It's a season of anniversaries for St. Petersburg this month, as its 18 years since it was re-christened with its original name and 337 years since the birth of the man who started it all - Peter the Great.
In many ways Russia's ancient capital has transformed beyond recognition since the heady days of June 1991, when its citizens voted - although only just - to rename it 'Saint Petersburg', abandoning the name 'Leningrad' to dusty tomes of atlases and encyclopedia footnotes. Since then the city's streets and squares gradually and sometimes quietly slipped off their solid Soviet name tags and returned to their historical affiliations.... |