2. Saint Petersburg is a city of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on
the Baltic Sea. In 1914 the name of the city was changed to Petrograd, in 1924 to Leningrad and in
1991 back to Saint Petersburg. Saint Petersburg was founded by the Tsar Peter the Great on May 27,
1703. From 1713 to 1728 and from 1732 to 1918, Saint Petersburg was the Imperial capital of Russia.
In 1918 the central government bodies moved from Saint Petersburg (then named Petrograd) to
Moscow. It is Russia's second-largest city after Moscow, with 5 million inhabitants reached in
September 2012. Saint Petersburg is a major European cultural center, and also an important Russian
port on the Baltic Sea.
Saint Petersburg is often described as the most westernized city of Russia, as well as its cultural
capital.
3. Palace Square connects Nevsky Prospekt with Palace Bridge leading to Vasilyevsky Island. It was
laid out in 1819-1829 by Carlo Rossi, a neoclassicist architect of Italian descent. The square has a
prominent place in the history of St. Petersburg. The massacre of 'Bloody Sunday' on January 22,
1905, when Tsarist troops fired on unarmed strikers sparked the revolution of 1905. It also played an
important part in the 1917 revolution when a group of Bolshevik militants stormed the Winter Palace
following a shot fired from the Aurora cruiser. Palace Square buildings: Winter Palace, the General
Staff Building in front of the Winter Palace, the Guards Corps Headquarters (1837–43) on the
eastern side; the western side opens towards Admiralty Square
4. Winter Palace and
Alexander Column
Winter Palace was, from 1732 to 1917, the official residence of the Russian monarchs.
Today, the restored palace forms part of the complex of buildings housing the
Hermitage Museum.
Winter Palace (1754–62) baroque white-
and-azure, is the earliest and most celebrated
building on the square which gave the square
its name.
5. The General Staff Building (built 1819-1829)
is an edifice with a 580 m long bow-shaped façade,
situated in front of the Winter Palace. It consists of
two wings, which are separated by a tripartite
triumphal arch.
The arch links Palace Square through Bolshaya Morskaya St. to Nevsky Prospekt. Until
the capital was transferred to Moscow in 1918, the building served as the headquarters
of the General Staff (western wing), Foreign Ministry and Finance Ministry (eastern
wing). Now the western wing hosts the headquarters of the Western Military District. The
eastern wing was transferred to the Hermitage Museum in 1993.
6. The tripartite triumphal arch
commemorates the Russian victory over
Napoleonic France in the Patriotic War of
1812.
7. Alexander Column (1830–34) was designed by
Auguste de Montferrand. This red granite
column (the tallest of its kind in the world) is
47.5 metres high and weighs some 500 tons. It
is set so well that no attachment to the base is
needed.
10. Vasilyevsky Island, the largest of St. Petersburg's islands, is home to several of St. Petersburg's
greatest institutions, including the prestigious St. Petersburg State University, the Stock
Exchange, the LenEXPO exhibition center, the Passenger Sea Port, Kunstkammer, Peter's
Ethnographic Museum, the Twelve Colleges, etc.
11. Spit of Vasilievsky Island
(Building of Old Stock Exchange and Rostral Columns)
13. On the mid right is the old St. Petersburg stock exchange.
On the left are "spits" - light beacons fired by pitch to warn
boats of land in the old days.
14. Rostral Columns. The two monumental red-
painted columns in front of the Naval Museum
symbolized the naval power of the Russian
empire. The columns were built in the early
19th century as beacons.
16. The institute is housed in an Empire style building on the 21st line and the Neva River
embankment on the south shore of Vasilievsky Island. It was built between 1806 and1811.
Mining Institute
17. St. Petersburg State University (1819)
Today, the university boasts over 20,000
students, 2,000 professors, 210 departments
and a library with 4 million volumes. Eight
Nobel Prize winners are graduates of St.
Petersburg State University (including the
biologist Ivan Pavlov, the economist Vasily
Leontiev and the poet Joseph Brodsky).
18. Menshikov Palace
The palace was founded in 1710 as a residence of Saint Petersburg Governor General
Alexander Menshikov. Since 1981, it has served as a public museum, a branch of the
Hermitage Museum.
Imperial Academy of Arts
View from Blagoveshchensky(Annunciation) Bridge
19. Blagoveshchensky (Annunciation) Bridge
connects Vasilievsky Island and the central part of the city (Admiralteysky Island).
The bridge's length is 331 meters and the width was 24 meters. The original name of the
bridge was Nevsky Bridge.
20. The Kunstkamera
Established by Peter the Great and completed in 1727, the Kunstkamera Building hosts the
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography.
22. Exchange (Birzhevoy) Bridge
It crosses the Malaya Neva. Its length is 239 meters and width is 27 meters. Birzhevoy
bridge connects Vasilievsky Island and Petrogradsky Island.
23. Pushkin House as seen across the Malaya Neva
and Exchange Bridge. The pediment is crowned
with the bronze statues of Neptune, Mercury,
and Ceres.
24.
25. The Admiralty building we see today was built between 1806
and 1823 by the architect Adrian Zakharov. The Admiralty
tower, topped with its golden spire, is the focal point of three of
the city’s main streets; Nevsky Propect, Gorokhovaia Street and
Voznesensky Prospekt, and can be seen along the entire length of
each one.
The Admiralty was Russia’s Naval Headquarters until 1917,
and now serves as a naval college.
26. The equestrian statue of Peter the Great, known as
the Bronze Horseman, is a tribute to the founder of
St. Petersburg. The fascinating monument is one of
the most famous symbols of the city.
It was a gift to the city by
Catherine the Great
to honor her predecessor on the
Russian throne, Peter the Great.
27.
28. Now serves as a museum and services are held
only on significant ecclesiastical holidays.
St Isaach’s Cathedral
Built by the French-born architect Auguste
Montferrand to be the main church of the
Russian Empire, the cathedral was under
construction for 40 years (1818-1858), and was
decorated in the most elaborate way possible.
31. Kazan Cathedral was constructed between 1801 and 1811 by the architect Andrei Voronikhin. The
cathedral was inspired by the Basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome and was intended to be the country’s main
Orthodox Church. After the war of 1812 (during which Napoleon was defeated) the church became a
monument to Russian victory. The cathedral was named after the "miracle-making" icon of Our Lady
of Kazan, which the church housed till the early 1930s. The Bolsheviks closed the cathedral for
services in 1929, and from 1932 it housed the collections of the Museum of the History of Religion and
Atheism. A couple of years ago regular services were resumed in the cathedral.
33. Gostiny Dvor is a huge department store, which is being gradually turned into a shopping
mall. Constructed between 1757 and 1785, Gostiny Dvor has a reputation for being one of
the world's first shopping malls and occupies a whole city block on Nevsky Prospekt.
36. The Mariinsky Opera and Ballet Theatre
The world-renowned Mariinsky Theatre, known during Soviet times as the Kirov Opera
and Ballet Theatre, reverted to its original name in 1992. The present building, which
dates back to 1859, originally housed another theater but was remodeled and taken over
by the Mariinsky company.
37. Anichkov Bridge is one of the
architectural highlights of Nevsky
Prospekt.
38. Square of Arts
(Monument to Pushkin)
Main façade of Mikhailovsky Palace
which today houses the Russian Museum.
59. The Trinity Cathedral , sometimes called the Troitsky Cathedral, in Saint Petersburg, is a late example
of the Empire style, built between 1828 and 1835 to a design by Vasily Stasov. It is located due south of
the Admiralty on Izmaylovskiy Prospekt, not far from the Tekhnologichesky Institut Metro station.
70. Hermitage
Winter Palace
The State Hermitage Museum is one of the largest and oldest museums in the world and
an absolute must-see for any visitor to St. Petersburg. The museum was founded in 1764
by Catherine the Great, empress of Russia, and opened to the public in 1852.
84. The Moscow Triumphal Gate is a Neoclassical triumphal arch in Saint Petersburg.
The monument — built mainly in cast iron — was erected in 1834 -1838 in the
memory of the Russian victory in the Russo-Turkish War, 1828-1829.
91. Field of Mars
The Field of Mars was long used as a military
exercise and parade ground. Today it is a
peaceful open terrain; at its center is a
monument honoring victims of the February
Revolution in 1917.
92. Mrs. Putin's Academy of Needle Works
(she is now the primary benefactress of
this school originally started by the
Empress Alexandra for girls from the countryside)
96. The Cruiser Aurora was built between 1897 and 1900 at the Admiralty
Shipyard in St. Petersburg. It was one of three Pallada-class cruisers, all of
which served during the Russo-Japanese War. . A museum since 1956, it is
anchored in the Bolshaya Nevka, near the Sampsonievsky bridge.
