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ST PETERSBURG , Petrograd, Leningrad and now again, St Petersburg - the city's succession of names mirrors Russia's turbulent history. Founded in 1703 as a "window on the West" by Peter the Great, St Petersburg was for two centuries the capital of the tsarist empire, synonymous with excess and magnificence. During World War I the city renounced its German-sounding name and became Petrograd, and as such was the cradle of the revolutions that overthrew tsarism and brought the Bolsheviks to power in 1917. As Leningrad it epitomized the Soviet Union's heroic sacrifices in the war, withstanding nine hundred days of Nazi siege. Finally, in 1991 - the year that Communism and the USSR collapsed - the change of name, back to St Petersburg, proved deeply symbolic of the country's democratic mood. St Petersburg's sense of its own identity owes much to its origins and to the interweaving of myth and reality throughout its history. Created by the will of an autocrat, the imperial capital embodied both Peter the Great's rejection of Old Russia - represented by "Asiatic" Moscow, the former capital - and of his embrace of Europe. The city's architecture, administration and social life were all copied or imported. Today, St Petersburg is beautiful yet drab, progressive yet stagnant, sophisticated and cerebral, industrial and maritime. Beggars and nouveaux riches rub shoulders on Nevskiy prospekt, yet after the enormous changes of recent years a sense of stability and relative wellbeing has at last arrived, reaching even beyond the historic centre to the sprawling outer ring of high-rise blocks
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