Petrograd, Leningrad and St. Petersburg. Part 3
By: Olga Mas

Post-war reconstruction

Despite the enthusiasm of the people, a significant part of the national economy was ruined by the war and the population had to endure many more long months of harsh conditions and bleak prospects. Food rationing was a common feature throughout the 1940s and due to the destruction of 2.8 million sq. meters of city housing and the damage to a further 2.2 million sq. meters, housing became a major problem. Up until the 1960s most of the people Leningrad still lived in so-called “communal“ (shared) apartments.

Against all the odds the city was transformed. Unlike many other cities Leningrad was not modernized, but restored to its pre-war Imperial glory. The palaces of Peterhof and Pushkin were almost completely destroyed during the siege and millions of rubles went into their meticulous restoration and reconstruction.

Some of the city‘s suburban palaces, such as Aleksandrovsky Palace of Nicholas II in Pushkin, still await restoration. Leningrad‘s museums reopened swiftly the war, having undergone speedy restoration. But a carefully preserved blue Bombardment Warning sign, painted on the side of a building on Nevsky Prospect, and the green mounds of the Piskariovskoye Memorial Cemetery mass graves still remind us of the tragic past of the city.

St. Petersburg today

The 1970s and the early 1980s were a period of stability for the Soviet Union and for Leningrad. Though political freedoms were greatly limited, most of the city‘s population enjoyed relative prosperity. When the government initiated the reforms known worldwide as Perestroika, stability rapidly disappeared and the population began experiencing economic hardship as the government quibbled over reforms. In 1991, after a city-wide referendum, the city of Leningrad returned to its original name - St. Petersburg.

Now, after the turn of the new millennium St. Petersburg is still in a transition period, both economically and socially. While the city‘s industries are still in recession, services and retail sales are gradually improving and more and more foreign businesses are being attracted to the city’s new business climate. Although still far behind Moscow in economic terms, St. Petersburg became a modern, rapidly growing commercial city. In 2003 St. Petersburg successfully celebrated its 300-th anniversary.

People of our city look optimistically in the future, hoping, that all bad stayed behind their backs. Every year more and more tourists come to Saint-Petersburg to see the beauty of that strong and beautiful city.
All about Saint-Petersburg

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