Stroganov Palace on Nevsky: how to get inside and why to go
Stroganov Palace is a Russian Museum branch at Nevsky 17 — one of Rastrelli's defining St Petersburg buildings. Inside you'll find a suite of state rooms with original furniture, a mineralogical cabinet and the first restaurant to serve beef Stroganoff. Here is how to buy tickets and plan 90 minutes.
Pulkovo tours: behind the scenes of St Petersburg's main airport
Pulkovo is St Petersburg's main airport, in its current terminal since 2014. Regular behind-the-scenes tours, a civil aviation museum nearby and the Pulkovo Observatory. How to visit.
New Holland and the Pryazhka: a rare central park and Blok's embankment
New Holland is an 18th-century closed island restored as a park and public space in 2016. What is inside, when concerts happen and how to visit.
The Malachite Room at the Hermitage: two tonnes of Ural stone in a single interior
The Malachite Room was Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna's state drawing room in the Winter Palace, clad in 125 poods of Ural malachite — around two tonnes. The only interior of this scale in the world. Here is how to find it and plan a Hermitage route around it.
The Krukov Canal and Kolomna: Dostoevsky's quiet St Petersburg
The Krukov Canal marks the southern edge of Kolomna, the district of Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Blok. A walking route from the Potseluev Bridge to Mariinsky II and the Nicholas Naval Cathedral.
Tres senderos ecológicos en tren de cercanías desde San Petersburgo: estaciones, longitud, temporada
Tres senderos ecológicos accesibles desde San Petersburgo en tren suburbano directo: la reserva «Pantano de Sestroretsk» —desde la estación Finlyandsky…
The Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace: how to get inside on a tour or for a concert, and what to see by Anichkov Bridge
The pink palace on the corner of Nevsky and the Fontanka is not a walk-in museum: you get inside on an hour-long tour of the state rooms or for a concert in the Mirror Hall. Where to buy tickets, what they cost, what you may photograph and which concerts are on in late October. Checked on 19 October 2026.
What to bring home from St Petersburg: 7 non-obvious picks
Smelt, Badaev chocolate, pyshki, Imperial Porcelain Factory ware, books from Podpisnye, Hermitage postcards. Seven gifts actually worth packing.
Cruiser Aurora and St Petersburg's ship-museums: a day on three decks for the school holidays
St Petersburg is the only Russian city where you can walk three ship-museums from three different eras in a single day: the cruiser Aurora, the icebreaker Krasin and the submarine S-189. For the autumn school holidays this is one of the most reliable routes with children — on the water, interesting to both boys and girls. How to put the day together. Checked against museum websites on 22 October 2026.
Gazprom Arena: how to get to a Zenit match, where to sit, how to arrive and how to leave without the queue — the Krestovsky stadium for first-timers
Gazprom Arena on Krestovsky Island is a 68,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof and a slide-out pitch, Zenit's home ground and a concert venue. A first visit has plenty of surprises: how to buy a ticket without touts, which sectors to take with children, how the metro works on match day and why leaving is harder than arriving. Here it is step by step.
Spa hotels in the Leningrad Region for a weekend: pools, hammams and how to get there by train
Four country spa hotels near St Petersburg you can reach without a car: Igora with its thermal complex, AZIMUT in Repino, Gelios in Zelenogorsk and Lessmore in Roshchino. What's in the spa, opening hours, day-visit prices, trains and buses, and which suits whom in autumn. Checked on 19 October 2026.
Solyanoy Lane in two hours: the Stieglitz Academy museum, the Siege of Leningrad museum and the Panteleimon church — the block everyone walks past on the way to the Summer Garden
Solyanoy Lane between the Fontanka and Liteyny is one of the densest blocks in the centre: the Stieglitz Academy's museum of applied art with its great hall under a glass dome, the Museum of the Defence and Siege of Leningrad, the Panteleimon church and the monument to Peter I by the Summer Garden. Here is how to see it all in two hours, which museum is hardest to get into and how to get there.