View from the Colonnade, St. Isaac's Cathedral, St. Petersburg
On June 12, 1991, simultaneously with the first Russian presidential elections the city authorities arranged the mayoral elections and the referendum upon the name of the city. The turnout was 65%; 66.13% of the total count of votes went to Anatoly Sobchak who became the first democratically elected mayor of the city. Meanwhile the economy conditions continued to deteriorate. For the first time since the 1940s food rationing was introduced, and the city received humanitarian food aid from abroad. This dramatic time was being depicted in photographic series of Russian photographer Alexey Titarenko. In 1995 a northern section of theKirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line of the Saint Petersburg Metro was cut off by underground flooding, thus creating a major obstacle to the city development for almost ten years.
Cultural events at Peterhof during the celebration of the 300th anniversary of Petersburg
In 1996, Anatoly Sobchak was defeated by Vladimir Yakovlev in the elections of the head of the city administration. The title of the city head was changed from "mayor" to "governor". In 2000 Yakovlev was reelected again. His second term expired in 2004; the long-awaited restoration of broken subway connection was expected to finish by that time. However in 2003 Yakovlev suddenly resigned, leaving a governor's office to Valentina Matviyenko.
After that the law on the City Governor was changed, breaking the tradition of its democratic election by a universal suffrage, and in 2006 Matvienko was reapproved as governor by the city legislature. The residential building had intensified again, real estate prices inflated greatly which caused many new problems for the preserving of the historical part of the city.
Although the central part of the city is watched by UNESCO (there are about 8,000 architectural monuments in Petersburg), the safety
