Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd until 1924, is a city in Russia.
It is the second largest city after Moscow with a population of over 5.3 million people.
It is the fourth most popular city in Europe.
As an important Russian port on the Baltic Sea, it is governed as a federal city.
In modern era, St. Petersburg is considered the northern capital and serves as a home to some federal government bodies. It is home to Russia’s Constitutional Court of Russia and the Heraldic Council of the President of the Russian Federation.
The city is also a seat for the National Library of Russia and Planned location for the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.
The historic Center of Saint Petersburg and related groups of monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Hence, it is also referred to as the Russia’s Cultural Capital.
It is home to the Hermitage, one of the largest art museums in the world, and Europe’s tallest skyscraper, Lakhta Center.
The city is home to many home consulates, international corporations, banks and businesses.
8 THINGS TO DO AND NOT TO DO IN SAINT PETERSBURG.
- Do not leave your windows and curtains open at night. Instead, close them or use sleeping masks. The sun rises early and sets late.
- Do not forget your umbrella or warm clothes. Instead, no matter how warm it seems before you leave, always carry them even in the middle of the summer. The weather changes fast.
- Avoid using metro or buses during the rush hour. They are very much crowded and tiring. Instead, use a taxi.
- Don’t wait to line at the museum entrances. Instead, book a tour that has specific entrance time that you are sure of a timely entry.
- Don’t use black cabs. They are very expensive and you will be overcharged. Instead, arrange for a car or a taxi.
- Do not try to enter Russia without a visa. Instead, ensure you have all the required travel documents with you. Make sure also that the visa in registered in Russia upon arrival.
- Do not forget to keep some cash. Instead, although credit cards are widely accepted, it is always a good idea to have some cash with you for minor purchases.
- Avoid taking photos of the police. Instead, mind your own business and don’t give them a reason to harass you.
10 MOST INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT SAINT PETERSBURG
- The city has three names, Petrograd, Leningrad and Saint Petersburg.
- The city is home to more than 800 bridges with 12 movable ones.
- The 600 ton Alexander Column has stood vertical for 185 years under nothing more than just its weight.
- About 3 million people visit the Hermitage museum annually. None has ever seen the whole of it. It can take ten years to see it entirely.
- St. Isaac’s Cathedral can clearly be visible from the air. Funny part is that it was not bombed during the world war II.
- The Petersburg subway is one of the deepest in the world, lying 86m underground.
- St. Petersburg has a strange monument that has been stolen and recovered seven times. A statue of a bird, popular to locals as Chizhik-Pyzhik.
- It is the north most city in the world.
- The Hermitage collection has about 3 million exhibits located in 350 different rooms of five buildings.
- There are 15 cities in the United States with the name St. Petersburg.
History
Climate
Geography
8 MOST POPULAR THINGS IN ST. PETERSBURG
1 - STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM
Established when Empress Catherine the Great began gaining show-stoppers in the late 1700s, the museum didn't formally open to general society until 1852. Today, the Hermitage is the second-biggest workmanship museum on the planet after the Louver, and it's home to an assortment of more than 3,000,000 things.
#2 - PETER AND PAUL FORTRESS
The Peter and Paul Fortress was initially a sustained zone intended to shield the state from remote assaults. It was developed in 1703 and afterward expanded and altered for the accompanying four decades. While the fortress never observed any genuine battle, it despite everything has a dull story behind it, as it filled in as a jail and execution quarters during the Bolshevik unrest in the mid-twentieth century. Today, it's a piece of the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg.
#3 - PALACE SQUARE
St. Petersburg's primary city square is an enormous open space directly before the Winter Palace. The Alexander Column worked during the 1830s of a solitary bit of red stone, stands 47 meters tall at the focal point of the square. It was authorized by Alexander I to honor the triumph against Napoleon.
#4 - PETERHOF PALACE
Found under 30 kilometers from focal St. Petersburg, the eighteenth century Peterhof Palace complex comprises of a progression of structures, a few conventional nurseries, and a sum of 173 wellsprings took care of by underground springs. Structured in the style of the Palace of Versailles, Peterhof is most popular for its "Great Cascade," which comprises of 64 wellsprings situated on a progression of patios outside the primary passageway of the palace.
#5 - VASILYEVSKY ISLAND
Found directly over the waterway from the downtown area and the Winter Palace and associated with the territory by two extensions and a metro line, this little island is home to various landmarks and lovely stops—including a Museum of Electrical Transport; the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography; the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange; and the Baroque Menshikov Palace, which fills in as a part of the Heritage Museum and holds essentially seventeenth-century Russian workmanship.
#6 - CHURCH OF THE SAVIOR ON SPILLED BLOOD
One of the most lovely sights in St. Petersburg is this kaleidoscopic church planned in customary medieval Russian style. Alexander III arranged its development in 1883 on the site where his dad had been killed two years earlier.
#7 - MARIINSKY THEATER
Catherine the Great arranged the development of the magnificent drama and expressive dance troupe in the late eighteenth century, yet it wasn't until 1860, very nearly 80 years after the fact, that the organization got its own theater. When it opened, Mariinsky Theater was the most superior music lobby in Russia—where significant gems from Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky were first debuted.
#8 - ST. ISAAC'S CATHEDRAL
Actually, St. Isaac is the world's biggest Orthodox basilica, however, the structure has been changed over into a museum, and strict help is seldom held here any longer. The cathedral was named after Saint Isaac the Confessor, a Christian priest who established a significant cloister in Constantinople.