The Peter and Paul Fortress in autumn 2026: what is free, ticket prices and a three-hour route

St Petersburg began with the Peter and Paul Fortress: it was founded on 27 May 1703 on little Hare Island (Zayachy Island) in the mouth of the Neva. Today the fortress belongs to the Museum of the History of St Petersburg. Walking around it is free, but the cathedral, the prison and the exhibitions are paid. Below we explain what the tickets include, how the fortress operates in October and November 2026 and how to see the main sights at a relaxed pace in two to three hours. All prices and hours are taken from the museum's website.

The essentials

Entry to the grounds is free for everyone; this is stated directly on the museum's prices page.

Opening hours. Hare Island is open daily from 06:00 to 20:30, and at 21:00 the island closes completely. Access inside the fortress walls is daily from 09:50 to 19:30, with full closure at 20:00.

The museum's day off is Wednesday. You can still walk around the grounds that day, but the cathedral, the prison, the exhibitions and the ticket offices are closed. On Tuesdays everything closes an hour earlier.

Paid: the Peter and Paul Cathedral with the Grand Ducal Burial Vault, the Trubetskoy Bastion Prison, the Commandant's House and other exhibitions, and the "Neva Panorama" route along the fortress wall.

Opening hours in October and November

Last admission to the Commandant's House and the Trubetskoy Bastion Prison is 30 minutes before closing, and to the other exhibitions 15 minutes before. On days of church services the cathedral's hours may change.

How much tickets cost

The best-value option is the combined ticket. It costs 1,500 roubles for adults, 800 roubles for students from Russia and 700 roubles for pensioners. It gives access to eight sites: the cathedral with the burial vault, the Trubetskoy Bastion Prison, the Museum of Cosmonautics and Rocket Technology, the exhibition on the history of St Petersburg in the Commandant's House, the exhibitions "History of the Peter and Paul Fortress", "Museum of Architectural Ceramics" and "The Object World of Art Nouveau", and the postern and casemate of the Sovereign's Bastion. The ticket is valid for three calendar days, but you can enter each site only once.

The combined ticket includes a one-and-a-half-hour guided tour of the cathedral and the prison. Groups gather at the information centre in the Ioannovsky Ravelin and set off at 11:00, 12:00, 13:00, 14:00, 15:00 and 16:00; on Tuesdays and on the eves of public holidays the last group leaves at 15:30. The guide speaks into a radio transmitter, and a receiver with an earpiece is provided against a cash deposit of 1,000 roubles.

If you are short of time, you can buy tickets to individual sites (adult prices):

The "Neva Panorama" is not included in the combined ticket, and neither is the cathedral bell tower. The bell tower can only be visited on a guided tour costing 500 roubles. Open groups ran from 1 May to 1 October; now only pre-booked organised groups are taken up.

There is also a multi-site ticket valid for 14 days. It adds the museum's branches to the fortress: the Museum of Printing, the Rumyantsev Mansion, the Blok Museum-Apartment, the Kirov Museum and the Matyushin House. Until 31 October it costs 2,300 roubles and includes the Oreshek Fortress; from 1 November it costs 1,900 roubles, without Oreshek.

Tickets can be bought at the ticket offices or on the museum's website, but online tickets for the same day are sold only until 16:00. The combined ticket can be paid for with the Pushkin Card. There is no need to print the e-ticket, but because of mobile internet outages the museum advises saving it to your phone in advance. Children up to and including 7 years old enter free. Do not buy tours from touts at the gates: according to the museum, they are more expensive and do not give access to the museum sites.

Peter's Gate is the main entrance inside the fortress walls. Photo: Ninara, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

What to see

Peter and Paul Cathedral. It was founded on 30 May 1712 and took 20 years to build to a design by Domenico Trezzini. Inside stands a carved gilded iconostasis, which, together with the canopy over the altar, was given to the church by Peter I and Catherine I. Almost all Russian emperors from Peter I to Alexander III are buried in the cathedral, as well as Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and their daughters Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia. A gallery leads to the Grand Ducal Burial Vault, where grand dukes of the House of Romanov were buried.

The gilded canopy over the altar of the Peter and Paul Cathedral. Photo: Wolfgang Moroder, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

Trubetskoy Bastion Prison. The two-storey pentagonal prison was built in 1870–1872. Before the revolution more than 1,500 prisoners passed through its cells, among them Pyotr Kropotkin, Vera Figner and Alexander Ulyanov. In 1917 ministers of the tsarist government, and then of the Provisional Government, were imprisoned here. The corridors and cells are original, and the exhibition features prisoners' recollections.

Commandant's House. It houses an exhibition on the history of the city from 1703 to 1918. The rooms on St Petersburg in the 19th and early 20th centuries are devoted to everyday life: trade, tenement houses, transport and dress. It was in this house, on 12 July 1826, that the Decembrists were read their sentence.

"Neva Panorama". Wooden walkways on top of the fortress wall run from the Sovereign's Bastion to the Naryshkin Bastion. From up there you can see the Palace Embankment, the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island, the Trinity and Palace bridges, St Isaac's Cathedral and the Admiralty. Bear in mind that the fortress's granite façades are still under restoration. In summer 2026 work was under way on the Neva Curtain Wall and the Naryshkin Bastion, and the path along the Neva below the walls and the Hare Island beach are closed.

If you have time left, look into the Museum of Cosmonautics in the Ioannovsky Ravelin: in 1932–1933 Valentin Glushko's laboratory tested rocket engines here. From 16 October the fortress is also hosting an exhibition by Saveliy Shleyfer.

The noon gun: now fired from the Sovereign's Bastion

A cannon is fired at the fortress every day at 12:00. The signal guns now stand not on the Naryshkin Bastion, as before, but on the Sovereign's Bastion: they were moved there on 5 December 2025 because of the façade restoration. The museum promises to return the guns to their former place once the work is completed at the end of 2026. The shot can be seen from the "Neva Panorama" walkways.

On Saturdays at 11:55 there is a changing of the guard of honour with a band on the Sovereign's Bastion. This season ends on 31 October, so three Saturdays remain: 17, 24 and 31 October.

A solitary confinement cell in the Trubetskoy Bastion Prison. Photo: Vcarceler, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

A 2–3 hour route

1. 11:00. Enter via the Ioannovsky Bridge and the Ioannovsky Gate. Just beyond them, in the Ioannovsky Ravelin, are the ticket office and the information centre, where the guided tour also gathers.
2. 11:00–11:45. Walk through Peter's Gate to Cathedral Square and start with the cathedral and the burial vault.
3. 11:50–12:30. Go up to the "Neva Panorama", watch the noon gun and walk along the wall to the Naryshkin Bastion.
4. 12:30–13:30. The Commandant's House; allow about an hour for it.
5. 13:30–14:15. The Trubetskoy Bastion Prison.

If you join the 11:00 tour, you will see the cathedral and the prison in the first hour and a half, and you can see the rest on the combined ticket on another day: it is valid for three days. In November it gets dark early, so it is better not to leave the "Neva Panorama" until the evening.

Getting there

The nearest metro station is Gorkovskaya; from there walk through Alexandrovsky Park to the Ioannovsky Bridge. Other options: trams No. 6 and 40 run from Sportivnaya metro station, and bus No. 46 from Petrogradskaya.

The Kronverksky Bridge is closed for repairs; on the other side, a temporary bridge across the Kronverk Strait leads to the island. Tour coaches have been banned from the Kronverksky Bridge since 2015. Animals are not allowed in the fortress, except guide dogs. Cycling and riding scooters on the grounds are also prohibited. There is a toilet in the Carriage House building; it costs 50 roubles.

Frequently asked questions