# Petersburg or Saint Petersburg



## winenous

I understand no Russian, but am reading Anna Karenina in translation and was surprised to see that the city is there consistently called Petersburg rather than Saint Petersburg. I looked at the Russian original and it seems to me that Tolstoy did the same - Петербург, and not Санкт-Петербург.

Was this the usual way of referring to the city in 19th century Russia, or is there a linguistic nuance in omitting the _Saint_? I cannot find anything about this in any English account of the various names of that city.

Many thanks for any help.


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## Vovan

winenous said:


> Was this the usual way of referring to the city in 19th century Russia <...> ?


Yes, but unofficially only.


> Установившаяся после смерти Петра I чисто немецкая форма написания «Санкт-Петербург» употреблялась до 1914 года. В неофициальном употреблении город называли Петербургом, а в просторечии — Питером.  (Source.)


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## Awwal12

winenous said:


> Was this the usual way of referring to the city in 19th century Russia, or is there a linguistic nuance in omitting the _Saint_?


It's just too long, let alone it's hard to pronounce properly ("Санкт-" typically undergoes various articulatory simplifications anyway).


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## winenous

Awwal12 said:


> It's just too long, let alone it's hard to pronounce properly ("Санкт-" typically undergoes various articulatory simplifications anyway).


I guess those reasons for leaving out Санкт remain, so is it still unofficially referred to simply as Петербург?


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## Enquiring Mind

The 'too-long' argument certainly applies, in much the same way as people in the UK might say they're going to Brum (instead of Birmingham) or Bognor (instead of Bognor Regis)
Colloquially, Saint Petersburg is often referred to as Питер/Piter (note the change of vowel - it came from the Dutch Pieter), as explained in this article by Galina Kravchenko 'Почему все называют Петербург Питером' ('Why everyone calls Petersburg Piter' - online812.ru):


> ... Город, где живут и куда едут, так не зовется. Не называется он ни Санкт-Петербургом, ни Петербургом. Называется он элементарно и просто: Питер. И никакого блеска, никакого величия. Просто Питер. _ The city where the people live and go to is not called that. It's not called Saint Petersburg or Petersburg. It's Piter - short and sweet. No flash, no pomp. Simply Piter._


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## winenous

Enquiring Mind said:


> Saint Petersburg is often referred to as Питер/Piter


Indeed. While Googling to find an anwser to my question, that often came up. But I didn't find any mention of Санкт being omitted - just some incidental references to it, as in your quotation. I guess the reason is that it so natural and easily understandable? Indeed, I was well into Anna Karenina before I even noticed.

I was trying to think of "Saint" examples in English, but I couldn't, perhaps because Saint is so easy to say, and usually comes out as "snt". Bognor is slightly different, because that is the place's original name, but you are quite right that town names are abbreviated sometimes.


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## Panceltic

winenous said:


> Indeed. While Googling to find an anwser to my question, that often came up. But I didn't find any mention of Санкт being omitted - just some incidental references to it, as in your quotation. I guess the reason is that it so natural and easily understandable? Indeed, I was well into Anna Karenina before I even noticed.
> 
> I was trying to think of "Saint" examples in English, but I couldn't, perhaps because Saint is so easy to say, and usually comes out as "snt". Bognor is slightly different, because that is the place's original name, but you are quite right that town names are abbreviated sometimes.



I think a good analogy is *Royal Leamington Spa* which is usually called just ‘Leam’.


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## winenous

Thank you for your help so far. I have a simple follow-up question: Is the city still often unofficially referred to as Петербург?


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## Vovan

winenous said:


> Is the city still often unofficially referred to as Петербург?


Oh yes. "Петербург" is almost the default option in the news (a Google search link), so we see/hear it every day. Informally, the word is also heard - somewhat less often, though.


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## Vovan

Panceltic said:


> I think a good analogy is *Royal Leamington Spa* which is usually called just ‘Leam’.


"Britain vs. Great Britain" may be a closer analogy to "Петербург vs. Санкт-Петербург".
Yours is to "Питер vs. Санкт-Петербург".


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## nizzebro

I'd say that it is Петербург in case it is a known subject, that is true for local media and even official speech. If this city is mentioned as one among others, it is Cанкт-Петербург as the rule.
If someone in Siberia says to their friends that he or she is planning on going there, they might say "Санкт-Петербург" if they had never been there. If that is a usual deal for them, they would say  "Петербург" or "Питер". Locals widely use "Питер" in casual speech.
The associated adjective is mostly 'петербургский', except official names of facilities ('Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет' or the noun in the genitive case - 'Администрация Санкт-Петербурга').


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## Linnets

In Italian, in past times, the city was known as _Pietroburgo_ as well.


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## winenous

Thank you, everyone, for your help!


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## Lorenc

Awwal12 said:


> It's just too long, let alone it's hard to pronounce properly ("Санкт-" typically undergoes various articulatory simplifications anyway).



Just wondering: is the average Russian aware that Санкт means святой ?


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## Awwal12

Lorenc said:


> Just wondering: is the average Russian aware that Санкт means святой ?


Well, it's hard to tell for sure what the average Russian might think, but I suppose that a minimally educated Russian (the one who didn't skip his school classes too much and used to read some books) realizes that all those Sankt-/Saint-/San-/Santa- etc. mean basically the same thing.


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## nizzebro

Worth noting, that prefix is not used in city names other than St. Pete, let alone in this particular form which, I believe, is not identified with saints at all - rather with something like European style along with greatness and uniqueness, which were actually the founder's intention.


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## Awwal12

nizzebro said:


> which, I believe, is not identified with saints at all - rather with something like European style along with greatness and uniqueness, which were actually the founder's intention.


Officially, cities of the Russian Empire were being named after particular saints only. Coincidentally, these saints were also the reigning sovereigns' heavenly patrons.  That's the reasoning not only behind St.Petersburg, but also behind Yekaterinburg, Yekaterinodar (now Krasnodar) etc.


nizzebro said:


> Worth noting, that prefix is not used in city names other than St. Pete


It is used in the names of some obscure towns and villages in the German-speaking area, but it isn't the point. Everyone knows that the English have calqued Sankt- as Saint-, and the phonetic similarity to the various formants mentioned above is just too apparent even without that.


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## nizzebro

Awwal12 said:


> Officially, cities of the Russian Empire were being named after particular saints only. Coincidentally, these saints were also the reigning sovereigns' heavenly patrons.  That's the reasoning not only behind St.Petersburg, but also behind Yekaterinburg, Yekaterinodar (now Kradnodar) etc.


No objection; my point was the prefix only (considering its connotations for an ordinary person) - as I got the feeling that our foreign friends might wonder why it is  dropped so easily.


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## Lorenc

nizzebro said:


> No objection; my point was the prefix only (considering its connotations for an ordinary person) - as I got the feeling that our foreign friends might wonder why it is dropped so easily.



Thanks. From my Italian perspective "Saint Petersburg" is a tiny bit strange in itself: in Italy there are many towns beginning with "San" or "Sant" (San Gimigniano, Sant'Angelo Lodigiano,...) but after "San" one expects the name of the saint, not the name of a city (which cannot be saint). And the "San" part is never dropped.


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## Awwal12

Lorenc said:


> but after "San" one expects the name of the saint, not the name of a city


That's merely the matter of relative order of dependencies in the morphological structure.  In German (and in "St.Petersburg" Russian just calques the German structures) it's obviously [[Sankt-N]sburg], not [Sankt-[Nsburg]].


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