Pushkin, Saint Petersburg, Russia

🇷🇺 Pushkin (Пу́шкин) is a municipal town in Pushkinsky District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia, located 24 km (15 mi) south from the centre of St. Petersburg proper, and its railway station, Tsarskoye Selo, is directly connected by railway to the Vitebsky Rail Terminal of the city. Population: 92,889 (2010 Census).

Pushkin was founded in 1710 as an imperial residence named Tsarskoye Selo (Ца́рское Село́, lit. 'Tsar's Village') and received status of a town in 1808. The first public railways in Russia, Tsarskoye Selo Railways, were opened here in 1837 and connected the town to the capital, St. Petersburg. After the October Revolution, the town was renamed to Detskoye Selo (Де́тское Село́, romanized: Children's Village). Its name was further changed in 1937 to Pushkin to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. The town contains an ensemble of the 18th century Tsarskoye Selo. This museum complex includes the Catherine Palace, Alexander Palace and other buildings and associated parks; it is a major tourist attraction in the area and is included in the list of monuments protected by the UNESCO.

Geology The town is located on the Neva Lowland, on the left bank of the river Neva. The landscape is quite varied and contains hills, ridges and terraces intermixed with valleys, plains, forests and farmland. Numerous springs give rise to streams and feed ponds. In the Paleozoic era, 300–400 million years ago, the area was covered by a sea. Sediments of that time form a layer thicker than 200 metres (660 feet) on top of the Baltic Shield consisting of granite, gneiss and diabase. The modern topography was shaped by the glacier retreat some 12,000 years ago which created the Littorina Sea. About 4,000 years ago the sea receded and formed the valley of the Neva River which has not changed much over the last 2,500 years.