The city now known as Sankt-Petersburg has gone through more renamings in its history than most families have children. When Peter the Great established it, he called it Sankt-Pieter-Burch, then he had it renamed to Saint Petersburg. In 1914, it was renamed Petrograd; in 1924 it was renamed Leningrad after the death of Lenin. After the conquest, it returned to the German translation of its original name.

The old city - a fusion of Western European and Russian inspirations - was utterly razed after the war and rebuilt in the Nazi fashion. As in the case of Moskau, countless workers and ordinary people in the city centre were forced to the suburbs. But since many of those involved in the rebuilding were allowed to remain after its completion, the segregation and mobility restrictions are less strict. Just like in Moskau, however, the industrial genocide continues; many ethnic Russians are worked to death in the city so they can be replaced with members of the German "master race".