St. Petersburg

Tourism in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a cultural capital of Russia. It is located in the northwest of the country, on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. St. Petersburg is founded in 1703 by Peter the Great.

St. Petersburg is considered to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world; every year tourists from all the countries come here to admire its magnificent architecture and atmosphere. Because of a great number of small rivers and channels St. Petersburg is often called Palmyra of the North or North Venice.

Sights

St. Petersburg possesses a great number of historical and cultural sights and owing to that fact it became very popular among tourists (the city holds the 7th position in the list of the most visited European cities). So, how to begin a tour round this majestic city?

Of course, first is the well-known State Hermitage that is considered one of the largest museums in the world. It is founded in 1764, and consists of 8 parts: prehistoric culture of antiquity, restoration department, history of Russian culture and culture of East, science and education department, numismatic department, and also the Western European culture department.

To make the round of the whole museum and to admire every exhibit, you need more than a couple of weeks! Just the main collections take five buildings; the collection has over 3 million works of art; there are 350 exhibition halls and the walk around them takes 20 kilometers.

Though State Hermitage is one of the world’s greatest museums, one can be amazed with the fact that several dozens of cats live on its territory. The tradition started from the reign of Catherine II and is still preserved, as the cats are considered to be the guardians of the galleries.

After a visit to Hermitage you should pay attention to St. Isaac's Cathedral. Earlier it was the largest cathedral in Russia. The construction lasted for 40 years from 1818 to 1858; the fronts are decorated with granite columns and sculptures, the interior amazes with mosaic icons, lazurite and nephrite columns, and of course a number of invaluable paintings.

The State Russian Museum is the third well-known sight of St. Petersburg and the greatest museum of Russian fine art. The collection of Soviet and Russian art includes a great number of paintings thought many were irrevocably lost. Today the museum has over 400 thousand exhibits that reveal the development of Russian art of the last 1000 years

Also we recommend to visit the Church of the Spilled Blood, a place where the emperor Alexander II was killed. It was closed in the 1920th, and it was strongly damaged during the Great Patriotic War. In 1970 the status of church was returned back and the spiritual monument was in restoration for about 25 years! Splendid mosaic decorations were created on the project of 30 artists, and today when the interiors are restored, the church shines with its magnificence again.

Sights of the suburbs

Besides the city monuments of culture, architecture and history, you can find interesting such regional sights as Catherine Palace in Pushkin, the residence of Peter the Great in Petrodvorets that is located on the coast of the Gulf of Finland, Pavel's Palace in Pavlovsk, Chinese Palace at Oranienbaum and a great number of other sights.

St. Petersburg is truly beautiful city, an acknowledged center of Russian and European culture; everyone finds charm and splendor of its mystical narrow streets that inspired dozens of poets, writers and musicians all over the world. Even a couple of months won’t be enough for the sightseeing. Here we named just the most popular, classical and well-known places, but actually there are a lot more interesting places that are worth visiting!