While it's hot here in the States, our special contributor Kate Winick is headed to the cold country of Russia. To St. Petersburg to be more specific, and all this week she'll be sending dispatches from the shadow of many onion domes.
So what do you do first in a country where you don't speak the language and you're still slightly suffering from jet lag? We took a cab into the St. Petersburg city center, down Nevsky Prospect, and this is the best place to start leisurely exploring. As the main street in St. Petersburg, Nevsky Prospect is marked by the Admiralty building with its tall gold spire on the north end (although there are several of these around, it’s the only one you’ll see at the end of the street) and the Nevsky Monastery to the south.
Worth stopping for a look outside are the Kazan Cathedral, the Dom Knigi bookstore (an Art Deco confection that formerly housed the Singer sewing maching company), the Russian National Library, monuments to Catherine the Great and more field marshals than you can shake a stick at, and the Anichkov Bridge, with its four famed equestrian statues. It’s also the central street for shopping, restaurants, etc., with the Gostiny Dvor, the city’s largest department store, on one side of the street, across from the Grand Palace luxury complex.
Even though Russia is no known for its love of luxury, St. Petersburg isn’t a shopping city—high prices and limited selection means that most wealthy Russians do their shopping on vacations in the rest of Europe or America. ]]>
