What do you think?
Rate this book
Saint Petersburg: Sacrifice and Redemption in the City That Defied Hitler
'One of my favourite historians' Dan Snow
Built by slave labour in the early years of the eighteenth century, Saint Petersburg was Peter the Great’s so-called ‘window on to Europe’, a city that would outdo all of Europe in its splendour. But a window works both ways, and as bestselling historian Sinclair McKay writes, St Petersburg has always been a city that has drawn Westerners who wanted to see into Russia. It is also a city where much has happened. It was St Petersburg until 1917, Petrograd after the revolution, Leningrad after Lenin’s death in 1924, and St Petersburg once again from 1991.
This biography of a city stretches from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin, who was born and made in St Petersburg. The story centres the ‘900 days and nights’ of the Siege of Leningrad, 1941–44. Unlike Paris or Prague, the Nazis weren’t trying to take over, they wanted to wipe it off the map. According to some, this siege of 1.5 million people – including Putin’s mother – was an attempted genocide. Based on first-hand and many unpublished accounts from figures from all walks of life – irascible authors, factory workers, bakers, furriers, dancers, sailors, grandparents, children – this masterpiece reveals the central importance of St Petersburg over the centuries. This is the story of the city told from the perspective of the people who lived there.
Built by slave labour in the early years of the eighteenth century, Saint Petersburg was Peter the Great’s so-called ‘window on to Europe’, a city that would outdo all of Europe in its splendour. But a window works both ways, and as bestselling historian Sinclair McKay writes, St Petersburg has always been a city that has drawn Westerners who wanted to see into Russia. It is also a city where much has happened. It was St Petersburg until 1917, Petrograd after the revolution, Leningrad after Lenin’s death in 1924, and St Petersburg once again from 1991.
This biography of a city stretches from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin, who was born and made in St Petersburg. The story centres the ‘900 days and nights’ of the Siege of Leningrad, 1941–44. Unlike Paris or Prague, the Nazis weren’t trying to take over, they wanted to wipe it off the map. According to some, this siege of 1.5 million people – including Putin’s mother – was an attempted genocide. Based on first-hand and many unpublished accounts from figures from all walks of life – irascible authors, factory workers, bakers, furriers, dancers, sailors, grandparents, children – this masterpiece reveals the central importance of St Petersburg over the centuries. This is the story of the city told from the perspective of the people who lived there.
400 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 10, 2025
About the author
Sinclair McKay
56 books179 followersSinclair McKay writes regularly for the Daily Telegraph and The Secret Listeners and has written books about James Bond and Hammer horror for Aurum. His next book, about the wartime “Y” Service during World War II, is due to be published by Aurum in 2012. He lives in London.
-Source
-Source
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 24, 2026
Yura is 16, in the summer of 1940 he’s looking forward to life, enthusiastic about studying and a keen member of the young soviets pioneer group. Six months later he’s walking with a stick, so weak he can’t walk down the stairs to get on the transport which would have taken him, with his mum and sister, across ‘ the road of life’, a road formed by the Russian military across the icy lake Lagoda that may have saved him. Instead, he died alone, in a frozen apartment in a starving city. This book isn’t for the faint hearted, the author details the privations and inhumanity of operation Barbarossa for the people of Leningrad. To read this is to begin to understand the Russian people; their absolute steely determination and preternatural ability to withstand what can only be described as hell. However, for me, it is hard to make sense of why Putin would inflict similar on the people of Ukraine when the consequences of Barossa were so close to home for him, he too lost an older brother to starvation during that time.
July 13, 2025
Book Review: Saint Petersburg: Sacrifice and Redemption in the City That Defied Hitler by Sinclair McKay
Rating: 5/5
Sinclair McKay’s Saint Petersburg is a masterwork of historical storytelling—a book that left me emotionally gutted yet profoundly inspired. McKay doesn’t just recount the Siege of Leningrad; he immerses readers in the visceral horror and transcendent resilience of a city that refused to die. The harrowing details—starving citizens eating wallpaper paste, crematorium workers numbing their trauma with vodka—are rendered with such unflinching clarity that I had to pause multiple times to steady my breathing. Yet McKay’s genius lies in balancing these horrors with luminous moments of defiance: the symphony performances amid bombings, the librarians guarding precious manuscripts under artillery fire. These passages hum with a life force that transcends despair.
The book’s structural brilliance shines in its interweaving of the siege narrative with Saint Petersburg’s broader history, from Peter the Great’s imperial dreams to Putin’s political theater. McKay’s analysis of how the city’s identity morphed through revolutions and renaming (Petrograd → Leningrad → Saint Petersburg) is particularly revelatory. If I had one critique, it’s that the pre-20th-century sections occasionally feel abbreviated compared to the siege’s granular detail—though this is a minor quibble in a work of such scope.
By the final page, I felt haunted by the paradox McKay so elegantly captures: that a city synonymous with tsarist opulence became, for 900 days, the ultimate testament to democratic courage.
Takeaway impressions of this book:
-A symphony of suffering and survival—McKay’s prose echoes Shostakovich in its devastating power.
-For fans of The Diary of Anne Frank and Bloodlands—this is WWII history at its most human and harrowing.
-The siege of Leningrad has never been rendered with such raw intimacy. A book that scars the soul.
-McKay proves cities aren’t just built of stone—they’re forged in collective will. A masterpiece of urban biography.
-Warning: You’ll emerge from this book forever changed. Saint Petersburg’s ghosts will walk with you.
Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Edelweiss for the advance copy. Saint Petersburg isn’t just history—it’s a monument to the indomitable human spirit, etched in McKay’s unforgettable prose.
Rating: 5/5
Sinclair McKay’s Saint Petersburg is a masterwork of historical storytelling—a book that left me emotionally gutted yet profoundly inspired. McKay doesn’t just recount the Siege of Leningrad; he immerses readers in the visceral horror and transcendent resilience of a city that refused to die. The harrowing details—starving citizens eating wallpaper paste, crematorium workers numbing their trauma with vodka—are rendered with such unflinching clarity that I had to pause multiple times to steady my breathing. Yet McKay’s genius lies in balancing these horrors with luminous moments of defiance: the symphony performances amid bombings, the librarians guarding precious manuscripts under artillery fire. These passages hum with a life force that transcends despair.
The book’s structural brilliance shines in its interweaving of the siege narrative with Saint Petersburg’s broader history, from Peter the Great’s imperial dreams to Putin’s political theater. McKay’s analysis of how the city’s identity morphed through revolutions and renaming (Petrograd → Leningrad → Saint Petersburg) is particularly revelatory. If I had one critique, it’s that the pre-20th-century sections occasionally feel abbreviated compared to the siege’s granular detail—though this is a minor quibble in a work of such scope.
By the final page, I felt haunted by the paradox McKay so elegantly captures: that a city synonymous with tsarist opulence became, for 900 days, the ultimate testament to democratic courage.
Takeaway impressions of this book:
-A symphony of suffering and survival—McKay’s prose echoes Shostakovich in its devastating power.
-For fans of The Diary of Anne Frank and Bloodlands—this is WWII history at its most human and harrowing.
-The siege of Leningrad has never been rendered with such raw intimacy. A book that scars the soul.
-McKay proves cities aren’t just built of stone—they’re forged in collective will. A masterpiece of urban biography.
-Warning: You’ll emerge from this book forever changed. Saint Petersburg’s ghosts will walk with you.
Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Edelweiss for the advance copy. Saint Petersburg isn’t just history—it’s a monument to the indomitable human spirit, etched in McKay’s unforgettable prose.
April 30, 2026
I found this endlessly fascinating. My only quibble was that the first few chapters, which tell the story of Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad preWWII, are not told chronologically. The rest of the story largely is and
those first few chapters would have lended themselves to a chronological recount.
those first few chapters would have lended themselves to a chronological recount.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews