Palace Square, St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg is the former capital city of the Russian Empire. It was founded in 1703 by Tsar Peter the Great, who made it his capital in 1713. Except for a four year period from 1728 to 1732, St. Petersburg remained the capital until the breakup of the Russian Empire following the Russian Revolution of 1900.
During the Bloody Eighties, St. Petersburg was the only European capital other than London to avoid a popular uprising in the early months of 1880, due to the presence of loyal troops in both. However, social unrest in St. Petersburg was only delayed, not avoided. In 1888, uprisings broke out in St. Petersburg and Moscow, which the Imperial government believed to be the work of French radicals. Tsar Nicholas II ordered his secret police to put down the uprisings, which was accomplished with brutal thoroughness. By 1893, over two million Russians had been killed by the police or the army.
A second uprising began in St. Petersburg on 2 February 1900, in response to a series of Russian defeats in the Great Northern War with the United States of Mexico. The uprising soon spread throughout all of European Russia. By July, several areas of the Russian Empire had broken away, including Poland, the Ukraine, the Baltic States, and Siberia. On 17 July Tsar Nicholas was forced to abdicate in favor of his younger brother Michael, after which he and most of the Imperial family fled St. Petersburg for Great Britain. Two months later, Michael also fled, leaving St. Petersburg for exile in Sweden.