For the novel by Justin Cronin see The Passage (novel)

The Passage (Russian: Пассаж, Passazh), from the French word Passage, is an elite department store on Nevsky Avenue in Saint Petersburg, Russia, which celebrated its 150th anniversary in 1998. Parenthetically, the Passage premises have long been associated with the entertainment industry and still remains home to the Komissarzhevskaya Theatre.

The site where the Passage sprawls had been devoted to trade since the city's foundation in the early 18th century. It had been occupied by various shops and warehouses (Little Gostiny Dvor, Schukin Dvor, Apraksin Dvor) until 1846, when Count Essen-Stenbock-Fermor acquired the grounds to build an elite shopping mall for the highest echelons of the Russian nobility and bourgeoisie.

The name came from a vast gallery between Nevsky Avenue and Italianskaya Street which provided the main passage through the mall. The gallery was covered over by an arching glass and steel roof, thus giving it a claim to being one of the world's first shopping malls, along with Passage du Caire in Paris (1798) Burlington Arcade in London, Galerie Vivienne in Paris (1823) and Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert in Brussels.

Justin Cronin (born 1962) is an American author. He has written four novels: Mary and O'Neil and The Summer Guest, as well as The Passage and The Twelve as part of a trilogy. He has won the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Stephen Crane Prize, and the Whiting Writer's Award.

Born and raised in New England, Cronin is a graduate of Harvard University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He taught creative writing and was the "Author in-residence" at La Salle University in Philadelphia, PA from 1992 to 2005. He lives with his wife and children in Houston, Texas where he is a professor of English at Rice University.

In July 2007, Variety reported that the screen rights to Cronin's vampire trilogy was purchased by Fox 2000. The first book of the series, The Passage, was released in June 2010. It garnered mainly favorable reviews.

Daniel Grayling "Dan" Fogelberg (August 13, 1951 – December 16, 2007) was an American singer-songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, whose music was inspired by sources as diverse as folk, pop, rock, classical, jazz, and bluegrass music. He is best known for his 1980 hit "Longer" and his 1981 hit "Leader of the Band".

Dan Fogelberg, the youngest of three sons, was born in Peoria, Illinois, the son of Margaret (née Irvine), a classically trained pianist, and Lawrence Peter Fogelberg, a high school band director, who spent most of his career at Peoria's Woodruff High School and Pekin High School. Dan Fogelberg's mother was a Scottish immigrant, and his father was of Swedish descent. His father would later be the inspiration for the song, "Leader of the Band". Using a Mel Bay course book, Dan taught himself to play a Hawaiian slide guitar that his grandfather gave to him; he also learned to play the piano. At age 14 he joined a band, The Clan, which covered The Beatles. His second band was another cover combo, The Coachmen, who in 1967 released two singles, written by Fogelberg, on Ledger Records: "Maybe Time Will Let Me Forget" and "Don't Want To Lose Her."