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Saint Petersburg is Peter the Great’s window to Europe, and a more beautiful city probably does not exist anywhere in the world. The many palaces, boulevards and unique museums make the city something special, and as a city it is inscribed as UNESCO world cultural heritage.
Saint Petersburg is home to the world’s largest museum, The State Hermitage, whose collections contain countless works by almost every famous old master and of course the setting in the Winter Palace, which is in itself a piece of world history. The Russian Museum comes next and impresses almost in the same way; the focus here is the magnificent Russian art includings icons.
A trip to Saint Petersburg is also a meeting with the many beautiful Czarist palaces; besides the Winter Palace there are two grand summer palaces; Peterhof and Catherine Palace. The Baroque and, in particular, the works of Italian architect Rastrelli impress, as they did in the times of the Czar.
A trip to Saint Petersburg is not complete without a walk along the Nevsky Prospect, one of the most famous streets in Europe. Here you will find numerous churches, palaces, shopping arcades and much more. Not far from here you can visit the great Isaac Cathedral and the elegant Mariinsky Theater, one of the world’s leading and a venue from the time of the Czars.
This church has the official name of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, but it is colloquially called the Church of Spilled Blood/Храм Спаса на Крови. The church was built on the spot where Tsar Alexander II was mortally wounded on 13 March 1881. Alexander was driving past this exact spot when a rebel threw a grenade, from which the Tsar escaped unharmed. Alexander got out of the carriage and another rebel threw another grenade. The Tsar was wounded and taken to the Winter Palace, where he died a few hours later.
Construction of the church was initiated by Tsar Alexander III and completed under Nicholas II in 1907. Its architectural expression differs markedly from Saint Petersburg’s dominant baroque and neoclassicism. The style was inspired by Russian architecture from the 16th-17th centuries, which can be seen, for example, in the Cathedral of Basil the Blessed/Храм Василия Блаженного on Red Square in Moscow.
Both the outside and the inside of Christ’s Resurrection Church are lavishly decorated. The exterior onion domes are brightly colored, and in the interior you can see, among other things, countless mosaics and icons from the hands of some of the leading Russian artists of the time. The impressive mosaics stretch over 7,500 square meters and are an unforgettable experience.
The church has never functioned as an actual parish church or cathedral. It was initially dedicated to the memory of the slain tsar, and then used as, for example, a warehouse building during the Soviet Union. In 1997 it opened as a museum after 27 years of restoration.
The Russian Museum is one of the Russian state’s art museums, and it houses one of the country’s largest and finest collections; among other things, the largest in the city of Russian works.
The museum was founded by Czar Nicholas II in 1895, and the original collection was pieced together from the Hermitage and from various other places in the capital. With the establishment of the Soviet Union, several art collections were nationalized and brought to the Russian Museum.
The museum building consists of the former residence Mikhajlovskij Dvorets/Михайловский дворец, which was built in neoclassicism 1819-1825. It was Tsar Paul I who wanted to build the castle for his son Mikhail. The architect was Carlo Rossi, and inside the museum you can still admire some of his elegant rooms.
In front of the museum is the green area on the square Mikhailovskiy Skver/Михайловский сквер. Here you can see a statue of Alexander Pushkin and several fine buildings such as the city’s philharmonic.
This monastery and associated church were founded by Tsar Peter the Great and built 1710-1790 as a symbol of the place on the Neva River where the hero Alexander Nevsky defeated the Swedes in 1240. The Battle of the Neva took place a few kilometers from today’s monastery, but the symbol of the victorious prince of Novgorod, who was later canonized, was more important than the absolutely correct geography.
The monastery was also founded to house Alexander Nevsky’s grave, but this was moved to the State Hermitage during the country’s Soviet era. The importance of the monastery is emphasized by the fact that it was one of only four in Russia to obtain the fine title of lavra, which was and is particularly significant.
In the monastery complex you can see, among other things, two baroque churches, built respectively 1717-1722 and 1742-1750, as well as Ivan Starov’s neoclassical cathedral from the years 1778-1790.
Palace Square is St. Petersburg’s magnificent square, and it is a magnificent experience. The square was for centuries the center of both the city and the Russian Empire, and it has been the scene of many great events; among other things in connection with the Russian October Revolution in 1917.
The square gets its name from the tsars’ winter palace, which is located on the north side of the Palace Square in an elegant Russian baroque architecture. Opposite the palace is a neoclassical Empire style building 580 meters in length; General Staff Building/Здание Главного штаба. It was built when Tsar Alexander I saw the completion of the square as a monument to the victory over the French Napoleon.
The General Staff building was completed in 1829 with two wings with a large triumphal arch as a central part. The western wing originally housed the tsar’s general staff, while the eastern wing housed various ministries.
To the east is a smaller building designed by Alessandro Brullo and built in the years 1837-1843, Здание штаба Гвардейского корпуса, which was the headquarters of the tsar’s guard corps.
In the middle of the Palace Square stands the Alexander Column/Александровская колонна. It was built 1830-1834 and measures 47.5 meters to the top. The 26-meter column itself was carved from a piece of Finnish granite and erected in two hours by 3,000 men. On the pedestal you can see reliefs with motifs from the Napoleonic Wars, while on top there is an angel with a cross as a symbol of good. The column is named after Tsar Alexander I, who ruled in the period 1801-1825.
The dominant building on St. Petersburg’s Palace Square is the fantastic winter palace of the tsars, whose ground plan is 200×160 meters. The palace was the official residence of the Russian monarchs from the 18th century until the fall of the tsars in 1917. From here they ruled over approximately one sixth of the Earth’s land area in the kingdom, which stretched like present-day Russia from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean.
The history of the Winter Palace began with Tsar Peter I’s journey around Europe in 1697-1698; the so-called Great Embassy. On the journey, the way to the founding of Saint Petersburg as the new Russian capital and Russia as a European superpower was established.
In just three days, Peter had his first residence in the city built. It was a wooden cabin which stood close to the current winter palace in the years 1704-1711. After this, the hut was moved, and it made way for the first winter palace, which was designed by Domenico Trezzini. In 1721, Peter had a new and slightly larger palace built, but both of these earlier buildings were quite modest compared to other European residences.
Peter I died in 1725 in the second winter palace, which was replaced by a new and much larger residence in 1727-1728. This palace, like the first, was designed by Domenico Trezzini, and the style was Petrine Baroque, characteristic of the building style of the early years of Peter the Great’s expanding capital.
Shortly after the completion of the third winter palace, however, the court moved again to Moscow, which again became the country’s capital. That status lasted only a few years, however, as Peter II died in 1730. His successor on the throne was Anna, who moved the court back to the Winter Palace and Saint Petersburg, which from 1732 again became the capital.
However, Anna primarily used the neighboring mansion of the Winter Palace, which was built for Fyodor Apraksin, as a residence. She employed the Italian architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli to extensively remodel and expand the palatial and palatial buildings.
Rastrelli worked continuously at the Winter Palace under Anna and the later monarch Elizaveta. In 1753, Rastrelli presented a revised project for a grand development of the building; it became the fourth and current winter palace that Elisaveta initiated as a construction of national character.
By and large, the palace was completed in Rastrelli’s fine outer baroque in 1760, while later tsars throughout the 18th and 19th centuries both remodeled parts of it and expanded the large complex. The largest of these additions was the Eremitagen/Эрмитаж wing, which Catherine the Great had built.
Czar Nicholas I was the one who had to reconstruct the castle after a fire in 1837, and changes also took place in that connection; among other things with Nikolaj I’s own neoclassical rotunda from the beginning of the 19th century.
The interior of the palace is as magnificent as the 150 meter long and 30 meter high facade facing the Palace Square. Among the different styles are Rastrelli’s rococo and the later neoclassicism. In total, there are around 1,500 rooms and halls in the building complex.
One of the many distinguished halls is the Great Throne Hall/Большой тронный, where you can see the throne itself. A detail in the beautiful room is that the floor and ceiling decoration is an almost complete mirror image of each other.
Another room worth seeing is the large Military Gallery/Военная галерея, which opened in 1826. The gallery is adorned with more than 300 portraits of generals who took part in the war against Napoleon in 1812. However, some generals’ seats are empty, which is because they were passed away before the painter could immortalize their portrait.
The Great Church of the Winter Palace/Cобор Спаса Нерукотворного Образа в Зимнем дворце, which was often used to hold weddings of the Romanov family, is also very worth seeing. The church was consecrated in 1763, and it is located in the east wing of the palace and is the largest of the complex’s two churches. The church was designed by Rastrelli and is considered one of the finest rooms in the palace. It is not a church today, but is instead part of the Eremitagen/Эрмитаж museum.
In the north-west corner of the Winter Palace lies another of the complex’s major attractions; The Jordan Stairs/Иорданская лесница. The staircase is lavishly decorated in Rastrelli’s 18th century design. Its name comes from the fact that the tsar walked down the stairs and to the river Neva out front. Here he was to bless the water as a symbol of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River. On a group visit to the Winter Palace, the staircase is the beginning of the exciting tour around the palace and the State Hermitage.
The State Hermitage is one of the world’s largest and finest art museums. It is arranged in several different buildings; The Winter Palace, Little Hermitage, Old Hermitage and New Hermitage.
The museum also has special collections that can be seen at the Menshikov Palace/Меншиковский дворец (Universitetskaja Nabereszhnaja 15/ Университетская Набережная 15) and the General Staff Building/Здание Главного штаба (Dvoretsovaya Ploshad/Дворцовая Площадь).
The Hermitage’s history goes back to 1764, when Catherine the Great founded the collections. For the first several years, the fine collection was only possible to see as a noble, and it was not until 1852, when the museum was opened to the public. The collections have grown over time to contain more than three million effects.
The Hermitage’s collections are thus enormous, and they range widely from fine prehistoric exhibitions on objects from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome to all European art from approximately the 13th and 19th centuries. There are countless masterpieces and something for everyone. For example, you can see works by, among others, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Caravaggio, El Greco, Rembrandt, Goya, Monet, van Gogh and Kandinsky.
Among a few selected highlights is the beautiful golden peacock clock, which stands in the so-called pavilion, from which there is a view of the site’s hanging gardens. The peacock clock was a lavish gift that Gregorij Potëmkin had produced for Catherine the Great. The clock is both an impressive work of art and a refined mechanical work, where the peacock’s head and tail can move; just like many other parts of the great work of art. The clock itself can be found in a small mushroom below the peacock. Catherine the Great did not appreciate the fine clock because of its style, but today you can fortunately still see it, and next to it you can see a video of the work in action.
On a tour of the Hermitage’s collections, many choose to visit the Italian works, which include two pictures by Leonardo da Vinci, two pictures by Raphael and a sculpture by Michelangelo. Here are also a number of works by Titian, by which many contemporary nobles had themselves portrayed. Among other European masters, Goya, El Greco and Velazquez represent Spanish art, while almost countless works by Rembrandt can also be experienced. Finally, the collection of Impressionists is also popular.
St Isaac’s Cathedral in its current form was commissioned by Tsar Alexander I and is the fourth church building on its site. Previously there stood, among other things, a baroque church from the 18th century designed by the Italian Antonio Rinaldi. Isaac Cathedral was built in the years 1818-1858 under the leadership of the French Auguste de Montferrand. The Empire style and the concrete appearance of the church were the subject of great discussion before construction, and the Tsar had to make the decision to initiate Montferrand’s proposal.
In the forty years that construction took, the world’s largest Orthodox church was erected. Behind the neoclassical exterior is a classical Russian-Byzantine ground plan shaped like a Greek cross and a central dome surrounded by four smaller domes.
There are 101.5 meters to the top of the great gilded dome, and the cathedral can accommodate 14,000 people. Among other things, 112 granite columns and 100 kilos of gold were used for the construction, which was carried out by a total of 440,000 workers. The dome was constructed with a cast iron skeleton, which had only happened twice before. The dome’s twelve angel statues are also technologically interesting. They were produced by Josef Hermann as perhaps the world’s first large figures with electroplating; a chemical method of reproducing a model. There is a circular walk in the dome, and the trip up there offers beautiful views of central Saint Petersburg.
Isaac Cathedral was named after Saint Isaac of Dalmatia. He was the patron saint of Peter the Great, as the Russian tsar and founder of Saint Petersburg was born on his name day.
Nevsky Prospekt is Saint Petersburg’s over four kilometer long main street and splendid boulevard. It was planned by Peter the Great as the beginning of the road towards the important cities of Novgorod and Moscow. The street was laid out from 1710, and over time countless buildings worth seeing have been erected along it. The building mass is very homogenous in terms of height, as no buildings have been allowed to exceed 23.5 metres, which was the height of the Winter Palace. This provision was introduced by Catherine the Great.
One should take a walk along Nevsky Prospekt, where the highlights of the many distinguished buildings, squares and monuments are mentioned here. The best way to experience the street is to take a leisurely stroll to enjoy the experiences of Nevsky Prospekt and also the more common buildings not mentioned here.
The best-known sights are located along the western part of the boulevard between the Admiralty and the Fontanka canal. Nevsky Prospekt also continues between Fontanka and the square Ploshad Vosstanija/площадь восстания. From here it connects the city on to the square Pl. Aleksandra Nevskogo/пл. Александра Невского, where the Alexander Nevsky Monastery/Александро-Невская лавра is located. On the stretch between Fontanka and Ploshad Vosstaniya you can experience a homogeneous building mass and beautiful illumination in the evening. On this stretch, there are always many people on the street, where there are many shops and restaurants.
The impressive 72 meter high Kazan Cathedral was built in the years 1801-1811 as a replacement for a wooden church from 1737. Both churches were built around the icon of the Romanov family, Our Lady of Kazan, which has great religious significance throughout Russia.
The importance of the icon is emphasized by the fact that Mikhail Kutuzov, as the Russian army commander in the battles against French Napoleon, asked it for help in the war. Russia and Kutuzov subsequently withdrew victoriously from the war after the French attack. This action made the church itself a monument to the victory in the war against Napoleon.
In terms of construction, Czar Paul had wanted the church to be inspired by St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and the chosen empire style and the impressive colonnade also give the desired effect. The architect Voronikhin also reportedly wanted to establish a colonnaded semicircle with the monumental portals on the opposite side of the church. However, the Napoleonic Wars put an end to the plan.
In the church is a beautiful church room that spreads out under the large dome. Of particular interest is the very icon of Our Lady of Kazan, which is placed on the iconostasis of the church. You can also see Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov’s grave in the church room close to the icon. Two statues were erected in front of the church in 1837; they represent respectively Mikhail Kutuzov and Field Marshal Mikhail Barclay de Tolly, who was, among other things, Minister of War during the Napoleonic Wars.
At number 56 on Nevsky Prospect you will find an impressive shop building, Eliseevskij Magasin/Елисеевский магазин. It was built in 1902-1903 and stands as one of the city’s best examples of Art Nouveau style.
The magazine was built by the Eliseev brothers, who ran business here until the revolution in 1917. During the Soviet era, the state continued the business, while Eliseev’s old and beautiful interior is today renovated with both a café and a delicatessen as pure experiences.
Smolny Monastery was designed by the Italian Bartolomeo Rastrelli and construction started in 1744. However, the completion of the complex did not happen until 1835 and in a version that was only outwardly faithful to Rastrelli’s beautiful Russian Baroque, which is so characteristic of several buildings in Saint Petersburg .
The monastery was established for Peter the Great’s daughter Elisabeta, who initially was not supposed to succeed her father on the throne and instead chose the nun life in Smolny. After a coup against Tsar Ivan VI in 1741, Elisabeta accepted to ascend the Tsar’s throne, and the planned monastic life was shelved. However, Elizabeth continued the expansion of Smolny Monastery.
The 80-meter high monastery church of Smolny Monastery is the central building of the complex and is one of Rastrelli’s architectural masterpieces. The cathedral was built in the years 1748-1764, but its interior was not completed until 1835, when the consecration took place.
With five domes and the low monastic buildings as surroundings, the church forms a very beautiful unit by the river Neva. Originally, it was Rastrelli’s plan to build a bell tower at the cathedral, and it was to be Russia’s tallest building. With Elizabeth’s death in 1762, Catherine the Great became monarch, and she disliked the Baroque, thus funding ceased. Thus, the interior was done in 19th-century neoclassicism.
Aurora is a warship that was built at the Admiralty in Saint Petersburg in the years 1897-1903 as part of the strengthening of the Pacific Fleet. It was in the navy’s service from 1903 to 1957, and it is today a museum ship.
Aurora took part in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, and later served in the Baltic Fleet. This also applied in the years around the First World War, and on 25 October 1917 a loose shot was fired from the cruiser as the start of the storm against the Winter Palace. This shot became historic, marking the beginning of the Russian Revolution.
During World War II, Aurora’s guns were moved ashore, and the ship was laid up in the port of Oranienbaum, today called Lomonosov. On September 30, 1941, Aurora was hit and the cruiser sank in the harbor. After reconstruction 1945-1947 and a few years at anchor, it opened as a museum in 1957.
In the middle of the Neva River, Peter the Great founded the city of Saint Petersburg with the construction of the Peter-Paul Fortress on May 27, 1703. With a military threat from Sweden on the other side of the Baltic Sea, the Tsar had a wooden citadel built with six bastions during just one year.
This first fortification was then gradually replaced by a larger stone fortification in the years 1706-1740. Peter-Paul Fortress was also a notorious prison over time, where Trotsky and Gorky, among others, have been locked up.
Today, virtually the entire Peter-Paul Fortress is owned by the Saint Petersburg City Museum, and there are several major attractions in the interesting area within the fortress walls.
The most significant building in the fortress is Peter Paul Cathedral, whose 123 meter high gilded tower can be seen from large parts of the city. It is also the tallest tower in the center of Saint Petersburg, and you can see a gilded angel immediately below the cross at the top.
The most significant building in the fortress is Peter Paul Cathedral, whose 123 meter high gilded tower can be seen from large parts of the city. It is also the tallest tower in the center of Saint Petersburg, and you can see a gilded angel immediately below the cross at the top.
The cathedral was built as the second on the site in the years 1712-1733. Most of the tsars and tsarinas of Russia’s imperial era are buried here; this applies to Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, among others. Here you also find the Danish princess Dagmar, who became Tsar Alexander III’s wife and Tsar Nicholas II’s mother. Upon her death, she was buried in Roskilde Cathedral before being reburied by her husband’s side in 2005.
There are also graves in the Grand Duke Crypt/Великокняжеская усыпальница, which is connected to the church space itself. Designed in 1896, the building was erected to accommodate the non-reigning Romanovs as the cathedral’s capacity was close to being used. In addition to the various graves, there is, among other things, a beautiful and interesting iconostasis in the cathedral.
The tsars’ music and drama theatre, the Mariinsky, was built by Albert Cavos in 1859-1860 with inspiration from Dresden’s Semper Oper. The Mariinsky quickly became known as perhaps Europe’s most beautiful theater and opera house.
The imperial opera and ballet history of Saint Petersburg and the tsars began permanently in 1783, when Catherine the Great established an actual theater. After several buildings as home, the troupe came to the current Mariinsky Theater upon its completion.
Mariinsky is named after Tsarina Maria Alexandrovna, who was Tsar Alexander II’s wife. In the theater you can see a bust of the Tsarina. Through most of the Soviet era through the 20th century, the theater was known as the Kirov Theatre. It was then named after the communist Sergei Kirov, who was assassinated in Saint Petersburg in 1934.
The theater has been expanded since its opening, but it has retained its unique charm, and performances at the theater are highly recommended for both the atmosphere and the performances. Countless works have had their premiere here at the theatre. This applies, for example, to Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov in 1874 and Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta in 1892.
Peter the Great founded the Admiralitet shipyard in 1704, which thereby became one of Saint Petersburg’s earliest institutions. The Admiralty was simultaneously a fortress for the city’s fleet with four bastions and a moat around it.
From 1806 to 1823, the current building was constructed in the impressive Empire style that is also seen on many contemporary buildings in Saint Petersburg. The tower has a height of 72 metres, and at the top of the gilded spire is a boat as a symbol of the navy. The entire facade of the Admiralty measures over 400 meters in length and extends on both sides of the tower, which can be seen from several of St. Petersburg’s long and wide boulevards.
After being a shipyard and headquarters for the tsar’s fleet, the site became a maritime school for a time. From 2012, the Admiralty regained one of its old functions, becoming the seat of Russia’s navy, consisting of major fleets in the Baltic, Severomorsk, Sevastopol and Vladivostok, as well as a flotilla in the Caspian Sea.
In the Senate Square you can see the statue of the Bronze Horseman, representing the city’s founder; Peter the Great. The statue was produced by the French artist Étienne Falconet in the period 1770-1782 at the behest of Catherine the Great. The statue is impressive and one of the city’s landmarks.
The statue’s foundation is made up of a single stone that came here from what is now Finland, and it weighs 1,250 tons in its cut form. On it stands the equestrian statue of Peter the Great, and a detail is that the horse steps on a snake. The snake is believed to be a symbol of the enemy in the form of either deception, evil or the enemy in the form of, for example, the Swedes whom Peter the Great overcame.
In the years 1925-2008, Senate Square was also called Ploshad Dekabristov/Площадь Декабристов. It was called after the failed palace revolution of the Decembrists in 1825.
The largest building on Nevsky Prospekt is the huge yellow trading house named Gostiny Dvor. It was designed by Bartolomeo Rastrelli and built in the years 1757-1785. The long construction period meant that the architectural style at some points changed from Baroque to Neoclassicism.
Gostinyj Dvor was established with covered streets in the large building, and more than 100 shops were located here. It is the city’s oldest shopping center and continues to function as such. In addition, Gostiny Dvor, with its size, is one of the dominant architectural features on the central part of Nevsky Prospekt.
Alexander Theater was built 1828-1832 in Empire style. It was the architect Carlo Rossi who designed it, and the theater is considered one of his masterpieces. The building is finely decorated both inside and out; and above the facade’s monumental columns you can see, for example, a group of sculptures depicting Apollo.
Before the current theatre, a smaller wooden building was built, where, among other things, productions of Italian operas were carried out. Already at the beginning of the 19th century, it was decided to build a theater in stone, but not least the war against France and Napoleon stopped the plans for a while.
On Ostrovskogo Square/пл. Ostrovskogo in front of the Alexander Theater you can see a statue of Tsarina Catherine II nicknamed the Great. The monument was inaugurated in 1873 and stands in a beautiful park, which is like a green oasis on the street Nevsky Prospekt.
All the way around the theater building there are a number of buildings worth seeing. At number 5 immediately west of the theater is the corner building Dom Basina/Дом Басина, which was named after the house’s architect, N.P. Basin, and built 1878-1879 with elegant ornamentation. The neighboring building with number 7 was built 1876-1879 by one of Russia’s first mortgage credit institutions.
Behind the Alexander Theater are two buildings that, like the theater, were designed by Carlo Rossi. The buildings stretch all the way from the theater to Lomonosov Square/Ломоносовский сквер, and all the way the buildings were designed as a whole and unified ensemble. In the building at Ostrovskogo Plads 4-6 you can find a museum of theater and music.
To the east of the theater, with number 2B, you can see the former building of the Moscow-Vindava-Rybinsk railway, Здание Общества Московско-Виндаво-Рыбинской железной дороги, which was built in 1911-1912. With number 2A on the corner is a building that was built as a hotel in the years 2005-2008. The house is a beautiful example of a modern building, where the neighborhood’s old buildings were taken into account.
The Fabergé Museum is a place where you can get to know the jeweler Fabergé’s famous creations, which were created not least for the Russian Tsar family. The museum’s collection numbers over 4,000 works, and the pearls are nine of the imperial Fabergé eggs that were made for Russia’s last two tsars. The collection of eggs was acquired by Russian businessman Viktor Vekselberg in 2004 for one hundred million dollars. In addition to the nine imperial eggs, six more Fabergé eggs can be seen at the museum.
The Fabergé Museum is housed in the Shuvalov Palace/Шуваловский Дворец [Shuvalovskiy Dvorets], which was built from the 1780s. The mansion stands in neoclassicism and was once the residence of the Shuvalov and Naryshkin noble families. From 1919 to 1925, a museum of aristocratic life was located here, and later the place became a printing house.
This castle is a former imperial residence, as Czar Paul I had it built in the years 1797-1801. It was built at Sommerhaven as a replacement for an earlier wooden palace.
Vincenzo Brenna and Vasilij Bashenov were the architects of the castle, and they used several styles. The castle’s facades thus differ significantly from each other, and here you will find both Gothic, Renaissance and Classicism.
Paul I was inspired by medieval knights, and he reportedly did not feel safe in the Winter Palace. Therefore, he had this castle built as a castle with canals and drawbridges, so that the complex was located on an artificial island in the middle of the city.
Despite Paul I’s concern for security, he was murdered by a group of former officers already 40 days after he had taken the new castle into use. After the Tsar’s death, the new Tsar and the administration moved back to the Winter Palace. Afterwards, Sankt Mikael Castle became the seat of the military’s engineering academy, and since the 1990s it has been part of the Russian Museum.
In front of the castle stands a bronze equestrian statue of Peter the Great. It is by Rastrelli’s hand and was already designed under Peter the Great, cast in 1747 and thus only erected somewhat later. On the pedestal you can see, among other things, reliefs with scenes from Russia’s victories over Sweden in the Great Nordic War.
The Summer Garden is a park that was laid out by Czar Peter I the Great in 1704, and the facility was largely completed in its original appearance in 1719. The avenues were bordered by countless allegorical figures in marble. The figures were produced by various Italian sculptors, and just under 100 are still in existence. However, the outdoor statues today are copies.
The garden is very beautiful and one of the city’s nicest places for a stroll. Alexander Pushkin then also chose the Summer Garden as the location for the character Yevgeny Onegin’s childhood trips.
In Lenin Square stands a large statue of the head of state Vladimir Lenin. It was erected in 1926 as a monument to the event that took place here nine years earlier. It was at the square’s Finland Railway Station/Финляндский вокзал that Lenin arrived in what was then Petrograd on 3 April 1917 to lead the Russian Revolution. Finland Banegård is the station for trains to Vyborg and Helsinki.
The station was established in 1870, and until 1918 it was owned and operated by the Finnish Railways. The ownership was exchanged with Russian properties in Helsinki; among others the Alexander Theatre. The current station building was inaugurated in 1960.
On one of the railway station’s platforms you can see locomotive number 293, which drove Lenin’s train. The locomotive was Finnish, but was donated to the Soviet Union in 1957.
During the German siege of Leningrad 1941-1943, the railway station was the only one in the city still in operation. From here there was a connection to a station close to Lake Ladoga, which was the lifeline for supplies by boat or over the ice.
Universitetkaja Nabereszhnaja is a 1.2 kilometer long quay street along the river Neva. The bank of the street towards the river was laid out in granite from around 1805 and 50 years later. In addition to a nice river view, you can see several buildings in the so-called Petrine Baroque from the beginning of the 18th century; it belonged to Peter the Great’s favorite architectural styles.
Saint Petersburg’s ethnographic and anthropological museum, Kunstkammer, is housed in one of the city’s oldest buildings. The beautiful early baroque building in Petrine style with the observatory in the centrally built tower was built in 1719-1727 as the Academy of Sciences/Академия наук.
Kunstkammer is Russia’s oldest museum, and it is best known for Peter the Great’s bizarre collection of bastards, but the museum also contains fine and almost colossal collections about human history from Asia, Africa and America.
M. V. Lomonosov Museum/Музей М. В. Ломоносова is housed in the tower where the work of the scientist is depicted. Here you can also see the Gottorp Globe/Готторпский глобус, Duke Frederik III of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp’s globe of 3.1 meters in diameter from the mid-17th century.
Immediately west of the Kunstkammer you can see the later neoclassical Academy of Sciences, which was built at the end of the 18th century by the architect Quarenghi.
The Central Maritime Museum is a museum that provides an excellent insight into Russia’s maritime and naval history. The museum dates back to St. Petersburg’s Model Chamber from 1709; the chamber stored drawings and models from shipbuilding in the city’s shipyards.
You can see a colossal collection of models, effects, vessels and more at the museum. Among the highlights is Peter the Great’s boat, Botik Peter I/ботик Петра I, which was built for his voyages near Moscow. The boat came to St. Petersburg, and Peter sailed on the Neva in it; among other things on 30 August each year and at special ceremonies. You can also see Catherine the Great’s maritime throne and the Tsar’s flag from 1693, which is the oldest preserved Russian flag.
Yusupov Palace is an impressive residence building that was the primary residence of the noble family Yusupov. The original mansion was completed in 1770 to the design of French Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe. However, there were significant extensions and changes over the years; for example when the Yusupov family took over the place in the 1830s.
The Yusupov family was an extremely wealthy family, and they were known as great art collectors. Their residence did not leave much behind the tsar’s palaces, and on the walls there were countless works of art by great artists such as Rembrandt. With the establishment of the Soviet Union, the large collections became the property of the state and exhibited at, among others, the State Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. The mansion itself was opened as a museum.
However, Yusupov Palace entered the history books for completely different reasons. Felix Yusupov was the head of the family, and on December 16, 1916, he and Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich invited the infamous Rasputin to a party here in the favorite of the Yusupov family’s 57 residences in the country.
Rasputin had gained a huge influence on the Tsar’s politics through his relationship with the Tsarina, and large parts of the Russian nobility and more wanted to do away with it. According to tradition, Rasputin ate cake and drank red wine with a cyanide content that could kill five people. However, Rasputin did not die, and Felix Yusupov then shot him in the back.
The two noblemen prepared to leave, but they learned that Rasputin was still alive. They shot him three more times and beat his head with an iron rod. He was then wrapped in a blanket and thrown into the Mojka river branch. When Rasputin’s body was later found, it was found that he had not died from the treatment in the mansion, but rather from drowning as a result of the cold. How much of the tradition fits is not known.
The beautiful St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral with its five gilded domes was built in the Russian Baroque style in the years 1753-1762. The style is an example of the city’s elegant Baroque, which was inspired by Italian Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli’s beautiful works in the city. In addition to the church, you can see a separate standing bell tower, which was built 1755-1758.
Over the centuries, the church has honored the people of the navy and seafaring, and it is divided into two churches, located on separate floors of the building. Catherine the Great also attended the consecration of the altar of the upper church. In addition to beautiful altars, in the cathedral you can see a 17th-century Greek icon of Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors, as well as memorial plaques for sunken vessels.
St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral is an active church, which was also active during the Soviet period. A visit here is therefore an opportunity to experience some of the atmospheric Russian Orthodox religious acts that usually take place in the lower church.
This square is a fine example of imposing Soviet construction and engineering. To the east is the square’s dominant building; House of Soviets/Дом Советов. It was built in the years 1936-1941, and the architect N. A. Trotsky planned to place a statue of Lenin in front of the house at the same time. Lenin Monument/Памятник В. И. Ленину was realized later, and the 8.5 meter high statue on the 7.5 meter pedestal was inaugurated in 1970.
The House of Soviets was completed shortly before the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and instead of its intended role as the seat of the regional government, the large building was set up as a command for the Red Army. After the war, a research institute moved into the address.
Peterhof is the collective name for a number of palaces and gardens in the area west of Saint Petersburg. Best known and most worth seeing is the Peterhof Great Palace/Большой Петергофский дворец, which is also called Russia’s Versailles.
Peter the Great founded the place, and he had a smaller castle built in Petrine Baroque 1714-1725. After a few years, Elisabeta I had the current rococo castle built; it was in the years 1745-1755. The castle measures 268 meters in length and was built according to drawings by Bartolomeo Rastrelli and Jean-Baptiste Leblond.
The interior of the Peterhof Great Palace is a cornucopia of splendid things from the time of the Tsars. You can experience this in the halls with the many pieces of furniture and artwork that have been preserved here. Highlights are the Throne Hall/Тронный зал with the portraits of the tsars, the Ballroom/Танцевальный зал from 1751-1752 and the Chesmesalen/Чесменский зал, where hang large paintings of Russian victories in the Russo-Turkish War.
The throne room’s dominant portrait is of Catherine the Great on horseback, and it hangs immediately above the throne in the hall. The painting was painted by the Danish Vigilius Eriksen, and it shows the empress in a uniform from the regiment that helped her to the throne.
In addition to the rooms mentioned, a tour of the palace also includes the memorial room for Peter the Great. It was Empress Elisabeta who had the room preserved exactly as it was in the time of Peter the Great, and it is still preserved that way. In the room you can see fine joinery on the walls and original furniture from the time of Peter the Great. The room was his study, and the style is markedly different from the subsequent Baroque, and the room contrasts with the times of Elisabeta and Catherine the Great.
At the eastern end of the Peterhof Great Palace is the palace’s beautiful church, the Церковный корпус, adorned with five gilded onion domes. Under the domes you can see a unique church room from the Baroque and the hand of Bartolomeo Rastrelli. The church was built and decorated in the years 1747-1751, and it stands in its ancient splendor with one of the most beautiful decorations in the entire palace complex.
In front of the palace is the Upper Garden/Верхний сад, which is rigorously and symmetrically laid out according to the French model. Behind the Great Palace is a natural cliff that divides the upper and lower parts of the complex, and below is the Lower Garden/Нижний Парк.
Den Nedre Have is the large castle park that stretches down to the Gulf of Finland, and it is world-renowned for its many pompous and whimsical fountains. Most famous are the cascades at the Grand Palace. It contains countless waterfalls, fountains and gilded statues and is considered among the most beautiful in the world.
The central part of the fountain shows Samson fighting the lion, symbolizing the victory over Sweden in 1709. From the cascade, Den Store Kanal/Большой Канал leads towards the Gulf of Finland, flanked by a series of smaller fountains along the way. The Great Canal was dug under Peter the Great, and you could sail along it to the foot of the palace, from which there was internal access directly up into the representative rooms of the castle.
Around Den Nedre Park there are many fountains with built-in tricks for visitors. It was Peter the Great who installed the entertaining effects that still work. You can try the different tricks yourself and see if you can avoid the water.
These fountains, the central cascade and all other of the park’s many fountains all operate without pumps. Technologically, the landscape’s natural height difference is used to create high enough pressure through reservoirs to make them effective. The water comes to Peterhof via 22 kilometer long canals and through reservoirs, and these were facilities that were dug in the time of Peter the Great.
In the castle garden you can also see smaller buildings and pleasure castles, e.g. Marly Castle/Дворец Марли and Montplaisir Castle/Дворец Монплезир. The modest Montplaisir lies directly on the Gulf of Finland, and it was Peter the Great’s favorite place to stay when visiting Peterhof. He called it his Dutch castle, and it was also built with inspiration from his visit to the Netherlands.
Kronstadt is a city located on an island in the Gulf of Finland off Saint Petersburg. Dams have been built here from both the east and south, so the island is well connected to the mainland.
Kronstadt was captured from Sweden in 1703, and since 1704 it has been a fortress, naval station and home to Russia’s Baltic fleet, which was not least supposed to protect Saint Petersburg and the tsars; today, however, Baltijsk is the home port of this fleet.
The city and its many fortifications were built soon after Peter the Great’s founding in 1704. The Gulf of Finland freezes completely in winter, and the Russians took advantage of this to transport wood and other building materials over the ice, which they made holes in. Here they established a number of new islands, each of which functioned as a fort. Together, the forts almost completely covered the entrance to the capital. Only two narrow canals led to St. Petersburg, and by them lay the strongest forts.
Throughout the 19th century, Kronstadt’s forts were modified and expanded to strengthen the defense in line with the development of military hardware and military techniques.
In connection with the Russian revolutions in 1917, Kronstadt became known. In the February Revolution, the sailors joined the revolutionaries and executed their leaders. During the October Revolution they remained on the side of the Communists. In 1921, however, they went against the Bolsheviks and wanted, among other things, freedom of expression. The uprising was put down when the army was sent here.
During the Second World War, Kronstadt was frequently bombed, and the Luftwaffe sank the Soviet battleship Marat here, for example. To prevent a landing, a lot of artillery was established in and around Kronstadt, whose cathedral was used as a lookout. From here you could see 45 kilometers away. Tallinn had to be evacuated for a time, and thereby Kronstadt became home to a large fleet, which included the submarines that sank many German ships during the war, not least with military supplies from Sweden to Germany. Thanks to Kronstadt’s defenses, Saint Petersburg itself was not conquered militarily either.
There are several sights in Kronstadt, which is characterized by many canals and docks. The monumental Nikolai Naval Cathedral/Морской Николский собор (Pl. Yakornaya 1/пл. Якорная 1) was built in 1908-1913 in the distinguished Russian neo-Byzantine style. The height is 70 meters to the top of the large dome, and below it opens a beautiful church room with a large marble iconostasis.
Until Soviet destruction in 1932, St. Andrew’s Cathedral was also located in the city. It was built in 1817, and Johannes of Kronstadt was a priest here. This fact has made many Russian Orthodox pilgrims to the city.
The enormous Katarina Palace in the city of Tsarskoye Selo was built in the original and much smaller version under Peter the Great for his wife Catherine, who ruled as Catherine I after Peter’s death.
Their daughter ascended the throne in 1741 as Elisabeta I, and she found her mother’s pleasure castle too small. In 1752, Elisabeta commissioned the Italian court architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli to design and build the present magnificent Rococo castle. After just four years, the castle with its 325 meter long facade was ready. The sumptuous exterior is matched in the interior, and Elisabeta named the whole beauty after her mother, Catherine I. The main architect of the great castle was Rastrelli, but also the three Russian architects Zemtsov, Kvasov and Tjevakinskij took part in the work.
During World War II, the interior of the castle was completely destroyed. It happened when the Germans retreated from the siege of Leningrad, deliberately ensuring that the castle remained a hollow shell. Fortunately, the Russians had documented the majority of the castle’s interior before the war, so the facility has largely been able to be reconstructed to its former glory.
The world-famous Amber Room/Янтарная комната is one of the castle’s many beautiful highlights. From 1701, Frederik I of Prujsen prepared the parts for the amber room, which Czar Peter the Great had in exchange for some large Russian soldiers. The room came to the Winter Palace, where it could not fit in, and instead it was built into the new castle in Tsarskoye Selo. The amber room is thought to have been taken down during World War II, when it disappeared. Today it has been rebuilt according to the original design using exquisitely processed and carved amber.
Among the many other notable rooms are not least Rastrelli’s halls and rooms; e.g. The Great Ballroom/Зал для балов with Valeriani’s ceiling painting.
The castle’s park and garden facilities are large and in a French, romantic and rural style. In Katarina Park, there are Italian marble sculptures from the 1700s and 1900s, and there are many garden pavilions in the area.
Catherine Palace was used as a summer palace by the tsars until 1917, when it was nationalized and later converted into an art museum. Over time, other celebrities have stayed at the castle. Among other things, it can be mentioned that Alexander Pushkin went to school here.
Novgorod is the largest city in the oblast of the same name. Novgorod is first mentioned in 859 as a trading post between Scandinavia and Constantinople. The city is certainly older, and in the 8th century the Scandinavian ruler Rurik made Novgorod the capital. In 882, Rurik subsequently moved the capital to Kiev, but Novgorod remained the most important city for foreign trade, and in the 9th century the city became a religious center with the introduction of Christianity.
In 1136, Novgorod seceded from Kiev and formed the Republic of Novgorod, which ruled over most of Northeastern Europe. In the 13th century, Novgorod became a member of the Hanseatic League, and it was one of Europe’s most important trading cities. Novgorod also became a great cultural city with, among other things, production of books and icons, and in the 14th century it had approximately 400,000 inhabitants.
Vyborg is one of the westernmost cities in Russia. The city’s history goes back to a Karelian settlement, while its official foundation was the construction of a castle here by the Swedes during a crusade in 1293. In the following decades, the castle was fought over between Sweden and Novgorod, and with the Treaty of Nöteborg in 1323, Vyborg and part of Karelia became Swedish.
At the Swedish castle, a trading post arose, which today is known as Old Vyborg. The castle in Vyborg became one of the most important in Sweden, and the city was an important stronghold against Russia in the east. From the end of the 15th century, fortifications were built around Vyborg, as it is also known from Visby on Gotland Island.
Nevsky Prospect 35/Невский пр. 35
bgd.ru
Italyanskaya ulitsa 15/Итальянская ул. 15
Nevsky prospect 44/Невский пр. 44
grand-palace.ru
Prospectus Statjek 99/пр. Стачек 99
continent.tkspb.ru
Prospekt Bolshevikov 18/пр. Большевиков 18
nevsky.tkspb.ru
Nevsky prospect 48/Невский проспект 48
passage.spb.ru
Nevsky pr. 116/Невский пр. 116
stockmann.ru
nevskycentre.ru
Vladimirsky Prospect 19/Владимирский пр. 19
vladimirskiy.ru
The streets around Nevsky Prospect/Невский Проспект, Bolshoj Prospect/Большой Проспект
Central Cultural Park/Центральный парк культуры и отдыха
Elagin Ostrov 4/Елагин остров 4
elaginpark.spb.ru
Divo Ostrov/Парк развлечений – Диво-остров
Krestovskij Ostrov, Primorsky Park Pobedy/Крестовский остров, Приморский парк Победы
divo-ostrov.ru
Fontanka Circus/Цирк на Фонтанке
Naberezhnaja reki Fontanki 3/набережная реки Фонтанки 3
circus.spb.ru
Central Museum of Railway Transport/Центральный музей железнодорожного транспорта
Sadovaja ul. 50/Садовая ул. 50
railroad.ru/cmrt
Leningradsky Zoo/Ленинградский зоопарк
Aleksandrovskij Park 1/Александровский парк 1
spbzoo.ru
In the mouth of the river Nevas in the Gulf of Finland Alexander conquered Novgorod in 1240 Swedes. His name was Alexander Nevsky, and the story of the importance of the region for Russia had thus begun.
However, the Swedes returned about 400 years later, but it was only borrowed time. They had the fort built Nyenskans at the Neva River in 1611, but it was conquered by Peter the Great on May 1, 1703.
Saint Petersburg could then be founded on May 27, 1703, by Tsar Peter the Great, after he had conquered the area in the Great Nordic War against Sweden during the battles that lasted from 1700-1721. He named the city after his patron Saint Peter.
Peter the Great had been on a diplomatic and cultural tour of Europe; it was the so-called Great Embassy. Here he became convinced that Russia’s future lay in getting closer to Europe both physically and mentally. The swampy area at the mouth of the Neva River was what should be Peter and Russia’s new window to Europe.
Saint Petersburg started as a fortress in the form of the current Peter-Paul Fortress, which is strategically located on an island in Neva. With protection from the fortress, houses began to be erected on both sides of the river – all designed according to a city plan with large boulevards and squares that matched what Peter the Great had experienced in Western Europe.
After the great Russian victory in 1709 at the Battle of Poltava, the construction of the city accelerated. Thousands of artisans, peasants and soldiers moved to the city, and in addition to the houses, passages were felled in the forests of the future great streets of the future as well as drained and dug canals that enabled the city’s expansion.
Saint Petersburg was built at a tremendous rate, almost only interrupted by floods from Neva; the first hit already three months after the city’s founding.
Saint Petersburg’s port was opened in 1703, and as early as 1726 it was the country’s largest, and thus the most significant, in the tsar kingdom.
This was partly due to the fact that wealthy people were given land to quickly expand the city, which in 1712 became Russia’s new official capital and the city of the czar’s residence. Peter the Great brought the leading architects and builders from all over Europe to Saint Petersburg, where they were to build the city’s new splendor.
In the first half of the 18th century, Saint Petersburg was Russia’s leading city in science and culture. Universities had been erected and the city attracted the great Russian writers and poets such as Pushkin and Tolstoy.
The large collections, which later became the backbone of the city’s world-famous museums, were also started during this time. This applies, for example, to Peter the Store’s own collection of effects, which he kept in the art room.
By the death of Peter the Great in 1725, the town’s population was large and 90% of the country’s trade went through this. The nobility also lived here, with the influence having been moved with the Czar from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. Thus, Peter the Great’s dream of Europe had been realized in just a few decades.
Moscow again became the capital a short transition, but after a few years Empress Anna I moved again to Saint Petersburg, and the following rulers erected all major palaces in the city and the area.
Saint Petersburg was now one of Europe’s most grand capitals, and there was no doubt that it was the city of the Czar. Among the major builders was Catherine the Great, who ruled through most of the latter half of the 18th century.
The architectural styles also evolved over time. From Peter the Great’s Petrine Baroque to the Baroque and Rococo Baroque and Italian Rococo of the Italian to Catherine the Great’s preferred neoclassicism; all of this can be found in fine examples in St. Petersburg.
In the 19th century, the city continued to expand, and industrialization accelerated further. Workers moved in large numbers to the city, which suffered from overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions and epidemics. There were various plans for the construction of, for example, a metro in the city, but many were not realized.
The 19th century was also marked by an expanding czarist kingdom, with Russia extending to the Pacific Ocean, and the czar’s kingdom was expanded to the south.
The tensions between the monarchy and the people in 1905 set off an attempt at revolution. Strikers marched to the Tsar in the Winter Palace, where they were met by the sharp resistance of the military. The revolution was annihilated and the Imperial period could continue for a few more years.
St. Petersburg changed its name to the more Russian-sounding Petrograd in 1914, when the country was at war against Germany, among others. At this time, the city had two million inhabitants.
With the Russian Revolution during World War I, the Czarist regime was wound up and the Soviet Union established. It came to revolution both in February and October, when the Czar could no longer continue on the throne. The monarchy was abolished and the czar was arrested with family in one of the many palaces that the rulers had built for over 200 years.
The communist takeover caused the Union capital to be moved from Petrograd to the more centrally located and former capital of Moscow. Politically, Petrograd was weakened, but culturally it was and continues to be regarded as the country’s leader.
After Lenin’s death in 1924, Petrograd was renamed again. This time to Leningrad, in tribute to one of the creators of the Soviet Union and the man who, a few years ago, had come by train from Finland to start the revolution in 1917.
Throughout the 1930s, the city was the center of Stalin’s industrialization, and the city accounted for 11% of the country’s production. Some churches were demolished, while the palaces of the Zaras turned into museums or administration buildings.
During World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War in Russia, Leningrad was besieged for 900 days by German troops, from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944. The city was held in an iron grip that made transportation impossible, for example, to supplies. to the big city.
The siege caused great famine, and the extremely cold winter of 1941-1942 made the situation worse. Water pipes were frozen, the city’s transport system stood still, and the only flimsy contact with the rest of Russia was over the frozen Ladoga Lake. Bombing of the city was also carried out throughout the siege, with approximately one million people killed. That was over a third of the population.
Leningrad maintained the siege and the city was not taken, but the city center, suburbs and the many beautiful castle facilities around the city were destroyed.
Leningrad was rebuilt over the following many decades and recovered from the colossal human and material losses.
With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Leningrad regained its original name, Saint Petersburg, and it became adjacent to the Moscow power center in modern Russia. By the city’s 300th anniversary in 2003, St. Petersburg was shining like that of founder Peter the Great, and its population increased to about five million people.
Saint Petersburg, Russia[/caption]
Overview of Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is Peter the Great’s window to Europe, and a more beautiful city probably does not exist anywhere in the world. The many palaces, boulevards and unique museums make the city something special, and as a city it is inscribed as UNESCO world cultural heritage.
Saint Petersburg is home to the world’s largest museum, The State Hermitage, whose collections contain countless works by almost every famous old master and of course the setting in the Winter Palace, which is in itself a piece of world history. The Russian Museum comes next and impresses almost in the same way; the focus here is the magnificent Russian art includings icons.
About the Whitehorse travel guide
Contents: Tours in the city + tours in the surrounding area
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Author: Stig Albeck
Publisher: Vamados.com
Language: English
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Peter the Great founded the Admiralitet shipyard in 1704, which thereby became one of Saint Petersburg’s earliest institutions. The Admiralty was simultaneously a fortress for the city’s fleet with four bastions and a moat around it.
From 1806 to 1823, the current building was constructed in the impressive Empire style that is also seen on many contemporary buildings in Saint Petersburg. The tower has a height of 72 metres, and at the top of the gilded spire is a boat as a symbol of the navy. The entire facade of the Admiralty measures over 400 meters in length and extends on both sides of the tower, which can be seen from several of St. Petersburg’s long and wide boulevards.
After being a shipyard and headquarters for the tsar’s fleet, the site became a maritime school for a time. From 2012, the Admiralty regained one of its old functions, becoming the seat of Russia’s navy, consisting of major fleets in the Baltic, Severomorsk, Sevastopol and Vladivostok, as well as a flotilla in the Caspian Sea.
In the Senate Square you can see the statue of the Bronze Horseman, representing the city’s founder; Peter the Great. The statue was produced by the French artist Étienne Falconet in the period 1770-1782 at the behest of Catherine the Great. The statue is impressive and one of the city’s landmarks.
The statue’s foundation is made up of a single stone that came here from what is now Finland, and it weighs 1,250 tons in its cut form. On it stands the equestrian statue of Peter the Great, and a detail is that the horse steps on a snake. The snake is believed to be a symbol of the enemy in the form of either deception, evil or the enemy in the form of, for example, the Swedes whom Peter the Great overcame.
In the years 1925-2008, Senate Square was also called Ploshad Dekabristov/Площадь Декабристов. It was called after the failed palace revolution of the Decembrists in 1825.
The largest building on Nevsky Prospekt is the huge yellow trading house named Gostiny Dvor. It was designed by Bartolomeo Rastrelli and built in the years 1757-1785. The long construction period meant that the architectural style at some points changed from Baroque to Neoclassicism.
Gostinyj Dvor was established with covered streets in the large building, and more than 100 shops were located here. It is the city’s oldest shopping center and continues to function as such. In addition, Gostiny Dvor, with its size, is one of the dominant architectural features on the central part of Nevsky Prospekt.
Alexander Theater was built 1828-1832 in Empire style. It was the architect Carlo Rossi who designed it, and the theater is considered one of his masterpieces. The building is finely decorated both inside and out; and above the facade’s monumental columns you can see, for example, a group of sculptures depicting Apollo.
Before the current theatre, a smaller wooden building was built, where, among other things, productions of Italian operas were carried out. Already at the beginning of the 19th century, it was decided to build a theater in stone, but not least the war against France and Napoleon stopped the plans for a while.
On Ostrovskogo Square/пл. Ostrovskogo in front of the Alexander Theater you can see a statue of Tsarina Catherine II nicknamed the Great. The monument was inaugurated in 1873 and stands in a beautiful park, which is like a green oasis on the street Nevsky Prospekt.
All the way around the theater building there are a number of buildings worth seeing. At number 5 immediately west of the theater is the corner building Dom Basina/Дом Басина, which was named after the house’s architect, N.P. Basin, and built 1878-1879 with elegant ornamentation. The neighboring building with number 7 was built 1876-1879 by one of Russia’s first mortgage credit institutions.
Behind the Alexander Theater are two buildings that, like the theater, were designed by Carlo Rossi. The buildings stretch all the way from the theater to Lomonosov Square/Ломоносовский сквер, and all the way the buildings were designed as a whole and unified ensemble. In the building at Ostrovskogo Plads 4-6 you can find a museum of theater and music.
To the east of the theater, with number 2B, you can see the former building of the Moscow-Vindava-Rybinsk railway, Здание Общества Московско-Виндаво-Рыбинской железной дороги, which was built in 1911-1912. With number 2A on the corner is a building that was built as a hotel in the years 2005-2008. The house is a beautiful example of a modern building, where the neighborhood’s old buildings were taken into account.
The Fabergé Museum is a place where you can get to know the jeweler Fabergé’s famous creations, which were created not least for the Russian Tsar family. The museum’s collection numbers over 4,000 works, and the pearls are nine of the imperial Fabergé eggs that were made for Russia’s last two tsars. The collection of eggs was acquired by Russian businessman Viktor Vekselberg in 2004 for one hundred million dollars. In addition to the nine imperial eggs, six more Fabergé eggs can be seen at the museum.
The Fabergé Museum is housed in the Shuvalov Palace/Шуваловский Дворец [Shuvalovskiy Dvorets], which was built from the 1780s. The mansion stands in neoclassicism and was once the residence of the Shuvalov and Naryshkin noble families. From 1919 to 1925, a museum of aristocratic life was located here, and later the place became a printing house.
This castle is a former imperial residence, as Czar Paul I had it built in the years 1797-1801. It was built at Sommerhaven as a replacement for an earlier wooden palace.
Vincenzo Brenna and Vasilij Bashenov were the architects of the castle, and they used several styles. The castle’s facades thus differ significantly from each other, and here you will find both Gothic, Renaissance and Classicism.
Paul I was inspired by medieval knights, and he reportedly did not feel safe in the Winter Palace. Therefore, he had this castle built as a castle with canals and drawbridges, so that the complex was located on an artificial island in the middle of the city.
Despite Paul I’s concern for security, he was murdered by a group of former officers already 40 days after he had taken the new castle into use. After the Tsar’s death, the new Tsar and the administration moved back to the Winter Palace. Afterwards, Sankt Mikael Castle became the seat of the military’s engineering academy, and since the 1990s it has been part of the Russian Museum.
In front of the castle stands a bronze equestrian statue of Peter the Great. It is by Rastrelli’s hand and was already designed under Peter the Great, cast in 1747 and thus only erected somewhat later. On the pedestal you can see, among other things, reliefs with scenes from Russia’s victories over Sweden in the Great Nordic War.
The Summer Garden is a park that was laid out by Czar Peter I the Great in 1704, and the facility was largely completed in its original appearance in 1719. The avenues were bordered by countless allegorical figures in marble. The figures were produced by various Italian sculptors, and just under 100 are still in existence. However, the outdoor statues today are copies.
The garden is very beautiful and one of the city’s nicest places for a stroll. Alexander Pushkin then also chose the Summer Garden as the location for the character Yevgeny Onegin’s childhood trips.
In Lenin Square stands a large statue of the head of state Vladimir Lenin. It was erected in 1926 as a monument to the event that took place here nine years earlier. It was at the square’s Finland Railway Station/Финляндский вокзал that Lenin arrived in what was then Petrograd on 3 April 1917 to lead the Russian Revolution. Finland Banegård is the station for trains to Vyborg and Helsinki.
The station was established in 1870, and until 1918 it was owned and operated by the Finnish Railways. The ownership was exchanged with Russian properties in Helsinki; among others the Alexander Theatre. The current station building was inaugurated in 1960.
On one of the railway station’s platforms you can see locomotive number 293, which drove Lenin’s train. The locomotive was Finnish, but was donated to the Soviet Union in 1957.
During the German siege of Leningrad 1941-1943, the railway station was the only one in the city still in operation. From here there was a connection to a station close to Lake Ladoga, which was the lifeline for supplies by boat or over the ice.
Universitetkaja Nabereszhnaja is a 1.2 kilometer long quay street along the river Neva. The bank of the street towards the river was laid out in granite from around 1805 and 50 years later. In addition to a nice river view, you can see several buildings in the so-called Petrine Baroque from the beginning of the 18th century; it belonged to Peter the Great’s favorite architectural styles.
Saint Petersburg’s ethnographic and anthropological museum, Kunstkammer, is housed in one of the city’s oldest buildings. The beautiful early baroque building in Petrine style with the observatory in the centrally built tower was built in 1719-1727 as the Academy of Sciences/Академия наук.
Kunstkammer is Russia’s oldest museum, and it is best known for Peter the Great’s bizarre collection of bastards, but the museum also contains fine and almost colossal collections about human history from Asia, Africa and America.
M. V. Lomonosov Museum/Музей М. В. Ломоносова is housed in the tower where the work of the scientist is depicted. Here you can also see the Gottorp Globe/Готторпский глобус, Duke Frederik III of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp’s globe of 3.1 meters in diameter from the mid-17th century.
Immediately west of the Kunstkammer you can see the later neoclassical Academy of Sciences, which was built at the end of the 18th century by the architect Quarenghi.
The Central Maritime Museum is a museum that provides an excellent insight into Russia’s maritime and naval history. The museum dates back to St. Petersburg’s Model Chamber from 1709; the chamber stored drawings and models from shipbuilding in the city’s shipyards.
You can see a colossal collection of models, effects, vessels and more at the museum. Among the highlights is Peter the Great’s boat, Botik Peter I/ботик Петра I, which was built for his voyages near Moscow. The boat came to St. Petersburg, and Peter sailed on the Neva in it; among other things on 30 August each year and at special ceremonies. You can also see Catherine the Great’s maritime throne and the Tsar’s flag from 1693, which is the oldest preserved Russian flag.
Yusupov Palace is an impressive residence building that was the primary residence of the noble family Yusupov. The original mansion was completed in 1770 to the design of French Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe. However, there were significant extensions and changes over the years; for example when the Yusupov family took over the place in the 1830s.
The Yusupov family was an extremely wealthy family, and they were known as great art collectors. Their residence did not leave much behind the tsar’s palaces, and on the walls there were countless works of art by great artists such as Rembrandt. With the establishment of the Soviet Union, the large collections became the property of the state and exhibited at, among others, the State Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. The mansion itself was opened as a museum.
However, Yusupov Palace entered the history books for completely different reasons. Felix Yusupov was the head of the family, and on December 16, 1916, he and Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich invited the infamous Rasputin to a party here in the favorite of the Yusupov family’s 57 residences in the country.
Rasputin had gained a huge influence on the Tsar’s politics through his relationship with the Tsarina, and large parts of the Russian nobility and more wanted to do away with it. According to tradition, Rasputin ate cake and drank red wine with a cyanide content that could kill five people. However, Rasputin did not die, and Felix Yusupov then shot him in the back.
The two noblemen prepared to leave, but they learned that Rasputin was still alive. They shot him three more times and beat his head with an iron rod. He was then wrapped in a blanket and thrown into the Mojka river branch. When Rasputin’s body was later found, it was found that he had not died from the treatment in the mansion, but rather from drowning as a result of the cold. How much of the tradition fits is not known.
The beautiful St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral with its five gilded domes was built in the Russian Baroque style in the years 1753-1762. The style is an example of the city’s elegant Baroque, which was inspired by Italian Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli’s beautiful works in the city. In addition to the church, you can see a separate standing bell tower, which was built 1755-1758.
Over the centuries, the church has honored the people of the navy and seafaring, and it is divided into two churches, located on separate floors of the building. Catherine the Great also attended the consecration of the altar of the upper church. In addition to beautiful altars, in the cathedral you can see a 17th-century Greek icon of Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors, as well as memorial plaques for sunken vessels.
St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral is an active church, which was also active during the Soviet period. A visit here is therefore an opportunity to experience some of the atmospheric Russian Orthodox religious acts that usually take place in the lower church.
This square is a fine example of imposing Soviet construction and engineering. To the east is the square’s dominant building; House of Soviets/Дом Советов. It was built in the years 1936-1941, and the architect N. A. Trotsky planned to place a statue of Lenin in front of the house at the same time. Lenin Monument/Памятник В. И. Ленину was realized later, and the 8.5 meter high statue on the 7.5 meter pedestal was inaugurated in 1970.
The House of Soviets was completed shortly before the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and instead of its intended role as the seat of the regional government, the large building was set up as a command for the Red Army. After the war, a research institute moved into the address.
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