BREAKUP OF THE SOVIET UNION : Back to St. Petersburg
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The Presidium of the new Supreme Soviet said the name change voted by residents of Leningrad to the city’s pre-revolutionary name, St. Petersburg, will take effect immediately. Some history:
* Residents voted last spring to restore the name, but the decision was deemed to require national approval, which was withheld.
* The city was originally called St. Petersburg for Czar Peter the Great, who founded it in 1703.
* It was renamed Petrograd in 1914, at the start of World War I, to change the German-sounding name to its Russian equivalent.
* The city was renamed Leningrad in 1924 after the death of Soviet founder V. I. Lenin.
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