Saint Petersburg, located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, used to be called Petrograd (from 1914) and Leningrad (in 1924) and back to Saint Petersburg in 1991.
Saint Petersburg was founded by Tsar Peter the Great in 1703. From 1713 to 1728 and from 1732 to 1918, Saint Petersburg was the Imperial capital of Russia. In 1918 the central government bodies moved from Saint Petersburg to Moscow.
The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monumentsconstitute are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Saint Petersburg’s Hermitage is also the largest art museum in the world.
