10 Best Things to Do in St Petersburg

With majestic bronze and multi-coloured domes reaching up to the sky and an intricate Russian Orthodox design, this historic church in central St Petersburg is impossible to miss. Built on the site of the assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander II in 1881, the church has an equally wondrous interior with Biblical-themed mosaics covering more than 7,000 sq m of space, Italian marble floors, and decorative stones from the Urals and Altai region. 

No longer an active church, Saviour on the Spilled Blood has been extensively restored and opened as a state museum, with an entry fee of about 250 rubles. 

Found about 30km west of St Petersburg, Peterhof was built by Peter the Great and served as a seaside summer retreat for royals for two centuries until the Russian revolution of 1917. Now a UNESCO heritage site, Peterhof is a sprawling estate of splendid Baroque palaces, golden statuary, gardens and museums. 

The Grand Palace is the largest on the estate, its 30 rooms brimming with priceless paintings and handcrafted furnishings such as imported cabinets from China. The best time to visit Peterhof is May through October when its 150 fountains are flowing, including Samson Fountain with its 20-metre water spout from a lion's mouth. 

Stretching 4 km through the city’s centre, Nevsky Prospekt is the heart and soul of St Petersburg. Since its days as a grand promenade for the city’s aristocrats, Nevsky Prospekt has emerged over the centuries into a thriving centre for shopping, dining, arts and cultural sights.

Browse for books at Dom Knigi bookshop in the elegant Singer House or stop by Cafe Singer to relax with a great view of the street life and Kazansky Cathedral. One could easily spend the day just wandering while gazing at the beautiful architecture along the way including Anichkov Palace and the Russian National Library.

Set in 5 interconnected buildings, the Hermitage houses an astonishing amount of art, from 7th-century BC Scythian gold to masterpieces by such virtuosos as Leonardo Da Vinci, Monet, Van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso. Since Catherine the Great put her personal art collection on display in the Small Hermitage adjacent to the Winter Palace in 1764, the collection has grown to include some 3 million items. 

With so much to see in a confusing maze of a place, it's impossible to explore it all in a day. Guided tours are available to catch the highlights, and you’ll avoid the queues by buying entry tickets online in advance. 

Founded by Peter the Great in 1714, this is Russia's oldest museum. Among its huge collections of natural objects is its infamous display of "freaks" -- preserved specimens of such curiosities as two-headed foetuses and deformed body parts. The intent of the exhibit was not to shock, but rather to quell superstitious beliefs of the time and show that such strange mutations are quirks of nature with scientific explanations. 

While many come here to see the oddities, the museum also houses a collection of cultural artefacts from around the world and a fascinating astronomical exhibit with nifty-looking old clock mechanisms, telescopes and spyglasses. 

As a city linked by canals and arched bridges across more than a hundred islands in the Neva Delta, St Petersburg’s grandeur is best revealed when explored by boat. A glide along the Neva River takes you past the city’s most beautiful buildings including the State Hermitage Museum, Peter and Paul Fortress and St Isaac’s Cathedral.

The best-value boat trip is the one-hour excursion on board one of the roving boats that you can catch from several departure points along Nevsky Prospekt. Book a longer guided cruise to learn more about the history behind the sights or see the city’s twinkling lights on a romantic evening dinner cruise.

Geeky gamers and anyone curious to see how Soviet kids got their kicks in the 1970s and 80s will find plenty to enjoy at this retro arcade museum. Some enterprising Russian students set up the museum with dozens of restored Soviet-era arcade games, first in Moscow before expanding to St Petersburg in a former candy factory. 

Many games have military themes, from the “Morskoi Boi” sea battle machine to the “Tankodrome” game with shooting tanks. The entry fee of about 450 roubles includes a handful of authentic Soviet kopek coins with which to play the games. 

Some of the world’s greatest dancers like Anna Pavlova and Mikhail Baryshnikov have twirled across the stage at this historic theatre, which opened more than two centuries ago. The building itself is a showpiece of imperial grandeur, with its wedding-cake façade and richly decorated interior.

Its resident Kirov Ballet company is celebrated worldwide. Whatever show you catch, whether it be Peter Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake or an opera like La Boheme or Otello, it’s sure to be a mesmerising experience. More shows are staged at the huge Mariinsky II nearby, the sleeker 21st-century sister theatre with 2,000 seats.

Muzey Snovideniy Zigmunda Freyda (Freud Museum of Dreams) delves into the work of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychiatry. You can find the museum inside the Eastern European Institute of Psychoanalysis. Every surface of the museum is designed as a fully immersive experience – a place for daydreams and reflections.

The first hall lets you explore Freud’s theories on the stages of personality development in 12 displays. Things get more surreal in the second hall with Freudian images, texts and audio materials that take you inside the subconscious and, as the museum says, “plunge your mind’s eye into Freud's dreams”. Entry costs about 200 rubles with discounts for children.