Leningrad

St. Petersburg, site of the 1917 storming of the Winter Palace (the Hermitage) was renamed Leningrad following Lenin's death in 1923. Below is the cruiser Aurora, whose mutinous sailors purportedly fired the shot from the bow cannon that signaled the start of the Bolshevik takeover.

The former Singer Sewing Machine headquarters on the Nevsky Prospect, now a cafe and shops.

Leningrad, with a population of about 3 million, was a prime target for Hitler, since it was home to the Soviet Baltic fleet and had significant industries. The Nazis advanced to the outskirts of the city in December 1941, destroying palaces such as Peterhof along the way, and Finnish troops moved in from north, encircling the city (except for Lake Ladoga on the east side). Hitler's intent was to level the city and cede the land to the Finns, but the Germans could not break through and settled into a seige, which lasted almost 900 days. During the first winter of the seige temperatures dropped as low as -40 degrees and food and supplies could not be brought in due to German bombing. People resorted to boiling wallpaper to make soup, the famous cats of the Hermitage were eaten, furniture was burned for warmth.  Estimated civilian deaths range from 700,000 to 800,000, or one in four residents dying, primarily from starvation or freezing to death.  Peter, the son of the family we had lunch with, said he lost two grandparents during the war, his grandmother dying March 1942 during the worst of the siege.  The large memorial and the site of mass graves were outside the center of the city, and our tour did not include visiting them.

After the 1991 end of Communist rule, the citizens of Leningrad voted to revert to naming the city St. Petersburg.