Sankt Petersburg: Bedeutungswandel und Entwicklungsperspektiven einer osteuropäischen Metropole

Abstract

St. Petersburg is one of the few metropolitan
 centres of Europe the development of which
 was consequently planned and carried through
 right from its foundation. Its development can
 be divided into three important phases: (1) Its
 development into a world-famous city of culture
 and trade until the beginning of the 20th century;
 (2) its development into the second largest
 industrial centre of the Soviet Union; (3) its transformation
 into an modern multi-functional business
 centre in East Europe since the beginning
 of the 1990s.
 The town was founded in 1703 at a site on
 the Baltic coast of strategic importance as a
 „window to Europe“, far away from the influence
 of Moscow, the old capital of patriarchal
 Russia. Within only 200 years St. Petersburg
 developed into a cultural and economic centre
 right between East and West Europe. Along with
 the formation of capitalist economic structures,
 the town turned into an important international
 centre of finance. Already in 1897 the number
 of inhabitants amounted to 1.27 million. Traditionally,
 the number of foreigners was very high,
 especially among the intelligentsia and the armed
 forces and in economy. The ethnic composition
 was characterized by a high proportion of
 non-Russian nationalities (13 per cent) with the
 Germans taking the first place (4.6 per cent).
 With the beginning of the Soviet era Leningrad
 lost not only its name and its status as
 capital but also its function as a „window to
 Europe“. From a European metropolis it developed
 into an important industrial centre of
 the Soviet Union and was a basis for the economic
 development of the North-Western region.
 The main emphasis in industrial development
 was on the processing branches, in particular
 metal processing, and military-oriented branches.
 This brought about a strong increase in intraurban
 building density as well as a great expansion
 of the city area due to the establishment of
 land-consuming industries and the building of
 large housing estates on the urban fringe.
 Leningrad’s population increased very rapidly.
 Despite interruption by two world wars, civil war
 and economic crisis its pupulation size increased
 continuously to 3 million until the mid 1950s. In
 1990 already 4.5 million people were living in
 the actual city area. This increase was caused
 chiefly by a government-induced mass influx of
 labour from all parts of the Soviet Union. Still
 today the share of non-Russians is 11 per cent.
 Especially after World War II Leningrad developed
 into a technical and scientific centre of the Soviet
 Union.
 Since the beginning of the 1990s St. Petersburg
 has started out on a new period that is
 characterized by the step-wise introduction of a
 market economy and a new geopolitical situation
 in the Baltic region. Due to the decline of
 the Soviet Union and the loss of former Soviet
 ports the importance of St. Petersburg – beside
 Kaliningrad the only port on the Baltic coast left
 – will change considerably in the years ahead.
 Despite present problems – a strong decrease
 in industrial production, dismissal of labour,
 transformation of military-oriented industrial resources
 into civil ones, privatisation of over-sized
 industrial combines and trusts – the city
 still avails of an enormous innovative potential
 (400 scientific and research institutions, highly
 qualified labour, a densely structured traffic network
 with international connections, a well-established
 tourist sector and others) which will provide
 it a chance to become again the turntable
 between East and West.