St. Petersburg Museums

Peter and Paul Fortress, St. Petersburg

Peter and Paul Fortress, St. Petersburg

The laying of the first stone of the Peter and Paul Fortress in 1703 marked the birth of St Petersburg. Over the next centuries, the fortress became the nucleus around which Russia’s northern capital took shape. Today, the Peter and Paul Fortress is one of the city’s most famous landmarks. Steeped in history, both glorious and tragic, it is a must-visit for anyone taking a trip to St Petersburg.

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The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

The State Hermitage Museum is the biggest and most popular museum in Russia, and the second largest art museum in the world. What is the story behind this magnificent institution of cultural heritage, and what can you find there today?

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St Isaac’s Cathedral, St. Petersburg

St Isaac’s Cathedral, St. Petersburg

The largest church in St Petersburg, St Isaac’s Cathedral dominates the skyline and is characterised by grandeur and opulence both inside and out. No trip to St Petersburg would be complete without visiting this monumental achievement of architecture and engineering, admiring its breathtakingly lavish interior, and enjoying the panoramic view from its colonnade over the cityscape.

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The Alexander Nevsky Monastery, St. Petersburg

The Alexander Nevsky Monastery, St. Petersburg

The oldest and largest monastery in St Petersburg, the Alexander Nevsky Monastery survived religious persecution in the Soviet Union and remains today a working monastery and important religious site. Admire its beautiful architecture and leafy surroundings, explore its surviving churches, and visit the graves of Russia’s greatest intellectuals and influential figures.

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Peterhof

Peterhof

Peterhof is a jewel of Russian architecture and landscape design which perfectly encapsulated Peter the Great’s ideals of maritime glory and a ‘window onto Europe’. With palaces and parks rivaling those of European royalty and a seafront location laying claim to the Baltic Sea, Peterhof’s magnificent ensemble is one of St Petersburg’s most famous landmarks.

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The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

The Russian Museum is home to the world’s largest collection of Russian art. Its 400,000 exhibits chronicle a millennium of artistic development in Russia, from ancient icons to Realist landscapes to agitprop porcelain. For those interested in Russian art and culture, no trip to St Petersburg would be complete without visiting the Russian Museum.

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The Yusupov Palace, St. Petersburg

The Yusupov Palace, St. Petersburg

Located on the bank of the tranquil River Moyka, the Yusupov Palace was once the residence of the wealthiest family in Russia, the Yusupovs. But its sumptuous interiors hold dark secrets, and the palace is most famous for being the location where mystic monk Grigory Rasputin was murdered.

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Pavlovsk

Pavlovsk

The imperial residence of Pavlovsk is nestled in thick forest in the suburbs of St Petersburg. Its beautiful Neoclassical palace and landscape gardens with lush riverbanks and winding paths are waiting to be explored, and visitors can enjoy festivals, concerts and outdoor sports. Popular among local people and tourists in all seasons, we highly recommend a visit to Pavlovsk!

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Pushkin

Pushkin

Russians know the town of Pushkin, not by postcards or tour excursions, but rather by the intimate poems of its namesake—Alexander Pushkin. Thanks to Alexander I, who founded an elite school (Russian: lyceum) close to his palace, Pushkin was trained in the art of verse. Along with the workbooks and dormitory of a young Pushkin, poignant traces of the school’s other famous students like Anna Akhmatova, Mihail Glinka and Vasily Zhukovsky can be seen in its grand lecture halls and dingy dormitories.

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The Central Naval Museum, St. Petersburg

The Central Naval Museum, St. Petersburg

As with many of St Petersburg’s most important sites, the Central Naval Museum owes its existence to the ingenuity of Peter the Great. The acorn of the idea that was to blossom into one of the foremost nautical museums in the world first set root during the young tsar’s European tour. Seizing every opportunity to expand his exhaustive store of knowledge, the ever ambitious Peter immersed himself in the shipyards of the two most adept navies at the time, the British and Dutch— both handily under the rule of his long-time friend, the Prince of Orange. There he uncovered the technique of ship modelling which would form the basis of the Naval Museum’s collection.

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Gatchina

Gatchina

The area south of St Petersburg where Gatchina Palace and Park is located is much older than the city itself. At the turn of the 15th century, it was a small village named Hotchino, inhabited by people from Novgorod, which was later occupied by Livonia and Sweden during a series of 17th century wars. Gatchina eventually became a Russian settlement again during the Great Northern War against Sweden (during which Peter the Great also acquired the territory on which he would found St Petersburg).

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Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkammer)

Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkammer)

This museum is definitely not for the faint-hearted, young or pregnant! Deformed foetuses in jars are the most popular attraction, but the etymological exhibits with cultural artefacts from the Americas, Oceania, Asia and Africa aren’t to be missed.

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The Russian Museum of Ethnography

The Russian Museum of Ethnography

The museum began to acquire its first collections from the mid-1890s as part of the Ethnographic Department of the Russian Museum. The museum opened in 1924 to the public and in 1934 it became an independent institution, renamed the State Museum of the Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR in 1948. It acquired its current title in 1992.

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The National Pushkin Museum

The National Pushkin Museum

The National Pushkin Museum in St. Petersburg was the first national museum dedicated to the poet Alexander Pushkin. The main goal of the creation of the Pushkin Museum was to concentrate in it "all materials connected with life and creative work of Alexander Pushkin".

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The State Russian Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic

The State Russian Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic

The numismatic collection of the Museum contains 4000 pieces including the coins dated back to XVI - XVII centuries, honor medals used to award polar explorers of the USSR, Norway, the USA and other countries. A unique collection consisting of 15 medals to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Tchelyuskin Epopee and devoted to the polar pilots- the heroes of the USSR are also on display.

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The Central Museum of Railway Transport of Russia

The Central Museum of Railway Transport of Russia

There are some of the oldest railway collections in the world here, so for anyone with an interest in trains and railway transport this should be on your list of what to see in St. Petersburg.

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Anna Akhmatova Museum at the Fountain House

Anna Akhmatova Museum at the Fountain House

This is a truly emotive museum, full of interesting memorabilia not just relating to Akhmatova and her fellows, but also to the complicated period of time that she secretly circulated her work.

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St. Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music

St. Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music

The museum includes 4 branches also in the city of St. Petersburg: the N.A.Rimsky-Korsakov Museum, the F.I.Chaliapin Museum, the Samoilov Family Museum, the Museum of Music in the Sheremetev Palace. To help with establishing the theatrical world of the past portraits of famous actors, theatre designs by well-known artists, posters, manuscripts, theatr e props, set models are on display for all to see.

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The Manege Central Exhibition Hall

The Manege Central Exhibition Hall

As the “Manege” is a rotating gallery of exhibitions it means that it’s impossible to tell you at this moment what you will be able to see on your visit! It’s one of those moments where if you like contemporary art and delving into the latest artistic trends, then you won’t be disappointed, no matter what’s on!

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The Piskariovsky Memorial Cemetery

The Piskariovsky Memorial Cemetery

We cannot name all the names here, There are too many under this granite wall, But remember the one who stands nearby: No one is forgotten and nothing is forgotten.

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State Memorial Museum of Leningrad Defense and Siege

State Memorial Museum of Leningrad Defense and Siege

The museum is a real eye-opener to the difficulties that both the military and the civilians went through in order to defend themselves and their country against the German attacks.

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Academy of Arts Museum

Academy of Arts Museum

Many great Russian artists studied at the Academy including Ilya Repin and Karl Bryullov. Visitors can see works by Russian artists from the mid-18th century to the present; a collection of plaster casts of classical and Western European sculpture; architectural drawings and designs; and a unique collection of wooden models of the Academy, the Stock Exchange, St. Michael's Castle, the Smolny Convent and other famous buildings.

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Bread Museum

Bread Museum

The St. Petersburg Bread Museum was founded in 1988. This is the only museum of its kind in Russia and one of only 13 in the world! It is situated on the premises of the Bread Bakery Plant.

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The Artillery Museum

The Artillery Museum

A large part of the museum is devoted to the Patriotic War of 1812, including some of the personal weapons of Napoleon Bonaparte. Upstairs, the entire floor is dedicated to the Great Patriotic War, otherwise known as World War II. In the courtyard outside you can climb on the tanks and have pictures taken alongside the heavy artillery, rockets, and signal equipment which are on display.

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The Cruiser Aurora

The Cruiser Aurora

The cruiser Aurora is a monument to Russian shipbuilding and the history of the Russian Navy, a veritable relic of the 1917 revolution and in 1957 it was converted into a museum.

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Museum of the History of Religion

Museum of the History of Religion

The museum has exhibitions about the history of the world's religions from the 6th century BC all the way to the present day. The permanent exhibitions consist of 6th century BC Archaic Rituals, Mythology of the Ancient World, Judaism, Early Christianity, Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam and Buddhism. The museum has approximately 200,000 exhibits ranging from artefacts to art work.

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Dostoevsky Literary Memorial Museum

Dostoevsky Literary Memorial Museum

For anyone that has read any of Dostoevsky's work and has enjoyed it, will want to experience where he lived and worked for his final few years. St. Petersburg and Dostoevsky were so closely related and his remnants are alive in most parts of the city, but it is here in the memorial apartment that you can inhabit the life and the work of the legendary writer.

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The Museum of Hygiene

The Museum of Hygiene

The exhibits display campaigns against smoking, alcoholism and drug addiction, on sexual education, AIDS prevention and radiation hygiene. There| is a unique collection of anatomical preparations, an electro physical "glass man" model and a giant artificial heart. There is also an area devoted to the history of health care in St. Petersburg.

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 The State Museum of Russian Political History

The State Museum of Russian Political History

A political history museum has existed in St. Petersburg since 1919. It was first housed in the Winter Palace and known as the Revolution Museum. In 1957 it moved to its current premises, where, until 1991, it was called the Museum of the Great October Socialist Revolution. It is now known as the Museum of Russian Political History, a title that reflects the recent changes that have been made to its profile.

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