St. Petersburg is Russia’s second largest city. It was formerly called Petrogad and Leningrad in the 20th century but is now often just referred to as Petersburg, or informally, as Piter. It was founded on May 27, 1703 by Tsar Peter I and was the Russian Empire’s capital for more than two centuries until 1918, a year after the Russian Revolution; for that reason it is still sometimes called Northern Capital by its more than 4.5 million inhabitants. Other nicknames include The Northern Palmira and The Venice of the North.
Saint Petersburg is known as the most Western city of the nation. It is a major cultural center in Europe and a very important Baltic Sea port. Being a large city, you have a wide variety of places to choose from if you’re visiting. There’s the UNESCO World Heritage site, the Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments. Artists and art appreciators will surely appreciate The Hermitage, which is the world’s largest art museum.
Hosted in historic buildings, more than two hundred other museums exist in Saint Petersburg. The Russian Museum is one that’s devoted specifically to Russian fine arts. The former residences of several famous Petersburgers, such as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Joseph Brodsky, Alexander Pushkin, Vladimir Nabokov, Alexander Blok, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Anna Akhmatova, Feodor Chaliapin, and Mikhail Zoshchenko, have been converted into public museums. Notable architectural monuments that include St. Isaac’s Cathedral; the Kuntskamera, considered at times as the first museum in the nation and which houses a collection of curiosities established by Peter the Great in 1714; the Russian Ethnography Museum; the Central Naval Museum; the Railway Museum; the Saint Petersburg Museum of History; and the Museum of the Siege of Leningrad are worthy of at least an hour-long tour. If you’re into theatrical arts, you have more than 50 theaters to choose from, among them the world-renowned Mariinsky Theater (a.k.a. Kirov Theater).
The city has a humid climate of the cooler summer subtype as influenced by the Baltic Sea cyclones. Summers are warm and humid and winters are long and cold. Saint Petersburg being a major transport hub also contributes to you being able to get around the city quite easily, especially if you wish to stroll along its parks and gardens. The largest park in the city is Sosnovka, occupying 240 hectares. The oldest one, with its popular marble sculptures and cast iron railing, is the Summer Garden on the Neva’s southern bank and the Fontanka’s head.