However, this huge volume, which grew up to 1900 pages, has always provided more, including surveys on the city economy, extracts from the legislative acts, lists of the post offices through the entire Russia, as well as thousands of commercial advertisings.
A point of special interest was the historic and statistical city digest in V. I. Pokrovsky's feature article, published in the Ves Peterburg in 1901 and 1903.
Until 1917, while the city was the capital of the Russian empire, 'Ves Petrograd' provided its readers with the comprehensive information upon the ministries and the councils, the royal establishments and the State Duma.
Since the very first editions of the Soviet period, 'Ves Leningrad' published a list of the cathedrals and churches which were taken under state protection as cultural monuments.
Beyond that, the directory published special surveys on the city economy, including international trade, where Leningrad played a main role as the largest port in the USSR.
[5] In the subsequent years the edition was replaced with abridged version (1939 and 1940) where all personal data (residency / domicile, phone numbers) was excluded.
Since 1993 the private publishing House Presskom launched the annual telephone directory project under the title 'Ves Petersburg', however it is radically and conceptually different from its historical predecessor, and does not list residents at all.