The second-largest city in Russia, with a population of 5.6 million, St Petersburg was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703 on the site of a captured Swedish fortress, and was named after the apostle Saint Peter.
It was the historical capital of the Tsardom of Russia, and the subsequent Russian Empire, from 1713 to 1918, but after the October Revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks moved their government to Moscow. The city’s name had changed to Petrograd in 1914 and again in 1924 to Leningrad before a city-wide referendum in 1990 returned it to its original name.
It has always been renowned as a bastion of high culture, thanks to its museums and its long tradition of opera and ballet productions. The first jazz club in Russia was founded in the city in the 1920s, and it has also been home to many of the Russian rock and pop bands who were in due course grudgingly accepted by the old authorities in the 70s and 80s. Not that today’s featured band had anything to do with that period of time.
mp3: Supergrass – St.Petersburg
The first single to be taken from their fifth album, Road to Rouen (2005), reached #22 in August 2005. It was the first release a year after the singles-heavy compilation album Supergrass is 10, and laid down a marker for what proved to be a significant change in direction to a far more downbeat and sedate sound, one which saw a drop in sales in comparison to the previous four albums.
It’s a move I welcomed at the time, and I still am happy to give Road to Rouen a spin on the CD player.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
They got their surfboards and they’re going to The Hermitage-a-go-go.