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Commandant's House
The Commandant's House, in the grounds of Peter & Paul Fortress, contains an exhibition on the history of the St Petersburg region from medieval times to 1917.
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Cruiser Aurora
In the Bolshaya Nevka opposite the Hotel St Petersburg is the Aurora, a mothballed cruiser from the Russo-Japanese War, built in 1900. From a downstream mooring on the night of 25 October 1917, its crew fired a blank round from the forward gun, demoralising the Winter Palace's defenders and marking the start of the October Revolution. During WWII, the Soviets sank it to protect it from German bombs. Restored and painted in pretty colours, it's a living museum that swarms with kids on weekends.
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Divo Ostrov
Located on Krestovsky Ostrov, Divo Ostrov is a low-rent Disney-style amusement park with thrill rides your kids will adore. You can also rent bikes and in-line skates here.
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Dostoevsky Houses
Fyodor Dostoevsky lived in three flats on this tiny street alone. From 1861 to 1863, he lived at No 1. In 1864, he spent one month living in the faded red building at No 9, before moving to No 7. Here, he lived from 1864 to 1867 and wrote Crime and Punishment ; indeed, the route taken by the novel's antihero Raskolnikov to murder the old woman moneylender passed directly under his window.
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Dostoevsky Museum
Fyodor Dostoevsky lived in flats all over the city, mostly in Sennaya, but his final residence is preserved at this 'memorial flat'. Dostoevsky lived here from 1878 until he died in 1881. The apartment remains as it was when the Dostoevsky family lived here, including the study where Fyodor wrote The Brothers Karamazov , and the office of Anna Grigorievna, his wife, who recopied, edited and sold all of his books.
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Dvortsovaya Pl (Palace Sq)
It is no secret where St Petersburg's heart lies. Although it's no longer the hub of the city, there can be little doubt that the vast expanse where Nevsky pr meets the Neva River and Dvortsovaya nab is simply one of the most striking squares in the world, still redolent of imperial grandeur almost a century after the end of the Romanov dynasty. For the most amazing first impression walk from Nevsky pr, up Bolshaya Morskaya ul and under the triumphal arch.
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Engineers' House
The Engineers' House, in the grounds of Peter & Paul Fortress, has a museum with rotating exhibitions.
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Finland Station
Finland Station is where Lenin finally arrived in 1917 after 17 years in exile abroad. Here, in the square where his statue now stands, he gave his legendary speech from the top of an armoured car to a crowd who had only heard of but never seen the man. After fleeing a second time he again arrived here from Finland, this time disguised as a railway fireman, and the locomotive he rode in is displayed on the platform.
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Floral Exhibition Hall
One of the finest ways to momentarily escape from a St Petersburg winter is to head for the Floral Exhibition Hall, an indoor tropical paradise just northwest of the Tauride Gardens. If you are sufficiently inspired, there is no shortage of flowers stalls and florists in the vicinity, so you can take a little piece of paradise back home with you, too.
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General Staff Building
The western wing of this magnificent building on Dvortsovaya pl was formerly used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including private apartments for the minister himself. The fabulous Carlo Rossi-designed interiors have been meticulously maintained, and today they house exhibition halls displaying items from the Hermitage collection. Here, the art of 20th-century French painters Pierre Bonnard and Maurice Denis is on permanent display.
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Geological Museum
Located in the upper floors of the geology faculty of the St Petersburg State University, this huge room contains several kilometres of fossils, rocks and gems - a veritable treasure chest of geological finds. The precious and semiprecious stones will certainly have you gawking at Mother Nature's handiwork: sparkling amethyst crystals (one from the Altai mountains that is 1½ metres long!); huge chunks of malachite from the Urals; and a gorgeous gypsum 'rose' from Astrakhan.
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Gostiny Dvor
The arcades of Gostiny Dvor department store stand facing the clock tower of the former Town Duma (Town Parliament) on Dumskaya ul, the seat of the prerevolutionary city government. One of the world's first indoor shopping malls, the 'Merchant Yard' dates from between 1757 and 1785 and stretches 230m along Nevsky (its perimeter is over 1km long). This Rastrelli creation is not as elaborate as some of his other work, finished as it was by Vallin de la Mothe in a more sober neoclassical style.
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Gosudarev Bastion
The Gosudarev Bastion, in the southeast corner of the grounds of Peter & Paul Fortress, contains a passage into the hidden walkway inside the fortress walls. The passage used to be secret, but now it houses the 'Neva Panorama' exhibition.
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Grand Choral Synagogue
Designed by Vasily Stasov, the striking Grand Choral Synagogue opened in 1893 to provide a central place of worship for St Petersburg's growing Jewish community. Its lavishness (particularly notable in the 47m-high cupola and the decorative wedding chapel) indicates the pivotal role that Jews played in imperial St Petersburg. The synagogue was fully revamped in 2003 with money donated by an American benefactor.
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Guvd Museum
For police enthusiasts, the great but little-known GUVD Museum chronicles the history of criminality and law enforcement by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Leningrad/St Petersburg. You'll need to get a guided tour for this, so you will want to book in advance.
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Hermitage Storage Facility
In case you did not see enough stuff at the museum in town, the storage facility of the Hermitage provides a superb reason for dragging yourself out to northern St Petersburg. Inside the state-of-the-art complex you'll be led through a handful of rooms housing but a fraction of the museum's collection. This is not a formal exhibition as such, but the guides are knowledgeable and the examples chosen for display - paintings, furniture, carriages - are wonderful.
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House Of Soviets
No building in the city can compare in terms of sheer staggering bombast to this Stalinist beauty (or beast, depending on your take). Planned to be the central administrative building of Stalin's Leningrad, it was built with the leader's neoclassical tastes in mind. Begun by Noi Trotsky in 1936, it was not finished until after the war, by which time Trotsky had been purged.
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Kamenny Island
Century-old dachas (country cottages; now inhabited by wealthy New Russians) line the lanes that twist their way around Kamenny (Stone) Island. The wooded island is punctuated by a series of canals, lakes and ponds, and is pleasant for strolling any time of year.
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Kanonersky Island
An original option for a day's outing is to head to the remote, grassy tip of this island in the city's southwest to watch the big boats head out into the Gulf of Finland. The island once served as part of the city's defence and a shooting training ground; since 1883 a ship-repairing factory has been located here.
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Kazan Cathedral
Atypical of St Petersburg churches, the neoclassical Kazan Cathedral was commissioned by Tsar Paul shortly before he was murdered in a coup. It reflects his eccentric desire to unite Catholicism and Orthodoxy in a kind of 'super-Christianity' as well as his fascination with the Knights of Malta, of which he was a member. The cathedral's great, 111m-long colonnaded arms reach out towards Nevsky pr, encircling a pleasant garden that is studded with statues.
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Kirov Museum
Sergei Kirov, Communist Party leader and celebrated Soviet henchman, spent 10 years of his life at this decidedly unproletarian apartment, until his murder in 1934 sparked a wave of deadly repression in the country. The flat is now a fascinating museum showing how the Bolshevik elite really lived. The apartment is a quick journey back to the days of Soviet glory, including choice examples of 1920s technology (the first ever Soviet typewriter is here) and books (20,000 of them).
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Krestovsky Island
The biggest of the three northern islands, Krestovsky consists mostly of the vast Seaside Park of Victory (Primorsky Park Pobedy), dotted with sports fields. Not far from the metro station, Divo Ostrov is a low-rent Disney-style amusement park with thrill rides your kids will adore. You can also rent bikes and in-line skates here. At the island's far western end, the 80,000-seat Kirov Stadium is set for demolition and reconstruction.
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Kunstkamera
The city's first museum was founded in 1714 by Peter himself. It is famous for its ghoulish collection of monstrosities, preserved 'freaks', two-headed mutant foeti, deformed animals and odd body parts, all collected by Peter with the aim of educating the notoriously superstitious Russian people.
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Lutheran Church
Tucked in a recess between Bolshaya and Malaya Konyushennaya uls is the lovely Lutheran Church that was built for St Petersburg's thriving German community in the 1830s. Distinguished by a four-column portico and topped with a discreet cupola, it was turned into a swimming pool in the 1950s (the high diving board was placed in the apse) - but is that worse than using it to store vegetables, as it had been since the 1930s? The church is open to visitors, having been restored beautifully.
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Manege Central Exhibition Hall
Formerly the Horse Guards' Riding School, this large white neoclassical building was constructed between 1804 and 1807 from a design by Giacomo Quarenghi. It now houses rotating art exhibitions, often featuring contemporary and local artists. Particularly interesting is the annual retrospective of painting, sculpture and installation pieces produced by St Petersburg artists, held here each December.
