Saint Petersburg (Sankt-Peterburg) is Russia's most European city — built by Peter the Great (1703) to be Russia's "window to Europe" on the swampy delta of the Neva River, with palaces and canals designed by Italian, French and German architects. The result is the most magnificent 18th-century baroque city in the world: the Winter Palace (the Hermitage), the Peterhof fountains, the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo (with the Amber Room), the Peter and Paul Fortress, and the extraordinary White Nights of summer (when it never truly gets dark). Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich all lived here — and the October Revolution of 1917 that changed the world happened in these streets.
The Hermitage (the Winter Palace + 5 connected buildings, 3 million objects) is the second largest art museum in the world — the Italian Renaissance (da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian), the Dutch Golden Age (Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son, the finest Rembrandt outside Amsterdam), the French Impressionists (Matisse and Picasso's largest collection outside their own museums). Plan 4-6 hours minimum for the highlights. Book online.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideDvortsovaya Ploshchad (Palace Square, in front of the Winter Palace) is the finest Baroque ensemble in Russia — the green and white Winter Palace facade, the red General Staff Building (curved Neoclassical, Rossi 1829) and the Alexander Column (the world's tallest freestanding monolithic column). The scene of the 1905 Bloody Sunday massacre and the storming of the Winter Palace in 1917.
Nevsky Prospekt (4.5km long, the main boulevard of St. Petersburg since Peter the Great built it in 1712) is lined with the finest 18th-19th century architecture in Russia — the Kazan Cathedral (Catholic basilica plan, 1811), the Singer House (Art Nouveau, 1902 — now a bookshop), the Eliseyev Emporium (1903, the finest food hall in Russia), and dozens of palaces, hotels and churches.
The White Nights of St. Petersburg (June 11–July 2: the sun never fully sets) — the city's most famous atmospheric phenomenon. The canals and bridges are at their most surreal at 11pm in full twilight. Canal boat tours from the Anichkov Bridge or the Fontanka River — the illuminated palaces reflected in the water. The drawbridges on the Neva rise at 1am (the best show in the city).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideCococo (St. Isaac's Square) is the finest New Russian cuisine restaurant in St. Petersburg — Chef Igor Grishechkin's creative reinterpretation of Russian regional ingredients: smoked Karelian pike, Leningrad-style pelmeni, honey cake "Medovik" and a seasonal tasting menu. One of the finest restaurants in Russia.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuidePeterhof (1723, Peter the Great's summer palace on the Gulf of Finland, 29km west of the city) is the most spectacular baroque garden in the world — the Grand Cascade (64 fountains fed by natural water pressure, no pumps) in front of the Grand Palace, the Samson Fountain, and the 150 fountains of the Lower Park. Open May–October. Hydrofoil from the Neva (35 min) or bus.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Peter and Paul Fortress (1703, the first structure built in St. Petersburg) is the oldest building in the city — the burial place of all Russian emperors from Peter the Great to Alexander III (the cathedral inside), and the location of the most notorious political prison in Russia (Dostoevsky was imprisoned here). The bell tower (122.5m) was the tallest building in Russia for 200 years.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Russian Museum (in the Mikhailovsky Palace, 1898) is the most important collection of Russian art in St. Petersburg — Repin's Barge Haulers on the Volga, Bryullov's Last Day of Pompeii (the most famous Russian painting), Surikov's historical canvases and the entire history of Russian painting from icons to the avant-garde. Less crowded than the Hermitage.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe ten central drawbridges on the Neva rise nightly from late April to November (Palace Bridge from 1:25am, Trinity Bridge from 1:35am) to let ships through — the most dramatic free spectacle in St. Petersburg. Watch from the Palace Embankment with a bottle of kvas or beer, with the Hermitage and the Peter and Paul Fortress gold spire reflected in the water. The city transforms completely at 1am.
The Catherine Palace (1756, Rastrelli) at Tsarskoye Selo (25km south of the city) is the most extravagant Rococo palace in Russia — the 300-metre blue and white facade, the gilded Great Hall, and the Amber Room (the original was looted by the Nazis in 1941 and disappeared — the reconstruction completed 2003 used 6 tonnes of amber and took 25 years). One of the most spectacular interiors in the world. Book well in advance.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideDostoevsky wrote The Brothers Karamazov and died in his last apartment (now the Dostoevsky Literary Memorial Museum, Kuznechny Lane 5/2). The preserved study and the recreation of the St. Petersburg of Crime and Punishment (the streets of Raskolnikov's murder and confession are all walkable nearby — the novel is set specifically in the Sennaya Square neighbourhood 1.5km away).
The Griboedov Canal (8km, the most atmospheric canal in St. Petersburg — narrower and darker than the Fontanka) leads to the Church of the Savior on Blood (1883-1907, built on the spot where Alexander II was assassinated — the most extraordinary Russian Revival exterior in the city, with mosaic-covered interior). One of the finest canal walks in Europe.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideSolyanka (the thick, slightly sour soup with pickled vegetables, olives, capers, assorted meats and a wedge of lemon — the finest hangover cure and the most characteristically Russian soup) with a cold Baltika beer at any city-centre stolovaya (the Soviet-style canteen, still operating and excellent value). Or at Zoom Café for a more modern setting.
Nevsky Prospekt at midnight (during White Nights or winter) is one of the most atmospheric streets in Europe — the lit-up facades of the palaces, the crowds even at midnight, and the sense of a city that Gogol, Pushkin and Dostoevsky all described as fundamentally different from anywhere else. The complete White Nights experience: light sky at midnight, drawbridges rising at 1am.