Thread: St. Petersburg, why is "burg" there?

Hi
Can anyone explain to me why the name of the city St. Petersburg ends with burg?
Has the word burg (or something like it) any meaning in russian?
I've learned german and there die Burg means fortress, castle and many cities and towns there have it in their names.
Is it not more appropriate to use the word "grad" ( град ) as it is the case in many other names of the cities not just in Russia but in other slavic countries as well?
St. Petersburg was called Petrograd(1914-1924) briefly before it became Leningrad , wasn't it?

I guess Peter the Great wanted his new capital to have a "European" name. Quite a few other Russian towns had "Burg" in them, too.

Originally Posted by Горан

Can anyone explain to me why the name of the city St. Petersburg ends with burg?
I've learned german and there die Burg means fortress, castle and many cities and towns there have it in their names.

That's because Russians and Germans are the same people. Have you ever wondered why a particular part of Germany is called (P)russia?

Is it not more appropriate to use the word "grad" ( град ) as it is the case in many other names of the cities not just in Russia but in other slavic countries as well?

No, "grad" would be inappropriate - reeks of the Scandinavian "gaard" too much.

Has the word burg (or something like it) any meaning in russian?

Of course. There's бугор - за бугром originally meant "out of town". And then, of course, there's the German/Russian meaning of the word - fortress, castle, etc.

BTW За бугром means abroad. Забугреж.

Originally Posted by Горан

Hi
Can anyone explain to me why the name of the city St. Petersburg ends with burg?

The city was founded by Petr the Great, who is well known as germanophile. Almost everything of his inventions (for example, system of "collegies" to govern the Russian Empire) has not russian-based, but german-based names.

Originally Posted by Горан

Has the word burg (or something like it) any meaning in russian?

No (although even people not familiar with german easily recognise its meaning as "fortified city", "castle").

Originally Posted by Горан

Is it not more appropriate to use the word "grad" ( град ) as it is the case in many other names of the cities not just in Russia but in other slavic countries as well?
St. Petersburg was called Petrograd(1914-1924) briefly before it became Leningrad , wasn't it?

You're right -- after beginning of WW I the common anti-german opininons lead to "russification" of it's name. And, BTW, the translation is seriously flawed. Because the city was St. Peterburg (e.g. city of Saint Peter, not of Peter the Greaa) it really should become Svyatopetrograd or something alike.

thank you everyone

Originally Posted by Горан

thanks to all of you for your explanations

Especially VendingMachine's.

Goran, I'm glad you are thanking everyone for their explanations, but mostly they are just pulling your leg.

Your question is akin to asking "Why is it 'New' York"? is there an Old York somewhere? Why do we have Meckenberg County in Virginia?

Why do I live in Chapel Hill when there is no chapel for miles around?

I would like to know what your underlying question was.

Originally Posted by chaika

Your question is akin to asking "Why is it 'New' York"? is there an Old York somewhere?

I don't see why - that's a perfectly good question to which there is a simple answer.

Originally Posted by chaika

Goran, I'm glad you are thanking everyone for their explanations, but mostly they are just pulling your leg.

“Mostly” means “VendingMachine”?

thanking was courtesy, I asked a question, and received the replies. I am aware what kind of answers I got, every answer says enough about the person who wrote it.

I wasn't asking why the city was named after this or that Saint( in this case St. Peter) or anything alike.
I was curious to find out why the name of the city (which was for a long time Russian capital) sounds more German than Russian( in my opinion).

Originally Posted by chaika

Your question is akin to asking "Why is it 'New' York"? is there an Old York somewhere?

There's York in England, right? It is old. So American York is "New".

Originally Posted by Alex_Ivanov

Originally Posted by chaika

Your question is akin to asking "Why is it 'New' York"? is there an Old York somewhere?

There's York in England, right? It is old. So American York is "New".

For your information, there's quite a handful of New Yorks in England - there's a Humberside New York, there's a Staffordshire New York, there's a Tyne and Wear New York, there's a Kent New York...

Goran, ok, sorry for being facetious, but you have a point. And someone above gave you the right answer. Peter I (the Great), who built the Northern Capital on swampland around 1700, was enamoured of Europe, wanted it to be the gateway to Europe, for trade, among other things*, and gave it a fitting European name. I don't know where the Санкт- part of it came from. It continued as Санкт-Петербург for two centuries.

Then the city was renamed and was called Петроград Petrograd -- just what you'd expect -- for the period 1914-1924. When the Great Leader died in 1924, it was renamed again and called Ленинград. So they had kept the full slavicness of the name (after all Ленин took his name from the Лена river). Then around 1991 it went back to its original name, Санкт-Петербург.


* Pushkin's poem Медный всадник, The Bronze Horseman, begins thus (and "everyone" knows at least the first few lines, so they're worth memorizing):

На берегу пустынных волн
Стоял он, дум великих полн, [i.e. Peter]
И вдаль глядел. Пред ним широко
Река неслася; бедный чёлн
По ней стремился одиноко.
По мшистым, топким берегам
Чернели избы здесь и там,
Приют убогого чухонца;
И лес, неведомый лучам
В тумане спрятанного солнца,
Кругом шумел.

И думал он:
Отсель грозить мы будем шведу,
Здесь будет город заложен
На зло надменному соседу.
Природой здесь нам суждено
В Европу прорубить окно,
Ногою твердой стать при море.
Сюда по новым им волнам
Все флаги в гости будут к нам
И запируем на просторе.

Originally Posted by chaika

I don't know where the Санкт- part of it came from.

Oh, I don't know, let me see now. Hmm....... Saint Peter the apostle. A one and only you know and also a big fan of Jesus. But I'm sure you already learned this in Mother Earth 101.

The original name of Sankt Piterburh was actually Dutch, also.

Yes, but Sankt is the German(and perhaps some other Germanic language as well) word for "saint." The proper Russian word is "святой/святая".

Hmm, oh, yes, DDT you must be right. He probably was too modest to have people thinking he was naming this city after himself.

But I disagree about where you learn about St. Peter. I would expect you'd learn about saints in Orthodox Religions 101, which has nothing to do with Mother Earth. The current major religions are male-dominated and about as far removed from Mother Earth as you can get (they all focus on the sky).

I'm sorry Chaika that was just my poor atempt at humour.
But it is true that the apostle Peter was Peter the Greats patron saint.

Ленин does not took his name from Лена river. There is a common women's name Лена in russian, which is short form of Елена, the name with Greek origin (Remember the Troyan War). Other version may be that there is Russian word лень (lazyness).