Must-see attractions in St Petersburg

  • Jordan Staircase Of Hermitage Museum

    State Hermitage Museum

    St Petersburg

    The Hermitage fully lives up to its sterling reputation. You can be absorbed by its treasures for days and still come out wanting more. The enormous…

  • Kunstkamera

    St Petersburg

    Also known as the Museum of Ethnology and Anthropology, this is the city’s first museum, founded in 1714 by Peter himself. It is famous largely for its…

  • Yusupov palace on the Moyka river.

    Yusupov Palace

    St Petersburg

    This spectacular palace on the Moyka River has some of the best 19th-century interiors in the city, in addition to a fascinating and gruesome history. The…

  • Mariinsky theater in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

    Mariinsky Theatre

    St Petersburg

    The Mariinsky Theatre has played a pivotal role in Russian ballet ever since it was built in 1859 and remains one of Russia's most loved and respected…

  • State Russian Museum....The Russian Museum today is a unique depository of artistic treasures, a leading restoration center, an authoritative institute of academic research, a major educational center and the nucleus of a network of national museums of art...The Russian Museum collection contains more than 400.000 exhibits. The main complex of museum buildings - the Mikhailovsky Palace and Benois Wing - houses the permanent exhibition of the Russian Museum, tracing the entire history of Russian art from the tenth to the twentieth centuries. The museum collection embraces all forms, genres, schools and movements of art.....www.rusmuseum.ru/eng

    Russian Museum

    St Petersburg

    Focusing solely on Russian art, from ancient church icons to 20th-century paintings, the Russian Museum's collection is magnificent and can easily be…

  • The pond on New Holland island in St Petersburg.

    New Holland

    St Petersburg

    This triangular island was closed for the most part of the last three centuries, and has opened to the public in dazzling fashion. There's plenty going on…

  • Erarta, Museum of modern art.

    Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art

    St Petersburg

    Erarta's superb hoard of 2800 pieces of Russian contemporary art trumps its somewhat far-flung location. Housed in an ingeniously converted neoclassical…

  • St Petersburg, Russia. Sailing ship anchored by the Peter and Paul Fortress.; Shutterstock ID 161765633; Your name (First / Last): Brana V; GL account no.: 65050; Netsuite department name: Online Editorial; Full Product or Project name including edition: destination page images

    Peter & Paul Fortress

    St Petersburg

    Housing a cathedral where the Romanovs are buried, a former prison and various exhibitions, this large defensive fortress on Zayachy Island is the kernel…

  • Church on the Spilled Blood

    Church of the Saviour on the Spilled Blood

    St Petersburg

    This five-domed dazzler is St Petersburg’s most elaborate church, with a classic Russian Orthodox exterior and an interior decorated with some 7000 sq…

  • Alexander Nevsky Monastery, named after St Petersburg's patron saint.

    Alexander Nevsky Monastery

    St Petersburg

    The Alexander Nevsky Monastery – named for the patron saint of St Petersburg – is the city's most ancient and eminent monastery. Peter the Great made a…

  • St Isaac's Cathedral.

    St Isaac's Cathedral

    St Petersburg

    The golden dome of St Isaac’s Cathedral dominates the St Petersburg skyline. Its obscenely lavish interior is open as a museum, although services are held…

  • General Staff Building

    St Petersburg

    The east wing of this magnificent building, wrapping around the south of Dvortsovaya pl and designed by Carlo Rossi in the 1820s, marries restored…

  • Hermitage Storage Facility

    St Petersburg

    Guided tours of the Hermitage’s state-of-the-art restoration and storage facility are highly recommended. This is not a formal exhibition as such, but the…

  • Street Art Museum

    St Petersburg

    It's well worth the effort making the trip out to see this magnificent collection of street art set inside a former 11-hectare industrial site. You'll…

  • Faberge egg at the Faberge Museum in Saint Petersburg.

    Fabergé Museum

    St Petersburg

    The magnificently restored Shuvalovsky Palace is home to the world's largest collection of pieces manufactured by the jeweller Peter Carl Fabergé …

  • Museum of Decorative & Applied Arts

    St Petersburg

    Also known as the Stieglitz Museum, this fascinating establishment is as beautiful as you would expect a decorative arts museum to be. An array of…

  • Menshikov Palace.

    Menshikov Palace

    St Petersburg

    The first stone building in the city, the Menshikov Palace was built to the grandiose tastes of Prince Alexander Menshikov, Peter the Great’s closest…

  • Palace Square

    St Petersburg

    This vast expanse is simply one of the most striking squares in the world, still redolent of imperial grandeur almost a century after the end of the…

  • Trinity Cathedral

    St Petersburg

    The Trinity Cathedral boasts stunning blue cupolas emblazoned with golden stars. A devastating fire in 2006 caused the 83m-high central cupola to collapse…

  • The Bronze Horseman is an equestrian statue of Peter the Great in Saint-Petersburg, Russia..August, 2014.=========================================.Медный Всадник. Памятник Петру Первому..Санкт-Петербург, Россия..Август, 2014

    Bronze Horseman

    St Petersburg

    The most famous statue of Peter the Great was immortalised as the Bronze Horseman in the epic poem by Alexander Pushkin. With his horse (representing…

  • Russian Academy of Fine Arts Museum

    St Petersburg

    Art lovers should not bypass the museum of this time-tested institution, which contains work by academy students and faculty dating back to its foundation…

  • Singer House (Russian: Дом компании «Зингер»), also widely known as the House of Books (Russian: Дом книги), is a building located at the intersection of Nevsky Prospekt and the Griboyedov Canal, directly opposite the Kazan Cathedral in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is recognized as an historical landmark, and has official status as an object of Russian cultural heritage.

    Nevsky Prospekt

    St Petersburg

    Nevsky Prospekt is Russia’s most famous street, running 4km from the Admiralty to Alexander Nevsky Monastery, from which it takes its name. The inner 2…

  • Senate Square

    St Petersburg

    Centred on the famed statue of the Bronze Horseman, this square is listed on city maps as Senatskaya ploshchad (Senate Sq). Its dominant feature is the…

  • Botanical Gardens

    St Petersburg

    On eastern Aptekarsky (Apothecary) Island, this was once a garden of medicinal plants – founded by Peter the Great himself in 1714 – that gave the island…

  • Kirov Museum

    St Petersburg

    Leningrad party boss Sergei Kirov was one of the most powerful men in Russia in the early 1930s. His decidedly un-proletarian apartment is now a…

  • Railing detail of Summer Garden.

    Summer Garden

    St Petersburg

    The city's oldest park, these leafy, shady gardens can be entered either at the northern Neva or southern Moyka end. Early-18th-century architects…

  • Kshesinskaia mansion, now housing the Museum of Political History.

    Museum of Political History

    St Petersburg

    The elegant Style Moderne Kshesinskaya Palace (1904) is a highly appropriate location for this excellent museum – one of the city's best – covering…

  • Smolny Institute

    St Petersburg

    Built by Giacomo Quarenghi between 1806 and 1808 as a school for aristocratic girls, the Smolny Institute was thrust into the limelight in 1917 when it…

  • Smolny Cathedral at dawn

    Smolny Cathedral

    St Petersburg

    If baroque is your thing, then look no further than the sky-blue Smolny Cathedral, an unrivalled masterpiece of the genre that ranks among Bartolomeo…

  • Exterior of Loft Project ETAGI cultural centre in St Petersburg.

    Loft Project ETAGI

    St Petersburg

    This fantastic conversion of the former Smolninsky Bread Factory has plenty to keep you interested, including many of the original factory fittings…

  • Choral Synagogue.

    Grand Choral Synagogue

    St Petersburg

    Designed by Vasily Stasov, the striking Grand Choral Synagogue opened in 1893 to provide a central place of worship for St Petersburg’s growing Jewish…

  • Tauride Palace & Gardens

    St Petersburg

    Catherine the Great had this baroque palace built in 1783 for Grigory Potemkin, a famed general and her companion for many years. Today it is home to the…

  • Engineers' Castle (St Michael's)

    Mikhailovsky Castle

    St Petersburg

    A branch of the Russian Museum, the castle is worth visiting for its temporary exhibits as well as a few finely restored state rooms, including the lavish…

  • Annunciation Church

    St Petersburg

    Between the cemeteries and the main church, you'll pass a ticket kiosk with a separate admission to the old Annunciation church, aka the…

  • The Central Naval Museum is one of the oldest museums in Russia and one of the largest maritime museums in the world, located in St. Petersburg.

    Central Naval Museum

    St Petersburg

    Following a move to this beautifully repurposed building opposite the former shipyard of New Holland, the Central Naval Museum has moved into the 21st…

  • Rumyantsev Mansion

    St Petersburg

    History buffs should not miss this oft-overlooked but superb local museum. Part of the State Museum of the History of St Petersburg, the mansion contains…

  • Buddhist Temple

    St Petersburg

    Another in the city's collection of grand religious buildings is this beautiful functioning datsan (temple) where respectful visitors are welcome. The…

  • Nabokov Museum

    St Petersburg

    This 19th-century townhouse was the suitably grand childhood home of Vladimir Nabokov, infamous author of Lolita and arguably the most versatile of 20th…

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