Welcome to Russian History Retold, episode number 229, 1917, part 2.

Last time we covered the first two months of the year, culminating in the beginning of

a massive protest against the Russian government and their inability to feed the people of

St. Petersburg, then called Petrograd. Before we get into this episode, I want to admit

an error that was pointed out on Facebook by listener Alina. It was about my series

on old Russian cities. I made a mistake when I said and called them old Russian cities,

and I should have called them old Kyivian Rus cities. Now, we have cities like Moscow

and Novgorod, which are actually old Russian cities, but Kyiv and many of the other cities

I talked about were actually in what is now Ukraine and are really Ukrainian cities.

So I want to apologize to my listeners, I've actually changed the headings on the podcast

to reflect the difference. I want to thank Lena for pointing this out, because sometimes

we just don't think about those type of things when we're setting it up. This is kind of

a Russian history podcast, and I just made that mental error, so I hope you all excuse

me for that one. But that's why I'm so happy to have the Facebook page, so that people

can interact with me and point out things that when I do make a mistake. So anyways, thanks

a lot, and let's get on to the year 1917. It's Tuesday, the 28th of February, per the

Julian calendar. Around 30,000 soldiers were manning the bridges and taking positions

at key locations, like the rail yards, all over Petrograd. People were milling around

the streets as well, waiting for something to happen. The Red Cross was getting ready

as they had horse-drawn ambulances on the number of side streets. It was a Sunday, so many

of the people walking around were headed to church. Most shops were closed and bordered

up. Revolution was in the air. The Russian government warned foreign

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