Halfway along Moskovsky Prospekt, the broad avenue that spears into the centre of town from the south, a statue of Lenin gestures at the traffic. It is a classic bust of the hawkish firebrand, billowing of cloak, proud of posture and fixed to a tall plinth – an arrangement designed to conceal the inconvenient truth that, although huge of reputation, Lenin was a mere 5ft5 in height.
He looks bemused. Driving past, I can’t decide if this is because his arm points directly at an outlet of US sports firm Nike – a sign of changed times in Russia – or because the city that bore his name has disowned him. For 67 years, this metropolis in the north-west corner of the country was Leningrad. Yet no sooner had the Iron Curtain been drawn back than the residents voted, in 1991, to restore the flamboyant title it wore as home of the Tsars and the capital of an empire. St Petersburg.
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