History of Saint Petersburg
Founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703. It became capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years (1712–1728, 1732–1918). St. Petersburg ceased being the capital in 1918 after the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Landmarks of Saint Petersburg
St Petersburg Buddhist temple was the first in Europe. Construction was funded by subscriptions of the Dalai Lama and Russian and Mongolian Buddhists; the structure was inaugurated in the presence of Itigilov in 1914 and served as a valuable resource to transient Buryats, Kalmyks and other Buddhists during World War I. It did not function from 1935 to 1991, when the lamas were exiled to gulags, and the temple and its grounds were used for secular purposes. In 1991 the St. Petersburg datsan was reopened for worship.