We held our annual Remembrance Sunday service in St Petersburg on Sunday 8 November. This is always an important event which brings together the British community as well as church members from Russia and other countries to honour and remember those who were killed in World War One and Two, as well as later conflicts. This year we also remembered the victims of the Russian plane crash in Egypt on 31 October. The flight had been en route from Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg, and most of those killed were from St Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast.
Our annual Remembrance Day service usually takes place in the premises of the Swedish Lutheran Church. We were fortunate this year to be able to hold the service in the old English church at 56 English Embankment on the River Neva. This was a very rare opportunity to see inside this building of historical importance to the British community in St Petersburg. The church has been located here since the 18thcentury and was used right up until the Russian Revolution in 1917. There was a large British community in St Petersburg in the late 19thcentury and early 20th, and the church was a gathering point for the community.
Amazingly, the church building and interior survived the chaos of the Russian Revolution and the terrible siege of Leningrad during World War Two when the city was surrounded and cut off from the outside world from September 1941 until January 1944. The building has been occupied by the St Petersburg Conservatory and the main church hall used over the years as a storage area. It really is a beautiful building with a magnificent ceiling, elegant marble columns and mosaics, as well as the original church organ which was gifted to the church in 1877 and at the time was believed to be the finest in Northern Europe. The organ remains but I fear it has not been played for almost 100 years. There are a number of plaques on the wall honouring and commemorating former members of the church community.
The Reverend John Summers RN of the Church of England, who was visiting St Petersburg, conducted the Remembrance Sunday service. It was a lovely service, enhanced by the wonderful surroundings, and another reminder of our shared history and people to people contacts. 
For more on the history of the English church and the British community in St Petersburg, please see the following link: English Church in St Petersburg and also the book ’St Petersburg and the British’ by Anthony Cross.