Svetlana Ushakova currently works in the collections department at USC Shoah Foundation as a content specialist. She received her doctoral degree in Russian history at the Novosibirsk State University, Russia. She is the author and co-author of several publications on the history of Soviet ideological campaigns, social mobilization, and adaptation methods used by peasant families to survive Soviet deportation and exile.
On March 8, 1917 (February 23 in the Julian calendar), in Petrograd, then the capital of the Russian Empire (today St. Petersburg), the February Revolution began. It brought about many rights and freedoms of which Russian citizens had hitherto deprived. On April 2, 1917, the Pale of Settlement, a long-term restriction on Jewish residence in the Russian Empire, was abolished.
The February Revolution began 100 years ago in Petrograd, then the capital of the Russian Empire, modern day St. Petersburg. Bread riots and protests developed into a mass demonstration and industrial strike on March 8, 1917. February 23 in the Julian calendar, which is considered the first day of the Revolution. After about a week of demonstrations and clashes between protesters and police and soldiers of the Petrograd army garrison, who eventually joined to the protesters, the Tsar Nicholas II had abdicated his throne and the Provisional Government was announced.