The Romanovs ruled Russia for three hundred and four years, and for two hundred of them they ruled from here. Saint Petersburg was built by the dynasty, for the dynasty, and it is the only city where you can walk the whole arc in a couple of days: the palace where they lived, the cathedral where they are buried, the room where the last tsar signed away the throne, and the cellar-scale drama of the murder that came before the fall.
The dynasty in brief
The Romanovs came to the throne in 1613, when Mikhail Romanov was elected tsar after the Time of Troubles. They ruled from Moscow for the first ninety years.
Peter the Great moved the capital to his new city on the Neva in 1712, and from then until 1918 the family's life was Petersburg life. Eighteen sovereigns in all, ending with Nicholas II, who abdicated in March 1917. He and his immediate family were killed at Yekaterinburg in July 1918.
The name outlived the rule in an odd way: the dynasty that ended in a provincial cellar is buried, almost complete, in one cathedral in the middle of this city.
Where they are buried: the Peter and Paul Cathedral
Inside the fortress on the Petrograd Side, the cathedral holds nearly every Russian emperor from Peter the Great onward. The tombs are white marble sarcophagi in rows, plain apart from two in green jasper and rhodonite for Alexander II and his wife.
In 1998, eighty years after the killings, the remains of Nicholas II, Alexandra and three of their daughters were interred in a side chapel here — the St Catherine Chapel. It is the single most direct place in the city to stand at the beginning and the end of the dynasty within thirty metres.
Where they lived
- The Winter Palace. The main imperial residence from the 1760s. It is now the core of the Hermitage, so you see it as a museum — but the Malachite Room, the Jordan Staircase and the private apartments of the last imperial family are the palace, not the collection.
- Tsarskoye Selo, at Pushkin. The Catherine Palace with the Amber Room, and next to it the Alexander Palace, which was Nicholas II's actual home and where the family was held under arrest after the abdication.
- Peterhof. Peter's answer to Versailles, and the fountains still run without pumps, on the original gravity system.
- Pavlovsk and Gatchina. Paul I's palaces, quieter and far less visited.
- The Marble Palace on the Palace Embankment, built by Catherine the Great for Grigory Orlov.
Where it went wrong
Three addresses tell the last chapter better than any museum label.
The Yusupov Palace on the Moika. Rasputin was murdered in its basement in December 1916 by a group around Prince Felix Yusupov. The rooms are preserved and the palace's own theatre is worth the ticket on its own.
The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. Built on the exact spot where Alexander II was killed by a bomb in 1881 — the fragment of street where he fell is enclosed inside the building, under a canopy. He was the emperor who had freed the serfs twenty years earlier.
The Alexander Palace at Pushkin. Nicholas II's family home, their prison after March 1917, and the place they left from for the journey east.
A two-day route
Day one, in the city. Peter and Paul Fortress for the tombs, then across the river to the Winter Palace and the Hermitage. Finish at the Savior on Spilled Blood and the Yusupov Palace, which are twenty minutes apart on foot.
Day two, out of town. Tsarskoye Selo for the Catherine Palace and the Alexander Palace together — they are in one park, and doing both is what makes the day work. Peterhof is the alternative if fountains matter more than the last tsar.
Practical notes
The Amber Room is a reconstruction. The original was looted in 1941 and never found; what you see was completed in 2003. It is still worth seeing, but the story is the point.
Book the palace slots. Catherine Palace in particular sells timed entry that goes early in summer, and the queue for walk-ups is the worst in the region.
Peterhof fountains are seasonal. They run from late spring to early autumn and are switched off for winter, which surprises people who travel specifically for them.
The tombs are working church space. The cathedral holds services, and parts can be closed at short notice.
