Founded in 1703, the Peter & Paul Fortress is the oldest building in St. Petersburg. Its main use up to 1917 was as a political prison. Famous residents include Dostoevsky, Gorky, Trotsky and Lenin's older brother, Alexander.

The heart of St. Petersburg, the Palace Square, where the Winter Palace, the General Staff Building, the Building of the Ministries and centred on the impressive, 155 foot-tall Alexander Column. The Winter Palace served as the tsarist residence, which building nowadays belongs to the State Hermitage museum.

This Square got its name from the magnificent St. Isaac's Cathedral, located in its centre and one of the finest architectural monuments of the 19th century. The Cathedral is the fourth greatest cupola cathedral in the world. St. Isaac's Cathedral was the main cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church until 1917. It is situated on one of the most spectacular squares of the city. A fine view opens from the 64 meters high colonnade on the historic part of the city. To watch all the beauty you should go 260 steps up! The tour will last for 1.5 hours during which you will discover all cathedral’s secrets and engineering wonders.

The State Hermitage is one of the oldest and largest museums in the world. The Director of the Hermitage once said: "I can’t say that the Hermitage is the number one museum in the world, but it’s certainly not the second". There are over 3 000 000 000 works of art, including those of Picasso, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Raphael, Michelangelo, Matisse, Monet and many others in the Hermitage. The buildings of the museum, by themselves, are architectural masterpieces. The collections. Magnificent works of art embracing prehistoric culture, Egyptian art, the art of Antiquity, Scythian gold, and great collections of Western-European paintings and sculptures are displayed in 400 halls of museum. If you want to see every piece of art and will spend in front of each only 2 minutes it will take you 9 years!

The Venice of the North wins the leading position in Russia in the quantity of bridges. Situated on more than 45 islands, St. Petersburg boasts over 500 bridges ranging from the very narrow pedestrian Lions and Bank chain bridges to the unique Medieval and Modern styled Bolshoi Okhtinsky Bridge and the giant drawbridges, which span the wide Neva River

In the center of St.Petersburg, not far from the banks of the Neva, the Church of the Saviour on the Blood draws the attention to one’s eyes. Its guilded and coloured domes rise majestically over the surrounding building, along with the cupola of St.Isaac’s Cathedral, the spies of Peter and Paul fortress and the Admiralty, creating architectural dominants in the panorama of the city centre.

The Church of the Resurrection of Christ is an outstanding example of late 19th-century Russian architecture and monumental decorative art, built on the site where one the Russian emperors Alexander II was mortally wounded. The interior of the church is worth seeing – the church is decorated with more than 1500 sq. m. of precious mosaics.

Decembrists Square
This Square named after the first revolutionists in Russian history (1825). In the middle of the Square there is a Monument of Peter the Great, founder of St. Petersburg.

Church on Spilled Blood
The church was created on the exact site where a terrorist Grinevsky mortally wounded Tsar Alexander II, despite his reforms, on March 1, 1881, by tossing a bomb at his feet. The church was modelled after the St.Basil's in Moscow's Red Square and its flamboyant Russian style by the architect Parland's project. It has boggling 7000 square meters of mosaics.

Nevskiy Prospect
The main avenue of St.Petersburg, the centre of business, trade activities, cultural life, shopping, entertainment and nightlife.

Yusupov Palace
The Palace, build by Vallin de la Mothe in the Early Russian Classical style, was a residence of the wealthy and respected Yusupov family. The Palace is outstanding for its architectural merits and famous as Rasputin was murdered there, in December 1916.

Smolny Ensemble
At the time of Peter I in the territory now occupied by the convent there was a tar yard. In the buildings of the convent was the first school for ladies known in Russia as the Smolny Institute for Ladies of Noble Birth.

Pushkin (Tsarskoe Selo)
This former country residence of Russian emperors, is a fascinating monument of the world's architectural and gardening arts of the XVIII-XIX centuries. Its parks and palaces occupy the area of 600 ha .
To see: Catherine Palace’s Amber Room, one of the most interesting in art relation's rooms

Pavlovsk
One of the most interesting suburban palaces in St.Petersburg, which belonged to Paul I and his family. The Pavlovsk Palace and Park Ensemble is a magnificent example of Russian classicism of the end of the XVIII and beginning of the XIX centuries. The landscape park, one of the largest in Europe.

Gatchina
The Gatchina Palace had many owners, but the last was Paul I. The Palace Park is the first landscape park in the history of Russia (architect Rinaldi). An underground passage led from the Grand Palace to the Lake.

The Palace-and-Park Ensemble is a jewel of the Russian art, often called the Baltic Versailles. In the past it used to be an exquisite summer residence of Russian tsars. Verkhniy (Upper) Garden and Nizhniy (Lower) Park, genuine masterpieces of landscape design, number lots of fountains and cascades.