Our Beat-The-Jet-Lag Walking Tour Of St. Petersburg

August 19, 2009 at 1:59 PM | by JetSetCD | 0 Comments

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.

Once you�ve explored the main drag, you have a great view down Kanal Griboedova to the Cathedral of the Spilt Blood, a classical-style Russian orthodox construction in the style of St. Basil�s in Moscow, and if you turn down the street past the block-long Grand Hotel Europe, you can explore the theaters and museums of Arts Square and the main Russian Museum; look for the life-size Pushkin statue that marks the center of the square. The house where he lived here has also been turned into a museum�it housed the city�s other favorite son, Tchaikovsky, for a short while as well. You�re also not far from St. Isaac�s Cathedral, the fourth-largest domed cathedral in the world and an architectural marvel.

If you're not tuckered out after this walk, we've got a recommendation for a perfect second destination. It�s worth it to fight the crowds and tour buses and arrange a guide to show you around Peter and Paul Fortress, on one of the 42 islands that make up the city called �Venice of the North.� Established by Peter the Great, the complex has served as a military base, as well as a prison for high-ranking political prisoners. There is no Russian history without military history, and this is one place that many central players passed through at one time or another. The central cathedral is one of the tallest structures in Russia, and the burial place of all the tsars from Peter the Great to Alexander III, as well as the final resting place of the Romanovs. Remember them? They're the family of the last tsar Nicholas II, with the whole Anatasia conspiracy theory.

f you haven�t had quite enough, you can go touch the spindly fingers of the statue of Peter the Great for luck, created from his death mask and said to be his most accurate depiction. It stands just ahead of the Gate of Death, the arch prisoners walked under before boarding a boat that took them to the Gulf of Finland, where they were killed and dumped.

With that morbid note, we assume you'd be tired and ready to for an early night. Stay tune for tomorrow's continuing coverage of our St. Petersburg Field Trip, where we tell you where to go get yourself some borscht and vodka. - Kate Winick

Related Stories:
· Russia Travel Coverage [Jaunted]
· St Petersburg Field Trip Coverage [Jaunted]

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