French

Categories / Population/Ethnic Groups
FRENCH, an ethnic community forming a part of the St. Petersburg population. French language is related to Romance group of Indo-European languages. Believers are mostly Catholics, while some are Reformists. French artisans appeared in St. Petersburg in the first years of its construction, when a French settlement existed close to the Menshikov Palace on Vasilievsky Island. Later, teachers and tutors predominated among French qualified workers. At the end of the18th - beginning of the 19th century mainly French emigrants settled in St. Petersburg, with many representatives of aristocratic families among them, who would greatly influence the tastes and ideas of Russian nobility. Immigrants from France were architects J. Le Blond, A.A. Montferrand and J.F. Thomas de Thomon, sculptor E.M. Falconet, choreographer M.Petipa, eminent engineer P.P. Bazen and many others. The members of Benois family were descendants of a French emigrant. The French also were tailors, owned taverns and restaurants and worked as cooks. The French Catholics attended mainly the Church of St. Catherine (32-34 Nevsky Prospect) and Roman Catholic Church of French Embassy; Reformers (at the beginning of the 20th century there were about 400 of them) attended the church in 25 Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street. The burials were conducted at the cemeteries of other confessions (Smolenskoe, Volkovskoe), since 1856 - at Vyborgskoe Roman Catholic Cemetery. Since 1817 in St. Petersburg the French Charitable Society existed. In 1869 about 3,100 French lived in St. Petersburg, in 1910 - 3,700. After October 1917, almost all French returned to France.

Reference: Юхнева Н. В. Этнический состав и этносоциальная структура населения Петербурга, вторая половина XIX - нач. XX в.: Стат. анализ. Л., 1984.

A. Y. Chistyakov Bazen Peter Petrovich
Falconet Etienne Maurice
Le Blond Jean-Baptiste Alexander
Menshikov Alexander Danilovich, Gracious Prince
Montferrand Auguste Augustovich (Henri Louis Auguste Leger Ricard de)
Petipa Marius Ivanovich
the Benois
Thomas de Thomon Jean-Francois
Bolshaya Konyushennaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 25
Nevsky prospect/Saint Petersburg, city, house 34
Nevsky prospect/Saint Petersburg, city, house 32
Юхнева Н. В. Этнический состав и этносоциальная структура населения Петербурга, вторая половина XIX - нач. XX в.: Стат. анализ. Л., 1984 Intelligentsia
Roman Catholic Church of the French Embassy