January 6, 2009

St Petersburg, Russia – City Designed for Luxury Lovers

St Petersburg stands as testament as to what a dictator can do with a lot of money. Peter the Great was one of the most blood-thirsty tyrants of Russian history, and he has some competition there, but the city he created is so beautiful that even Stalin hesitated to knock it down and “improve it”.

Church of the Spilled Blood, St Petersburg

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St Petersburg is built in the middle of a delta and swamp because it was founded, in 1703, as a fortress on land the Peter had just stolen from the Swedes. It is built over numerous island of the Neva River on the eastern foreshore of the Baltic.

St Petersburg is again dazzling visitors, woken up from the Soviet years, St Petersburg again has re-claimed its title of “Venice of the East”. St Petersburg is not just a cultural mecca with over 200 museums, but also has hint of urban edge particularly when the young and beautiful parade on the Nevsky Prospect. The 5 million inhabitants are justifiably proud of their town and it shows.

St Petersburg Canal

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The first stop for most visitors to St Petersburg is the State Hermitage Museum which includes the Winter Palace which is actually within the museum. The museum has over 250 million items, only half of which are ever on display. Even so if you spent 1 minute viewing each item it would take you 12 years to see the lot. Assuming you have slightly less time than that, hire a guide to point out the highlights for you – and still allow at least half a day.

Climb the spire of St Isaac’s Cathedral to get a great view across the city and you can see the whole skyline of the 18th century city. There are no skyscrapers to spoil your view.

The first structure built by Peter the Great, was, of course, a fortress – the Peter and Paul Fortress, later used to keep prisoners such as Dostovsky, Gorky and Trotsky, a visit to the cells is depressing but worthwhile experience. Also within the fortress is the burial places of Russia’s tsars and tsarinas, included the last tsar, St Nicolas II, who was belatedly interred in 1998.

For people watching check out the famous Nevsky Prospect which is the city’s great boulevard, or hire a boat and see St Petersburg from the sea. Russia has also gone from zero to hero as far as shopping is concerned with lot of well-known names such as Prada and YSL opening boutiques in St Petersburg and Moscow.

Russia’s hotels are well-known to be over priced and under-serviced and don’t appear to have improved any in recent years. If you want anything better than dodgey plumbing and grumpy service a better option might be a luxury cruise which includes St Petersburg and which allows you to remain on board during the city stay, not all of them do.