52 Best Sights in St. Petersburg, Russia

The site of many revolutionary speeches and armed clashes with military and police forces is generally called by its former name, Insurrection Square (the adjacent metro station is still known by that name). The busy Moscow railroad station is here, and this part of Nevsky Prospekt is lined with many kinds of shops, including new stores like Stockmann and H&M, as well as art galleries and bookstores. A stroll here is not a casual affair, since Nevsky is almost always teeming with bustling crowds of shoppers and street artists.

Erected on strictly classical lines between 1783 and 1789, the original building of the Russian Academy of Sciences is considered to be Giacomo Quarenghi's grandest design, with an eight-column portico, a pediment, and a double staircase. The administrative offices of the academy, founded in 1724 by Peter the Great, were transferred to Moscow in 1934 and the building now houses the St. Petersburg branch of the academy.

Opened in 1814, Russia's first public library is still known fondly as the "Publichka." It holds more than 20 million books and claims to have a copy of every book ever printed in Russia. Among the treasures are Voltaire's library and the only copy of Chasovnik (1565), the second book printed in Russia. The main section, on the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and ulitsa Sadovaya, was designed by Yegor Sokolov and built between 1796 and 1801. Another wing, built between 1828 and 1832, was designed by Carlo Rossi as an integral part of Ploshchad Ostrovskovo. The facade is adorned with statues of philosophers and poets, including Homer and Virgil, and the Roman goddess of wisdom, Minerva. Using the library requires a passport, registration note (a note from a hotel, in the case of tourists), and two photos, which can be taken during the registration in the library. You may be able to get in for a quick look if you show your passport and ask nicely.

Almost as interesting as the paintings, posters, flags, and porcelain tracing the history of Russia in the 20th century is the history of this elegant art-nouveau house itself, built in 1905 by Alexander Goguen. It was the home of Mathilda Kshesinskaya, a famous ballerina and the mistress of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, before he married Alexandra. Kshesinskaya left Russia in 1917 for Paris, where she married a longtime lover, Andrei Vladimirovich, another Romanov. One of Kshesinskaya's pupils was the great English ballerina Margot Fonteyn. The mansion served as Bolshevik committee headquarters in the months leading up to the October Revolution (an exhibit reconstructs Lenin's study from this period) and in 1957 was linked to the adjoining town house by a rather nondescript central wing and turned into the Museum of the Great October Socialist Revolution; it was given its current name in 1991.

Built between 1910 and 1914, the city's center of Muslim worship is designed after the Gur Emir in Samarkand (in modern-day Uzbekistan), where Tamerlane, the 14th-century conqueror, is buried. The huge dome is flanked by two soaring minarets and covered with sky-blue ceramics, and the inside columns, which support the arches under the dome, are faced with green marble.

One of St. Petersburg's best-known landmarks, a gigantic equestrian statue of Peter the Great, dominates this square that from 1925 through 2008 was known as "Decembrists' Square," a reference to the dramatic events that unfolded here on December 14, 1825. Following the death of Tsar Alexander I (1777–1825), a group of aristocrats, some of whom were army officers, staged a rebellion on the square in an attempt to prevent the crowning of Nicholas I (1796–1855) as the new tsar, and perhaps do away with the monarchy altogether. Their coup was suppressed with much bloodshed by troops who were loyal to Nicholas, and those rebels who were not executed were banished to Siberia. Although the Decembrists, as they came to be known, did not bring significant change to Russia in their time, their attempts at liberal reform were often cited by the Soviet regime as proof of deep-rooted revolutionary fervor in Russian society.

In the center of the square is the grand statue called the Medny Vsadnik (Bronze Horseman), erected as a memorial from Catherine the Great to her predecessor, Peter the Great. The simple inscription on the base reads, "To Peter the First from Catherine the Second, 1782." Created by the French sculptor Étienne Falconet and his student Marie Collot, the statue depicts the powerful Peter, crowned with a laurel wreath, astride a rearing horse that symbolizes Russia, trampling a serpent representing the forces of evil. The enormous granite rock on which the statue is balanced comes from the Gulf of Finland. Reportedly, Peter liked to stand on it to survey his city from afar. Moving it was a Herculean effort, requiring a special barge and machines and nearly a year's work. The statue was immortalized in a poem of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, who wrote that the tsar "by whose fateful will the city was founded beside the sea, stands here aloft at the very brink of a precipice, having reared up Russia with his iron curb."

What was once the Nobles' Club before the revolution is now home to the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. Its main concert hall, the Bolshoi Zal, with its impressive marble columns, has been the site of many celebrated performances, including the premiere (in 1893) of Tchaikovsky's Sixth (Pathétique) Symphony, with the composer conducting. (This was his final masterpiece; he died nine days later.) More recently, in 1942, when Leningrad was completely blockaded, Dmitri Shostakovich's Seventh (Leningrad) Symphony premiered here, an event broadcast in the same spirit of defiance against the Germans in which it was written. Later the concert hall was officially named for this composer.

This bridge spanning the Moika River is so wide (about 325 feet) and stubby that it seems not to be a bridge at all but rather a sort of quaint raised footpath on St. Isaac's Square. The "Blue Bridge" is named for the color of the paint on its underside.

Someone mentioning the Smolny may be referring to either the beautiful baroque church and convent or the classically designed institute that went down in history as the Bolshevik headquarters in the Revolution of 1917. The two architectural complexes are right next door to each other, on the Neva's left bank. Construction of the Smolny convent and cathedral began under Elizabeth I and continued during the reign of Catherine the Great, who established a school for the daughters of the nobility within its walls. The centerpiece of the convent is the magnificent five-domed Cathedral of the Resurrection, which was designed by Bartolomeo Rastrelli and which is, some historians say, his greatest creation. At first glance, the highly ornate blue-and-white cathedral seems to have leaped off the pages of a fairy tale. Its five white onion domes, crowned with gilded globes supporting crosses of gold, convey a sense of magic and power. Begun by Rastrelli in 1748, the cathedral was not completed until the 1830s, by the architect Vasily Stasov. Few traces of the original interior have survived. It's currently used for concerts, notably of Russian sacred music, and rather insignificant exhibits.The cathedral tower offers the highest viewing point in the city.

If you stand in front of the magnificent State Museum of Russian Art and turn to survey the entire square, the first building on your right, with old-fashioned lanterns adorning its doorways, is the Mikhailovsky Theatre of Opera and Ballet. Bordering the square's south side, on the east corner of ulitsa Mikhailovskaya, is the former Nobles' Club, now the Shostakovich Philharmonia, home to the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. The buildings on the square's remaining sides are former residences and school buildings.

In the center of this square in front of St. Isaac's Cathedral stands the Nicholas Statue. Unveiled in 1859, the statue of Tsar Nicholas I was commissioned by the tsar's wife and three children, whose faces are engraved (in the allegorical forms of Wisdom, Faith, Power, and Justice) on its base. It was designed, like St. Isaac's Cathedral and the Alexander Column, by Montferrand. The statue depicts Nicholas mounted on a rearing horse. Other engravings on the base describe such events of the tsar's reign as the suppression of the Decembrists' uprising and the opening ceremonies of the St. Petersburg–Moscow railway line.

This turquoise-and-white extravaganza of a Russian baroque cathedral was designed by S.I. Chevakinsky, a pupil of Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli. It's a theatrical showpiece, and its artistic inspiration was in part derived from the 18th-century Italian prints of the Bibiena brothers, known for their opera and theater designs. Canals and green spaces surround the wedding-cake silhouette, a forest of white Corinthian pilasters and columns and flanked by an elegant campanile. Inside are a lower church (low, dark, and warm for the winter) and an upper church (high, airy, and cool for the summer), typical of Russian Orthodox sanctuaries. The interior is no less picturesque than the outside. This is one of the few Orthodox churches that stayed open under Soviet power.

The city hall under the tsars has a notable red-and-white clock tower, meant to resemble those in Western European cities and erected by Ferrari between 1799 and 1804. It was originally equipped with signaling devices that sent messages between the Winter Palace and the royal summer residences.The tower looks particularly beautiful when illuminated.

Tsar Alexander I founded this university in 1819, and today it's one of Russia's leading institutions of higher learning with an enrollment of more than 20,000. Russian president Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev graduated from the university's law faculty. Much of the campus dates to the 18th-century reign of Peter the Great. The bright red baroque building on the right (if you're walking west along the embankment) is the Twelve Colleges Building, designed by Domenico Trezzini and completed in 1741. The next building in the university complex is the Rector's Wing, where a plaque attests that the great Russian poet Alexander Blok (d. 1921) was born here in 1880. The third building along the embankment is a former palace built for Peter II (1715–30), Peter the Great's grandson, who lived and ruled only briefly.

Giacomo Quarenghi designed this neoclassical building between 1806 and 1808 in the style of an imposing country manor. It's here where Lenin and his associates planned the overthrow of the Kerensky government in October 1917, and Lenin lived at the Smolny for 124 days. The rooms in which he resided and worked are now a memorial museum. The museum also has an exhibit on the Russian Institute of Noble Girls, which was in the building from 1808 through 1917. The school was founded by the decree of Catherine the Great in 1764 and aimed to turn out well-educated women and future mothers, who would go on to raise similarly worthy children. The Institute enrolled girls from noble families from six years of age, and they graduated when they turned 18, after intense instruction in science, crafts, and the arts. They were allowed to see their parents rarely, and only with special permission. Today the rest of the building houses the offices of the governor of St. Petersburg and can be visited only by special request. To see the museum, make an appointment at least a week in advance. Tours are in Russian only, so you may want to bring an interpreter.

Admission to the Smolny is only through a tourist company or some other official or business organization and arrangements must be made at least four or five days in advance.

One of Peter the Great's passions was inspired by Versailles. When first laid out in 1704, the garden was given the regular, geometric style made famous by Louis XIV's gardener, Andre Le Nôtre, and decorated with statues and sculptures as well as with imported trees and plants. Grottoes, pavilions, ponds, fountains, and intricate walkways were placed throughout, and the grounds are bordered on all sides by rivers and canals. In 1777, floods did so much damage (entirely destroying the system of fountains) that the Imperial family stopped using the garden for entertaining, and the fountains were not restored. When the family decamped for environs farther afield, they left the Summer Garden for use by the upper classes. Today it's a popular park accessible to everyone. The graceful wrought-iron fence that marks the entrance to the garden was designed in 1779 by Yuri Felten; it's supported by pink granite pillars decorated with vases and urns.

Just inside this southeastern corner is Peter's original Summer Palace, Letny Dvorets. Designed by Domenico Trezzini and completed in 1714, the two-story building is quite simple, as most of Peter's dwellings were. The walls are of brick covered in stucco and painted primrose yellow. Open since 1934 as a museum, it has survived without major alteration. Currently the palace is closed for a long-needed restoration that is expected to last for several years. Two other attractive buildings nearby are the Coffee House (Kofeinyi Domik), built by Carlo Rossi in 1826, and the Tea House (Tchainyi Domik), built by L.I. Charlemagne in 1827. Neither of them serves the beverage they are named for: they're both used for expositions these days. As you walk through the park, take a look at some of its more than 80 statues. Peace and Abundance, sculpted in 1722 by Pietro Baratta, an allegorical depiction of Russia's victory in the war with Sweden, is one of the two original statues left in the garden after a recent renovation; the others are in Mikhailovsky Palace. The other original statue, just off the main alley, is of Ivan Krylov, a writer known as "Russia's La Fontaine." Peter Klodt, who also did the Anichkov Bridge horse statues, designed this sculpture, which was unveiled in 1855. Scenes from Krylov's fables, including his version of "The Fox and the Grapes," appear on the pedestal.

The spire of this lovely golden-yellow building is visible throughout the city and is one of St. Petersburg's most renowned emblems. The first structure on this site was a shipyard of Peter the Great, followed by an earthen fortress that guarded the port; after this came the first Admiralty, made of stone and topped by the spire that's endured to grace each successive structure. As you walk through the park in front, you'll see various statues, mostly of artists such as the composer Mikhail Glinka and the writer Mikhail Lermontov; the figure accompanied by the delightful camel is of Nikolai Przhevalsky, a 19th-century explorer of Central Asia.

Swiss architect Thomas de Thomon designed these columns, which were erected between 1805 and 1810 in honor of the Russian fleet. The monument takes its name from the Latin rostrum, meaning "prow." Modeled on similar memorials in ancient Rome, the columns are decorated with ships' prows; sculptures at the base depict Russia's main waterways, the Dnieper, Volga, Volkhov, and Neva rivers. Although the columns originally served as lighthouses—until 1855 this was St. Petersburg's commercial harbor—they are now lit only on special occasions, such as City Day (May 27). The columns were designed to frame the architectural centerpiece of this side of the embankment—the old Stock Exchange, which now holds the Naval Museum.

The street named for architect Carlo Rossi, the Italian architect who designed many of the classical buildings in St. Petersburg, has extraordinary proportions: it's bounded by two buildings of exactly the same height, its width (72 feet) equals the height of the buildings, and its length is exactly 10 times its width. A complete view unfolds only at the end of the street, where it meets ploshchad Lomonosov. The perfect symmetry is reinforced by the identical facades of the two buildings, which are painted the same yellow and both decorated with impressive white pillars. One of the buildings here, at Number 2, is the legendary Vaganova Ballet School (founded in 1738), whose pupils included Karsavina as well as Pavlova, Nijinsky, Ulanova, Baryshnikov, and Nureyev.

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977), best known in America for the novel Lolita, was born and lived in this apartment until his 18th year. Judging from Nabokov's works, in which the author often describes his building in detail, it seems he had warm memories of his first home. When in exile, Nabokov lived in hotels or rented apartments in different cities but never owned his own home. When asked why he didn't want to settle into a permanent home, he would answer, "I already have one in St. Petersburg." On view are family photos; the writer's drawings and various editions of his books; some of his belongings; and his collection of butterflies, which was previously kept at Harvard University. Visitors can watch a tape of a 1962 interview with Nabokov, in English.

On the cold night of December 17, 1916, this elegant yellow palace on the banks of the Moika River became the setting for one of history's most melodramatic murders. Prince Yusupov and others loyal to the tsar spent several frustrating and frightening hours trying to kill Grigory Rasputin (1872–1916), who had strongly influenced the tsarina, who in turn influenced the tsar, during the tumultuous years leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution. An extended tour given once daily at 1:45 pm shows off the rooms in which Rasputin was (or began to be) killed, as well as a waxworks exhibit of Rasputin and Prince Yusupov (who was forced to flee the country when Rasputin's murder was uncovered). Another tour (scheduled on the hour) takes you through the former reception rooms of the second floor. Both tours are in Russian only, but an audioguide tour is available in English, French, German, Italian, Finnish, and Spanish or you may phone ahead at least ten days in advance to arrange an English-language tour. The palace's underground tunnel where Rasputin was actually poisoned is ostensibly off-limits, but you may be able to view it if you avail yourself of the bathroom facilities on the lower level of the mansion.

On a lighter note, the showpiece of the palace remains the jewel-like rococo theater, whose stage was once graced by Liszt and Chopin; concerts are still presented here, and also in the palace's august and elegant White-Columns Room (concert tickets usually have to be purchased just before performance time).

An unusual collection of more than 30,000 species includes a mammoth, now stuffed, recovered from Siberia in 1901, and it joins tigers, foxes, bears, goats, and many kinds of birds. The museum also has a large collection of butterflies and other insects.