1 | Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

Often confused with St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, this is the slightly less colourful cathedral of St. Petersburg. It was built only 100 years ago, on the very ground where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881. I studied the assassination as part of my A-levels, but I’m sad to say I’ve had to look up the facts all over again. Despite being known as The Liberator, Alexander died instantly after a bomb was thrown under his sled as he made his way back to the palace. Little did the attackers know, that the very reform they desperately craved had just been put into legal writing. Only to be abolished by the son of the Tsar they had just killed. Bad timing or what?!

The church has played curiously different roles in its short life. Under Lenin, it found its purpose as a vegetable warehouse, bringing about the unfortunate nickname of ‘Saviour of the Potatoes’. During WW2, the halls of the chapels were transformed into a morgue for the millions who were forced to give their lives.

During the early stages of the Soviet era, the young cathedral suffered vandalism from loyal communists, not limited to several attempts at demolition with explosives, which luckily at the last minute were decided to be more vital at the front line. Even a few bombs dropped by the Germans failed to explode on impact.

The luckiest church standing was then shielded from view behind scaffolding for the next 27 years! Rebels who looked to the cathedral’s presence as hope of a different future often prophesied that the day the scaffolding came down the Soviet regime would collapse beyond return. It just so happens, the scaffolding came down in 1991, as they dreamed.

Click here to find other incredible churches beyond St Petersburg

2 | Blue Mosque

I thought I must have found a dodgy guide when I read that this blue mosque could be found in St Petersburg. The same feeling you get when clicking on a misleading Pinterest post about travel in the Middle East that has a photo of the Caribbean. But I was wrong. This mosque was the largest outside of Turkey when it was built in 1910, gifted to the Tsar from the Emir of the a Silk Road city then part of the Russian empire. It was modelled on its dazzling sister in the holy city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Despite being modelled on a pre-existing temple, as with everything in Russia, this one was built even bigger!

As you might have guessed the mosque was not spared from Soviet repurpose as it found its blue tiled prayer halls sheltering medical equipment in WW2.

3 | Courtyards

Surprisingly, many of the residential courtyards of St. Petersburg have become canvases for self expression. The Beatles courtyard is one of the most well known and can be found on Ligovsky Ave, 53. You’ll undoubtedly clap eyes on the yellow submarine, but crane that neck upwards and you’ll notice three stone reliefs of the Liverpool four’s faces above the archway.

Yellow submarine by yumievriwan is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2

Another of the community favourites, is the Mosaic Courtyard on Chaikovskogo Ulitsa, 2. Started by a local artist and teacher, Vladimir Lubenko, who opened a children’s art school nearby. Lubenko and his students created this surreal world of mosaics to liven up one of the many bland communal courtyards. Some visitors have likened it to a Gaudi creation, but I don’t think even Gaudi constructed a functioning mosaic slide!

Courtyard of Mosaics by pineapple_orchard is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

At Doinikov per., 4-6 you will find The Guardian Courtyard. This one is dedicated to enormous murals depicting different fairytale or story book characters.

The Subway Car Yard at Onvodny canal emb., 199-201 is another fun one with the tail end of a subway car crashing through a brick wall.

4 | The Hermitage

The gold leafed ceilings of The Hermitage are part one of the largest museums in the world, second only to the Louvre in Paris! Those of you who like taking your time in museums (not me), will want an entire day to explore the 400 rooms throughout the 5 buildings. In fact, someone worked out that if you take 1 minute to look at each item, for a total of 8 hours each day, it would take you no less than 15 years to complete the tour! Prioritising your favourite exhibits and planning ahead is a must for those of you who want to make the most of your grand tour.

The ground floor showcases findings recovered from all across Russia and Siberia, Oriental art and Egyptian treasures.

The first floor is dedicated to the remaining living quarters of the imperial family, as they were before the revolution, including personal possessions saved from soviet scavengers. You will also find the Knights Hall, and examples of Russian and European art, boasting works by Michelangelo and Da Vinci.

The second floor houses the antiquities brought from the further reaches of the former Russian Empire in the Middle East and Asia.

5 | St Catherine’s Palace

When Peter the Great gifted the Sarskoye Selo estate to his wife Catherine I, it was a small hill topped with a reasonably sized wooden house by todays standards. It wasn’t until 41 years later that the palace would start to resemble the iconic palace we see today. However, what you see today is in fact a recreation. When the Nazis retreated from Leningrad they ransacked and destroyed the palace, ripping priceless artworks and gold from the walls, leaving it a shell. Meticulous records kept during the initial construction allowed architects to recover as much as they could and recreate the glorious halls once adored by the Tsars. The reconstruction work continues to this day.

The most famous loss of the desecration was the Amber Room, which was never completely recovered. Small bits of the elaborate room have made their way back to the palace from across Europe as late as the early 2000s. More recently, an exciting discovery of one of the Nazi’s evacuation ships sunk in the Baltic Sea after fleeing Russia, may contain some of the panels from the famous room.

Even without the priceless Amber Room the palace is an exercise in limitless excess, even the gold coating the facade and the statues on the roof weight a shocking 100 kilos!

6 | Zwinger House

Don’t be thrown by the Russian spelling, this beautiful facade was built for the Russian branch of the Singer Sewing Machine company. They had hoped to build a skyscraper akin to their New York headquarters, but the Saint Petersburg city council would not permit structures taller than the Winter Palace to be built. Faced with this crippling limitation the architect decided to work around the system by creating the illusion of height with a glass domed roof topped by a glass globe atop the already 6 storey building. Since being sold to the State Publishing House in 1919, the building has been a bookstore and has become known as the ‘House of Books’. The art nouveau book shop even stayed open during the Siege of Leningrad. Talk about dedication.

It remains a book shop today but with the added addition of the Singer Cafe on the second floor, with large windows facing on to an uninterrupted view of the Kazan Cathedral!

Singer House by Andos_pics is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Cafe Singer by Paulo Albuquerque is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Click here to see other Art Nouveau buildings in Europe

7 | Smolny Convent

Smolny Convent was designed by the son of an Italian architect called Ratsrelli who was formally invited to Russia by Peter the Great to create the magnificent Winter Palace and St. Catherine’s Palace. His son was equally talented, but unfortunately the construction of Smolny Covent was abandoned halfway through without hope of restarting and so Rastrelli Jr returned to Italy. The half completed convent was left abandoned for more than 100 years until finally the overgrown plants that had filled the building were uprooted and revived.

If you time it just right and look east across the canal as the Bolsheokhtinsky Bridge raises you will see the Convent perfectly framed in the distance.

TIP: If you love the clash of ice blue and ghost white you should also pay a visit to the St Nicholas Naval Cathedral near the shipyards.

8 | Art Nouveau Houses & Unusual Architecture

Vitebsky Railway Station is a complete living Art Nouveau experience from platform to ceiling. More importantly, it was the first railway station not only in St Petersburg but in the entire country of Russia! It was initially built to connect the city center to St. Catherine’s Palace in the suburbs, the Tsars very own private train. The station is so beautiful it has been used in countless films, most prominently in 19th century adaptations of Anna Karenina.

Saint Petersburg, Russia by Ninara is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Rosenstein Apartments popularly known as the ‘House with the Towers’ is a neogothic surprise around the corner on Leo Tolstoy Square. Weirdly the two towers on the front of the building were based on the gatehouse of a Castle in Warwickshire, England. As with all of the buildings mentioned in this guide, it was taken over one way or another during the Soviet era. In this case the entire front facade between the two towers was enveloped by an enormous full-length portrait of Stalin on public holidays. Poor residents who lost all the light from their front windows.

House with Tower by Alexander Potekhin licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Basin’s House in Ostrovsky Square designed by the architect N.P Basin himself stands out amongst the regimented grey buildings neighbouring it. Today it is the residence of a number of Russia’s theatre elite.

9 | Street Art Museum & Kino Corner

This street art museum is one of a kind, it lives in harmony with actively operating factory which it uses as an inexhaustible canvas. It started as a creative outlet and a way to cover up an ugly soviet factory but after a few meetings both sides agreed and this is now one of the best museums in the city.

Another area to find impressive street art aside from the city’s courtyards is the Kino Corner.

Kino Corner is a new cultural space in the courtyard of the Lenfilm studio. Lenfilm is THE production studio of the Soviet era film community. Local street artists were asked to paint murals on its walls of the film stars beloved by Russian movie fans. Top hits include the oddly named Heart of a Dog, Amphibian Man and Straw Hat. All apparently classics. The team have gone one step further and placed film props used in the films around the courtyard amongst the now mandatory food trucks selling noodles and pancakes.

St. Pete Street Art by CityofStPete is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

10 | Eliseyev Emporium

The Eliseyev Emporium like its Moscow sister store was the brainchild of the Elisseeff Brothers who built the stores back in 1902. The extravagant food hall is just as much as a treasure trove as the one in Moscow but this branch has a special treat up its sleeve. The Eliseyev Cafe. The cafe tables spiral around an enormous palm tree mysteriously shaped like a fat pineapple above the red velvet benches. If you feel you have failed to grasp the imperial splendour of the palaces, The Eliseyev will bring it home to you.

11 | Chesme Church

The pink wedding cake church commissioned and frequented by Tsarina Catherine II. She stood at this very spot when she heard Russia had defeated the Ottoman Empire in the battle of Chesme and believed the spot must be sanctified as a moment in Russian history. I’m not entirely sure how a pink chapel relates to the Ottoman Empire but each Tsarina to their own.

St. Petersburg, Russia by Ninara is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Click here to see another of Europe’s Orthodox pink churches

12 | Peterhof Palace

Proudly known as the ‘Versailles of Russia‘ this fairytale imperial estate started out as a fancy cabin overlooking the naval base so Peter the Great could keep an eye on the ships he would use to expand his burgeoning empire. In fact, the gardens (below) are connected directly to the sea via a canal from the fountains.

As you know by now, none of the palaces escaped allied bombings, but the greatest punch to this palace was by Stalin who bombed the building in fear of Hitler hosting his New Years victory party here!

13 | Saint Isaac’s Cathedral

The glistening gold domed cathedral was originally the city’s largest church, now it must settle for fourth largest domed cathedral in the world. Not that much of a demotion. The construction took 40 years, in which time the grand architect almost died, after he fell from the scaffolding as the dome was being secured. Luckily he was caught by workmen a few feet below. The slow pace of the build lead to the Finish idiom ‘build like the church of St. Isaac’ meaning don’t expect it finished any time soon.

TIP: Don’t forget to climb to the top for a panoramic view of the city

14 | Last Address

A project known as ‘Last Address’ aims to commemorate the individuals carried off to the gulags and KGB basements never to return. Since the project started the authorities have done all they can to cripple it and have even declared the group behind it as ‘foreign agents’.

The creator of the project, was inspired by the ‘stumble stones’ of 500 towns in Germany inscribed with the names of individuals who fell victim to the Nazis. There are 75,000 stumble stones in Western Europe and so far 750 ‘Last Address’ plaques placed by volunteers.

“File:Таблички Последний адрес на Гоголя 9 в Екатеринбурге 6 июля 2020 года.jpg” by Иван Абатуров is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

You can find them on Pushkinskaya Ulitsa 19 (3), Fontanka Embankment 129 (5), The Fountain House (2) and a few on Bolshaya Pushkarskaya. The names remember people taken away forever for as little as receiving a postcard from a relative in a foreign country branding them as spies.

An Extra Little Secret…

|Podpisnyye Izdaniya Bookshop

Bookshop complete with cafe. Always a recipe for a cosy stop from marching around the city. With international reads as well as Russian, you’re sure to find something to get your nose in to. You can find this little haven just across the canal from the Faberge Museum on Liteyniy Avenue at number 57.