Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WHAT TO SEE AND DO
St Petersburg's centre lies on the south bank of the Neva, with the curving River Fontanka
markingitssouthernboundary.TheareawithintheFontankaisrivenbyaseriesofavenues
fanning out from the golden spire of the Admiralty on the Neva's south bank. Many of the
city'stopsightsarelocatedonandaround
Nevskyprospekt
,thebackboneandheartofthe
city forthe last three centuries, stretching from the Alexander Nevsky Monastery to Palace
Square. Across the Neva is
Vasilevskiy Island
, home to the Kuntskamera, while over the
Birzhevoy Bridge lies the Peter and Paul Fortress. To the east of the centre, beyond the
River Fontanka, lies the
Smolniy Institute
, where the Bolsheviks fomented revolution in
1917.
The Winter Palace and Hermitage
Sited on the banks of the River Neva, the 200m-long Baroque
Winter Palace
is the city's
largest and most opulent, and was the official residence of the tsars, their court and 1500
servants until the revolution of1917.Today the building houses one ofthe world'sgreatest
museums, the
Hermitage
(Tues-Sun 10.30am-6pm, Wed until 9pm; R400, free to stu-
dents, free admission first Thurs of every month;
hermitagemuseum.org
; Admiraltey-
skaya),launchedasRussia'sfirstpublicartmuseumin1852.TheHermitagecollectionem-
braces over three million treasures and works of art, from ancient Scythian gold and giant
malachite urns to Cubist pieces. After the elaborately decorated staterooms and the Gold
Collection, the most popular section covers modern European art from the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, with an array of works by Picasso, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Rodin, Monet
and Renoir.
