Leningrad

American  

[len-in-grad, lyi-nyin-graht] / ˈlɛn ɪnˌgræd, lyɪ nyɪnˈgrɑt /

noun

1. a former name (1924–91) of St. Petersburg

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Leningrad British  

/ lɪninˈɡrat, ˈlɛnɪnˌɡræd /

noun

1. the former name (1937–91) of Saint Petersburg

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Leningrad Cultural  

1. Name of Saint Petersburg, Russia, from 1924 to 1991. (See Saint Petersburg.)

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Example Sentences

In the communal building where she lived during the blockade of Leningrad, “there was no person or family, no apartment without acute diarrhea, sometimes up to nineteen-twenty times a day.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 24, 2026

Born in 1984 to educators in what was then Leningrad, Durov has long been fascinated with language and history.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 23, 2025

The second-most populous city in Russia has not been called Leningrad since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, when the president was 45 years old.

From Salon • Aug. 13, 2025

On this day in 1944 Soviet forces broke the almost 900-day siege of Leningrad.

From BBC • Jan. 27, 2025

For the Germans, the big targets were the cities of Leningrad, the old imperial capital in the north, which had been the birthplace of the Soviet Union, and the new capital in Moscow.

From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein