With its Venetian canals and faux-Parisian palaces, St. Petersburg’s Renaissance style may come as a surprise — or relief — to anyone expecting the drab Soviet aesthetic generally associated with Russian cities.
St Petersburg, the "Venice of the North"
The city’s European leanings can be traced back to one man - Peter I, aka Peter the Great, a 18th century tsar convinced Russia’s lot would improve if the country could mimic — or even better, outdo — the major powers of the day. The first step would be to build a new capital city, St. Petersburg, which at just 300 old, is still young by Russian standards (Moscow is over 800 years old). The new city would ditch Moscow’s circuitous planning in favor of canals and wide cobblestone lanes with huge baroque buildings and Orthodox cathedrals that would make the Pope cry; the tsar even taxed men with beards as a way to get Russians on board with European fashions. Successive leaders followed Peter’s lead, commissioning even more palaces, portraits, statues and— in one curious turn— even acquiring the entire library of Voltaire.
Statue of Peter the Great squashing the head of a snake, i.e. everyone opposed to his efforts to Westernize Russia
Meanwhile, the lot of ordinary folks failed to improve one bit, which is why — after centuries of suffering in silence— the disenchanted finally rose up against the royal family. Suddenly, St. Petersburg went from a glamorous capital to a revolutionary hotbed, with riots filling once peaceful squares while governments were toppled in quick succession. Tom and I both thought Saint Petersburg’s bloody past, which is filled with plots, coups and assassinations galore, was its most interesting feature. Many of the buildings could have been plucked right out of Paris or Rome, but St. Pete’s lacked the shops, sidewalk cafes or general vibe of either city. Be it the city’s top-down planning or its Soviet history, the city— though very beautiful — still feels slightly sterile, like a Disneyland of Renaissance architecture that seemed out of place in this former swamp off the Gulf of Finland.
Just your typical manor house: anything but down-to-earth
That’s not to say we didn’t have a good time, however. We stayed at the Cronwell Inn, a perfectly comfortable three-star hotel just off Nevsky Prospekt, the main street running through the city’s center. We spent our first day taking in the city’s main sites: Kazan Cathedral, one of the city’s best examples of Russian Orthodoxy, which had been handpicked as the budding nation’s official religion by the country’s first tsar, knowing that his hard-drinking, pork-loving populace would never accept Islam’s restrictions on food and drink.
Kazan Cathedral: Roman-inspired take on a Russian Orthodox church
St. Isaac’s Cathedral offers stunning city views from the top of its gold dome, just across from the Astoria Hotel. Across the river, The Peter and Paul Fortress built to defend the young city from a potential Swedish attack (which is funny, because its hard to imagine the peace-loving Swedes fighting anybody); now it’s a pleasant little armory with a church where many of the former tsars are buried. Of the many, many churches around town, my favorite had to be the ominously-named “Church on Spilled Blood,” with colorful domes and mosaics inspired by St. Basil’s in Moscow to commemorate the assassination of a former tsar. Still, the number one, must-do thing for any visitor to St. Petersburg is to visit The Hermitage, the palace-turned-museum that now includes some of the world’s — and certainly Russia’s — best art.
Outside of the Winter Palace, now home to the Hermitage Museum
Considering everything that’s on display, including works by Picasso, Rembrandt and Monet, as well portraits and furniture used by the royal family, the 600 rouble tickets are a steal (though be sure to book them online to avoid the queue). The collection is housed in the massive Winter Palace, a stunning (and massive) baroque structure that served as the Tsar’s main residence. After the last monarch was exiled to Siberia, the building served as the seat of the Provisional Government, before the Bolsheviks took over and moved the entire capital back to Moscow. In addition to a world-class collection of art, the museum also includes the clock that was stopped to commemorate the exact moment that Soviet Russia began.
This clock in the Hermitage shows the exact minute Soviet Russia began
In the end, 48 hours was just the right amount of time to explore Saint Petersburg. We were able to tick off all of the city's major sites and enjoy a few good meals before catching our overnight train to Moscow, from where we’ll board the Trans-Mongolian Railway. This wasn’t at all what we expected from our first Russian city, but it was certainly interesting to see the country’s former capital and also where the Russian Revolution began. Its also the best place in Russia to pick up paraphernalia about the country’s current leader, Vladimir Putin. Shops were filled with calendars, coffee mugs and Russian dolls featuring the former KGB strongman in various poses. If we weren’t on a nine-month backpacking trip, we’d probably have walked away with loads of Putin paraphernalia. Maybe one of our parents are about to receive an interesting package in the mail.
Russian "Dolls"
Jen Swanson