Exploring St Petersburg
St. Petersburg, Russia - April, 2003
St Petersburg is over 300 years old and if it wasn't for the modern day traffic and latest fashion you would think you had been transported back to the 18th century.
...around every corner is another perfect street containing a historic church, monument or grand palace.
St Petersburg is made up of islands between which the Neva River flows before heading out into the Gulf of Finland. Situated on a flat river bed the city’s buildings are almost identical in height and the only perspective is from the pavements or the numerous bridges spanning the canals and rivers. This makes St Petersburg the perfect city to explore on foot and The Admiralty’s weathervane and the golden dome of St Isaac’s Cathedral provide good reference points for navigating the city.
The best way to explore St Petersburg is to split the city in two and explore each side of the river. A good place to start is on the Dvortsovy Most or Palace Bridge where you can admire the wide, fast flowing river overlooked by pastel coloured palaces with grand columns and elevated entrances. Stone stairs frequently break up the river’s promenade and lead down to the water’s edge where former residents would have moored their boats or caught ferries alighting further downstream.
From the Palace Bridge the Hermitage looks elegant in green, white and gold although the riverfront view doesn’t do the building justice. The gardens beside the Hermitage, or Winter Palace to give this part of the Hermitage its correct name, will lead you to the enormous Palace Square and from the Alexander column you can witness the true grandeur of the building with its roof top statues gazing out over the city. On the other side of the square is the curved yellow General Staff Building with its magnificent central archway that will lead you to Nevsky Prospekt, the city’s main street.
Starting at the corner of the Admiralty Building’s gardens, Nevsky Prospekt cuts through the city ending in the distance at the Moscow Railway Station. The main sights lie between the second and third canal or Spassky Island starting on the left with a fantastic view of the colourful and dramatically named Church of our Saviour on the Spilled Blood. The canal acts like a dark mirror reflecting the mosaic-like domes in different patterns of blue, green, white and gold that entice you along the canal to take a closer look.
If you take the street down the side of the Grand Hotel Europe you will arrive at the Mikailovsky Palace now the Russian Museum and behind to the right is Michael’s or Engineer’s Castle. Heading back to Nevsky Prospekt along the canal you will pass the Sheremetev’s Palace before arriving at a bridge flanked by glorious horses.
This is a good place to cross the street and turn back exploring the sites on the other side of Nevsky Prospekt. A short detour through the park behind the monument of Catherine II will take you to stunning buildings including the Alexandrinsky Theatre and the Academy of Russian Ballet. Once back on Nevsky Prospekt you will pass the Gostiny Dvor shopping centre and the Kazan Cathedral with its Roman-like columns set out in a semi circle before arriving back at the Admiralty Building.
By now you will have noticed exactly what is unusual about St Petersburg. There are no architectural disasters, glass skyscrapers or neon lights. Instead around every corner is another perfect street containing a historic church, monument or grand palace. The vast scale of culture and history has transformed this city into a life-size museum.
The gardens along the front of the Admiralty will bring you to the back of St Isaacs Cathedral with its different shades of marble and large golden crown. The cathedral’s entrance sits on a beautiful square with the Mariinsky Palace or City Hall at the far end.
The vast scale of culture and history has transformed this city into a life-size museum.
This is a good spot to rest your legs and the contemporary Borsalino Brasserie, belonging to the D’Angleterre Hotel, has an international bistro menu or you can just have a coffee overlooking the square’s gardens. The equally modern bar in the adjoining Astoria Hotel is perfect for pre-dinner drinks and what better way to finish a day’s sightseeing than enjoying a glass of champanskoye along with some caviar.
When you are ready to explore the other side of the Neva, cross the Palace Bridge to Vasil’yevskiy Island home to the Stock Exchange, Naval Museum and the unusual Rostral columns with their ship’s figure-heads. From here there is a wonderful view up the Neva to the Peter and Paul Fortress on the left and across to the Hermitage on the right.
Crossing the Birzhevoy Most or Stock Exchange Bridge will take you to Petrogradsky Island, commonly referred to as the Petrograd Side. If you follow the water’s edge to the right you will come to the Military museum and the Peter and Paul Fortress, the oldest part of St Petersburg. Founded in 1703 to defend Russia against enemy raids it is located on its own island complete with small beach and thanks to the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral you will now have seen St Petersburg’s tallest building.
Continuing along the waterfront past the bridge you come to a small square and the wooden house that Peter the Great lived in while the city was being built. Covered by a brick building the original wooden cabin, built in 1703, is perfectly preserved inside. At the end of the road and just round the corner you will come upon the 100 year-old battleship Aurora whose canon fire signalled the storming of the Winter Palace during the 1917 revolution.
The Troitskiy Most or Trinity Bridge will bring you back across to the “mainland” in front of the beautiful gates of the Summer Palace. Walking back along the river you will pass the Marble Palace and the five buildings that make up the Hermitage Museum. The Hermitage is primarily an art gallery and according to our guide if you were to stand for one minute in front of each display it would take 11 years to see everything. Even the abbreviated tour lasts 2 ½ hours and leaves your feet aching but your eyes satisfied.
If paintings aren’t your thing then the Hermitage is still worth a visit if only to see the palace’s ornate rooms, parquet flooring, chandeliers and views across the river to the fortress or Palace Square. The advantage of a guide is that you can skip the queue, which can be long, and will ensure you see the highlights as well as learn some of the history of city and the Tsars. Photographers will need to buy a special pass to enable them to take pictures inside which costs 100 rubles.
After all your exploring a good place to sit and watch the world go by is at one of the four tables outside The Literary Café, on left hand side of Nevsky Prospekt just before the first canal. However, if all the tables are busy then copy the locals and buy a couple of cold beers or an ice cream from one of the stands located beside every park and open space and create your own alfresco café.
If you weren’t organised enough to secure ballet tickets at the Hermitage or Mariinsky Theatre then you’ll need to settle for a romantic dinner. St Petersburg’s restaurants tend to be themed, naval being particularly popular, but most resemble one of the city’s numerous museums. A good tip is that in Russia “fusion” generally means the restaurant is modern and unstuffy and we found a real gem on the Petrograd side of the Stock Exchange Bridge.
Aquarel is a three-storey glass building that offers views up, down and across the river. Inside there are two restaurants; the main one on the first floor and a more casual grill restaurant on the top floor. Helpful staff, delicious food with menus in English, great “lounge” music and lighting did their best to steal our eyes away from the incredible views out the window. The spectacular sunset was an added bonus and turned the river, bridge and surrounding buildings pink and when the old fashioned streetlights lit up at 10.00 pm the view became even more dramatic.
Moored to the restaurant is a large floating platform with tables and chairs for al fresco dining throughout the summer. We could only imagine how amazing it must be during the famous “White Nights” when there is only 40 minutes of darkness but then a couple of icebergs floated past and reminded us that temperatures also drop to minus 35 and the river is frozen solid.
A romantic walk back to our hotel finished off the evening perfectly and it seemed several other couples had the same idea. As we crossed the Palace Bridge the metal joints reminded us that the bridge opens from 1.00 – 5.00 am to let boats travel out to sea so we were glad we hadn’t stayed out too late.
It’s impossible to believe that the only way Peter the Great could populate his new city of St Petersburg was by threatening Moscovites that they either move here or be sent to Siberia. He also ordered them to shave off their beards to make them more European and insisted they all had boats and learnt to sail. After spending a few days in this beautiful city it seems incredible to think anyone had to be bullied into living here.