• St-Petersburg
• Moskow
• Velikiy Novgorod
• Sergiev Posad (The Trinity Lavra)

Saint Petersburg

Visit Saint Petersburg, a unique magic city, which seems to be woven of water and stone with its marvelous palaces, fountains, Canals, embankments, bridges, railings and parks, where you can relax and have a good time and learn a lot of new things feeling as if you were in “another dimension”.

Saint Petersburg along with Venice, Amsterdam, Stockholm is one of those cities where water occupies a significant part of the area (about 10 %) and plays an important role in their aspect.

Saint Petersburg is the Russian city most abounding in water (it is situated on 42 islands, formed by 86 rivers and сanals).

It is because of the abundance of rivers and canals that it is often called with love and admiration the Northern Venice.

By the number of bridges (about 500, some 800 with the environs) Saint Petersburg is inferior only to Hamburg (2500) competing with Amsterdam (500) and excelling Venice (400).

While admiring the magnificent architecture of the old city in barocco, neoclassicism, art nouveau, eclectic, visiting marvelous  environs – oases of culture and leisure, you will learn about the eventful history of Saint Petersburg.

Saint Petersburg is a little more than three hundred years old. This fabulous city has gone through the grandeur and glamour of the capital, rise and downfall of the Romanov dynasty, three revolutions and horrible 900 days and nights of the blockade of Leningrad during the  Second World War.

Risen from the ruins it will enchant you, this most European of all Russian cities and the most Russian of all European ones!

Peter and Paul Fortress.

The stone walls of Peter-and-Paul’s Fortress, the first building of the city, tower in the center of Saint Petersburg, on the small island of the Neva.
Peter I played a big role in the planning of Peter and Paul Fortress.

The contours of the fortress were formed by the natural outlines of the banks of the Zayachy Island (Zyachy is a translation of Yanissaari (Hare Island) from Finnish). It took a form of a prolonged hexagon with six prominent corner bastions which enabled to open front and flank artillery fire to the approaches to the fortress.

Nowadays Peter and Paul Fortress is one of the most valuable historical and revolutionary and architectural monuments of Saint Petersburg and one of the largest museums of the country, «the heart of Saint Petersburg» as people call it.

The Hermitage

The Winter Palace built in 1754 – 1762 according to the project of Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1700 – 1762) was meant to be a gala zar’s residence  which determined the unique architectural image of the ensemble on the bank of the Neva and its leading place in panorama of the city.

The palace was being built for the empress Elisabeth, daughter of Peter I but she died a year before the construction was completed. The first empress who assumed possession of the palace was Catherine II.

The Hermitage is a world famous museum. Its 365 halls hosting its expositions are visited by 3,5 million visitors each year.

The Bronze Horseman

The Bronze horseman, the monument to Peter the Great faced the Neva is situated near the buildings of Senate and Synod.  It is this monument which tourists usually wish to see first as it became the symbol of the city a long time ago.

An inauguration of the monument took place on 7 August 1782. The ceremony was attended by several thousands of spectators but the sculptor himself was not there. Four years before the inauguration of the monument Etienne Falconet had some discords with the empress and the sculptor had to leave Russia.

Catherine did not invite him to the inauguration ceremony and accredited to herself all the merits of the monument’s creation. The epitaph on the pedestal was meant to remind about this «To Peter I from Catherine II». Opened at once after the end of the Great Patriotic War it is still the symbol of Saint Petersburg and a unique piece of Russian and world art.

Saint Isaac’s Cathedral

The magnificent Isaac’s Cathedral is a real masterpiece of Saint Petersburg. Its gilded dome dominating all other constructions together with the steeples of Peter and Paul Fortress and Admiralty create an architectural accent in the panorama of the city.

The building of the strongly pronounced high-rise centric character makes a harmonious part of the ensemble of two largest squares – Isaac’s Square and Decembrists’ Square determining their aspect to a great extent.

The cathedral existing nowadays is  the fourth church built in Saint Petersburg in  honor of the legendary Byzantine monk Isaac the Dalmatian. The construction of these churches is linked inseparably to the history of the city and to a certain degree reflects artistic and architectural tendencies of the respective periods – from the beginning of the XVIII century to the first half of the XIX century.

Today Saint Isaac’s Cathedral is a museum complex of buildings for public worship which includes: the Cathedral of our Savior on Spilt Blood which also has a first less usable name the Church of Resurrection where the Christmas and Easter public liturgies  are celebrated as well as masses in honor of the Twelve Great Feasts.

The Summer Palace of Peter the Great.

The Summer Palace of Peter the Great is one of the first stone palaces in Saint Petersburg. It was built according to the plan of Domenico Trezzini in barocco style in 1710-1714. This is one of the oldest constructions of the city.

The two-storied palace is rather modest and consists only of 14 rooms.

The visitors of the Summer Palace-Museum will enjoy seeing the pictures depicting genre scenes, rare portraits, landscapes, canvases representing the  sea crafts and battles.

The Summer Palace of Peter I was not reconstructed and was maintained in its original state till nowadays.

The Church of Resurrection

The unique in its beauty Church of Resurrection or Church of Our Savior on Spilt Blood was constructed at the site where the emperor Alexander II was mortally wounded by terrorists.

The successor to the throne Alexander II takes the decision about construction already on the second day after the tragic death of his father. The plan was performed in pre-Petrine style by Alfred Parland and Ignaty Malyshev.

As a result a fabulous oriental cathedral appears in the European city.

The Cathedral houses the largest Russian collection of mosaic (the total square of mosaic works is 7000 m2). Among other important elements of the cathedral are the unique color marbles and semi-precious stones, exquisite enamel coating of the five cupolas of the cathedral and mosaic collection of the Russian heraldry at the belfry.

Kazan Cathedral (the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan)

The miracle-working icon of Our Lady of Kazan has been considered an icon protecting the reigning house since the very founding of the Romanov dynasty. This icon protected the Russian warriors in the battle of 1579.

The icon stayed in Moscow till 1710 and was brought to Petersburg by the Russian tsarina Praskovya Fedorovna.

Kazan Cathedral was built in honor of the most precious  sacred object according to the plan of Voronikhin in 1801-1811. All the church utensils and the icon were displaced from the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God to the new cathedral.

The construction has got the features of the European classical models, particularly of Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. At the same time in its architecture are clearly perceived the features of Russian architectural style which had been formed by the beginning of the XIX century as well as the elements of eclectic and classicism.

This is one of the most famous and imposing churches of Saint Petersburg where he liturgies with the participation of the highest ranking officials of the church hierarchy are often celebrated.

State Russian Museum

The building of the State Russian Museum (former palace of the principle Mikhail Pavlovich, the son of Paul I) was erected by C. Rossi in 1819-1825. The head building with a magnificent Corinthian colonnade is situated in the depth of the gala court separated from the Arts Square with a cast-iron enclosure.  The sculptural decoration of the palace was created by V. Demut-Malinovsky and S. Pimenov.

The State Russian Museum is the world largest collection of Russian visual arts. The collections of Russian Museum numbers about 400 000 items representing the works performed in all the major trends and schools of Russian visual arts, all its kinds and genres from Х to ХХ century.

Each year the museum hosts about 30 temporary exhibitions. Catalogues, albums, leaflets are published on many of them. The collection of the museum includes almost 400 thousand works of Russian and Soviet painting, graphic arts, sculpture and applied art.  The halls of the museum house the best creations of all the prominent masters of the past and present days.

Cruiser Aurora

Cruiser Aurora one of the most recognizable symbols of Saint Petersburg is situated near the Petrogradskaya Embankment. It was built in the shipyard New Admiralty in April of 1900 and had its baptism of fire in the battle of Tsushima (1905).

Since 1918 the cruiser was in the reserve of the navy, its guns were removed and transferred to the arms of the Volga flotilla. New guns were mounted at the ship and it was included in the new squadron. In 1940 Aurora moored in Oranienbaum where it stayed during all the Patriotic War.

The guns from the ship were set then on Duderhof hills, one of them was mounted at the battleship Baltiets. 17 November 1948 the Cruiser Aurora was anchored for ‘eternal mooring’ near the moorage of the Bolshaya Nevka. In 1965 on board of the cruiser was opened a museum – the branch of the Central Marine museum.

In 1968 Cruiser Aurora was rewarded with the order of the October Revolution and in July of 1992 was again raised the Andreevsky naval flag – symbol of Russia’s sea power.