samara in March 1942; a few months later, it received its first performance in the besieged Leningrad at the Bolshoy Philharmonic Hall under the baton of conductor Karl Eliasberg. It was heard over the radio and was said to have lifted the spirits of the surviving population.[124] In 1992, the 7th Symphony was performed by the 14 surviving orchestral players of the Leningrad premiere in the same hall as half a century before.[125] The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra remained one of the best known symphony orchestras in the world under the leadership of conductors Yevgeny Mravinsky and Yuri Temirkanov. Mravinsky's term as artistic director of the Leningrad Philharmonic—a term that is possibly the longest of any conductor with any orchestra in modern times—led the orchestra from a little-known provincial ensemble to one of the world's most highly regarded orchestras, especially for the performance of Russian music. The Imperial Choral Capella was founded and modelled after the royal courts of other European capitals. The Alexandrinsky Theatre Saint Petersburg has been home to the newest movements in popular music in the country. The early Soviet jazz bands founded here included Leopold Teplitsky's First Concert Jazz Band (1927,) Leonid Utyosov 's TheaJazz (1928, under the patronage of composer Isaak Dunayevsky) and Georgy Landsberg's Jazz Cappella (1929). The first jazz appreciation society in the Soviet Union was founded here in 1958 as J58, and later named jazz club Kvadrat. In 1956 the popular ensemble Druzhba was founded by Aleksandr Bronevitsky and Edita Piekha to become the first popular band in the USSR during the 1950s. In the 1960s student rock-groups Argonavty, Kochevniki and others pioneered a series of unofficial and underground rock concerts and festivals. In 1972 Boris Grebenshchikov founded the band Aquarium, which later grew to huge popularity. Since then "Peter's rock" music style was formed. In the 1970s many bands came out from the "underground" scene and eventually founded the Leningrad Rock Club, which provided a stage to bands such as DDT, Kino, Alisa, Zemlyane, Zoopark, Piknik, and Secret. The first Russian-style happening show Pop Mekhanika, mixing over 300 people and animals on stage, was directed by the multi-talented Sergey Kuryokhin in the 1980s. The Sergey Kuryokhin International Festival (SKIF) is named after him. In 2004 the Kuryokhin Center was founded, where the SKIF and the Electro-Mechanica and Ethnomechanica festivals take place. SKIF focuses on experimental pop music and avant-garde music, Electro-Mechanica on electronic music, and Ethnomechanica on world music. Today's Saint Petersburg boasts many notable musicians of various genres, from popular Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov, Tequilajazzz, Splean, and Korol i Shut, to rock veterans Yuri Shevchuk, Vyacheslav Butusov, and Mikhail Boyarsky. In the early 2000s the city saw a wave of popularity of metalcore, rapcore, and emocore, and there are bands such as Amatory, Kirpichi, Psychea, Stigmata, Grenouer and Animal Jazz. The White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg is famous for spectacular fireworks and a massive show celebrating the end of the school year. The rave band Little Big also hails from Saint Petersburg. Their music video for "Skibidi" was filmed in the city, starting at Akademicheskiy Pereulok.[126] Literature The Pushkin House Saint Petersburg has a longstanding and world-famous tradition in literature. Dostoyevsky called it "The most abstract and intentional city in the world", emphasizing its artificiality, but it was also a symbol of modern disorder in a changing Russia. It often appeared to Russian writers as a menacing and inhuman mechanism. The grotesque and often nightmarish image of the city is featured in Pushkin's last poems, the Petersburg stories of Gogol, the novels of Dostoyevsky, the verse of Alexander Blok and Osip Mandelshtam, and in the symbolist novel Petersburg by Andrey Bely. According to Lotman in his chapter, 'The Symbolism of Saint Petersburg' in Universe and the Mind, these writers were inspired by symbolism from within the city itself. The effect of life in Saint Petersburg on the plight of the poor clerk in a society obsessed with hierarchy and status also became an important theme for authors such as Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoyevsky. Another important feature of early Saint Petersburg literature is its mythical element, which incorporates urban legends and popular ghost stories, as the stories of Pushkin and Gogol included ghosts returning to Saint Petersburg to haunt other characters as well as other fantastical elements, creating a surreal and abstract image of Saint Petersburg. 20th-century writers from Saint Petersburg, such as Vladimir Nabokov, Ayn Rand, Andrey Bely and Yevgeny Zamyatin, along with his apprentices, The Serapion Brothers created entirely new styles in literature and contributed new insights to the understanding of society through their experience in this city. Anna Akhmatova became an important leader for Russian poetry. Her poem Requiem adumbrates the perils encountered during the Stalinist era. Another notable 20th-century writer from Saint Petersburg is Joseph Brodsky, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987). While living in the United States, his writings in English reflected on life in Saint Petersburg from the unique perspective of being both an insider and an outsider to the city in essays such as, "A Guide to a Renamed City" and the nostalgic "In a Room and a Half".[127] Film Konstantin Khabensky, known for his roles in Night Watch, Day Watch and Admiral, is a native of Saint Petersburg. Over 250 international and Russian movies were filmed in Saint Petersburg.[128] Well over a thousand feature films about tsars, revolution, people and stories set in Saint Petersburg have been produced worldwide but not filmed in the city. The first film studios were founded in Saint Petersburg in the 20th century and since the 1920s Lenfilm has been the largest film studio based in Saint Petersburg. The first foreign feature movie filmed entirely in Saint Petersburg was the 1997 production of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, starring Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean and made by an international team of British, American, French and Russian filmmakers. The cult comedy Irony of Fate[129] (also Ирония судьбы, или С лёгким паром!) is set in Saint Petersburg and pokes fun at Soviet city planning. The 1985 film White Nights received considerable Western attention for having captured genuine Leningrad street scenes at a time when filming in the Soviet Union by Western production companies was generally unheard of. Other movies include GoldenEye (1995), Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996), Brother (1997) and Tamil romantic thriller film-Dhaam Dhoom (2008). Onegin (1999) is based on the Pushkin poem and showcases many tourist attractions. In addition, the Russian romantic comedy, Piter FM, intricately showcases the cityscape, almost as if it were a main character in the film. Several international film festivals are held annually, such as the Festival of Festivals, Saint Petersburg, as well as the Message to Man International Documentary Film Festival, since its inauguration in 1988 during the White Nights.[130] Dramatic theatre Further information: List of theatres in Saint Petersburg St Petersburg has a number of dramatic theatres and drama schools. These include the Student Theatre on Mokhovaya Street. Учебный театр «На Моховой», Leteiny Theatre and Youth Theatre on the Fontanka. Education See also: List of higher education and academic institutions in Saint Petersburg As of 2006–2007, there were 1,024 kindergartens, 716 public schools and 80 vocational schools in Saint Petersburg.[131] The largest of the public higher education institutions is Saint Petersburg State University, enrolling approximately 32,000 undergraduate students; and the largest non-governmental higher education institutions is the Institute of International Economic Relations, Economics, and Law. Other famous universities are Saint Petersburg Polytechnic University, Herzen University, Saint Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance and Saint Petersburg Military engineering-technical university. However, the public universities are all federal property and do not belong to the city. The Twelve Collegia of Saint Petersburg State University Sports Main article: Sport in Saint Petersburg Gazprom Arena on Krestovsky Island Leningrad hosted part of the association football tournament during the 1980 Summer Olympics. The 1994 Goodwill Games were also held here. In boating, the first competition here was the 1703 rowing event initiated by Peter the Great, after the victory over the Swedish fleet. The Russian Navy held Yachting events since the foundation of the city. Yacht clubs:[132] St. Petersburg River Yacht Club, Neva Yacht Club, the latter is the oldest yacht club in the world. In the winter, when the sea and lake surfaces are frozen and yachts and dinghies cannot be used, local people sail ice boats. Equestrianism has been a long tradition, popular among the Tsars and aristocracy, as well as part of military training. Several historic sports arenas were built for equestrianism since the 18th century to maintain training all year round, such as the Zimny Stadion and Konnogvardeisky Manezh. Chess tradition was highlighted by the 1914 international tournament, partially funded by the Tsar, in which the title "Grandmaster" was first formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II to five players: Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall. The city's main football team is FC Zenit Saint Petersburg, who have been champions of the Soviet and Russian league nine times, most notably claiming the RPL title in four consecutive seasons from 2018–19 to 2021–22, along with winning the Soviet/Russian Cup five times. The club also won the 2007–08 UEFA Cup and the 2008 UEFA Super Cup, spearheaded by successful player and local hero Andrey Arshavin. Kirov Stadium formerly existed as Zenit's home from 1950 to 1993 and again in 1995, being one of the largest stadiums in the world at the time. In 1951 a crowd of 110,000 set the single-game attendance record for Soviet football. The stadium was knocked down in 2006, with Zenit temporarily moving to the Petrovsky Stadium before the Krestovsky Stadium was built on the same site as the Kirov Stadium. The Krestovsky Stadium opened in 2017, hosting four matches at the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, including the final. The stadium then hosted seven matches at the 2018 FIFA World Cup, including a semi-final and the third-placed playoff. It also hosted seven matches at UEFA Euro 2020, including a quarter-final. The stadium was going to host the 2022 UEFA Champions League final, however UEFA removed St Petersburg as host in February 2022, citing the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[133] Hockey teams in the city include SKA Saint Petersburg in the KHL, HC VMF St. Petersburg in the VHL, and junior clubs SKA-1946 and Silver Lions in the Russian Major League. SKA Saint Petersburg is one of the most popular in the KHL, consistently being at or near the top of the league in attendance. Along with their popularity, they are one of the best teams in the KHL right now, as they have won the Gagarin Cup twice.[134] Well-known players on the team include Pavel Datsyuk, Ilya Kovalchuk, Nikita Gusev, Sergei Shirokov and Viktor Tikhonov. During the NHL lockout, stars Ilya Kovalchuk, Sergei Bobrovsky and Vladimir Tarasenko also played for the team. They play their home games at Ice Palace Saint Petersburg. The city's long-time basketball team is BC Spartak Saint Petersburg, which launched the career of Andrei Kirilenko. BC Spartak Saint Petersburg won two championships in the USSR Premier League (1975 and 1992), two USSR Cups (1978 and 1987), and a Russian Cup title (2011). They also won the Saporta Cup twice (1973 and 1975). Legends of the club include Alexander Belov and Vladimir Kondrashin. BC Zenit Saint Petersburg also play in the city, being formed in 2014. Transportation A section of the Western High-Speed Diameter Saint Petersburg is a major transport hub. The first Russian railway was built here in 1837, and since then the city's transport infrastructure has kept pace with the city's growth. Petersburg has an extensive system of local roads and railway services, maintains a large public transport system that includes the Saint Petersburg tram and the Saint Petersburg Metro, and is home to several riverine services that convey passengers around the city efficiently and in relative comfort. The city is connected to the rest of Russia and the wider world by several federal highways and national and international rail routes. Pulkovo Airport serves most of the air passengers departing from or arriving to the city. Roads and public transport Tram passing by Kronverksy Avenue Narvskaya station of the Saint Petersburg Metro, opened in 1955 Saint Petersburg has an extensive city-funded network of public transport (buses, trams, trolleybuses) and several hundred routes served by marshrutkas. In 2022 marshrutkas have been mostly phased out in favor of publicly owned buses.[135] Trams in Saint Petersburg used to be the main means of transport; in the 1980s this was the largest tram network globally, but many tracks were dismantled in the 2000s. Trolleybus on Nevsky Prospekt Buses carry up to three million passengers daily, serving over 250 urban and a number of suburban bus routes. Saint Petersburg Metro underground rapid transit system was opened in 1955; it now has 5 lines with 72 stations, connecting all five railway terminals, and carrying 2.3 million passengers daily.[136] Metro stations are often elaborately decorated with materials such as marble and bronze. As of 2018, the Saint Petersburg Metro will include new stations: Prospekt Slavy, Dunayskaya, Shushary, Begovaya, and Novokrestovskaya, the latter built specifically to offer convenient access to the stadium during the 2018 FIFA World Cup games and games played by FC Zenit.[137] Saint Petersburg Metro map Traffic jams are common in the city due to daily commuter traffic volumes, intercity traffic and excessive winter snow. The construction of freeways such as the Saint Petersburg Ring Road, completed in 2011, and the Western High-Speed Diameter, completed in 2017, helped reduce the traffic in the city. The M11 Neva, also known as the Moscow-Saint Petersburg Motorway, is a federal highway, and connects Saint Petersburg to Moscow by a freeway. Saint Petersburg is an important transport corridor linking Scandinavia to Russia and Eastern Europe. The city is a node of the international European routes E18 towards Helsinki, E20 towards Tallinn, E95 towards Pskov, Kyiv and Odesa and E105 towards Petrozavodsk, Murmansk and Kirkenes (north) and towards Moscow and Kharkiv (south). Saint Petersburg public transportation statistics The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Saint Petersburg, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 69 minutes. 19.6% of public transit riders ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 11 minutes, while 16.1% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 7 km (4.3 mi), while 15% travel for over 12 km (7.5 mi) in a single direction.[138] Waterways Hydrofoil docking in Saint Petersburg upon arrival from Peterhof Palace (2008) The city is also served by passenger and cargo seaports[clarification needed] in the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea, the river port higher up the Neva and tens of smaller passenger stations on both banks of the Neva river. It is a terminus of both the Volga–Baltic and White Sea–Baltic waterways.[citation needed] The first high bridge that does not need to be drawn, the 2,824-meter-long (9,265 ft) Big Obukhovsky Bridge opened in 2004. Meteor hydrofoils link the city centre to the coastal towns of Kronstadt and Shlisselburg from May through October.[139] In the warmer months many smaller boats and water-taxis navigate the city's canals. The shipping company St. Peter Line operates two ferries that sail from Helsinki to Saint Petersburg and from Stockholm to Saint Petersburg.[140] Rail See also: Rail transport in Russia The Sapsan high-speed train runs between Saint Petersburg and Moscow. The city is the final destination for a web of intercity and suburban railways, served by five different railway terminals (Baltiysky, Finlyandsky, Ladozhsky, Moskovsky and Vitebsky),[d][141] as well as dozens of non-terminal railway stations within the federal subject. Saint Petersburg has international railway connections to Helsinki, Finland, Berlin, Germany, and many former republics of the USSR. The Helsinki railway, built in 1870 and 443 kilometers (275 mi) long, had until 2022 trains running five times a day, in a journey lasting about three and a half hours with the Allegro train. The Moscow – Saint Petersburg Railway opened in 1851, and is 651 kilometers (405 mi) long; the commute to Moscow now requires from three and a half to nine hours.[142] In 2009 Russian Railways launched a high speed service for the Moscow–Saint Petersburg route. The new train, known as Sapsan, is a derivative of the popular Siemens Velaro train; various versions of this already operate in some European countries. It set records for the fastest train in Russia on 2 May 2009, travelling at 281 km/h (174.6 mph)[143] and on 7 May 2009, traveling at 290 kilometers per hour (180 mph). From 12 December 2010 until March 2022, Karelian Trains, a joint venture between Russian Railways and VR (Finnish Railways), has been running Alstom Pendolino operated high-speed services between Saint Petersburg's Finlyandsky and Helsinki's Central railway stations. These services are branded as "Allegro" trains. "Allegro" is known for suffering some big technical problems from time to time, which sometimes result in significant delays and even cancellation of tourists' trips.[144] The service has been suspended indefinitely in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and is not expected to resume. Intercity and suburban rail terminals of Petersburg Air Pulkovo International Airport Saint Petersburg is served by Pulkovo International Airport.[145] Pulkovo airport was opened to passengers as a small aerodrome in 1931. As of 2013, the Pulkovo airport, which handles over 12 million passengers annually, is the 3rd busiest in Russia after Moscow's Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo. As a result, the steadily increasing passenger traffic has triggered a massive modernization of the entire airport infrastructure. A newly built Terminal 1 of the Pulkovo airport was put into operation on 4 December 2013 and integrated international flights of the former terminal Pulkovo-2. The renovated terminal Pulkovo-1 has been opened for domestic flights as an extension of Terminal 1 in 2015.[146] One of the oldest air carriers of the Russian Federation Rossiya is registered in Saint Petersburg and is the largest and the base carrier of Pulkovo Airport.[147] There is a regular rapid-bus connection (buses 39, 39E, K39) between Pulkovo airport and the Moskovskaya metro station as well as 24/7 taxi service. Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia (Russian: Павел Александрович; 3 October 1860 – 28 January 1919) was the sixth son and youngest child of Emperor Alexander II of Russia by his first wife, Empress Maria Alexandrovna. He was a brother of Emperor Alexander III and uncle of Nicholas II, Russia's last monarch. He entered the Russian Army, was a general in the Cavalry and adjutant general to his brother Emperor Alexander III, and a Knight of the Order of St. Andrew. In 1889, he married Princess Alexandra of Greece, his paternal first cousin once removed. The couple had a daughter and a son, but Alexandra died after the birth of their second child. In his widowhood, Grand Duke Paul began a relationship with Olga Valerianovna Karnovich, a married woman with three children. After obtaining a divorce for Olga and in defiance of strong family opposition, Grand Duke Paul married her in October 1902. As he contracted a morganatic marriage with a divorcée in defiance of the Tsar's prohibition, Grand Duke Paul was banished from living in Russia and deprived of his titles and privileges. Between 1902 and 1914, he lived in exile in Paris with his second wife, who gave him three children. In the spring of 1914, he settled back in Russia with his second family. With the outbreak of World War I, Grand Duke Paul was appointed in command of the first corps of the Imperial Guard. Afflicted with ill health, he served only intermittently. During the last days of the Tsarist period, he was one of the few members of the Romanov family who remained close to Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna. It fell upon Grand Duke Paul to inform Alexandra of Nicholas II's abdication. After the fall of the Russian monarchy, Grand Duke Paul initially remained at his palace in Tsarskoe Selo during the period of the provisional government. With the Bolsheviks ascending to power, his palace was expropriated, and eventually he was arrested and sent to prison. In declining health, he was shot by the Bolsheviks with other Romanov relatives in the courtyard of the Peter and Paul Fortress in January 1919, and his remains were thrown into a common grave. Early life Tsar Alexander II of Russia with his wife and their three youngest children: Sergei, Paul and Maria Grand Duke Paul was born on 3 October [O.S. 21 September] 1860 at the Catherine Palace, in Saint Petersburg.[1][2] He was the eighth and youngest child of Tsar Alexander II of Russia and his first wife, Empress Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, née Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine.[1] As the youngest child in a large family, he was much loved by his parents and siblings.[2] His early years were spent with his two siblings closest in age: his sister Marie, and his brother Sergei, from whom he was inseparable.[3] By the time of Paul's birth, his mother was afflicted with tuberculosis and the doctors advised her not to have more children. Relations between Paul's parents ceased.[4][5] The family was struck by tragedy in 1865 with the death of Paul's eldest brother, Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich, when Paul was four years old.[6] The following year, his father, Alexander II, started an affair with Princess Catherine Dolgurokova, who gave him three children.[5] Grand Duke Paul's early years were spent at Tsarskoye Selo and at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, with vacations at Livadia, the family's Crimean retreat. As time passed and the Empress’ health dictated her to avoid the harsh Russian climate, the Tsarina spent long sojourns abroad with her three youngest children in Jugenheim outside Darmstadt, and the winters in the south of France.[5] Paul was a protected delicate child; he never had a robust constitution.[7] Education Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich and his brother Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Grand Duke Paul was educated at home by private tutors. From the 1870s, Paul and his brother Sergei were kept in Russia by their studies. They were destined to follow a military career. From 1864 to 1885, their tutor was Admiral Dmitri Arsenyev (1832-1915), who encouraged his pupils to have a broad artistic education as well.[3] Grand Duke Paul became a good amateur actor and an excellent dancer.[8] He was widely liked due to his gentle character, very different from his boisterous eldest brothers.[9] He was from birth a Guard cornet in an Infantry Regiment.[3] However, his career advanced more slowly than that of his elder brothers. He became a Lieutenant in January 1874, but as he was still too young, he was the only one of Tsar Alexander II's sons not to take part in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78).[3] Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich was known as a gentle person, religious and accessible to people. In June 1880, he was afflicted by the death of his mother, whose slim figure and delicate health he inherited. Shortly after, his father married his mistress Catherine Dolgorukova.[10] Grand Duke Paul, overprotected by his brother Sergei, did not know of the affair. Emotionally distraught by the news, he had to travel abroad to recuperate. Grand Duke Paul was on a trip to Italy with his brother Sergei when their father Alexander II was assassinated on 13 March [O.S. 1 March] 1881. Paul's eldest surviving brother, Alexander III, ascended to the Russian throne.[11] Since childhood, Paul was very attached to his brother Sergei, their closeness remaining even after Sergei's engagement and later marriage to Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine (1864–1918).[3] Paul accompanied the couple to England to meet Elisabeth's British grandmother, Queen Victoria, who was favorably impressed by Paul.[3] After Sergei's marriage, Paul moved in with his brother and his new sister-in-law, who also became very close to him.[3] The trio shared the same household for some time, and they made a trip together to Jerusalem in 1888.[12] Grand Duke Paul suffered from weak lungs and spent periods abroad to recuperate.[7] On medical advice, he visited Greece in 1887.[12][13] First marriage Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich and Princess Alexandra of Greece. Engagement photograph. 1888.[14] During his visits to Greece, in the family atmosphere of his first cousin Queen Olga of Greece, Grand Duke Paul grew closer with Olga's eldest daughter, Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark.[15] Alexandra's father, King George I of Greece, was a brother of Tsarina Maria Feodorovna, Paul's sister-in-law. During the silver wedding anniversary of King George and Queen Olga, Paul asked for Alexandra's hand and he was accepted.[13] Alexandra had come to Russia several times during visits to her maternal relatives. She was lively and mischievous, while he was reserved.[16] Their engagement was announced on 10 November 1888.[16] The wedding took place on 17 June [O.S. 5 June] 1889 in St. Petersburg, at the chapel of the Winter Palace.[13] Grand Duke Paul was 29 years old and his wife ten years younger.[17] Paul settled with his wife in his own palace in St. Petersburg on the English Embankment, No. 68.[12][18] The mansion was located behind the Church of the Annunciation and faced the Corps de la Marine in the very center of Saint Petersburg. It was built in the Florentine renaissance revival style by the architect Alexander Krakau between 1859 and 1862 for Baron Alexander von Stieglitz, a prominent financier and the first Governor of the Bank of Russia.[18] After Stieglitz's death in 1884, the mansion was inherited by his adopted daughter, Nadezhda Polovtsova. She sold the property to the Treasury in 1887, and Grand Duke Paul bought it the same year.[16][18] In 1889, he had the architect Maximilian Messmacher redesign some of the interiors, creating a Moorish Hall.[18] The treasures of the house included the white marble staircase, the sitting room decorated with caryatids, the oak-paneled library, and the concert hall with portraits of great composers and panels depicting The Four Seasons.[19] Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich; Sergei's wife, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna holding Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna; Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich with his son, Dmitri, on his lap Grand Duke Paul's marriage was happy, but brief.[13] Alexandra, after a difficult first pregnancy, gave birth to a daughter on 18 April  [O.S. 6 April] 1890, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (1890–1958).[12] Alexandra was of a frail constitution and she was also homesick for her native Greece. In autumn of that same year, Grand Duke Paul took his wife for a holiday in Greece.[12][17] At their return to Russia, he was appointed commander of the imperial house guards at Krasnoye Selo and, therefore, he was usually away fulfilling his military duties.[16] Paul and his wife were given rooms at the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, but they saw each other only on weekends.[12] Although Grand Duke Sergei and his wife Elizabeth moved to Moscow in May 1891, the two couples remained very close.[20] In the summer of 1891, Paul and Alexandra decided to spend some time with them at Ilinskoie, Sergei's country estate outside Moscow.[20] While there, Alexandra, seven months pregnant with her second child, carelessly stepped into a waiting boat, causing premature labor and the following day gave birth prematurely to a son, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia (1891–1942).[12] Alexandra did not recover consciousness and died six days later on 24 September  [O.S. 12 September] 1891.[17] Grand Duke Paul was deeply affected by Alexandra's death.[21] During this period, his brother Sergei and Sergei's wife took care of Paul's motherless children in a pattern of behavior that would be repeated in the years to follow.[22][23] In his widowhood, the grieving grand duke moved to Tsarskoye Selo, leaving his palace in St Peterburg that had been his home with Alexandra to never return. For a long time, the palace stood vacant. After that, the building changed many hands over time. When the revolution ended, the mansion was sold to the Russian Society for the Production of Equipment and Military Supplies. Eventually it became home to various Soviet institutions.[19] The palace has survived to the present and today it is at the disposal of Saint Petersburg State University.[24] Grand Duke Paul's brother, Tsar Alexander III, died on 1 November [O.S. 20 October] 1894 and Paul's nephew, Nicholas II, became the new Tsar. There was only an eight-year gap between uncle and nephew and Paul had known Nicholas II's wife, Alexandra Feodorovna, since she was a little girl, when in his youth he made many visits to his mother's native Darmstadt. Therefore, Grand Duke Paul was well-liked by the new Tsar and Tsarina.[25] Second marriage Grand Duke Paul and his second wife, Olga Valerianovna Karnovich In 1895, Paul began an affair with a commoner, Olga Valerianovna Karnovich.[26] Olga was married with three young children, a son and two daughters.[26] Her husband, Eric von Pistohlkors, was an aide de camp of Paul's brother, Grand Duke Vladimir, and a captain in Paul's regiment.[27] The affair initially remained secret, but it became public knowledge at court when Olga attended a court ball wearing a diamond necklace that had belonged to Paul's mother, Empress Maria Alexandrovna.[28][29] The Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna recognized the jewels and had Olga removed from the ball.[30] In the subsequent scandal, Paul was moved to a different regimental command and Eric von Pistohlkors was sent away, but it was already too late.[27] Olga was pregnant with Paul's child. She gave birth to a son, Vladimir, in January 1897, and Eric von Pistohlkors asked for a divorce.[27][31] Paul wanted to recognize Vladimir as his son and marry Olga, but his family opposed his union. His nephew Nicholas II of Russia and older brother Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia were particularly angry about his intentions. His brother Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia and his sister-in-law, Grand Duchess Elizabeth begged him to reconsider and think about his children and his responsibilities in Russia.[32] The relationship with his brother Sergei and his sister-in-law Elisabeth, so close before, never recovered.[32] Grand Duke Vladimir asked Paul to swear a solemn oath that he would not marry Olga, which Paul did.[32] Despite his family's opposition, Paul remained infatuated with Olga. He lost interest in Maria and Dmitri and spent long periods abroad with his mistress.[27] In 1900, he bought a mansion in Bois de Boulogne that had previously belonged to Princess Zenaida Ivanovna Yusupova, intending to settle there and marry Olga once she would obtain a divorce.[27] Olga's divorce was granted in 1902.[32] In August 1902, Paul's niece, Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna, married Prince Nicholas of Greece, Paul's former brother-in-law.[29] It was the first time that Paul's former father-in-law, King George of Greece, came to Russia since the death of his daughter Alexandra.[29] Their meeting was very uncomfortable. After the wedding celebrations were over, Paul left for Italy where Olga awaited him.[32] On 10 October 1902, Grand Duke Paul married Olga in a Greek Orthodox church in Livorno, Italy.[29][32] Because he married morganatically and without Emperor Nicholas II's permission, Grand Duke Paul was banished from Russia; he was dismissed from his military commissions; all his properties were seized, and his brother Grand Duke Sergei was appointed as guardian of Maria and Dmitri.[29][33][34] Paul's family was outraged by his marriage. Emperor Nicholas II wrote to his mother: "The nearer the relative who refuses to submit to our family statutes the graver must be his punishment. . . How painful and distressing it all is and how ashamed one feels for the sake of our family before the world! What guarantee is there now that Cyril won’t start the same sort of thing tomorrow and Boris, or Sergei Mikhailovich the day after? And, in the end, I fear, a whole colony of members of the Russian Imperial Family will be established in Paris with their semi-legitimate and illegitimate wives! God alone knows what times we are living in, when undisguised selfishness stifles all feelings of conscience, duty or even ordinary decency!".[35] Nicholas' mother Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna was equally angry: "This marriage of Uncle Paul’s is really too distressing! Alas, he seems to have forgotten everything— his duty to his children, to his country, service honour, all, all, have been sacrificed ... How could he go through with it after all he had been told by his brothers and by us all? ... The thought of the misery of his poor little children for whom he had been everything and whom he has abandoned distresses me more than I can say ... And then there is the scandal! I am simply ashamed of it... So he is even slinging mud at our family! Awful, awful! And into what an awkward and disagreeable position it puts you, my poor Nicky, you who will have to punish him, because such an act cannot remain unpunished, and, into the bargain, marrying a divorced woman!".[35] Exile Grand Duke Paul with his children by his first marriage: Dimitri and Maria Pavlovna. Paris, 1914. Grand Duke Paul and his second wife were still vacationing in Italy when they were banished from Russia.[36] They settled in Boulogne-sur-Seine where a daughter, Irina, was born on 5 December [O.S. 22 November] 1903.[37][38] In 1904, Grand Duke Paul arranged, through Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria, for his wife and their children to be granted the hereditary title of Count and Countesses de Hohenfelsen with a coat of arms.[37] With the assassination of his brother Sergei in February 1905, Grand Duke Paul was allowed to return to Russia for the funeral, but Olga was denied entrance that April to attend the promotion of her son Alexander Pistohlkors as an army officer.[36] Paul claimed the custody of Marie and Dmitri, but the Tsar made Elizabeth their guardian.[36] From then on, Grand Duke Paul was allowed to visit his children from his first marriage, but not to return to Russia permanently with his second wife. On 5 December that same year, Grand Duke Paul and Olga had another daughter, Natalia, completing their family.[36] Although an outcast to the Romanovs, Grand Duke Paul had a happy life in Paris with Olga and their three children.[34] They lived in style employing a household staff of sixteen maids, gardeners, cooks, and tutors and they were avid art and old porcelain collectors.[38] At their mansion in Boulogne-sur-Seine, they had a hectic social life offering dinners and lavish receptions entertaining writers, artist and Russian abroad. The couple was very close to their three children, and on Sundays, the whole family attended private mass at the Russian church on rue Daru.[38] Although he was not consulted in the engagement of his daughter Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna to Prince Wilhem of Sweden, Paul attended the wedding on 3 May [O.S. 20 April] 1908. That same year, Grand Duke Paul, Olga and their three children visited Russia together for the first time. Shortly after, they returned to Paris but their son, Vladimir, stayed in Russia and became a student in the Corps des Pages.[39][40] In 1912, on the occasion of Dmitri reaching his majority, Tsar Nicholas II, finally relented and pardoned his only surviving uncle, restoring Grand Duke Paul titles and privileges. He also recognized as valid Paul's second marriage.[41] However, Grand Duke Paul decided to remain living in France. In 1913, Paul visited Russia, once again, to take part in the celebration for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov family on the Russian throne.[41] Grand Duke Paul moved back permanently to Russia only when he finished a house for himself and his family at Tsarskoe Selo in May 1914.[42] World War I Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich and his second family. From left to right: Princess Olga Paley, Princess Irina Paley, Prince Vladimir Paley, Princess Natalia Paley, and Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, 1916. At the out break of World War I, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich's two sons, Dmitri and Vladimir, joined the war effort and his daughter, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, became an army nurse. In August 1915, the Tsar granted Paul's wife, Olga, the title of Princess Paley with the style of Serene Highness, and their children also became Prince Vladimir Pavlovich Paley and Princesses Irina Pavlovna and Natalia Pavlovna Paley.[43][44] In the same month, Prince Vladimir Paley joined a regiment. Although he had been away from active service for many years and his health was frail, Grand Duke Paul begged his nephew, Tsar Nicholas II, to give him an active military appointment in the battle fields.[40] By that time, Paul was, once again, one of the few members of the extended Romanov family on good terms with the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.[40] Through her intervention, Nicholas II placed Paul in command of the First Corps of the Imperial Guard in 1915.[45] However, before he could assume his military appointment, Paul felt gravely ill with gall bladder troubled.[45] It was feared that he had cancer and he spent the fall and the winter of 1915-1916 sick.[45] It was only after he recovered many months later, in May 1916, that Grand Duke Paul, ignoring his doctor's advice, left to take command of the 1st Guards Corps.[45] He served with the rank of General of Cavalry.[46] After a difficult spell at the front under heavy enemy bombardment at the village of Sokoul, he was awarded a St George's Cross 4th class, one of the most coveted military decorations.[47] Due to his bad health, the grand duke was moved, in September 1916, to a new appointment as inspector general of the Guard at the Tsar's headquarters and his son, Vladimir, was placed under his orders.[48] Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich (the tallest man in the group) and his son, Vladimir (the young man without mustache), during the war In the autumn of 1916, Paul took a three-week holiday in Crimea with his wife and children. On his way back north, in November, he visited the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna in Kiev. Maria Feodorovna and her son-in-law, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, enlisted Paul's help in order to persuade Nicholas II and his wife of the need for change and to get rid of Rasputin's damaging influence.[49] Grand Duke Paul had an audience with the Tsar and Tsarina in December.[44][49] He handled the issue with tact, but without success.[44][50] Nevertheless, he was able to retain Nicholas II and Alexandra's confidence even after it was shaken with Paul's son Dmitri's involvement in Rasputin's murder in the early hours of 30 December  [O.S. 17 December] 1916.[50] Paul, who was at Stavka with Nicholas II when both received news of the event, was horrified of his son's participation in the murder.[51] The Grand Duke supported his son and wrote a letter to the Tsar asking for clemency for Dmitri.[47] Nevertheless, after spending some time under house arrest, Dmitri was sent to the Persian front as a form of exile.[51] On 28 February  [O.S. 8 March] 1917, Alexandra summoned Paul and asked him to go to the front and gather some troops to save the throne.[47] He declined, convinced that it was going to be a fruitless endeavor.[47] Instead, with the assistance of Prince Michael Putiatin and the lawyer Nicholas Ivanov, Grand Duke Paul drafted a manifesto introducing the idea of a constitutional monarchy with Nicholas II remaining as an Emperor.[44][52] It was signed by Paul, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich and Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, the three most senior grand dukes in the last period of Imperial Russia. The manifesto was then delivered to the Duma to be presented for the Tsar's signature on March 1, at Nicholas II's return from headquarters.[44] However, before that, the Tsar's train was held up and Nicholas II abdicated on 2 March.[44] It fell upon Grand Duke Paul to inform Alexandra of Nicholas II's abdication on 3 March.[44][53] Revolution Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich At the fall of the Russian monarchy in March 1917, Grand Duke Paul, his wife, and their children remained united living at their luxurious estate in Tsarkoe Selo amid the upheaval.[54] As Tsar Nicholas II and his family were sent to internal exile in Siberia, the Provisional Government, led by Alexander Kerensky, placed Paul under house arrest on 9 September [O.S. 27 August].[55] His telephone line was cut and a squad of soldiers guarded all the exits to his home.[56] Through the intervention of his daughter, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, whose second wedding he was not able to attend, the guards in charge of overseeing his house were removed.[54][55] The lives of the Romanovs deteriorated sharply after the Bolsheviks rose to power in October 1917. On 13 November [O.S. 31 October], Grand Duke Paul's house was ransacked and his firearms collection was taken away.[55][57] Paul was arrested and held for two weeks at the Bolsheviks' headquarters in the Smolny Institute.[55] He was going to be incarcerated at the Peter and Paul Fortress, but the Grand Duke protested. He was treated well by his captors, who addressed him as "Comrade Highness".[54] Due to his frail health, he was released and returned to live in Tsarskoe Selo with his family.[58] The Bolshevik Government confiscated all property held by the banks on 27 December.[43] Grand Duke Paul, who had deposited all the jewelry he had inherited from his parents in the banks, under his wife's name, lost all his fortune.[59] By early January 1918, Grand Duke Paul and his family could no longer afford to heat their large Tsarskoe Selo palace and they were forced to move to a nearby English dacha that belonged to his nephew, Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich.[60] Shortly after they moved out, their home was expropriated and turned into a museum, while Lenin himself rode in their car.[61] In March 1918, all male members of the Romanov family, including Paul's son, Vladimir, were ordered to register at Cheka headquarters and shortly after they were sent away into internal Russian exile.[55][57][62] They never saw Vladimir again. He was murdered by the Bolsheviks, along with several other Romanov relatives, on 18 July 1918 in a mine shaft near Alapayevsk, one day after the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his immediate family at Yekaterinburg.[63] Grand Duke Paul, who was too ill to travel, initially escaped the fate of his son.[55] Although under constant harassment, Grand Duke Paul continued living a simple life with his wife and their two daughters at Grand Duke Boris's dacha.[64] It was difficult to find provisions, but as the Grand Duke suffered from a stomach ulcer, he was kept on a strict diet.[63] On 2 August [O.S. 20 July] 1917, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna came to say farewell to her father. She and her husband, Prince Sergei Putiatin, fled Russia through Ukraine.[64] A week later, Grand Duke Paul was offered, through the Danish Ambassador, Harald Scavenius, to be smuggled out of the country and taken to Vienna wearing an Austrian uniform with a convoy of returning prisoners of war.[64] The Grand Duke flatly refused, preferring to die rather than put on an enemy uniform.[61] Execution Determined to round up the last Grand Dukes remaining on Russian soil, the Bolsheviks arrested Grand Duke Paul at 3 a.m. on 13 August [O.S. 31 July] 1918.[65] He was taken to the local Soviet, housed in Grand Duke Vladimir's Tsarkoe Selo villa. The next morning, he was sent to Spalernaia prison, where he would remain for most of his incarceration.[65] His cousins, Grand Dukes Dimitri Konstantinovich, Nicholas Mikhailovich and George Mikhailovich, were already imprisoned there.[55][66] Trubetskoy bastion, St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress, outside courtyard, 1920 The four Grand Dukes, all men in their fifties, each had their own cell, 7 feet (2.1 m) by 3 feet (0.91 m).[67] Their days began at 7 a.m., when they were awakened by the steps in the hall of their jailers and the clank of their keys in the door. Lunch was served at noon, which consisted of dirty hot water with a few fish bones in it and black bread.[68] The lights were turned on in the cells at 7 p.m., although as the winter approached, the prisoners had to sit in darkness until that time. During the short time they were given to exercise, the Grand Dukes were able to exchange a few words. Paul's wife was allowed to visit him twice a week, staying from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.[65] She did all she could to have him released.[65] Queen Alexandrine of Denmark, a niece of Grand Dukes Nicholas and George Mikahilovich, tried unsuccessfully to obtain the release of her Romanov relatives through the intervention of Harald Scavenius, the Danish Minister in Petrograd.[69] On 6 December, as the Grand Duke's health, already bad, declined sharply, he was transferred to the prison hospital on the island of Goloday.[70] Before he left, he was allowed to say goodbye to his young daughters, Irina and Natalia.[70] Shortly afterwards, Princess Paley arranged for the two girls to be smuggled into Finland. They never saw their father again.[70] On Christmas Day, according to the old calendar, Princess Paley arrived at the hospital as usual to see her husband and bring him food.[65] There was a new director, and the Princess was treated roughly.[65] She was allowed to see her husband only briefly.[65] It was their last time together.[71] Princess Paley continued making desperate attempts to have her husband released through the intervention of Maxim Gorky.[72] On January 9, 1919, the Presidium of the Cheka in a meeting was attended by Martin Latsis, Yakov Peters, Ivan Ksenofontov and secretary Murnek issued a resolution: "The Cheka's verdict against the persons of the former imperial pack - to approve, informing the Central Executive Committee".[73] On 27 January 1919, Grand Duke Paul was taken to Cheka headquarters and then transferred to another prison, Gorochovaia.[74] He was kept there until 10 p.m., when he was driven to the St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress.[65] Paul's three cousins, Grand Dukes Nicholas Michailovich, George Michailovich and Dimitri Constantinovich, were taken there directly from Spalernaia prison.[65] The four Grand Dukes were then locked up in the dungeons of Troubetskoy Bastion.[65] All four were to be shot early the next morning as hostages in response to the murders of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany.[75] At 3 a.m. on the following day, the four Grand Dukes were taken outside the fortress and stripped to the waist, despite the fact that it was almost −20 °C (−4 °F).[76] His three cousins were each escorted, with a soldier on each side, towards a trench that had been dug in the courtyard.[77] The fusillade of shots sent them reeling into the trench, joining thirteen other bodies in the mass grave. Grand Duke Paul, who was too emaciated and too sick to stand, was carried on a stretcher. Before he was murdered, he was heard saying «Lord, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing». He was killed shortly afterwards.[77] Grand Dukes Paul, Michael, George and Dmitri were buried in a mass grave in the Fortress, the Bolsheviks having refused the distraught Princess Paley the right to bury her husband. On 31 January 1919, The Petrograd Pravda published the news about the execution of the four Grand Dukes.[77] In 1981, Grand Duke Paul was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad as a holy martyr. In 1999, he was rehabilitated by the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia. Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark (Greek: Αλεξάνδρα); 30 August [O.S. 18 August] 1870 – 24 September [O.S. 12 September] 1891), later known as Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna of Russia (Russian: Алекса́ндра Гео́ргиевна), was a member of the Greek royal family and of the Russian imperial family. She was the daughter of George I of Greece and Olga Constantinovna of Russia. She died of childbirth complications. Early life Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark was born on 30 August [O.S. 18 August] 1870 at Mon Repos, the summer residence of the Greek royal family on the island of Corfu. She was the third child and eldest daughter of King George I of Greece and his wife, Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia. Alexandra's father was not a native Greek, but he had been born a Danish prince named Christian Wilhelm of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, a son of Christian IX, King of Denmark, and he had been elected to the Greek throne at the age of seventeen. Five of his sons (Constantine, George, Nicholas, Andrew and Christopher), and two daughters (Alexandra and Maria), attained adulthood. The Greek royal family was not wealthy by royal standards and they lived with simplicity. King George was a taciturn man, but contrary to the general approach of the time, he believed in happy rambunctious children. The long corridors of the royal palace in Athens were used by Alexandra and her siblings for all types of play and sometimes a "bike ride" would be led by the King himself. Raised by British nannies, English was the children's first language, but they spoke Greek between themselves. They also learned German and French. Alexandra, nickname "Aline" within her family, or Greek Alix, to distinguish her from her aunt and godmother, Alexandra, Princess of Wales, had a sunny disposition and was much loved by her family. "She had one of those sweet and lovable natures that endeared her to everybody who came in touch with her," recalled her brother, Nicholas. "She looked young and beautiful, and ever since she was a child, life looked as it had nothing but joy and happiness in store for her."[1] Alexandra's playmates were her brother Nicholas and her sister Maria, who followed her in age. Alexandra spent many holidays in Denmark visiting her paternal grandparents. In Denmark, Alexandra and her siblings met their Russian and British cousins in large family gatherings. Marriage and children Princess Alexandra of Greece and Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia. Engagement photograph. When she was eighteen years old, she was married to Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, her maternal first cousin once removed and the youngest child and sixth son of Emperor Alexander II and his first wife, Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine. They had become close when Grand Duke Paul spent winters in Greece due to his frequent respiratory illnesses. The Greek royal family also frequently spent holidays with the Romanov family on visits to Russia or Denmark.[2] Their engagement was announced on 10 November 1888.[3] The wedding took place on 17 June [O.S. 5 June] 1889 in St. Petersburg, at the chapel of the Winter Palace.[4] They had two children: Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (1890–1958) Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich (1891–1942) Death Seven months into her second pregnancy, Alexandra took a walk with her friends on the bank of the Moskva River and jumped directly into a boat that was permanently moored there, but fell as she got in. The next day, she collapsed in the middle of a ball from violent labour pains. She gave birth to her son, Dimitri, lapsed into a fatal coma, and died six days later in the Romanovs' estate Ilyinskoe near Moscow. The Grand Duchess was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, St. Petersburg. Her grieving husband had to be restrained from throwing himself into the grave with her.[5] Her husband later morganatically remarried Olga Karnovich. Alexandra's son would be involved in the murder of Grigori Rasputin, a favorite of Tsarina Alexandra Feodorvna, in 1916. In 1939 during the reign of her nephew George II of Greece, the Greek government obtained permission from the Soviet government under Joseph Stalin to rebury Princess Alexandra in Greece. Her body was removed from the vault in Leningrad and transferred by a Greek ship to Athens. It was finally laid to rest near the Tatoi Palace. Alexandra's marble tombstone over an empty tomb is still in its place in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The "Alexandra Maternity Hospital" (now "Alexandra General Hospital") in Athens was later named in her memory by another nephew, King Paul; it was affiliated with the University of Athens with a special remit to research and combat postpartum maternal mortality. Alexandras Avenue in Athens was also named after her.[6] Russian[e] is an East Slavic language, spoken primarily in Russia. It is the native language of the Russians and belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is one of four living East Slavic languages,[f] and is also a part of the larger Balto-Slavic languages. It was the de facto and de jure[21] official language of the former Soviet Union.[22] Russian has remained an official language in independent Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel.[23][24][25][26] Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide.[27] It is the most spoken Slavic language,[28] and the most spoken native language in Europe,[29] as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia.[28] It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers, and the world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers.[30] Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station,[31] as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations.[32] Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has a hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Stress, which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically,[33] though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [zamók, 'lock'] and за́мок [zámok, 'castle']), or to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names. Classification Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family. It is a descendant of Old East Slavic, a language used in Kievan Rus', which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of spoken language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn,[34] the other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian.[35] In the 19th century (in Russia until 1917), the language was often called "Great Russian" to distinguish it from Belarusian, which was then called "White Russian", and Ukrainian, then called "Little Russian" in the Russian Empire.[citation needed] The vocabulary (mainly abstract and literary words), principles of word formations, and, to some extent, inflections and literary style of Russian have been also influenced by Church Slavonic, a developed and partly Russified form of the South Slavic Old Church Slavonic language used by the Russian Orthodox Church. However, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with many different meanings.[citation needed] Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin, Polish, Dutch, German, French, Italian, and English,[36] and to a lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic, Turkic,[37][38] Persian,[39][40] Arabic, and Hebrew.[41] According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency.[42] It is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a "hard target" language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in U.S. world policy.[citation needed] Standard Russian Main article: Moscow dialect Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between the Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from the government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries.[43] Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and the broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages.[43] The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language (современный русский литературный язык – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter the Great and developed from the Moscow (Middle or Central Russian) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language.[43] Mikhail Lomonosov compiled the first book of Russian grammar aimed at standardization in 1755. The Russian Academy's first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared in 1783. In the 18th and late 19th centuries, a period known as the "Golden Age" of Russian Literature, the grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation of the Russian language in a standardized literary form emerged.[citation needed] Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However, the peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity.[44] This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky (1873–1935), who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or the syntax of Russian dialects."[45] After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930: The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to the factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry, a qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society.[46] By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the compulsory education system that was established by the Soviet government.[citation needed] Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features (such as fricative [ɣ] in Southern Russian dialects) are still observed in colloquial speech.[citation needed] Geographic distribution Main article: Geographical distribution of Russian speakers Hemisphere view of countries where Russian is an official language and countries where it is spoken as a first or second language by at least 30% of the population but is not an official language Competence of Russian in countries of the former Soviet Union (except Russia), 2004 In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in the Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi-Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese.[47][48][49] Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics.[50] Europe Languages spoken at home in Belarus (according to the 2009 Belarusian census) (green — Belarusian, blue — Russian) (by raion) Percentage of Russian speakers in Estonia (according to the 2000 Estonian census) Percentage of Russian speakers in different regions of Latvia (according to the 2011 census [lv]) Percentage of people in Ukraine with Russian as their native language (according to the 2001 Ukrainian census) (by region) In Belarus, Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus.[51] 77% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work.[52] According to the 2019 Belarusian census, out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in the Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for Russians — 97.2%, for Ukrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for Jews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%.[53] In Estonia Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook,[54] and is officially considered a foreign language.[51] School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics and as of 2022 the parliament has approved to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools/kindergartens will start in the school year.[55] In Latvia, Russian is officially considered a foreign language.[51] 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work.[52] On February 18, 2012, Latvia held a constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language.[56] According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%.[57] Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools.[58][59] On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in the final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian. From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only.[60][61] On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from January 1, 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM) should be only in Latvian or a language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service.[62] In Lithuania, Russian has no official or legal status, but the use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language.[63] However, English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language.[64] In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008).[65] According to the 2011 Lithuanian census, Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population.[66] In Moldova, Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law.[51] On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication.[67][68] 50% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work.[52] According to the 2014 Moldovan census, Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian.[69] According to the 2010 census in Russia, Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of the respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents).[70] In Ukraine, Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers.[71] 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work.[52] On September 5, 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed a new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language.[72] The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary.[73][74] The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to the Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in public administration, media, education, science, culture, advertising, services. The law does not regulate private communication.[75][76] A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On the other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, The idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and east. But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion, their number dropped by almost half.[77] According to the survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language.[78] In the 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey,[79] fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries. Significant Russian-speaking groups also exist in Western Europe. These have been fed by several waves of immigrants since the beginning of the 20th century, each with its own flavor of language. The United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Belgium, Greece, Norway, and Austria have significant Russian-speaking communities.[citation needed] Asia In Armenia, Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.[51] 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work.[52] In Azerbaijan, Russian has no official status, but is a lingua franca of the country.[51] 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work.[52] In China, Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang and the northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In Georgia, Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.[51] Russian is the language of 9% of the population according to the World Factbook.[80] Ethnologue cites Russian as the country's de facto working language.[81] In Kazakhstan, Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language in state and local administration.[51] The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of the population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language.[82] In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025.[83] In Kyrgyzstan, Russian is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan.[51] The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population.[84] Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group.[84] In Tajikistan, Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under the Constitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation.[51] 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work.[52] The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business.[54] In Turkmenistan, Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca in 1996.[51] Among 12%[54] of the population who grew up in the Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent.[85] Nevertheless, the Turkmen state press and newspaper Neytralny Turkmenistan regularly publish material version in Russian-language, and there are schools like Joint Turkmen-Russian Secondary School.[citation needed] In Uzbekistan, Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication.[7][8][9] It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite.[51][86] Russian is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook.[54] In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia,[87] and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006.[88] Around 1.5 million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017.[89] The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in the country.[90] There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus. See also Russian language in Israel. Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan.[91] In Vietnam, Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English.[92] North America See also: Russian language in the United States The Russian language was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left.[93] In Nikolaevsk, Alaska, Russian is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, Nashville, San Francisco, Seattle, Spokane, Toronto, Calgary, Baltimore, Miami, Chicago, Denver, and Cleveland. In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (especially the generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to the United States Census, in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States.[94] In the second half of the 20th century, Russian was the most popular foreign language in Cuba. Besides being taught at universities and schools, there were also educational programs on the radio and TV. An estimated 200,000 people speak the Russian language in Cuba, on the account that more than 23,000 Cubans who took higher studies in the former Soviet Union and later in Russia, and another important group of people who studied at military schools and technologists.[citation needed] As an international language See also: Russophone, List of official languages by institution, and Internet in Russian Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following: United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency World Health Organization International Civil Aviation Organization UNESCO World Intellectual Property Organization International Telecommunication Union World Meteorological Organization Food and Agriculture Organization International Fund for Agricultural Development International Criminal Court International Olympic Committee Universal Postal Union World Bank Commonwealth of Independent States Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Eurasian Economic Community Collective Security Treaty Organization Antarctic Treaty Secretariat International Organization for Standardization International Mathematical Olympiad The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to the Apollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975.[citation needed] In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su. Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese.[95] Dialects Main articles: Russian dialects, Moscow dialect, and Pomor dialect Russian dialects in 1915 Northern dialects   1. Arkhangelsk dialect   2. Olonets dialect   3. Novgorod dialect   4. Viatka dialect   5. Vladimir dialect Central dialects   6. Moscow dialect   7. Tver dialect Southern dialects   8. Orel (Don) dialect   9. Ryazan dialect   10. Tula dialect   11. Smolensk dialect Other   12. Northern Russian dialect with Belarusian influences   13. Slobozhan [uk] and Steppe [uk] dialects of Ukrainian   14. Steppe dialect of Ukrainian with Russian influences (Balachka) Russian is a rather homogeneous language, in dialectal variation, due to the early political centralization under Moscow's rule, compulsory education, mass migration from rural to urban areas in the 20th century, and other factors. The standard language is used in written and spoken form almost everywhere in the country, from Kaliningrad and Saint Petersburg in the West to Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the East, the enormous distance between notwithstanding.[citation needed] Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between the two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern, Central (or Middle), and Southern, with Moscow lying in the Central region.[96][97] All dialects are also divided into two main chronological categories: the dialects of primary formation (the territory of the Grand Duchy of Moscow roughly consists of the modern Central and Northwestern Federal districts) and secondary formation (other territories where Russian was brought by migrants from primary formation territories or adopted by the local population). Dialectology within Russia recognizes dozens of smaller-scale variants. The dialects often show distinct and non-standard features of pronunciation and intonation, vocabulary, and grammar. Some of these are relics of ancient usage now completely discarded by the standard language.[citation needed] The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly, a phenomenon called okanye (оканье).[97] Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place of Proto-Slavic *ě and /o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/.[97] Another Northern dialectal morphological feature is a post-posed definite article -to, -ta, -te similarly to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian.[97] In the Southern Russian dialects, instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. несли is pronounced [nʲaˈslʲi], not [nʲɪsˈlʲi]) – this is called yakanye (яканье).[97][98] Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/, a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and /x⁓xv⁓xw/, whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/, /v/, and final /l/ and /f/, respectively.[97] The morphology features a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects).[97][99] Some of these features such as akanye and yakanye, a debuccalized or lenited /ɡ/, a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs are also present in modern Belarusian and some dialects of Ukrainian (Eastern Polesian), indicating a linguistic continuum.[citation needed] The city of Veliky Novgorod has historically displayed a feature called chokanye or tsokanye (чоканье or цоканье), in which /tɕ/ and /ts/ were switched or merged. So, цапля (tsaplya, 'heron') has been recorded as чапля (chaplya). Also, the second palatalization of velars did not occur there, so the so-called ě² (from the Proto-Slavic diphthong *ai) did not cause /k, ɡ, x/ to shift to /ts, dz, s/; therefore, where Standard Russian has цепь ('chain'), the form кепь [kʲepʲ] is attested in earlier texts.[citation needed] Among the first to study Russian dialects was Lomonosov in the 18th century. In the 19th, Vladimir Dal compiled the first dictionary that included dialectal vocabulary. Detailed mapping of Russian dialects began at the turn of the 20th century. In modern times, the monumental Dialectological Atlas of the Russian Language (Диалектологический атлас русского языка – Dialektologichesky atlas russkogo yazyka), was published in three folio volumes 1986–1989, after four decades of preparatory work.[citation needed] Comparison with other Slavic languages During the Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects.[100] There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian, and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level.[101][102] Derived languages This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Russian language" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Balachka, a Ukrainian dialect spoken in Krasnodar region, Don, Kuban, and Terek, brought by relocated Cossacks in 1793 and is based on the so-called "southwest Russian" dialect (Ukrainian dialect). During the Russification of the aforementioned regions in the 1920s to 1950s, it was replaced by the Russian language. Esperanto has some words of Russian and Slavic origin and some features of its grammar could be derived from Russian.[103] Fenya, a criminal argot of ancient origin, with Russian grammar, but with distinct vocabulary Lojban, Russian is one of its six source languages, weighed for the number of Russian speakers in 1985.[104] Medny Aleut language, an extinct mixed language that was spoken on Bering Island and is characterized by its Aleut nouns and Russian verbs Padonkaffsky jargon, a slang language developed by padonki of Runet Quelia, a macaronic language with Russian-derived basic structure and part of the lexicon (mainly nouns and verbs) borrowed from German Runglish, a Russian-English pidgin. This word is also used by English speakers to describe the way in which Russians attempt to speak English using Russian morphology or syntax. Russenorsk, an extinct pidgin language with mostly Russian vocabulary and mostly Norwegian grammar, used for communication between Russians and Norwegian traders in the Pomor trade in Finnmark and the Kola Peninsula Surzhyk, a range of mixed (macaronic) sociolects of Ukrainian and Russian languages used in certain regions of Ukraine and adjacent lands. Trasianka, a heavily russified variety of Belarusian used by a large portion of the rural population in Belarus Taimyr Pidgin Russian, spoken by the Nganasan on the Taimyr Peninsula Alphabet Main articles: Russian alphabet and Russian Braille A page from Azbuka (Alphabet book), the first East Slavic printed textbook. Printed by Ivan Fyodorov in 1574 in Lviv. This page features the Cyrillic script. Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound: Аа /a/ Бб /b/ Вв /v/ Гг /ɡ/ Дд /d/ Ее /je/ Ёё /jo/ Жж /ʐ/ Зз /z/ Ии /i/ Йй /j/ Кк /k/ Лл /l/ Мм /m/ Нн /n/ Оо /o/ Пп /p/ Рр /r/ Сс /s/ Тт /t/ Уу /u/ Фф /f/ Хх /x/ Цц /ts/ Чч /tɕ/ Шш /ʂ/ Щщ /ɕː/ Ъъ /-/ Ыы /ɨ/ Ьь /ʲ/ Ээ /e/ Юю /ju/ Яя /ja/ Older letters of the Russian alphabet include ⟨ѣ⟩, which merged to ⟨е⟩ (/je/ or /ʲe/); ⟨і⟩ and ⟨ѵ⟩, which both merged to ⟨и⟩ (/i/); ⟨ѳ⟩, which merged to ⟨ф⟩ (/f/); ⟨ѫ⟩, which merged to ⟨у⟩ (/u/); ⟨ѭ⟩, which merged to ⟨ю⟩ (/ju/ or /ʲu/); and ⟨ѧ⟩ and ⟨ѩ⟩, which later were graphically reshaped into ⟨я⟩ and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /ʲa/. While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers ⟨ъ⟩ and ⟨ь⟩ originally indicated the pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/, /ĭ/. Transliteration Further information: Romanization of Russian and Informal romanizations of Russian Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, мороз ('frost') is transliterated moroz, and мышь ('mouse'), mysh or myš'. Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding, which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards.[105] Computing The Russian alphabet has many systems of character encoding. KOI8-R was designed by the Soviet government and was intended to serve as the standard encoding. This encoding was and still is widely used in UNIX-like operating systems. Nevertheless, the spread of MS-DOS and OS/2 (IBM866), Classic Mac OS (ISO/IEC 8859-5) and Microsoft Windows (CP1251) meant the proliferation of many different encodings as de facto standards, with Windows-1251 becoming a de facto standard in Russian Internet and e-mail communication during the period of roughly 1995–2005.[citation needed] All the obsolete 8-bit encodings are rarely used in the communication protocols and text-exchange data formats, having been mostly replaced with UTF-8. A number of encoding conversion applications were developed. "iconv" is an example that is supported by most versions of Linux, macOS and some other operating systems; but converters are rarely needed unless accessing texts created more than a few years ago.[citation needed] In addition to the modern Russian alphabet, Unicode (and thus UTF-8) encodes the Early Cyrillic alphabet (which is very similar to the Greek alphabet), and all other Slavic and non-Slavic but Cyrillic-based alphabets.[citation needed] Orthography Main article: Russian orthography The current spelling follows the major reform of 1918, and the final codification of 1956. An update proposed in the late 1990s has met a hostile reception, and has not been formally adopted. The punctuation, originally based on Byzantine Greek, was in the 17th and 18th centuries reformulated on the French and German models.[citation needed] According to the Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent (знак ударения) may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress. For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: замо́к (zamók – "lock") – за́мок (zámok – "castle"), сто́ящий (stóyashchy – "worthwhile") – стоя́щий (stoyáshchy – "standing"), чудно́ (chudnó – "this is odd") – чу́дно (chúdno – "this is marvellous"), молоде́ц (molodéts – "well done!") – мо́лодец (mólodets – "fine young man"), узна́ю (uznáyu – "I shall learn it") – узнаю́ (uznayú – "I recognize it"), отреза́ть (otrezát – "to be cutting") – отре́зать (otrézat – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like афе́ра (aféra, "scandal, affair"), гу́ру (gúru, "guru"), Гарси́я (García), Оле́ша (Olésha), Фе́рми (Fermi), and to show which is the stressed word in a sentence, for example Ты́ съел печенье? (Tý syel pechenye? – "Was it you who ate the cookie?") – Ты съе́л печенье? (Ty syél pechenye? – "Did you eat the cookie?) – Ты съел пече́нье? (Ty syel pechénye? "Was it the cookie you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners.[citation needed] Phonology Main article: Russian phonology The phonological system of Russian is inherited from Common Slavonic; it underwent considerable modification in the early historical period before being largely settled around the year 1400.[citation needed] The language possesses five vowels (or six, under the St. Petersburg Phonological School), which are written with different letters depending on whether the preceding consonant is palatalized. The consonants typically come in plain vs. palatalized pairs, which are traditionally called hard and soft. The hard consonants are often velarized, especially before front vowels, as in Irish and Marshallese. The standard language, based on the Moscow dialect, possesses heavy stress and moderate variation in pitch. Stressed vowels are somewhat lengthened, while unstressed vowels tend to be reduced to near-close vowels or an unclear schwa.[citation needed] The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using a formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant, the maximal structure can be described as follows: (C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C) However, Russian has a constraint on syllabification such that syllables cannot span multiple morphemes.[citation needed] Clusters of four consonants are not very common, especially within a morpheme. Some examples are: взгляд ([vzglʲat] vzglyad, 'glance'), государств ([gəsʊˈdarstf] gosudarstv, 'of the states'), строительств ([strɐˈitʲɪlʲstf] stroitelstv, 'of the constructions').[citation needed] Consonants Consonant phonemes Labial Alveolar /Dental Post- alveolar Palatal Velar plain pal. plain pal. plain pal. plain pal. Nasal m mʲ n nʲ Stop voiceless p pʲ t tʲ k (kʲ) voiced b bʲ d dʲ ɡ (ɡʲ) Affricate ts (tsʲ) tɕ Fricative voiceless f fʲ s sʲ ʂ ɕː x (xʲ) voiced v vʲ z zʲ ʐ (ʑː) (ɣ) (ɣʲ) Approximant ɫ lʲ j Trill r rʲ Russian is notable for its distinction based on palatalization of most of its consonants. While /ts, k, ɡ, x/ do have true palatalized allophones [tsʲ, kʲ, ɡʲ, xʲ], only /kʲ/ might be considered a phoneme, though it is marginal and generally not considered distinctive. The only native minimal pair that argues for /kʲ/ being a separate phoneme is это ткёт ([ˈɛtə tkʲɵt] eto tkyot – "it weaves") – этот кот ([ˈɛtət kot], etot kot – "this cat"). The phoneme /ts/ is generally considered to be always hard; however, loan words such as Цюрих and some other neologisms contain /tsʲ/ through the word-building processes (e.g. фрицёнок, шпицята). Palatalization means that the center of the tongue is raised during and after the articulation of the consonant. In the case of /tʲ/ and /dʲ/, the tongue is raised enough to produce slight frication (affricate sounds; cf. Belarusian ць, дзь, or Polish ć, dź). The sounds /t, d, ts, s, z, n, rʲ/ are dental, that is, pronounced with the tip of the tongue against the teeth rather than against the alveolar ridge. According to some linguists, the "plain" consonants are velarized as in Irish, something which is most noticeable when it involves a labial before a hard vowel, such as мы, /mˠiː/, "we" , or бэ, /bˠɛ/, "the letter Б". Vowels Front Central Back Close i (ɨ) u Mid e o Open a Russian vowel chart by Trofimov & Jones (1923:55) Russian has five or six vowels in stressed syllables, /i, u, e, o, a/, and in some analyses /ɨ/, but in most cases these vowels have merged to only two to four vowels when unstressed: /i, u, a/ (or /ɨ, u, a/) after hard consonants and /i, u/ after soft ones. These vowels have several allophones, which are displayed on the diagram to the right.[106][107] Grammar Main article: Russian grammar [icon] This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2014) Russian has preserved an Indo-European synthetic-inflectional structure, although considerable leveling has occurred. Russian grammar encompasses: a highly fusional morphology a syntax that, for the literary language, is the conscious fusion of three elements:[108] a polished vernacular foundation;[clarification needed] a Church Slavonic inheritance; a Western European style.[clarification needed] The spoken language has been influenced by the literary one but continues to preserve characteristic forms. The dialects show various non-standard grammatical features,[108] some of which are archaisms or descendants of old forms since discarded by the literary language.[citation needed] In terms of actual grammar, there are three tenses in Russian – past, present, and future – and each verb has two aspects (perfective and imperfective). Russian nouns each have a gender – either feminine, masculine, or neuter, chiefly indicated by spelling at the end of the word. Words change depending on both their gender and function in the sentence. Russian has six cases: Nominative (for the grammatical subject), Accusative (for direct objects), Dative (for indirect objects), Genitive (to indicate possession or relation), Instrumental (to indicate 'with' or 'by means of'), and Prepositional (used after the locative prepositions в "in", на "on", о "about", при "in the presence of"). Verbs of motion in Russian – such as 'go', 'walk', 'run', 'swim', and 'fly' – use the imperfective or perfective form to indicate a single or return trip, and also use a multitude of prefixes to add shades of meaning to the verb. Such verbs also take on different forms to distinguish between concrete and abstract motion.[109] Vocabulary This page from an "ABC" book printed in Moscow in 1694 shows the letter П. The number of listed words or entries in some of the major dictionaries published during the past two centuries, are as follows:[110][111] Work Year Words Notes Academic dictionary, I Ed. 1789–1794 43,257 Russian and Church Slavonic with some Old Russian vocabulary. Academic dictionary, II Ed 1806–1822 51,388 Russian and Church Slavonic with some Old Russian vocabulary. Academic dictionary, III Ed. 1847 114,749 Russian and Church Slavonic with Old Russian vocabulary. Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language (Dahl's) 1880–1882 195,844 44,000 entries lexically grouped; attempt to catalogue the full vernacular language. Contains many dialectal, local, and obsolete words. Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language (Ushakov's) 1934–1940 85,289 Current language with some archaisms. Academic Dictionary of the Russian Language (Ozhegov's) 1950–1965 1991 (2nd ed.) 120,480 "Full" 17-volumed dictionary of the contemporary language. The second 20-volumed edition was begun in 1991, but not all volumes have been finished. Lopatin's dictionary 1999–2013 ≈200,000 Orthographic, current language, several editions Great Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language 1998–2009 ≈130,000 Current language, the dictionary has many subsequent editions from the first one of 1998. Russian Wiktionary October 11, 2021 442,533 Number of entries in the category Русский язык (Russian language) History and literary language Main article: History of the Russian language See also: Reforms of Russian orthography No single periodization is universally accepted, but the history of the Russian language is sometimes divided into the following periods:[112][113][114] Old Russian or Old East Slavic (until the 14th or 15th century) Middle Russian (14th or 15th century until the 17th or 18th century) Modern Russian (17th century or 18th century to the present) The history of the Russian language is also divided into Old Russian from the 11th to 17th centuries, followed by Modern Russian.[114] Judging by the historical records, by approximately 1000 AD the predominant ethnic group over much of modern European Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus was the Eastern branch of the Slavs, speaking a closely related group of dialects. The political unification of this region into Kievan Rus' in about 880, from which modern Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus trace their origins, established Old East Slavic as a literary and commercial language. It was soon followed by the adoption of Christianity in 988 and the introduction of the South Slavic Old Church Slavonic as the liturgical and official language. Borrowings and calques from Byzantine Greek began to enter the Old East Slavic and spoken dialects at this time, which in their turn modified the Old Church Slavonic as well.[citation needed] The Ostromir Gospels of 1056 is the second oldest East Slavic book known, one of many medieval illuminated manuscripts preserved in the Russian National Library. Dialectal differentiation accelerated after the breakup of Kievan Rus' in approximately 1100. On the territories of modern Belarus and Ukraine emerged Ruthenian and in modern Russia medieval Russian. They became distinct since the 13th century, i.e. following the division of the land between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Poland in the west and independent Novgorod and Pskov feudal republics plus numerous small duchies (which came to be vassals of the Tatars) in the east.[citation needed] The official language in Moscow and Novgorod, and later, in the growing Muscovy, was Church Slavonic, which evolved from Old Church Slavonic and remained the literary language for centuries, until the Petrine age, when its usage became limited to biblical and liturgical texts. Russian developed under a strong influence of Church Slavonic until the close of the 17th century; afterward the influence reversed, leading to corruption of liturgical texts.[citation needed] The political reforms of Peter the Great (Пётр Вели́кий, Pyótr Velíky) were accompanied by a reform of the alphabet, and achieved their goal of secularization and Westernization. Blocks of specialized vocabulary were adopted from the languages of Western Europe. By 1800, a significant portion of the gentry spoke French daily, and German sometimes. Many Russian novels of the 19th century, e.g. Leo Tolstoy's (Лев Толсто́й) War and Peace, contain entire paragraphs and even pages in French with no translation given, with an assumption that educated readers would not need one.[citation needed] The modern literary language is usually considered to date from the time of Alexander Pushkin (Алекса́ндр Пу́шкин) in the first third of the 19th century. Pushkin revolutionized Russian literature by rejecting archaic grammar and vocabulary (so-called высо́кий стиль — "high style") in favor of grammar and vocabulary found in the spoken language of the time. Even modern readers of younger age may only experience slight difficulties understanding some words in Pushkin's texts, since relatively few words used by Pushkin have become archaic or changed meaning. In fact, many expressions used by Russian writers of the early 19th century, in particular Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov (Михаи́л Ле́рмонтов), Nikolai Gogol (Никола́й Го́голь), Aleksander Griboyedov (Алекса́ндр Грибое́дов), became proverbs or sayings which can be frequently found even in modern Russian colloquial speech.[citation needed] Winter Evening Duration: 21 seconds.0:21 Reading of excerpt of Pushkin's "Winter Evening" (Зимний вечер), 1825. Problems playing this file? See media help. Russian text Pronunciation Transliteration English Translation Зи́мний ве́чер [ˈzʲimnʲɪj ˈvʲetɕɪr] Zímnij véčer Winter evening Бу́ря мгло́ю не́бо кро́ет, [ˈburʲə ˈmɡɫoju ˈnʲɛbə ˈkroɪt] Búrja mglóju nébo krójet, The storm covers the sky with a haze Ви́хри сне́жные крутя́; [ˈvʲixrʲɪ ˈsʲnʲɛʐnɨɪ krʊˈtʲa] Víhri snéžnyje krutjá, As it swirls heaps of snow in the air. То, как зверь, она́ заво́ет, [ˈto kaɡ zvʲerʲ ɐˈna zɐˈvoɪt] To, kak zveŕ, oná zavójet, At times, it howls like a beast, То запла́чет, как дитя́, [ˈto zɐˈpɫatɕɪt, kaɡ dʲɪˈtʲa] To zapláčet, kak ditjá, And then cries like a child; То по кро́вле обветша́лой [ˈto pɐˈkrovlʲɪ ɐbvʲɪtˈʂaɫəj] To po króvle obvetšáloj At times, on top of the threadbare roof, Вдруг соло́мой зашуми́т, [ˈvdruk sɐˈɫoməj zəʂʊˈmʲit] Vdrug solómoj zašumít, It suddenly rustles straw, То, как пу́тник запозда́лый, [ˈto ˈkak ˈputʲnʲɪɡ zəpɐˈzdaɫɨj] To, kak pútnik zapozdályj And then, like a late traveller, К нам в око́шко застучи́т. [ˈknam vɐˈkoʂkə zəstʊˈtɕit] K nam v okóško zastučít. It knocks upon our window. The political upheavals of the early 20th century and the wholesale changes of political ideology gave written Russian its modern appearance after the spelling reform of 1918. Political circumstances and Soviet accomplishments in military, scientific, and technological matters (especially cosmonautics), gave Russian a worldwide prestige, especially during the mid-20th century.[citation needed] During the Soviet period, the policy toward the languages of the various other ethnic groups fluctuated in practice. Though each of the constituent republics had its own official language, the unifying role and superior status was reserved for Russian, although it was declared the official language only in 1990.[115] Following the break-up of the USSR in 1991, several of the newly independent states have encouraged their native languages, which has partly reversed the privileged status of Russian, though its role as the language of post-Soviet national discourse throughout the region has continued.[citation needed] The Russian language in the world declined after 1991 due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and decrease in the number of Russians in the world and diminution of the total population in Russia (where Russian is an official language), however this[clarification needed] has since been reversed.[47][116][117] Recent estimates of the total number of speakers of Russian Source Native speakers Native rank Total speakers Total rank G. Weber, "Top Languages", Language Monthly, 3: 12–18, 1997, ISSN 1369-9733 160,000,000 8 285,000,000 5 World Almanac (1999) 145,000,000 8 (2005) 275,000,000 5 SIL (2000 WCD) 145,000,000 8 255,000,000 5–6 (tied with Arabic) CIA World Factbook (2005) 160,000,000 8 According to figures published in 2006 in the journal "Demoskop Weekly" research deputy director of Research Center for Sociological Research of the Ministry of Education and Science (Russia) Arefyev A. L.,[118] the Russian language is gradually losing its position in the world in general, and in Russia in particular.[116][119][120][121] In 2012, A. L. Arefyev published a new study "Russian language at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries", in which he confirmed his conclusion about the trend of weakening of the Russian language after the Soviet Union's collapse in various regions of the world (findings published in 2013 in the journal "Demoskop Weekly").[47][122][123][124] In the countries of the former Soviet Union the Russian language was being replaced or used in conjunction with local languages.[47][125] Currently, the number of speakers of Russian in the world depends on the number of Russians in the world and total population in Russia.[47][116][117] The changing proportion of Russian speakers in the world (assessment Aref'eva 2012)[47][124]: 387  Year worldwide population, billion population Russian Empire, Soviet Union and Russian Federation, million share in world population, % total number of speakers of Russian, million share in world population, % 1900 1.650 138.0   8.4 105 6.4 1914 1.782 182.2   10.2 140 7.9 1940 2.342 205.0   8.8 200 7.6 1980 4.434 265.0   6.0 280 6.3 1990 5.263 286.0   5.4 312 5.9 2004 6.400 146.0   2.3 278 4.3 2010 6.820 142.7   2.1 260 3.8 2020 7.794 147.3   1.8 256 3.3 Sample text Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Russian:[126] Все люди рождаются свободными и равными в своем достоинстве и правах. Они наделены разумом и совестью и должны поступать в отношении друг друга в духе братства. The romanization of the text into Latin alphabet: Vse lyudi pozhayutsya svobodnymi i ravnymi v svoyem dostoinstve i pravakh. Oni nadeleny razumom i sovest'yu i dolzhny postupat' v otnoshenii drug druga v dukhe bratstva. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English:[127] All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • Language: English
  • Special Attributes: 1st Edition, SIGNED
  • Signed: Yes
  • Author: GRAND DUCHESS MARIE
  • Region: North America
  • Publisher: THE VIKING PRESS
  • Topic: Historical
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
  • Unit Quantity: 1
  • Subject: History
  • Original/Facsimile: Original

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