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94-581: The museum was founded in 1716 in Saint Petersburg . On 5 December 1747 a great fire destroyed virtually the whole collection. In 1836 the Kunstkamera was divided into 7 separate museums, including Mineralogical museum which was moved to the new building. In 1898 the museum was expanded and renamed the Geological museum . Museum was moved from Petersburg to Moscow in 1934 together with

188-741: A non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development since December 1925 and joined UNESCO in 1969, after having established a joint commission in 1952. After the signing of the Atlantic Charter and the Declaration of the United Nations , the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education (CAME) began meetings in London which continued from 16 November 1942 to 5 December 1945. On 30 October 1943,

282-477: A Commission to study the feasibility of having nations freely share cultural, educational and scientific achievements. This new body, the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC), was created in 1922 and counted such figures as Henri Bergson , Albert Einstein , Marie Curie , Robert A. Millikan , and Gonzague de Reynold among its members (being thus a small commission of

376-591: A European great power . It served as a capital of the Tsardom of Russia , and the subsequent Russian Empire, from 1712 to 1918 (being replaced by Moscow for a short period of time between 1728 and 1730). After the October Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks moved their government to Moscow. The city was renamed Leningrad after Lenin's death in 1924. It was the site of the siege of Leningrad during

470-482: A Preparatory Commission was established. The Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946 — the date when UNESCO's Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state. The first General Conference took place from 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Julian Huxley to Director-General. United States Army colonel, university president and civil rights advocate Blake R. Van Leer joined as

564-679: A United Nations Conference for the establishment of an educational and cultural organization (ECO/CONF) was convened in London from 1 to 16 November 1945 with 44 governments represented. The idea of UNESCO was largely developed by Rab Butler , the Minister of Education for the United Kingdom, who had a great deal of influence in its development. At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, and

658-663: A biennium, as well as links to relevant programmatic and financial documents. These two distinct sets of information are published on the IATI registry, respectively based on the IATI Activity Standard and the IATI Organization Standard. There have been proposals to establish two new UNESCO lists. The first proposed list will focus on movable cultural heritage such as artifacts, paintings, and biofacts. The list may include cultural objects, such as

752-498: A declaration of anthropologists (among them was Claude Lévi-Strauss ) and other scientists in 1950 and concluding with the 1978 Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice . In 1955, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO saying that some of the organization's publications amounted to "interference" in the country's "racial problems". It rejoined the organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela . One of

846-532: A fortress at the mouth of the Neva River in 1611, which was later called Ingermanland . The small town of Nyen grew up around the fort. Before the 17th century, this area was inhabited by Finnic Izhorians and Votians . The Ingrian Finns moved to the region from the provinces of Karelia and Savonia during the Swedish rule. There was also some Estonian , Karelian , Russian and German population in

940-552: A full member. As a result, the United States withdrew its funding, which had accounted for about 22% of UNESCO's budget. Israel also reacted to Palestine's admittance to UNESCO by freezing Israeli payments to UNESCO and imposing sanctions on the Palestinian Authority , stating that Palestine's admittance would be detrimental "to potential peace talks". Two years after stopping payment of its dues to UNESCO,

1034-547: A global movement in 1990 to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults. In 2000, World Education Forum in Dakar , Senegal, led member governments to commit for achieving basic education for all in 2015. The World Declaration on Higher Education was adopted by UNESCO's World Conference on Higher Education on 9 October 1998, with the aim of setting global standards on the ideals and accessibility of higher education . UNESCO's early activities in culture included

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1128-634: A member as well. The Constitution was amended in November 1954 when the General Conference resolved that members of the executive board would be representatives of the governments of the States of which they are nationals and would not, as before, act in their personal capacity. This change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the ICIC, in how member states would work together in

1222-400: A naming act that established an official spelling; even in his own letters he used diverse spellings, such as Санктьпетерсьбурк ( Sanktpetersburk ), emulating German Sankt Petersburg , and Сантпитербурх ( Santpiterburkh ), emulating Dutch Sint-Pietersburgh , as Peter was multilingual and a Hollandophile. The name was later normalized and russified to Санкт-Петербург. A former spelling of

1316-496: A new general plan was outlined, whereby the city should expand to the south. Constructivism was rejected in favour of a more pompous Stalinist architecture . Moving the city centre further from the border with Finland, Stalin adopted a plan to build a new city hall with a huge adjacent square at the southern end of Moskovsky Prospekt , designated as the new main street of Leningrad. After the Winter (Soviet-Finnish) war in 1939–1940,

1410-591: A new plan in 1737. The city was divided into five boroughs, and the city centre was moved to the Admiralty borough, on the east bank between the Neva and Fontanka . It developed along three radial streets, which meet at the Admiralty building and are now known as Nevsky Prospect (which is considered the main street of the city), Gorokhovaya Street and Voznesensky Avenue . Baroque architecture became dominant in

1504-444: A platform for the dialogue between cultures and provide a forum for international debate". Since March 2006 it has been available free online, with limited printed issues. Its articles express the opinions of the authors which are not necessarily the opinions of UNESCO. There was a hiatus in publishing between 2012 and 2017. In 1950, UNESCO initiated the quarterly review Impact of Science on Society (also known as Impact ) to discuss

1598-569: A rectangular grid of canals. The project was not completed but is evident in the layout of the streets. In 1716, Peter the Great appointed Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond as the chief architect of Saint Petersburg. The style of Petrine Baroque , developed by Trezzini and other architects and exemplified by such buildings as the Menshikov Palace , Kunstkamera , Peter and Paul Cathedral , Twelve Collegia , became prominent in

1692-499: Is another example of an early major UNESCO project in the field of natural sciences. In 1968, UNESCO organized the first intergovernmental conference aimed at reconciling the environment and development, a problem that continues to be addressed in the field of sustainable development . The main outcome of the 1968 conference was the creation of UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme . UNESCO has been credited with

1786-498: Is combined with the city's Russian heritage. Another nickname of Saint Petersburg is "The City of the White Nights" because of a natural phenomenon which arises due to the closeness to the polar region and ensures that in summer the night skies of the city do not get completely dark for a month. The city is also often called the "Northern Palmyra ", due to its extravagant architecture. Swedish colonists built Nyenskans ,

1880-454: Is corrupted and manipulated by Israel's enemies... we are not going to be a member of an organisation that deliberately acts against us". 2023 saw Russia excluded from the executive committee for the first time, after failing to get sufficient votes. The United States stated its intent to rejoin UNESCO in 2023, 5 years after leaving, and to pay its $ 600 million in back dues. The United States

1974-461: Is governed by the General Conference composed of member states and associate members, which meets biannually to set the agency's programs and budget. It also elects members of the executive board, which manages UNESCO's work, and appoints every four years a Director-General, who serves as UNESCO's chief administrator. UNESCO and its mandate for international cooperation can be traced back to a League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, to elect

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2068-448: Is still named Leningrad . Having passed the role of capital to Petersburg, Moscow never relinquished the title of "capital", being called pervoprestolnaya ('first throned') for 200 years. An equivalent name for Petersburg, the "Northern Capital", has re-entered usage today since several federal institutions were recently moved from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. Solemn descriptive names like "the city of three revolutions" and "the cradle of

2162-795: Is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow . It is situated on the River Neva , at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea . The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the metropolitan area . Saint Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents. As

2256-652: Is Αγία Πετρούπολη, Agia Petroupoli ). Saint Petersburg has been traditionally called the "Window to Europe" and the "Window to the West" by the Russians. The city is the northernmost metropolis with more than 1 million people in the world, and is also often described as the " Venice of the North" or the "Russian Venice" due to its many water corridors, as the city is built on swamp and water. Furthermore, it has strongly Western European-inspired architecture and culture, which

2350-844: The Acropolis of Athens (Greece). The organization's work on heritage led to the adoption, in 1972, of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. In 1976, the World Heritage Committee was established and the first sites were included on the World Heritage List in 1978. Since then important legal instruments on cultural heritage and diversity have been adopted by UNESCO member states in 2003 (Convention for

2444-705: The Gold Star sign was installed in April 1985. In October 1946 some territories along the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland , which had been annexed into the USSR from Finland in 1940 under the peace treaty following the Winter War , were transferred from Leningrad Oblast to Leningrad and divided into Sestroretsky District and Kurortny District . These included the town of Terijoki (renamed Zelenogorsk in 1948). Leningrad and many of its suburbs were rebuilt over

2538-618: The Great Northern War , Peter the Great captured Nyenskans and soon replaced the fortress. On 27 May [ O.S. 16 May] 1703, closer to the estuary (5 km (3 mi) inland from the gulf ), on Zayachy (Hare) Island , he laid down the Peter and Paul Fortress , which became the first brick and stone building of the new city. The city was built by conscripted peasants from all over Russia; in some years several Swedish prisoners of war were also involved under

2632-781: The International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia , launched in 1960. The purpose of the campaign was to move the Great Temple of Abu Simbel to keep it from being swamped by the Nile after the construction of the Aswan Dam . During the 20-year campaign, 22 monuments and architectural complexes were relocated. This was the first and largest in a series of campaigns including Mohenjo-daro (Pakistan), Fes (Morocco), Kathmandu (Nepal), Borobudur (Indonesia) and

2726-1002: The Jōmon Venus of Japan, the Mona Lisa of France, the Gebel el-Arak Knife of Egypt , The Ninth Wave of Russia, the Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük of Turkey, the David (Michelangelo) of Italy, the Mathura Herakles of India, the Manunggul Jar of the Philippines, the Crown of Baekje of South Korea, The Hay Wain of the United Kingdom and the Benin Bronzes of Nigeria. The second proposed list will focus on

2820-530: The Leningrad Affair (1949–1952), a notable event in the postwar political struggle in the USSR . It was a product of rivalry between Stalin's potential successors where one side was represented by the leaders of the city Communist Party organization – the second most significant one in the country after Moscow. The entire elite leadership of Leningrad was destroyed, including the former mayor Kuznetsov ,

2914-796: The Leningrad Military District of the Russian Armed Forces . The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site . Saint Petersburg is home to the Hermitage , one of the largest art museums in the world, the Lakhta Center , the tallest skyscraper in Europe , and was one of the host cities of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2020 . The name day of Peter I falls on 29 June, when

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3008-705: The Narva Triumphal Arch . In 1825, the suppressed Decembrist revolt against Nicholas I took place on the Senate Square in the city, a day after Nicholas assumed the throne. By the 1840s, neoclassical architecture had given way to various romanticist styles, which dominated until the 1890s, represented by such architects as Andrei Stackenschneider ( Mariinsky Palace , Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace , Nicholas Palace , New Michael Palace ) and Konstantin Thon ( Moskovsky railway station ). With

3102-556: The October Revolution , which led to the end of the social-democratic provisional government , the transfer of all political power to the Soviets , and the rise of the Communist Party . After that the city acquired a new descriptive name, "the city of three revolutions", referring to the three major developments in the political history of Russia of the early 20th century. In September and October 1917, German troops invaded

3196-530: The October revolution " used in the Soviet era are reminders of the pivotal events in national history that occurred here. Petropolis is a translation of a city name to Greek, and is also a kind of descriptive name: Πέτρ- is a Greek root for 'stone', so the "city from stone" emphasizes the material that had been forcibly made obligatory for construction from the first years of the city (a modern Greek translation

3290-462: The Russian Academy of Sciences . All museum acquisitions since 1716 were divided at the beginning of 20th century by the academician Vladimir Vernadsky to 5 main collections: 55°43′7″N 37°35′34″E  /  55.71861°N 37.59278°E  / 55.71861; 37.59278 Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg , formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad ,

3384-553: The Russian Orthodox Church observes the memory of apostles Peter and Paul . The consecration of the small wooden church in their names (its construction began at the same time as the citadel) made them the heavenly patrons of the Peter and Paul Fortress , while Saint Peter at the same time became the eponym of the whole city. When in June 1703 Peter the Great renamed the site after Saint Peter, he did not issue

3478-587: The Second World War , the most lethal siege in history. In June 1991, only a few months before the Belovezha Accords and the dissolution of the USSR , voters supported restoring the city's original appellation in a city-wide referendum . As Russia's cultural centre, Saint Petersburg received over 15 million tourists in 2018. It is considered an important economic, scientific, and tourism centre of Russia and Europe. In modern times,

3572-491: The United Nations member states (except Israel and Liechtenstein ), as well as Cook Islands , Niue and Palestine . The United States and Israel left UNESCO on 31 December 2018, but the United States rejoined in 2023. As of June 2023 , there have been 11 Directors-General of UNESCO since its inception – nine men and two women. The 11 Directors-General of UNESCO have come from six regions within

3666-619: The West Estonian archipelago and threatened Petrograd with bombardment and invasion. On 12 March 1918, Lenin transferred the government of Soviet Russia to Moscow, to keep it away from the state border. During the Russian Civil War , in mid-1919 Russian anti-communist forces with the help of Estonians attempted to capture the city, but Leon Trotsky mobilized the army and forced them to retreat back to Estonia . On 26 January 1924, five days after Lenin's death, Petrograd

3760-466: The emancipation of the serfs undertaken by Alexander II in 1861 and an Industrial Revolution , the influx of former peasants into the capital increased greatly. Poor boroughs spontaneously developed on the outskirts of the city. Saint Petersburg surpassed Moscow in population and industrial growth; it became one of the largest industrial cities in Europe, with a major naval base (in Kronstadt ),

3854-1131: The non-governmental , intergovernmental and private sector . Headquartered in Paris , France, UNESCO has 53 regional field offices and 199 national commissions. UNESCO was founded in 1945 as the successor to the League of Nations ' International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation . UNESCO's founding mission, which was shaped by the events of World War II , is to advance peace , sustainable development and human rights by facilitating collaboration and dialogue among nations. It pursues this objective through five major programme areas: education, natural sciences , social / human sciences , culture and communication/information. UNESCO sponsors projects that improve literacy , provide technical training and education, advance science, protect independent media and press freedom , preserve regional and cultural history , and promote cultural diversity . The organization prominently helps establish and secure World Heritage Sites of cultural and natural importance. UNESCO

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3948-435: The 1920s and 1930s, the poor outskirts were reconstructed into regularly planned boroughs . Constructivist architecture flourished around that time. Housing became a government-provided amenity ; many "bourgeois" apartments were so large that numerous families were assigned to what were called "communal" apartments ( kommunalkas ). By the 1930s, 68% of the population lived in such housing under very poor conditions. In 1935,

4042-600: The Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The siege lasted 872 days, or almost two and a half years, from 8 September 1941 to 27 January 1944. The Siege of Leningrad proved one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of a major city in modern history . It isolated the city from food supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga , which could not make it through until

4136-691: The Directors-General of UNESCO since its establishment in 1946 is as follows: This is the list of the sessions of the UNESCO General Conference held since 1946: Ahmet Altay Cengizer Biennial elections are held, with 58 elected representatives holding office for four years. [REDACTED]   Finland [REDACTED]   Portugal [REDACTED]   Turkey [REDACTED]   Albania [REDACTED]   Belarus [REDACTED]   Bulgaria [REDACTED]   Cuba [REDACTED]   Grenada [REDACTED]   Jamaica [REDACTED]   Saint Lucia [REDACTED]   Saint Vincent and

4230-400: The German words Sankt and Burg . In March 1917, during the February Revolution Nicholas II abdicated for himself and on behalf of his son, ending the Russian monarchy and over three hundred years of Romanov dynastic rule . On 7 November [ O.S. 25 October] 1917, the Bolsheviks , led by Vladimir Lenin , stormed the Winter Palace in an event known thereafter as

4324-411: The League of Nations essentially centred on Western Europe ). The International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC) was then created in Paris in September 1924, to act as the executing agency for the ICIC. However, the onset of World War II largely interrupted the work of these predecessor organizations. As for private initiatives, the International Bureau of Education (IBE) began to work as

4418-496: The Neva River, and a seaport on the Baltic. The names of Saints Peter and Paul , bestowed upon the original city's citadel and its cathedral (from 1725 – a burial vault of Russian emperors) coincidentally were the names of the first two assassinated Russian emperors, Peter III (1762, supposedly killed in a conspiracy led by his wife, Catherine the Great ) and Paul I (1801, Nikolay Alexandrovich Zubov and other conspirators who brought to power Alexander I ,

4512-442: The Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage ) and 2005 ( Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions ). An intergovernmental meeting of UNESCO in Paris in December 1951 led to the creation of the European Council for Nuclear Research , which was responsible for establishing the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) later on, in 1954. Arid Zone programming, 1948–1966,

4606-549: The Soviet era, many historic architectural monuments of the previous centuries were destroyed by the new regime for ideological reasons. While that mainly concerned churches and cathedrals, some other buildings were also demolished. On 1 December 1934, Sergey Kirov , the Bolshevik leader of Leningrad, was assassinated under suspicious circumstances, which became the pretext for the Great Purge . In Leningrad, approximately 40,000 were executed during Stalin's purges. During World War II, German forces besieged Leningrad following

4700-504: The Soviet–Finnish border moved northwards. Nevsky Prospekt with Palace Square maintained the functions and the role of a city centre. In December 1931, Leningrad was administratively separated from Leningrad Oblast . At that time it included the Leningrad Suburban District, some parts of which were transferred back to Leningrad Oblast in 1936 and turned into Vsevolozhsky District , Krasnoselsky District , Pargolovsky District and Slutsky District (renamed Pavlovsky District in 1944). During

4794-431: The United States and Israel lost UNESCO voting rights in 2013 without losing the right to be elected; thus, the United States was elected as a member of the executive board for the period 2016–19. In 2019, Israel left UNESCO after 69 years of membership, with Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Danon writing: "UNESCO is the body that continually rewrites history, including by erasing the Jewish connection to Jerusalem... it

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4888-400: The Winter Palace and prohibited spacing between buildings. During the reign of Catherine the Great in the 1760s–1780s, the banks of the Neva were lined with granite embankments. However, it was not until 1850 that the first permanent bridge across the Neva, Annunciation Bridge , was allowed to open. Before that, only pontoon bridges were allowed. Obvodny Canal (dug in 1769–1833) became

4982-508: The acting mayor Pyotr Sergeevich Popkov, and all their deputies; overall 23 leaders were sentenced to the death penalty, 181 to prison or exile (rehabilitated in 1954). About 2,000 ranking officials across the USSR were expelled from the party and the Komsomol and removed from leadership positions. The Leningrad Metro underground rapid transit system , designed before the war, opened in 1955 with its first eight stations decorated with marble and bronze . However, after Stalin's death in 1953,

5076-412: The area. At the end of the 17th century, Peter the Great, who was interested in seafaring and maritime affairs, wanted Russia to gain a seaport to trade with the rest of Europe. He needed a better seaport than the country's main one at the time, Arkhangelsk , which was on the White Sea in the far north and closed to shipping during the winter. On 12 May [ O.S. 1 May] 1703, during

5170-440: The author of the first nickname of Petersburg which he called Петри ( Petri ). It took some years until the known Russian spelling of this name finally settled. In 1740s Mikhail Lomonosov uses a derivative of Greek: Πετρόπολις (Петрополис, Petropolis ) in a Russified form Petropol ' (Петрополь). A combo Piterpol (Питерпол) also appears at this time. In any case, eventually the usage of prefix " Sankt- " ceased except for

5264-514: The city architecture of the early 18th century. In 1724 the Academy of Sciences , University and Academic Gymnasium were established in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great. In 1725, Peter died at age fifty-two. His endeavors to modernize Russia had been opposed by the Russian nobility . There were several attempts on his life and a treason case involving his son. In 1728, Peter II of Russia moved his seat back to Moscow. But four years later, in 1732, under Empress Anna of Russia , Saint Petersburg

5358-400: The city authorities arranged for the mayoral elections and a referendum upon the city's name, when the original name Saint Petersburg was restored. The turnout was 65%; 66.13% of the total count of votes went to Anatoly Sobchak , who became the first directly elected mayor of the city . Meanwhile, economic conditions started to deteriorate as the country tried to adapt to major changes. For

5452-496: The city authorities until December 2010, when after the statement of President Dmitry Medvedev , the city decided to find a more appropriate location for this project. In the same year, the new location for the project was relocated to Lakhta , a historical area northwest of the city centre, and the new project would be named Lakhta Center . Construction was approved by Gazprom and the city administration and commenced in 2012. The 462 m (1,516 ft) high Lakhta Center has become

5546-407: The city during the first sixty years, culminating in the Elizabethan Baroque, represented most notably by Italian Bartolomeo Rastrelli with such buildings as the Winter Palace . In the 1760s, Baroque architecture was succeeded by neoclassical architecture . Established in 1762, the Commission of Stone Buildings of Moscow and Saint Petersburg ruled that no structure in the city could be higher than

5640-414: The city has the nickname of being "the Northern Capital of Russia" and is home to notable federal government bodies such as the Constitutional Court of Russia and the Heraldic Council of the President of the Russian Federation . It is also a seat for the National Library of Russia and a planned location for the Supreme Court of Russia , as well as the home to the headquarters of the Russian Navy , and

5734-415: The city was renamed Leningrad in January 1924. The referendum on restoring the historic name was held on 12 June 1991, with 55% of voters supporting " Saint Petersburg " and 43% supporting " Leningrad ". The turnout was 65% . Renaming the city Petrograd was not an option. This change officially took effect on 6 September 1991. Meanwhile, the oblast whose administrative center is also in Saint Petersburg

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5828-410: The city's name in English was Saint Petersburgh . This spelling survives in the name of a street in the Bayswater district of London, near St Sophia's Cathedral , named after a visit by the Tsar to London in 1814. A 14 to 15-letter-long name, composed of the three roots , proved too cumbersome, and many shortened versions were used. The first General Governor of the city Menshikov is maybe also

5922-412: The commission, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Seán MacBride ). The same year, UNESCO created the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC), a multilateral forum designed to promote media development in developing countries. In 1993, UNESCO's General Conference endorsed the Windhoek Declaration on media independence and pluralism, which led the UN General Assembly to declare

6016-429: The date of its adoption, 3 May, as World Press Freedom Day . Since 1997, UNESCO has awarded the UNESCO / Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize every 3 May. UNESCO admitted Palestine as a member in 2011. Laws passed in the United States after Palestine applied for UNESCO and WHO membership in April 1989 mean that the United States cannot contribute financially to any UN organization that accepts Palestine as

6110-422: The diffusion of national science bureaucracies. In the field of communication, the "free flow of ideas by word and image" has been in UNESCO's constitution since it was established, following the experience of the Second World War when control of information was a factor in indoctrinating populations for aggression. In the years immediately following World War II, efforts were concentrated on reconstruction and on

6204-447: The early work of UNESCO in the education field was a pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, which was launched in 1947. Following this project one of expert missions to other countries, included a 1949 mission to Afghanistan. UNESCO recommended in 1948 that Member countries should make free primary education compulsory and universal. The World Conference on Education for All , in Jomtien , Thailand, started

6298-492: The first tallest skyscraper in Russia and Europe outside of Moscow. UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO ; pronounced / j uː ˈ n ɛ s k oʊ / ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It has 194 member states and 12 associate members, as well as partners in

6392-400: The first time since the 1940s, food rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad. This dramatic time was depicted in photographic series of Russian photographer Alexey Titarenko . Economic conditions began to improve only at the beginning of the 21st century. In 1995, a northern section of the Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line of the Saint Petersburg Metro

6486-400: The formal official documents, where a three-letter abbreviation "СПб" ( SPb ) was very widely used as well. In the 1830s Alexander Pushkin translated the "foreign" city name of "Saint Petersburg" to the more Russian Petrograd (Russian: Петроград , IPA: [pʲɪtrɐˈgrat] ) in one of his poems. However, it was only on 31 August [ O.S. 18 August] 1914, after

6580-426: The former capital of Imperial Russia , and a historically strategic port , it is governed as a federal city . The city was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703 on the site of a captured Swedish fortress , and was named after the apostle Saint Peter . In Russia , Saint Petersburg is historically and culturally associated with the birth of the Russian Empire and Russia's entry into modern history as

6674-411: The head of the city administration . The title of the city head was changed from "mayor" to "governor". In 2000, Yakovlev won re-election. His second term expired in 2004; the long-awaited restoration of the broken subway connection was expected to finish by that time. But in 2003 Yakovlev suddenly resigned, leaving the governor's office to Valentina Matviyenko . The law on election of the City Governor

6768-540: The identification of needs for means of mass communication around the world. UNESCO started organizing training and education for journalists in the 1950s. In response to calls for a " New World Information and Communication Order " in the late 1970s, UNESCO established the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems, which produced the 1980 MacBride report (named after the chair of

6862-529: The influence of science on society. The journal ceased publication in 1992. UNESCO also published Museum International Quarterly from the year 1948. UNESCO has official relations with 322 international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Most of these are what UNESCO calls "operational"; a select few are "formal". The highest form of affiliation to UNESCO is "formal associate", and the 22 NGOs with formal associate (ASC) relations occupying offices at UNESCO are: The institutes are specialized departments of

6956-420: The lake froze. More than one million civilians were killed, mainly from starvation. There were incidents of cannibalism, with around 2,000 residents arrested for eating other people. Many others escaped or were evacuated, so the city became largely depopulated. On 1 May 1945 Joseph Stalin , in his Supreme Commander Order No. 20, named Leningrad, alongside Stalingrad , Sevastopol , and Odesa , hero cities of

7050-724: The necessity for an international organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China , the United Kingdom, the United States and the USSR. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944. Upon the proposal of CAME and in accordance with the recommendations of the United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO), held in San Francisco from April to June 1945,

7144-582: The organization that support UNESCO's programme, providing specialized support for cluster and national offices. UNESCO awards 26 prizes in education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, communication and information as well as peace: International Days observed at UNESCO are provided in the table below: As of July 2023 , UNESCO has 194 member states and 12 associate members. Some members are not independent states and some members have additional National Organizing Committees from some of their dependent territories . UNESCO state parties are

7238-500: The organization's fields of competence. As member states worked together over time to realize UNESCO's mandate, political and historical factors have shaped the organization's operations in particular during the Cold War , the decolonization process, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union . Among the major achievements of the organization is its work against racism, for example through influential statements on race starting with

7332-476: The organization: West Europe (5), Central America (1), North America (2), West Africa (1), East Asia (1), and East Europe (1). To date, there has been no elected Director-General from the remaining ten regions within UNESCO: Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central and North Asia, Middle East, North Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, South Africa, Australia-Oceania, and South America. The list of

7426-471: The original name, Sankt-Peterburg , was returned by citywide referendum. Today, in English the city is known as Saint Petersburg . Local residents often refer to the city by its shortened nickname, Piter (Russian: Питер , IPA: [ˈpʲitʲɪr] ). After the October Revolution the name Red Petrograd (Красный Петроград, Krasny Petrograd ) was often used in newspapers and other prints until

7520-489: The perceived ornamental excesses of the Stalinist architecture were abandoned. From the 1960s to the 1980s many new residential boroughs were built on the outskirts; while the functionalist apartment blocks were nearly identical to each other, many families moved there from kommunalkas in the city centre to live in separate apartments. On 12 June 1991 , simultaneously with the first Russian SFSR presidential elections ,

7614-488: The post-war decades, partially according to pre-war plans. The 1948 general plan for Leningrad featured radial urban development in the north as well as in the south. In 1953, Pavlovsky District in Leningrad Oblast was abolished, and parts of its territory, including Pavlovsk, merged with Leningrad. In 1954, the settlements Levashovo , Pargolovo and Pesochny merged with Leningrad. Leningrad gave its name to

7708-600: The preservation of its historical and architectural environment became controversial. After 2005, the demolition of older buildings in the historical centre was permitted. In 2006, Gazprom announced an ambitious project to erect a 403 m (1,322 ft) skyscraper (the Okhta Center ) opposite to Smolny , which could result in the loss of the unique line of Petersburg landscape. Urgent protests by citizens and prominent public figures of Russia against this project were not considered by Governor Valentina Matviyenko and

7802-670: The son of their victim). The third emperor's assassination took place in Saint Petersburg in 1881 when Alexander II was murdered by terrorists (see the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood ). The Revolution of 1905 began in Saint Petersburg and spread rapidly into the provinces. On 1 September 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, the Imperial government renamed the city Petrograd , meaning "Peter's City", to remove

7896-710: The southern limit of the city. The most prominent neoclassical and Empire-style architects in Saint Petersburg included: In 1810, Alexander I established the first engineering higher education , the Saint Petersburg Main military engineering School in Saint Petersburg. Many monuments commemorate the Russian victory over Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of 1812 , including the Alexander Column by Montferrand, erected in 1834, and

7990-541: The supervision of Alexander Menshikov . Tens of thousands of serfs died while building the city. Later, the city became the centre of the Saint Petersburg Governorate . Peter moved the capital from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in 1712, nine years before the Treaty of Nystad of 1721 ended the war. He referred to Saint Petersburg as the capital (or seat of government) as early as 1704. While the city

8084-611: The war with Germany had begun, that Tsar Nicholas II renamed the city Petrograd in order to expunge the German words Sankt and Burg . Since the prefix "Saint" was omitted, this act also changed the eponym and the "patron" of the city from Saint Peter to Peter the Great, its founder. On 26 January 1924, shortly after the death of Vladimir Lenin , it was renamed to Leningrad (Russian: Ленинград , IPA: [lʲɪnʲɪnˈgrat] ), meaning 'Lenin City'. On 6 September 1991,

8178-715: The war. A law acknowledging the honorary title of "Hero City" passed on 8 May 1965 (the 20th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War), during the Brezhnev era . The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR awarded Leningrad as a Hero City the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal "for the heroic resistance of the city and tenacity of the survivors of the Siege". The Hero-City Obelisk bearing

8272-515: The world's living species, such as the komodo dragon of Indonesia, the panda of China, the bald eagle of North American countries, the aye-aye of Madagascar, the Asiatic lion of India, the kākāpō of New Zealand, and the mountain tapir of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. UNESCO and its specialized institutions issue a number of magazines. Created in 1945, The UNESCO Courier magazine states its mission to "promote UNESCO's ideals, maintain

8366-654: Was again designated as the capital of the Russian Empire . It remained the seat of the Romanov dynasty and the Imperial Court of the Russian tsars , as well as the seat of the Russian government, for another 186 years until the communist revolution of 1917 . In 1736–1737 the city suffered from catastrophic fires. To rebuild the damaged boroughs, a committee under Burkhard Christoph von Münnich commissioned

8460-593: Was being built, Peter lived in a three-room log cabin with his wife Catherine and their children. During its first few years, the city developed around Trinity Square on the right bank of the Neva, near the Peter and Paul Fortress. However, Saint Petersburg soon started to be built out according to a plan. By 1716 the Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini had elaborated a project whereby the city centre would be on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by

8554-530: Was changed, breaking the tradition of democratic election by universal suffrage that started in 1991. In 2006, the city legislature re-approved Matviyenko as governor. Residential building had intensified again; real-estate prices inflated greatly, which caused many new problems for the preservation of the historical part of the city. Although the central part of the city has a UNESCO designation (there are about 8,000 architectural monuments in Petersburg),

8648-400: Was cut off by underground flooding, creating a major obstacle to the city development for almost ten years. On 13 June 1996, Saint Petersburg, alongside Leningrad Oblast and Tver Oblast , signed a power-sharing agreement with the federal government, granting it autonomy. This agreement was abolished on 4 April 2002. In 1996, Vladimir Yakovlev defeated Anatoly Sobchak in the elections for

8742-594: Was readmitted by the UNESCO General Conference that July. UNESCO implements its activities through five programme areas: education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, and communication and information. UNESCO does not accredit institutions of higher learning. The UNESCO transparency portal has been designed to enable public access to information regarding the Organization's activities, such as its aggregate budget for

8836-546: Was renamed Leningrad . Later many streets and other toponyms were renamed accordingly, with names in honour of communist figures replacing historic names given centuries before. The city has over 230 places associated with the life and activities of Lenin. Some of them were turned into museums, including the cruiser Aurora – a symbol of the October Revolution and the oldest ship in the Russian Navy . In

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