Taking a kosher tour to the many Jewish communities in Europe? You might want to visit Saint Petersburg too. Saint Petersburg is Russia's second largest city after Moscow. It is one of Russia’s most important naval ports and has a population of over five million inhabitants. It lies in the very western part of the country, on the borders of Finland, Estonia and Latvia. The city is situated at the mouth of the Neva River in the Gulf of Finland, which is located in the north-east segment of the Baltic Sea. Saint Petersburg is a geopolitical, commercial and cultural hub and the window of Russia into Europe. Of all the cities in the world with more than a million inhabitants, Saint Petersburg is the northernmost. Given its size, it is one of Europe’s most densely populated cities. The city is also Russia’s most modern, progressive, westernized and cosmopolitan city, as well as its cultural capital. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and its other monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The site was recognised for its architectural heritage, fusing Baroque, Neoclassical and traditional Russian-Byzantine influences. Due to its short but very rich history and specific layout of many canals flowing through the city’s blocks, together with dominant classical architecture, Saint Petersburg gained the nickname “the Venice of the North“. Saint Petersburg is home to The Hermitage, one of the largest art museums today, boasting the world‘s largest collection of paintings. Many foreign consulates, international corporations, banks, and businesses have offices in Saint Petersburg. Saint Petersburg was founded in 1703 by Tzar Peter the Great during the Great Northern War. This was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe. Saint Petersburg’s importance grew instantly, so the port – originally founded on marshy grounds and out of nothing – subsequently became the capital of the Russian Empire for the next two hundred years, between 1712 and 1917. The name was chosen by the Tzar Peter The Great himself based on the Dutch town of Sankt-Pieterburch he once visited. Contrary to the popular belief, he did not chose the name in his own honour, but rather in the honour of his patron, Saint Peter. During the Soviet Union, government bodies were moved back to Moscow and Saint Petersburg was renamed to Leningrad in honor of the bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. It was not the fall of the Soviet Union when the residents decided to rename it back to its original name. The Jews of Saint Petersburg The Jewish population in Russia have historically resulted from a large religious diaspora. The vast territories of the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest population of Jews in the world. The primarily Ashkenazi communities in many areas flourished and developed many of modern Judaism's most distinctive theological and cultural traditions. This was while also facing periods of anti-Semitic discriminatory policies and persecutions. The presence of Jewish people in the European part of Russia can be traced to the 7th–14th centuries CE. In the 11th and 12th centuries, the Jewish population in Kiev, Ukraine, was restricted to a separate quarter. Evidence of their in Muscovite Russia was first documented in 1471. During the reign of Catherine II in the 18th century, Jewish people were restricted to the Pale of Settlement within Russia, the region where they could live or immigrate to. Alexander III escalated anti-Jewish policies. In the 1880s, waves of anti-Jewish pogroms swept across different regions of the empire and continued for several decades. More than two million Jews fled Russia between 1880 and 1920, mostly to the United States. Saint Petersburg became significant to the Jews at the end of the 18th century, when the Russian Empire conquered and annexed Eastern Poland and unintentionally acquired half a million Jewish subjects as a result. A limited number of Jews—nobles, university students or graduates, members of affluent merchant guilds, particular artisans, military personnel and some services associated with them, their families, and sometimes their servants of these—were allowed legal access to the Russian interior, including the imperial capital, during the reign of Tsar Alexander II (1855–1881). Saint Petersburg quickly became the address of choice for privileged Jews. By the end of Alexander’s reign, roughly 16,000 resided in the city legally, making it the largest Jewish community outside the Pale. Contemporaries estimated that a nearly equal number of Jews were living in Saint Petersburg illegally. By 1910, the number of legal Jewish residents had reached 35,000. Prior to the Soviet period, Jews never accounted for more than 3 percent of the city’s population. But in fields as banking, law, and journalism, they made up around a third of the total number of professionals. Unlike other East European cities such as Warsaw, Kiev, and Odessa, Saint Petersburg was always dominated by a single ethnic group: Russians. They represented 80 to 90 percent of the population. Unlike those cities, and because of a large police force and army presence, the Russian capital never experienced pogroms.
Saint Petersburg never had a Jewish ghetto. Nonetheless, the majority of Jews who moved there settled in the Podyacheskii neighborhood south of Nevsky Prospekt, the city’s grand central boulevard. Since the city’s Jewish life – unlike most other places in Europe – was virtually uninterupted during WWII, the community has continiously existed in the city to this day. During the communist era, however, Jews throughout the Soviet Union were persecuted and religious life was actively supressed by the authorities. A significant portion of Saint Petersburg’s Jewish population moved to Israel, US and Germany since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. However, the Jewish community numbers over 40,000 – the second largest kehila after the capital Moscow. There are nine operating synagogues throughout the city and many other smaller shtiebels. Saint Petersburg boasts a Jewish kindergarten, primary school, newspaper, museum, and even a university. There are multiple religious activities going on in St. Petersburg such as prayers, shabats, Jewish holidays, Tora lessons, brit-mila, bar-mitzva, Jewish weddings and Jewish burials.
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