Sestroretsk (Siestarjoki in Finnish and Systerbäck in Swedish) is a town in Russia, a municipality as a part of Kurortny District of St. Petersburg.

It is a seaside climatic fango-balneotherapy resort with its mineral water and therapeutic muds on the northern coast of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea.

The population of Sestroretsk makes 37 248 people (as of 2010).

The town appeared during the reign of Peter I and has existed since September 20, 1714. The Sestroretsk small-arms factory opened on January 27, 1724 was headed by Sergey Ivanovich Mosin from 1894 to 1902.

Dwellers of Sestroretsk mostly work at the state small-arms factory.

In various periods Sestroretsk was a place of staying and creativity of Korney Chukovsky, Leonid Andreev, Anna Akhmatova, and Mikhail Zoshchenko.

Sestroretsk is a town where generations live. “Labor dynasty” is not a stamp from a Soviet production film, but a usual social institution - all of them came from the Voskov Factory, the famous factory founded by Peter I.

Mosin rifles, machine guns, Degtyarev pistols were made here, then the factory switched to tooling production. Almost all the townspeople worked there some time ago. There is no factory now. But Sestroretsk doesn’t suffer from a monotown tragedy. People have found work in St. Petersburg; for it is situated only in half an hour drive from here, they work in the neighboring sanatoriums and hotels, manage the Uzbeks building cottages. All people seem to know one another, and remember the famous natives - from the “Esenin of Russian football” Vsevolod Bobrov and the skier Lyubov Egorova to the former Putin’s adviser Andrei Illarionov and the star of “Dozhd’” Pavel Lobkov. Everyone traditionally catches smelt at the dam at spring nights just like a decade ago – both young people and venerable fathers of families. The majority of the town inhabitants still live in wooden dachas of the century beginning, two-storey houses with wood carving, fancy towers, stained-glass windows.

The construction of multi-storey stone houses began in 1970s, but almost all of them were built on individual projects and wear fancy names – “Anthill”, “Corn”, “Pyramid”, “Two Little Pigs” – which is unusual for Brezhnev time. Goat milk, swimming in Razliv, picking mushrooms and bilberries, marvelous views, a huge old “Dubki” park, patriarchal way of life and the proximity of St. Petersburg – all these create amazing opportunities for the town. The residents of St. Petersburg accustomed to skipping Sestroretsk on their way through the Primorskoe highway do not fully understand all the charm of this town combining the provincial idyll and the connection with the Northern capital. This place is not worse than Tsarskoye Selo and Peterhof, but it is not so familiar and doesn’t have as many visitors.

Zelenogorsk is another kind of town. Everything is connected with the highway and service here. Some time ago Zelenogorsk black marketeers, the pirates of Primorskoye highway, were notorious in Leningrad as risky, dangerous and somewhat stylish guys. Now they have settled down – some of them work in the local cafes and pensions, tend gardens and find delight in ice fishing, a common hobby for this place. Some have become businessmen and give work behind the bar or the counter to their former classmates.

All people in small towns know one another, so Sestroretsk and Zelenogorsk people form powerful closed corporations: law enforcement agencies and law offenders came out of the same classrooms; childhood ties are stronger for them than the written law. These towns for St. Petersburg resemble Khimki, Lyubertsy, Dolgoprudny for Moscow. All people are tied to each other and do not reveal their mates. It is not easy for visitors to start a business here, even for those who come from Saint Petersburg. However, the local businessmen gradually settle down. They do not need notoriety any longer. Just like elsewhere in Russia, the town is managed by former athletes patronizing physical culture and Orthodoxy, local patriots building courts and cathedrals, struggling with drug addiction. The local pine trees, dunes and sandy beaches are transforming the place into a St. Petersburg’s Long Island of the third millennium.