Everybody has a mental picture of St Petersburg even if they’ve never been there. This “Venice of the North” is etched deep into the western imagination as the romantic setting for great works of literature (War and Peace, Anna Karenina) and films (Eisenstein’s October) or associated with intriguing characters in history – Peter the Great, Catherine, Potemkin, Rasputin, Lenin, Pushkin, Diaghelev, Nijinsky. The list could go on!

Now you can travel with ease to the city for a thrilling few days on a cultural tour specifically aimed at exploring its rich architectural and artistic heritage. What’s more, for new and regular visitors alike, the city has recently enjoyed a magnificent facelift to commemorate its 300^th anniversary last year, which emphasizes its ethereal beauty.

It was Peter the Great's (1672-1725) determination to crush his rival, Sweden, and make Russia a European power that led to his founding the city in 1703. It grew out of marshy wetlands at the point where traditional Russian territory meets a seaway to Northern Europe.   Architects and artisans were brought in from Italy and France and 300,000 peasants were drafted in for forced labor, thousands of them dying for their pains. Canals were dug to drain the marshes and in 1712 Peter made the place his new capital, forcing administrators, nobles and merchants to move here from Moscow to build new homes. 

Peter intended to demonstrate to the world that Russia was a European rather than an Asian nation, and its immense power was invested in the grandest and most monumental capital in Europe. By Peter's death in 1725, his city had a huge population and 90% of Russia's foreign trade passed through it. His reign was regarded as the turning-point in Russian history, when the country emerged from centuries of retarded “Asian” isolation as a new European power, transformed by the vision and sheer will of one man.

His presence lingers, particularly at sites like his Peter and Paul Fortress built to protect the area from attack by the Swedish military. The fortress housed the city's garrison from 1721 and served as a notorious high-security political jail. Among the first inmates was Peter's own rebellious son, Alexei, who was tortured and beaten to death there. Later, the list of famous residents included Dostoyevsky, Gorkiy, Trotsky and Lenin's older brother, Alexander. You can visit the cells. 

The cathedral rises from the middle of the fortress and Russian emperors and empresses from Peter the Great to Alexander III are buried there.  Its soaring, shining needle-like spire is visible all over the city. Menshikov Palace on Vasilevskiy island, the most luxurious building in the city then, was built by Peter’s greatest friend and compatriot. Dutch influence and atmosphere pervade the interiors, with inlaid wood, thousands of specially imported Delft tiles and 17^th-century Dutch paintings. Round the corner are the Twelve Colleges, built by Peter to house the 12 ministries of his government, and now the core of the university.

Under Catherine the Great (1762-1796) St Petersburg flourished as a cosmopolitan city with its famously splendid royal court. Born a German princess without a drop of Russian blood, this extraordinary monarch came to embody 18^th-century Russia. She was responsible for commissioning vast palaces, churches and government buildings, for setting out broad avenues and expansive squares, all of which enhanced its status as the grandest of capitals. The palaces of the imperial family and of the fabulously wealthy magnates vied with each other to dominate the riverfront of the Neva.

Catherine’s rise to power

Married at 14 to the future Emperor Peter III for dynastic reasons, in June 1762 she took an active part in a coup against him. He was overthrown and killed "in an accident." Catherine became Russia's autocratic ruler.  She had a string of sensationalized and widely publicized love affairs with various army officers and politicians, some of whom she promoted to the highest ranks of empire.  

Some proved themselves extremely talented and capable figures. She showed the longest fidelity to Grigory Potemkin, whom she first met while he was on guard duty in St Petersburg. Fat, autocratic and one-eyed, he commanded her armies, helped her rule the country and develop the Russian empire. Their romance, all about power, lust and love, was as enthralling as any fiction.

All this on the backs of millions of serfs who were condemned to ever-worsening conditions.  However, most experts agree that Catherine changed significantly the appearance of St. Petersburg, and turned it into one of the most impressive capital cities in Europe.

The Baroque Winter Palace was her home and in 1764 Catherine decided that as a cultured, enlightened empress she would gather an art collection. She developed into one of the greatest collectors of all time by sending ambassadors and agents to trawl Europe for the brightest and the best paintings, prints, drawings, antique sculpture, engraved gems, coins and books (including the richest libraries of Diderot and Voltaire). She bought collections wholesale, including that of Sir Robert Walpole in 1779, which became the foundation of the Italian collection. She commissioned objets d’art in porcelain, precious metal and stones, which created the core of the decorative arts collection. 

Over time she increased the Imperial art collection from a dozen works to an incredible 3,926!   Today, the Winter Palace of the Romanovs is one of the world's greatest art museums, filled with more than 3 million items of an immensely rich collection, including works by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens, French Impressionists (Renoir, Cezanne, Manet, Monet, Pissarro), Van Gogh, Matisse, Gaugin and sculptures by Rodin. It has been calculated that if you decide to spend only one minute in front of each exhibit, you will have to stay in the Hermitage for 11 years!

Beautiful architecture everywhere

Several beautiful royal palaces in their distinctive pastel colors and set in extensive parks are scattered around the city like a string of pearls. Petrodvorets (formerly Peterhof), built by Peter I as his majestic summer residence with its resplendent gardens and cascading gold fountains leading down to the sea, is an expression of his triumph over the Swedes and was influenced by his visit to Versailles in 1717.  

The town of Pushkin (formerly Tsarskoye Selo, renamed in 1937 after Russia’s favorite poet because he had studied at the Lycée there) is famous for its impressive baroque Catherine Palace, summer residence of the imperial family and designed by the Italian architect Rastrelli.  Trashed by the Germans during World War II, the palace has since risen like a phoenix from the ashes. Visitors are transported 200 years back in history to wander through gilded and luxurious interiors that include the astonishing Amber Room and the Great Hall, shimmering with mirrors and gilded carvings. At 1,000 feet long, and topped with gilded cupolas, the palace façade dominates the surrounding parkland of 1,400 acres, peppered with bridges, terraces, fountains and small galleries.

The cultural landscape of 19^th-century St Petersburg is encapsulated in the work of Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) and Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881). These literary geniuses were the first to write the Russian experience into world literature. The visitor can view Pushkin’s study exactly as on the day he bled to death after his fateful duel with d’Anthes. In the latter part of his life Dostoevsky lived in this apartment where he wrote The Brothers Karamazov and which is now his museum.

The painted equivalent of this focus on people at the bottom of the social scale can be seen at the Russian Museum. Here is the world’s greatest collection of Social Realism, which comes as a revelation to most visitors. For apart from icons (and there is a wonderful collection here), the great achievements of 19^th-century Russian painters are scarcely known outside the country.

Russian ballet and opera can be heard and seen at the city’s theaters, among them the Mariinsky, the Mussorgsky and the Hermitage. The Mariinsky was the site of Diaghelev’s thrilling productions and saw the unparalleled Nijinsky, Pavlova and Nureyev dance to the music of Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsokov and Tchiakovsky.

The fount of revolution

In the 20^th century Petersburg became a hotbed of strikes and political violence. In a 1914  wave of patriotism, the city's name was changed to Petrograd. Ever the cradle of revolution, it was here that the monarchy came to a violent end in 1917. Renamed Leningrad after Lenin's death in 1924, the city became a hub of Stalin's 1930s industrialization program. But fearing it as a rival power base, it was also here that Stalin probably ordered the 1934 assassination of local communist chief Sergey Kirov – the beginning of Stalin’s ruthless purges. The vast Kirov factory stands witness still to the futurist plans of Communism. 

When the Germans attacked the USSR in June 1941, they quickly reached Leningrad. Hitler hated it as the birthplace of Bolshevism and swore to wipe it from the face of the earth. His troops besieged it for 900 days from September 1941 on. Nearly a million people died from shelling, starvation and disease. The city’s Victory Monument, erected in 1975 in the center of the main route south, is a massive and moving memorial to the heroism of the people who defended Leningrad during the siege. 

After the war, Leningrad was gradually reconstructed and reborn. In 1991 the Soviet Union was officially proclaimed “dead” and residents voted to rename the city St Petersburg.  Foreign investment gave the city a boost and, corny as it may sound, St Petersburg really did re-establish itself as Russia's window on the West. Putin's election to the presidency in March 2000 has raised the city's profile (he has spent most of his life in St Petersburg and loves the place), and the infrastructure and architectural treasures of Russia’s largest port enjoyed a thorough facelift in time for its 300^th anniversary in 2003. 

The city is now welcoming to international visitors. New boutique hotels are opening in restored mansions as a delightful alternative to grim ex-Soviet hotels, visas are fairly easily acquired, and restaurant food is excellent and varied. A few days exploring the historical highs and lows of this amazing city of contrasts is a life-enhancing cultural opportunity. It shouldn’t be missed!