Communications.—Although Leningrad has three waterways, the Marii, Tikhvin and Vyshne-Volochok, linking it with the Volga system, the railways take a far greater share in freightage than the waterways. The severity of the climate prevents naviga tion for five to six months during the winter, and low water in late summer also hampers it. The Tikhvin waterway is available for small steamers only, and most goods go via the Marii route. In 1924 the total freightage was 4o% of pre-war freightage, due largely to the cutting off of much land on the west which formerly was included in Russia.
Road communication suffers here, as in many other regions of Russia from the spring thaws and the autumn rains, which con vert unmetalled tracks into seas of mud. In connection with the general poor road construction in Russia it must be remembered that Russia was the eastern outpost of Europe against nomad raiding tribes and that the government was thus obliged to con centrate on a few strategic roads for protection against them. The Soviet government is now endeavouring to provide better surface roads to enable agricultural products to reach the railways and in the Leningrad area, especially in 1927-28, many miles of macadamised roads have been laid down. The two ports of the area are Leningrad and Murmansk. Most imports and exports go through the former, since the latter is in an initial stage of de velopment and also involves heavy rail freightage costs. The chief towns (q.v.), are Leningrad, Pskov, Novgorod, Staraya Russa, Kronstadt and Cherepovetz.
Population and History.—The population in Novgorod, Pskov and Cherepovetz provinces is mainly Great Russian, with 1% of Estonians in Pskov, and I% of Karelians in Cherepovetz. In Leningrad province, excluding the city itself 77.9% are Great Russians, 11.5% Finns and 5.5% Estonians. The population of the town, as of all seaports, is mixed, 83% being Russian; other nationalities represented are Poles, Jews, Estonians, Letts, Lithu anians and Finns.
An interesting commentary on the present stage of development in Russia and on the lack of communications is the fact that in 1925-6, Professor Zolotariev discovered in the Leningrad province tribes of Veps, Izhors and Vods, numbering io to 15,00o, whose language, akin to Finnish had been thought to be extinct. The Vod tribes were living in mud huts ; they hand on swords from generation to generation instead of names. A settlement of Veps in the Lodeinopol district had no wheeled vehicles. Settlement, especially in Novgorod province, where stone age remains of Neolithic date are numerous round the beds of former lakes, is very ancient. The region between Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland was inhabited in the 9th century chiefly by Finnish tribes, though even at that date there was some Slav penetration.
The site of Leningrad was at that time a swamp. But Novgorod (q.v.), about loo m. S.E. of Leningrad, was already a flourishing
city, with a marked republican tendency, where merchants trading in slaves, fur, honey and wax along the Baltic-Black Sea route were in the ascendancy. The Varangian chief, Rurik, according to Nestor's chronicle, fortified a small Slav town on the Volkhov, called it Novgorod (New Town) and established himself there as prince. After the decline of Kiev, Novgorod became the chief centre of Russian city life and later extended its power over the surrounding district and established colonies in the Far North, extending from Lapland to Siberia; possibly traders from these colonies penetrated to the Ob in their quest for fur. At its period of greatest expansion all the lands beyond Byelo Ozero, including the north Dwina country, Russian Lapland, the region between Lake Onega and the White Sea coastlands, the upper Kama basin, the Pechora basin and the land on both sides of the Urals, had trading colonies from Novgorod.
In 1700 Peter the Great declared war on Sweden, and in 1703 captured the Swedish fortress on the Neva, and laid the founda tions of the cathedral to St. Peter and St. Paul and of a fort which received his own name. In 1704 the fort of Kronslott was erected on the island of Kotlin, and the Admiralty on the Neva, opposite the fortress. Determined "to open a window to the west," and wearied of the opposition of Moscow to his reforms, the emperor decided to build a new city on the marshy ground, driving piles into the swamp to serve as foundations.
In thus founding a channel for trade with the Baltic, Peter the Great restored an ancient trade current of Russia, to which Novgorod and Pskov had owed their rise, and the new city rapidly developed. The later construction of canals and railways linking it with the rest of the Russian empire further added to its importance. The development of the Ural and of the Ukrain ian mining and metallurgical industries did not destroy the im portance of the city. Even the removal after the 1917 revolution of the administrative centre to Moscow, the real heart of Russia, at a time when industry was at its lowest ebb and when the loss of the Baltic provinces and Poland was adversely affecting Leningrad, has merely checked, not ruined, the development of the city. One factor in this is that the very loss of these areas concentrated all trade through the Baltic to Russia in the only remaining port, Leningrad.
The presence of this large city population has modified local agriculture in the direction of meat, milk, dairy and vegetable production, has markedly diminished peasant petty trades and has intensified forest clearing to meet its fuel needs. Along with this has gone the opening up of the four provinces by canals, roads and railways, though much remains to be done. The general literacy rate, especially in the environs of Leningrad is high. (See NOVGOROD ; PSKOV.)