175th Anniversary of the Birth of Peter Demens — Founder of St. Petersburg, Florida.

This May marks the 175th anniversary of the birth of Peter Alexeyevich Demens (Dementieff) (1850–1919), a Russian émigré who made his mark on the history of the United States as the founder of the city of St. Petersburg in Florida.

In the final years of his life, Peter Demens lived in Los Angeles, where he managed an orange plantation in the Rancho Cucamonga area. He was laid to rest at the historic Angelus Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles. Just recently, representatives of the Congress of Russian Americans (CRA) visited his gravesite to honor his memory.

Descendants of Peter Demens now live on the West Coast of the United States and in Canada.

We are pleased to share several archival photographs from “The Russian American” magazine, which was published by the CRA. The images depict the 1979 unveiling of a memorial plaque in honor of Peter Demens. The ceremony was attended by his grandson Pyotr Tolstoy, CRA representatives, and the mayor of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida.

In 1994, another commemorative plaque was installed in Rancho Cucamonga, California, to honor Peter Demens’ legacy. The estate where his daughter and her husband lived was affectionately known among Americans as “Yasnaya Polyana in California” — in reference to Leo Tolstoy’s famous family estate in Russia.