Nightlife & the Arts in St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg's cultural life is one of its top attractions. Except for the most renowned theaters, tickets are easily available and inexpensive. You can buy them at the box offices of the theaters themselves, at teatralnaya kassa (theater kiosks) throughout the city—Central Box Office No. 1 is at 42 Nevsky prospekt (812/571-3183) and is open daily from 11 to 7—and at service bureaus in hotels, most of which post performance listings in their main lobby. Note that some theaters charge different prices for Russians and foreigners.

The very efficient online service www.kassir.ru is available in English: go to http://spb.kassir.ru to reach the page with an English-language option on the upper right-hand side. The Mariinsky theater also sells tickets online through its Web site www.mariinsky.ru. The tickets can either be bought or reserved.

Bear in mind, too, that theater tickets purchased through hotels are the priciest of all, as most hotels tend to charge a markup on the foreigner price. All in all, your best option is to go in person to the theater concerned and buy the ticket there.

Your best source of information is the St. Petersburg Times (www.sptimes.ru), a free, local, independent English-language newspaper. It comes out on Tuesday and Friday and is widely distributed. The Friday edition has a calendar of events in the "All About Town" section, with theater and concert listings, and a restaurant column. Pulse, a glossy, advertising-driven paper published monthly in English and Russian editions, also has extensive listings. Copies of both papers can be found at Western airline offices, bars, clubs, hotels, cafés, and other places generally patronized by foreigners.

Most major theaters close down between mid-July and early August and start up again in mid-September or early October. However, summer is also the time for touring companies from other regions in Russia to come to town, so it's a rare day that there are no shows on at all. Sumptuous balls are thrown in the most famous palaces and concert halls in winter; the top two events are the Mariinsky Ball and the Temirkanov Ball on New Year's Eve.

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