Islam

Subject / Religion. Church
Islam. Devotees of Islam, mainly tatars, appeared in the St Peresburg Guberniya in the early 18th с, when the working people, from the central regions of Russia, were assembled for building the new capital city according to the order of Peter I. The first Muslim meetinghouse was opened in St Petersburg under Catherine II in the late 18thc., in 1910-1920 the cathedral mosque was built. More than 6,000 Muslims lived in the St Petersburg Guberniya in the early 20th с, there were five meetinghouses and mosques, four mosques were situated in St Petersburg (the Tatar cemetery and the Persian cemetery were situated in St Petersburg also ) and one mosque was situated in Kronstadt (it worked in 1870–1928). All these religious institutions were closed by 1941, the cathedral mosque was closed in 1940. In 1956 the Muslim community was registered in Leningrad and the cathedral mosque was transferred to this community. In those days 8,000 Muslims lived in the Leningrad Oblast. The number of the Islam communities and its members began to increas in the late 1980s. Now there are two Islam communities in St Petersburg and two Islam communities in the Leningrad Oblast. These Islam communities reperesent the Sunnite movement of Islam. Shkarovsky, Mikhail Vitalyevich
Catherine II, Empress
Peter I, Emperor
Saint-Petersburg City/Kronshtadt Town
Historical Toponyms/Saint Petersburg Gubernia, the
Шаров В.Г. Религиозные объединения Санкт-Петербурга и Ленинградской области. СПб., 2005., 89-94
Ислам в Петербурге. URL: http://muslim.by.ru/tatar_piter.htm, 89-94