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Well, St. Petersburg has long had a reputation for being the Russian city that feels most like a major Western European city. That, and being significantly closer to other countries, like Finland, may help the crowd situation.
As for the racing, the lap is significantly more open than Moscow Raceway, being somewhat longer and having a few less corners, with fewer being slow(ish) and more being high-speed in nature. Also, Igora has more than just the one substantial straight.
Finally, this may be something of a dry run to see how an international event goes ahead of a possible move of the Russian GP from Sochi. (In addition, one piece I've seen says they have the option/space to extend the circuit by 850 meters should they deem that necessary, bringing it up to the original F1-spec proposal.)
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