ST PETERSBURG

st pete's Palace Square From 1703 to 1918, St Petersburg was the capital of the wealthiest Empire in the world - Tsarist Russia. During a period spent under the various names of "Petrograd" and "Leningrad" the city suffered deliberate neglect under Communism, and a 3-year bombardment and siege which left thousands dead and the city in tatters. A popular vote restored the old name in 1991, since when the city has slowly begun a return to its former glory.

The Hermitage Collection and Winter Palace are "number one" for most visitors - a unique combination of one of the world's most astounding art-collections, housed in the former Winter Palace of the Russian Royal Family, making a double reason for visiting.
St Isaac's Cathedral, the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, the St Nicholas Cathedral are just three of many city churches which attract visitors. There are many more besides, including the Chesme Church, the City Mosque, and the extraordinary art-nouveau Buddhist Monastery.
The Peter & Paul Fortress, the original city fortifications, houses both the Imperial Splendour of the Tombs of the Tsars, and the Imperial Horror of the cells of the former Maximum Security prison, where authors Maxim Gorky and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Lenin's brother were amongst the many unwilling guests.
Whatever your bizarre or obscure interest, St Petersburg probably has a Museum or Gallery dedicated to it. There is even a Museum of the History of Museums. Whatever your interests, try to find time to visit the Zoological Museum to see the Siberian mammoths, and the Kunstkamera ("Chamber of Curiosities") to see Tsar Peter The Great's personal collection of oddities, with which he would charm or horrify his foreign guests. Don`t miss the Russian Museum of Fine Art - a unique collection of Russian old masters you will never see in the West. And so much more...
St Petersburg`s street and canal-plan was personally designed by Peter The Great himself, to rival Venice. Noble families were obliged to build mansions in the new capital, according to a means-tested scale, or face financial ruin. Consequently, St Petersburg has some some stunning civic architecture that makes it a rewarding city for a stroll...

souvenir market near the Church of the Spilt Blood

However, it's all-too-easy to get "stuck" in C18-19th St Petersburg! Throughout the "soviet" period, Leningrad (as it was then) was the USSR's artistic enclave - far enough from Moscow to escape the dead hand of ideological burocrats, and on a more human scale than Moscow's towering Stalin-Baroque extravagances. Where Moscow is the mainstream, the avant-garde is in St Pete's - artists, film-makers, performance artists, and especially rock musicians, DJ's, and the entertainment business. From off-the-wall exhibitions in "underground" venues through to the wildest of dancefloor nightlife, St Petersburg is definitely not stuck in its own past! You haven't experience the "real" St Petersburg until a taxi-driver has read you some of his poetry....

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