Education

See also: Education in Russia and List of higher education and academic institutions in Saint Petersburg

As of 2006/2007 there were 1024 kindergartens, 716 public schools and 80 vocational schools in Saint Petersburg.^[85] The largest of the public higher education institutions is Saint Petersburg State University, enrolling approximately 32,000 undergraduate students; and the largest non-governmental higher education institutions is the Institute of International Economic Relations, Economics and Law. Other famous universities are Saint Petersburg Polytechnic University, Herzen University, Saint Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance and Saint Petersburg Military engineering-technical university. However, the public universities are all federal property and do not belong to the city.

Sports[edit]

Main article: Sport in Saint Petersburg

Krestovsky Stadium

Leningrad hosted part of the association football tournament during the 1980 Summer Olympics. The 1994 Goodwill Games were also held here.

In boating, the first competition here was the 1703 rowingevent initiated by Peter the Great, after the victory over theSwedish fleet. Yachting events were held by the Russian Navy since the foundation of the city. Yacht clubs:^[86] St. Petersburg River Yacht Club, Neva Yacht Club, the latter is the oldest yacht club in the world. In the winter, when the sea and lake surfaces are frozen and yachts and dinghies cannot be used, local people sail ice boats.

Equestrianism has been a long tradition, popular among the Tsars and aristocracy, as well as part of military training. Several historic sports arenas were built for equestrianism since the 18th century, to maintain training all year round, such as the Zimny Stadion andKonnogvardeisky Manezh, among others.

Chess tradition was highlighted by the 1914 international tournament, partially funded by the Tsar, in which the title "Grandmaster" was first formally conferred by Russian Tsar Nicholas II to five players: Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall.

SKA Saint Petersburg logo

Kirov Stadium (now demolished) was one of the largest stadiums in the world and home to FC Zenit Saint Petersburg from 1950 to 1993 and again in 1995. In 1951 a crowd of 110,000 set the single-game attendance record for Soviet football. In 1984, 2007, 2010 and 2011/2012 Zenit were the champions of the Soviet and Russian leagues, respectively, and won the Russian Cup in 1999 and 2010, the UEFA Cup 2007–08 season and the 2008 UEFA Super Cup. The team leader was local player Andrei Arshavin. Zenit currently play their home games atPetrovsky Stadium. The New Zenit Stadium, which will host 2018 FIFA World Cup matches, is currently under construction.

There is also a second professional football club in Saint Petersburg, FC Dynamo Saint Petersburg, which is owned by the historicDynamo sports society.

Hockey teams in the city include SKA Saint Petersburg in the KHL, HC VMF St. Petersburg in the VHL, and junior clubs SKA-1946 andSilver Lions in the Russian Major League. SKA Saint Petersburg is one of the most popular KHL, consistently being at or near the top of the league in attendance, despite the fact that they have never won the championship. Well-known players include Maxim Afinogenov,Patrick Thoresen, Dmitri Kalinin, Petr Průcha and Viktor Tikhonov. During the NHL lockout, stars Ilya Kovalchuk, Sergei Bobrovsky andVladimir Tarasenko also played for the team. They play their home games at Ice Palace Saint Petersburg.

The city's long-time basketball team is BC Kondrashin Belov, which launched the career of Andrei Kirilenko. Kondrashin Belov won two championships in the USSR Premier League (1975 and 1992), two USSR Cups (1978 and 1987), and a Russian Cup title (2011). They also won the Saporta Cup twice (1973 and 1975). Legends of the club includeAlexander Belov and Vladimir Kondrashin. The city also has a new basketball team, BC Zenit Saint Petersburg.

Culture

Museums[edit]

The State Hermitage Museum (building on the right)

Saint Petersburg is home to more than two hundred museums, many of them hosted in historic buildings. The largest of the museums is the Hermitage Museum, featuring interiors of the former imperial residence and a vast collection of art. The Russian Museum is a large museum devoted specifically to Russian fine art. The apartments of some famous Petersburgers, including Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Feodor Chaliapin, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Nabokov, Anna Akhmatova,Mikhail Zoshchenko, Joseph Brodsky, as well as some palace and park ensembles of the southern suburbs and notable architectural monuments such as St. Isaac's Cathedral, have also been turned into public museums.

The Kunstkamera, with its collection established in 1714 by Peter the Great to collect curiosities from all over the world, is sometimes considered the first museum in Russia, which has evolved into the present-day Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. The Russian Ethnography Museum, which has been split from the Russian Museum, is devoted to the cultures of the people of Russia, the former Soviet Union and Russian Empire.

A number of museums provide insight into the Soviet history of Saint Petersburg, including the Museum of the Blockade, which describes the Siege of Leningrad and the Museum of Political History, which explains many authoritarian features of the U.S.S.R..

Other notable museums include the Central Naval Museum, and Zoological Museum, the Railway Museum, Suvorov Museum, Museum of the Siege of Leningrad, Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art, the largest non-governmental Museum of contemporary art in Russia, Saint Petersburg Museum of History in the Peter and Paul Fortress andArtillery Museum, which includes not only artillery items, but also a huge collection of other military equipment, uniforms and decorations.

• 

  Russian Museum
 
• 

  The Kunstkamera
 
• 

  Military Historical Museum
 
• 

  Museum ship cruiser Aurora

Music[edit]

The main auditorium of the Mariinsky Theatre

Among the city's more than fifty theatres is the world-famous Mariinsky Theatre (also known as the Kirov Theatre in the USSR ), home to the Mariinsky Ballet company and opera. Leading ballet dancers, such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Anna Pavlova, Rudolph Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Galina Ulanova and Natalia Makarova, were principal stars of the Mariinsky ballet.

The First music professional institution – Conservatory – appeared in 1862 in St. Petersburg thanks to the Russian pianist and composerAnton Rubinstein. The school alumni have included such notable composers as Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Artur Kapp, andRudolf Tobias and Dmitri Shostakovich, who taught at the conservatory during the 1960s, bringing it additional fame. Famous Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov who taught at the Conservatory for more than 30 years, created strong composers' school. Among his students were Igor Stravinsky, Alexander Glazounov, Anatoly Liadov and others. The only composer's museum in St. Petersburg is now museum in the former apartment of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The completeness and authenticity of these rooms make the museum particularly invaluable.

Scarlet Sails celebration on theNeva River in Saint Petersburg

Dmitri Shostakovich, who was born and raised in Saint Petersburg, dedicated his Seventh Symphony to the city, calling it the "Leningrad Symphony." He wrote the symphony while in the city during the siege of Leningrad. The 7th symphony was premiered in 1942; its performance in the besieged Leningrad at the Bolshoy Philharmonic Hall under the baton of conductor Karl Eliasberg. It was heard over the radio and lifted the spirits of the survivors.^[79] In 1992 a reunion performance of the 7th Symphony by the (then) 14 survivors was played in the same hall as they done half a century earlier.^[80] The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra remained one of the best known symphony orchestras in the world under the leadership of conductors Yevgeny Mravinsky andYuri Temirkanov. Mravinsky's term as artistic director of the Leningrad Philharmonic – a term which is possibly the longest of any conductor with any orchestra in modern times – led the orchestra from being a little-known provincial ensemble to it becoming one of the world's most highly regarded orchestras today, especially for the performance of Russian music.

The Imperial Choral Capella was founded and modeled after the royal courts of other European capitals.

The Alexander theatre, Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg has been home to the newest movements in popular music in the country. The first jazz band in the Soviet Union was founded here by Leonid Utyosov in the 1920s, under the patronage of Isaak Dunayevsky. The first jazz club in the Soviet Union was founded here in the 1950s and was later named jazz club Kvadrat. In 1956 the popular ensemble Druzhba was founded by Aleksandr Bronevitsky and Edita Piekha to become the first popular band in the USSR during the 1950s. In the 1960s student rock-groupsArgonavty, Kochevniki and others pioneered a series of unofficial and underground rock concerts and festivals. In 1972 Boris Grebenshchikov founded the band Aquarium which later grew to huge popularity. Since then "Peter's rock" music style was formed.

In the 1970s many bands came out from 'underground' and eventually founded the Leningrad rock club, which provided a stage to such bands as DDT, Kino, headed by the legendary Viktor Tsoi, Alisa, Zemlyane, Zoopark, Piknik, Secret and many other popular groups. The first Russian-style happening show Pop Mekhanika, mixing over 300 people and animals on stage, was directed by the multi-talentedSergey Kuryokhin in the 1980s. The annual International Music Festival SKIF (Sergey Kuriokhin International Festival) is named after him. In 2004 the Kuryokhin Center was founded, were the SKIF as well as the Electro-Mechanica festival and Ethnomechanica festival takes place. SKIF focuses on experimental pop music and avant garde music, Electro-Mechanica on electronic music and Ethnomechanica on world music.

Today's Saint Petersburg boasts many notable musicians of various genres, from popular Leningrad's Sergei Shnurov, Tequilajazzz, Splean, Korol i Shut, to rock veterans Yuri Shevchuk, Vyacheslav Butusov and Mikhail Boyarsky. In the early 2000s on a wave of popularity of metalcore, rapcore, emocore and there are such groups as Amatory, Kirpichi, Psychea, Stigmata, Grenouer and Animal Jazz.

The White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg is famous for spectacular fireworks and a massive show celebrating the end of the school year.

Film[edit]

Konstantin Khabensky, known for his roles in Night Watch, Day Watchand Admiral, is a native of Saint Petersburg.

Over 250 international and Russian movies were filmed in Saint Petersburg.^[81] Well over a thousand feature films about tsars, revolution, people and stories set in Saint Petersburg have been produced worldwide but not filmed in the city. The first film studios were founded in Saint Petersburg in the 20th century and since the 1920s Lenfilm has been the largest film studio based in Saint Petersburg. The first foreign feature movie filmed entirely in Saint Petersburg was the 199

Media and communications[edit] A

All major Russian newspapers are active in Saint Petersburg. The city has a developed telecommunications system. In 2014 Rostelecom, the national operator announced it began a major modernization of the fixed-line network in the city.^[78]

Television networks which can be received in the city:

Channel One Russia-1 Russia-2 NTV TV Tsentr Channel 5 Russia-K Russia-24

Public Television of Russia REN TV STS TNT TV-3 Zvezda Domashny Carousel

Peretz Euronews 2x2 Pyatnica! Disney Channel RBC Moskva 24 Dozhd

Radio stations:

"Russian (Russkoye) Radio" "Europa Plus" "DFM" "NRJ (Russia)" "Radio Maximum" "Voice of Russia (in English)" "Radio Freedom (Svoboda)" "Megapolis FM" "Radio Kultura (Culture)" "Pioneer FM" "Zvezda" "Komsomolskaya Pravda" "Orpheus" "Monte Carlo" "Love Radio"

"Govorit Moskva" "Radio Dacha" "Nashe Radio" "Radio 7" "Humor FM" "Retro FM" "Ultra" "Keks FM" "Carnival" "Dobrye Pesni (Good Songs)" "Voyage FM" "Kino FM" "Finam FM" "First Popular" "Politseiskaya Volna (Police Wave)"

"Radio Sport" "Radio Rossii" "Radio Podmoskovye" "Radiocompany Moscow" "UFM" "Mayak" "Business FM" "Autoradio" "Moya Semia (My Family)" "XFM" "Fresh Radio" "Silver Rain" "Chanson" "M-Radio" "Orphey"

"Echo of Moscow" "Radio Jazz" "Classic Radio" "Vesti FM" "City FM" "Relax FM" "Kommersant FM" "Rock FM" "Children's Radio" "Radio Alla" "Best FM" "Next FM" "Hit FM" "Hermitage" "Radio Record"

Tourism

Saint Petersburg has a significant historical and cultural heritage.^{[71][72][73][74][75][76][77]}

The 18th and 19th-century architectural ensemble of the city and its environs is preserved in virtually unchanged form. For various reasons (including large-scale destruction during World War II and construction of modern buildings during the postwar period in the largest historical centers of Europe), Saint Petersburg has become a unique reserve of European architectural styles of the past three centuries. Saint Petersburg's loss of capital city status helped the city to retain many of its pre-revolutionary buildings, as modern architectural 'prestige projects' tended to be built in Moscow; this largely prevented the rise of mid-to-late-20th-century architecture and helped maintain the architectural appearance of the historic city center.

Saint Petersburg is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list as an area with 36 historical architectural complexes and around 4000 outstanding individual monuments of architecture, history and culture. New tourist programs and sightseeing tours have been developed for those wishing to see Saint Petersburg's cultural heritage.

The Small Italian Skylight Room in the Hermitage Museum.

The city has 221 museums, 2000 libraries, more than 80 theaters, 100 concert organizations, 45 galleries and exhibition halls, 62 cinemas and around 80 other cultural establishments. Every year the city hosts around 100 festivals and various competitions of art and culture, including more than 50 international ones.^{[citation needed]}

Despite the economic instability of the 1990s, not a single major theatre or museum was closed in Saint Petersburg; on the contrary many new ones opened, for example a private museum of puppets (opened in 1999) is the third museum of its kind in Russia, where collections of more than 2000 dolls are presented including 'The multinational Saint Petersburg' and 'Pushkin's Petersburg'. The museum world of Saint Petersburg is incredibly diverse. The city is not only home to the world-famous Hermitage Museum and theRussian Museum with its rich collection of Russian art, but also the palaces of Saint Petersburg and its suburbs, so-called small town museums and others like the museum of famous Russian writer Dostoyevsky; Museum of Musical Instruments, the museum of decorative arts and the museum of professional orientation.

The musical life of Saint Petersburg is rich and diverse, with the city now playing host to a number of annual carnivals.

Ballet performances occupy a special place in the cultural life of Saint Petersburg. The Petersburg School of Ballet is named as one of the best in the world. Traditions of the Russian classical school have been passed down from generation to generation among outstanding educators. The art of famous and prominent Saint Petersburg dancers like Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia Makarova, Mikhail Baryshnikov was, and is, admired throughout the world. Contemporary Petersburg ballet is made up not only of traditional Russian classical school, but also ballets by those like Boris Eifman, who expanded the scope of strict classical Russian ballet to almost unimaginable limits. Remaining faithful to the classical basis (he was a choreographer in Vaganova Academy of Dance), he combined classical ballet with the avant-garde style, and then, in turn, with acrobatics, rhythmic gymnastics, dramatic expressiveness, cinema, color, light, and finally with spoken word.