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Founded by Tsar Peter the Great in 1703,  St Petersburg was designed to be the crowing glory of the Tsarist Empire.  The outstanding sights to see in this beautiful city include:

• Palace Square.  The main square of the city,  framed by the immense buildings of the Winter Palace and the General Staff Headquarters.    Dominated in the centre by the huge Alexander Column,  the tallest one-piece column in the world


• Winter Palace. Built for Peter the Great but remodelled by Catherine the Great.    One of the greatest Royal Palaces in the world.    Some of our favourite parts of the Palace are the Throne Room,  the Moorish Room with the Peacock Clock, and the Gallery of Heroes of 1812.    Nowadays the Winter Palace complex houses one of the most prestigious art-collections in the world, the Hermitage Collection.  Originally Catherine's private art-collection and displayed in a specially-built Annexe of the Palace,  the collection grew enormously as her overseas Ambassadors sent lavish art-works to their Empress in the hope of promotion - and foreign Ambassadors to Russia did likewise in the hope of Trade Contracts.  Finally, in 1918 the private art collections "liberated" from the aristocrats after the Revolution were added, and the collection displayed to the Proleteriat.  The huge collection includes works by Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, Michaelangelo and many others, including the largest collection of French Impressionist painting outside France itself.


• St Isaac's Cathedral and St Isaac's Square.  The massive gold-leaf dome dominates this low-rise city's sky-line.  Most people marvel at the rich green malachite interior of the Cathedral (Neil seems to be alone in disliking this French monstrosity).  The Square behind the Cathedral has the old Mariinsky Palace (now the City Hall) at its head.


• Peter & Paul Fortress.  The original stone building of the city, built as a Naval Base to repel the hostile Swedes.  The Swedish threat was soon over, and instead of keeping people out, the Fortress kept people in - as the most feared top-security prison in the Tsarist Empire.  Gorky and Dostoyevsky were lucky-enough to live to tell the tale - most prisoners here, like Lenin's brother, were executed - you can still visit the Dungeons.  Don't miss the SS Peter & Paul Cathedral - containing the tombs of the Tsars from Peter the Great onward.  Latest News - in July 1998,  the bodies of the last Romanov Tsars were finally buried in the SS Peter & Paul Cathedral after being brought from Ekaterinburg.

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