National Library of Russia
Located partially on Nevsky Prospect, this library was created in 1795 under Catherine the Great.
At the time it was known as the Imperial Library, and most of its collection came from the Zalusky Library in Warsaw. After an uprising the Russian government decided to transfer the four hundred thousand books in French that the library had to Saint Petersburg as a sign of reprisals. It was later completed with the library of Diderot and that of Voltaire.
Today, the National Library of Russia is among the largest in the world. It totals over thirty-four million printer matters. Among the most valuable are the Ostromir Gospels written around 1056-1057 as well as fragments of the Leningrad Codex from 1008.