Must-see attractions in St Petersburg

  • Top Choice
    State Hermitage Museum

    The Hermitage fully lives up to its sterling reputation. You can be absorbed by its treasures for days and still come out wanting more. The enormous…

  • Top Choice
    Grand Palace

    The Grand Palace is an imposing building, although with just 30-something rooms, it is not nearly as large as your typical tsarist palace. From the start…

  • Top Choice
    General Staff Building

    The east wing of this magnificent building, wrapping around the south of Dvortsovaya pl and designed by Carlo Rossi in the 1820s, marries restored…

  • Top Choice
    Lower Park

    One of the greatest attractions outside of St Petersburg is the jaw-dropping collection of gilded fountains, statue-lined lanes and picturesque canals…

  • Top Choice
    Yusupov Palace

    This spectacular palace on the Moyka River has some of the best 19th-century interiors in the city, in addition to a fascinating and gruesome history. The…

  • Top Choice
    Catherine Palace

    The centrepiece of Tsarskoe Selo, created under Empresses Elizabeth and Catherine the Great between 1744 and 1796, is the vast baroque Catherine Palace,…

  • Top Choice
    Mariinsky Theatre

    The Mariinsky Theatre has played a pivotal role in Russian ballet ever since it was built in 1859 and remains one of Russia's most loved and respected…

  • Top Choice
    Catherine Park

    Around the Catherine Palace extends the lovely Catherine Park. The main entrance is on Sadovaya ul, next to the Palace Chapel. The park extends around the…

  • Top Choice
    Russian Museum

    Focusing solely on Russian art, from ancient church icons to 20th-century paintings, the Russian Museum's collection is magnificent and can easily be…

  • Top Choice
    New Holland

    This triangular island was closed for the most part of the last three centuries, and has opened to the public in dazzling fashion. There's plenty going on…

  • Top Choice
    Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art

    Erarta's superb hoard of 2800 pieces of Russian contemporary art trumps its somewhat far-flung location. Housed in an ingeniously converted neoclassical…

  • Top Choice
    Peter & Paul Fortress

    Housing a cathedral where the Romanovs are buried, a former prison and various exhibitions, this large defensive fortress on Zayachy Island is the kernel…

  • Top Choice
    Alexander Nevsky Monastery

    The Alexander Nevsky Monastery – named for the patron saint of St Petersburg – is the city's most ancient and eminent monastery. Peter the Great made a…

  • Top Choice
    St Isaac's Cathedral

    The golden dome of St Isaac’s Cathedral dominates the St Petersburg skyline. Its obscenely lavish interior is open as a museum, although services are held…

  • Top Choice
    Grand Cascade

    Peterhof's uncontested centrepiece is the Grand Cascade, a symphony of over 140 fountains and canals partly engineered by Peter himself. To see the…

  • Top Choice
    Vyborg Castle

    Rising stoutly from an islet in Vyborg Bay, this castle was built by the Swedes in 1293 when they first captured Karelia from Novgorod. Most of it now…

  • Top Choice
    Hermitage Vyborg

    Housed in a wing of a striking building designed by Finnish architect Uno Ulberg in 1930, this small museum hosts themed exhibitions that are curated from…

  • Top Choice
    Hermitage Storage Facility

    Guided tours of the Hermitage’s state-of-the-art restoration and storage facility are highly recommended. This is not a formal exhibition as such, but the…

  • S
    Top Choice
    Street Art Museum

    It's well worth the effort making the trip out to see this magnificent collection of street art set inside a former 11-hectare industrial site. You'll…