St. Petersburg, known in colloquial language as Petrograd (Петроград, 1914-1924) and in Soviet times as Leningrad (Ленинград, 1924-1991), is located in north-west Russia in the Neva River delta in the eastern bay Finland's Baltic Sea.
It was founded by Tsar Peter the Great in 1703, as a "window to Europe", being at that time capital of Russian Empire until 1918. With nearly 4.5 million inhabitants (2002), is today the second largest city of Russia, the fourth largest city in Europe, a European
center of culture and most importantly extremely important Russian Baltic Sea port.
