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St Petersburg was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great on land which he had recently conquered from which European power?

Sweden. At the beginning of the 18th Century Russia had no Baltic coastline and was hemmed in by Poland and Sweden. Peter the Great was obsessed with gaining access to the sea and with modernising Russia. He also despised his capital of Moscow. The city was founded during the course of the Great Northern War between Sweden and Russia and its allies, Poland, Denmark and Saxony. The war would see the decline of Sweden as a major European power and the emergence of Russia as a major player.

Which river flows through St Petersburg?

Neva. St Petersburg is situated close to the mouth of the Neva which flows into the Gulf of Finland.

Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 outside a church in St Petersburg which has since become known as the Church of the Spilled Blood. What is its correct title?

Church of the Resurrection of Christ. The church is modelled on St Basil's Cathedral in Moscow with plenty of that cathedral's trademark "onion" domes.

Which Russian empress commissioned the Winter Palace?

Elizabeth. The building was designed by the Italian architect Rastrelli and completed in 1762. Elizabeth herself never resided in the Winter Palace, dying the same year it was completed.

Which empress began the Hermitage collection?

Catherine II. Originally begun as Catherine the Great's private art collection (hence the name), the Hermitage Museum is now home to thousands of works of art and fills the whole of the neighbouring Winter Palace as well as the original Hermitage building.

By what name was St Petersburg known between 1914 and 1924?

Petrograd. With the outbreak of the First World War, St Petersburg was considered too German sounding for the Russian capital and the name was Russified to Petrograd. After Lenin's death in 1924 the Bolshevik government renamed the city Leningrad in his honour. In 1991, after the fall of communism, the city reverted to its original name.

Which historical personage was assassinated at the Yusupov Palace in St Petersburg?

Grigory Rasputin. All four of these personages were assassinated but only the infamous Rasputin was murdered at the Yusupov Palace. Many people in pre-revolutionary Russian society were alarmed at the influence Rasputin appeared to have over the Russian royal family. In 1916 a group of nobles, headed by Prince Felix Yusupov, decided to do away with Rasputin. He was invited to the Yusupov Palace and given cakes and wine laced with poison but when that failed to do the trick they shot him and dumped his body in the river Neva, where he died...by drowning.

A statue of which tsar sits atop the column in St Petersburg built to commemorate Russia's victory over Napoleon?

Alexander I. Alexander I was emperor from 1801-1825. Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 but was beaten back by the sheer size of Russia and its brutal winter.

In 1998 the remains of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra and their children were buried within St Petesburg. In which church?

Peter and Paul Cathedral. Nicholas, Alexandra and their children had been killed by the Bolsheviks eighty years previously in Yekaterinburg. The Peter and Paul Cathedral, within the Peter and Paul Fortress, is the final resting place of most of the Romanov emperors.

In 1941 the city of Leningrad (as St Petersburg was then called) was besieged by German forces. How long did this siege last?

900 days. The siege lasted from the 8th of September, 1941 until the 27th of January, 1944. It is thought that as many as 800,000 Leningraders perished during the siege. The city became the first to be awarded the title Hero City.