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The Rough Guide to St. Petersburg 6 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) PDF

480 Pages·2008·17.6 MB·English
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THE ROUGH GUIDE to St Petersburg ROUGHGUIDES 7Xekjj^_iXeea Hek]^=k_Z[iVgZYZh^\cZYidWZ\ddYidgZVYVcYZVhnidjhZ# I]ZWdd`^hY^k^YZY^cidi]Z[daadl^c\hZXi^dchVcYndjh]djaY WZVWaZidÒcYl]ViZkZgndjcZZY^cdcZd[i]Zb# I]ZYebekhi[Yj_ed^hYZh^\cZYid\^kZndjV[ZZa[dgHiEZiZghWjg\!hj\\Zhi^c\ l]Zcid\dVcYl]Vicdiidb^hh!VcY^cXajYZhV[jaaa^hid[Yedj[dji#I]Zc XdbZhXWi_Yi![dgegZ"YZeVgijgZ^c[dgbVi^dcVcYdi]ZgegVXi^XVa^i^Zh# I]ZY_joX]VeiZghXdkZgZVX]VgZVd[HiEZiZghWjg\^cYZei]!\^k^c\ XdbegZ]Zch^kZVXXdjcihd[Vaai]ZViigVXi^dch!l]^aZi]Zb_ij_d]ihZXi^dc \^kZhndji]ZadlYdlcdcVXXdbbdYVi^dc!ZVi^c\!h]dee^c\VcYbdgZ# I]Zekje\j^[Y_joX]VeiZghYZhXg^WZZmXjgh^dch[jgi]ZgVÒZaY# 9edj[njiÒaahndj^cdc]^hidgnVcYWdd`h!l]^aZ^cY^k^YjVa Yebekh_di[hji^cigdYjXZi]Z>beZg^VaX^inVcYHV^ci EZiZghWjg\ÉhHdk^Zi]Zg^iV\Z!VcYbWd]kW][\^kZhndjVc ZmiZch^kZbZcjgZVYZgVcYZcdj\]Gjhh^Vcid\ZiWn# CZmiXdbZhi]ZicWbbfh_dj!^cXajY^c\YZiV^ahd[]dlidhZcY ^cjeYViZhVcYXdggZXi^dch!VcYVXdbegZ]Zch^kZ_dZ[n# 9ebekhcWfiXdkZg^c\i]ZX^inXVcWZ[djcYVii]ZWVX`d[i]ZWdd`# J^_ii_nj^[Z_j_edfkXb_i^[Z@kd[(&&.$ I]ZejWa^h]ZghVcYVji]dgh]VkZYdcZi]Z^gWZhiidZchjgZi]ZVXXjgVXnVcY XjggZcXnd[Vaai]Z^c[dgbVi^dc^cI]ZGdj\]<j^YZidHiEZiZghWjg\!]dlZkZg! i]ZnXVcVXXZeicdgZhedch^W^a^in[dgVcnadhh!^c_jgn!dg^cXdckZc^ZcXZ hjhiV^cZYWnVcnigVkZaaZgVhVgZhjaid[^c[dgbVi^dcdgVYk^XZXdciV^cZY^c i]Z\j^YZ# JH '.$// 86C('$&& I SBN 978-1-85828-062-2 5 1 8 9 9 9 7 8 1 8 5 8 2 8 0 6 2 2 The Rough Guide to St Petersburg written and researched by Dan Richardson NEW YORK • LONDON • DELHI www.roughguides.com Contents Colour section 1 H Shlisselburg, Valaam and Kizhi .................................. 294 Introduction ............................... 4 I Novgorod .......................... 307 What to see................................ 7 When to go .............................. 10 Listings 321 Things not to miss ................... 12 J Accommodation ............... 323 Basics 17 K Eating and drinkin g ........... 337 L Clubs and live venues ....... 355 Getting there............................ 19 M The arts ............................ 362 Red tape and visas ................. 28 N Shopping ......................... 371 Health ...................................... 32 O Children’s St Petersbur g ... 379 Information .............................. 34 P Sports .............................. 382 Arrival ...................................... 35 City transport and tour s ........... 36 Contexts 389 The media ............................... 43 Holidays and festivals ............. 44 A history of St Petersbur g...... 391 Trouble and the police ............ 48 Books .................................... 418 Travel essentials ..................... 50 Language 425 The City 59 1 Within the Fontanka ............ 61 Travel store 443 2 The Hermitage .................. 115 3 The Russian Museum........ 137 4 Vasilevskiy Island .............. 151 Small print & Index 449 5 The Peter and Paul Fortress, Petrograd Side and the An Imperial city colour Kirov Islands .................... . 166 section following p.144 6 Liteyniy, Smolniy and Vladimirskaya ........................ . 190 7 The Southern Suburbs ...... 213 The Soviet heritage 8 Vyborg Side ...................... 221 colour section following p.272 Out of the City 231 9 The Imperial palace s ........ . 233 Colour maps section G Kronstadt , the Gulf coast following p.464 and Vyborg....................... . 281 3 왗왗 The Griboedov Canal 왗 The Winter Palace | CONTENTS | Introduction to St Petersburg Where were you born? St Petersburg. Where did you go to school? Petrograd. Where do you live now? Leningrad. And where would you like to live? St Petersburg. t Petersburg, Petro grad, Lenin grad and now, again, St Peters burg (in Russian, Sankt Peterburg) – as this tongue-in- Scheek catechism suggests, the cit y’s succession of names mirrors Russia’s history. Founded in 1703 as a “window on the West” by Peter the Great, St Petersburg was for two centuries the capital of the Tsarist Em pire, synonymous with hubris, excess and magnificence. During World War I the city renounced its Germanic-sounding name and became Petrograd, and as such was the cradle of the revolutions that overthrew Tsarism and brought the Bolsheviks to power in 1917. Later, as Lenin grad, it epitomized the Soviet Union’s heroic sacrifices in the war against Fascism, withstanding almost nine hundred days of Nazi sie ge. Finally, in 1991 – the year that the USSR collapsed – the change of name, back to St Petersburg, was deeply symbolic, infuriating the wartime generation but delighting those who pined for a pre-revolutionary golden age; a dream kept alive throughout the years of Stalinist terror, w hen the poet Osip Mandelstam (who died in a labour camp) wrote: “We shall meet again in Petersburg . . .” 4 St Petersburg’s sense of its own identit y owes much to its ori gins and the interweaving of myth and reality throughout its history. Created by the will | INTRODUCTION | WHAT TO SEE | WHEN TO GO of an autocrat, on a barren river delta on the same latitude as the southern tip of Greenland, the Imperial capital embodied Peter the Great’s rejection of Old Russia – represented by the former capital, “Asiatic” Moscow – and his embrace of Europe. The city’s architecture, administration and social life were all copied or imported, the splendid buildings appearing alien to the indigenous forms and out of place in t he surrounding countryside. Artificiality and self-conscious- ness were present from the be ginning and this showpiece city of palaces and canals soon decreed itself the arbiter As the last tsar once remarked, of Russia’s sensibility and imagination. “St Petersburg is Russian Petersburgers still tend to look down – but it is not Russia.” on the earthier Muscovites, who regard them in turn as snobbish. As the last tsar, Nicholas II, once remarked, “Remem- ber, St Petersburg is Russian – but it is not Russia.” For all that, the city is associated with a host of renowned figures from Russian culture and history. It was here that Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Shostakovich composed; Pushkin, Dostoyevsky and Gogol wrote their masterpieces; Mendeleyev and Pavlov 5 made their contri butions to science; | INTRODUCTION | WHAT TO SEE | WHEN TO GO 왔 A “Red Granny” 왖 Street life off Nevskiy prospekt “Walruses” and ice-fishing Russians are proud of their “walruses” (morzhi) – intrepid bathers who break holes in the ice to swim in rivers throughout the winter. You can see them on the Neva bank of the Peter and Paul Fortress any day, joined by less hardy swimmers once the water warms up. This rugged tradition has spawned some great Olympic champions. Another quintessentially Russian sport is ice-fishing on frozen rivers, lakes or seas. Every year, hundreds of fishermen have to be rescued from ice floes on the Gulf of Finland or the Sea of Okhotsk. Many are equipped only with an ice-drill and rod, a stool and plastic tent – and, of course, vodka. and Rasputin, Lenin and Trotsky made history. So, too, are various buildings and sites inseparable from their former occupants or visitors: the amazing Imperial palaces outsi de St Peters burg, where Peter an d Cat herine t he Great led the field in exuberant living; the Yusu pov Palace, where Ras putin was murdered; Finland Station, where Lenin returned from exile; and the Winter Palace, the storming of which was heralded by the guns of the cruiser Aurora, now moore d along the embankment from the Peter and Paul Fortress – itself a Tsarist prison to generations of revolutionaries. Today, “Piter” (as it’s afectionate ly known) casts itself as Russia’s cu l- tural capital. For its three hundredth anniversary in 2003, much of the centre underwent a facelift when President Putin (a Leningrader by birth) hosted a G8 summit. While the city has never looked finer or been so tourist-friendly as now, homelessness, alcoholism and poverty are still visi ble remin ders of the human cost of Russia’s embrace of capitalism. Yet the city has endured 6 far worse in its history, and there are plenty who are doing well or anticipate a brighter future . | INTRODUCTION | WHAT TO SEE | WHEN TO GO What to see t Petersburg is Russia’s second largest city, with a population of five million and an urban s prawl of over 1400 square kilometres, across islands and peninsulas delineated by the River Neva and its tributar- Sies. The metro covers most parts of the city of interest to visitors, but the historic centre is best explored on foot – easily done with a decent map, given the abundance of landmarks. St Petersburg’s major islands and “mainland” districts are juxtaposed in the magnificent panorama of the Neva Basin. On the south bank of the Neva, the golden dome of St Isaac’s Cathedral and the needle-spire of the A dmiralty loom above the area within the Fontanka (Chapter 1), whose vibrant main axis, Nevskiy prospekt, runs past a slew of sights cu lminating in the Winter Palace. The seductive vistas along the Moyka and Griboedov waterways entice you to wander of in search of the Mariinskiy ballet, the spot where Rasputin was murdered, or the setting for Crime and Punishment. Two museums here rate a c hapter each. The Hermitage (Chapter 2 ) boasts superlative collections of Rembrandt, Spanish masters, French Impressionists and Post-Im pressionists; treasures from Si beria, Centra l Asia, In dia, Persia an d China – plus t he sumptuous state rooms of the Winter Pa lace, which forms part of the complex. If homegrown art is lacking there, that’s because it’s in the Russian Museum (Chapter 3), which runs the gamut from folk art an d icons to Futurism and Socialist Realism. 7 | INTRODUCTION | WHAT TO SEE | WHEN TO GO 왔 Queuing for food is a thing of the past – but prices are a worry for man y Opposite the Admiralty, on the spit or Strelka of Vasilevskiy Island (Chap- ter 4), the Rostral Columns and Naval Museum proclaim a maritime heritage bequeathed by Peter t he Great. Near by is t he Kunstkammer of anatomical curios founded by Peter as Russia’s first museum and still the city’s most ghoulish tourist attraction. Farther alon g the embankment stand the Academ y of Arts and the palace of Prince Menshikov. Completing the panorama is the Peter and Paul Fortress (Chapter 4), its bastions surrounding a soaring cathedral where the Romanov monarchs are buried, and a Prison Museum attesting to the dark side of its history. Beyond its moat, the city’s zoo and mosque mark the onset of the residential Petro- grad Side, with its Art Nouveau buildings and flat-museums commemorating the opera singer Chaliapin and the Bolshevik “martyr” Kirov, w hose name was given to the archipelago that forms its hinterland. The Kirov Islands are the city’s summer playground, with boatin g lakes, the Zenit Stadium and Yelagin Palace to ex plore. Back on the “mainland”, the area beyond the Fontanka is designated Lit- eyniy, Smolniy and Vladimirska ya (Chapter 6 ), after the three localities that define its character. Its finest sights are the Smolniy Cathedral, St Petersburg’s beauty is tinged near the Institute from where with melancholy. the Bolsheviks orchestrated the October Revolution, and the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, in whose cemeteries many of the city’s most famous personages are buried. However, don’t neglect the atmospheric V ladimirskaya district, where Dostoyevsky’s apartment and the Pushkinskaya 10 artists’ colony are located, along with an assortment of odd museums. Further out, t he in dustrial Southern Suburbs (Chapter 7) are dignified b y grandiose Soviet architecture such as t he House of Soviets and the Victory Monument, and Tsarist trium- phal arches that were re-erected in the euphoria of the Soviet 8 Union’s victory over Nazi Ge r- many. Aside from t hese, t here’s 왖 Sailors on the Strelka | INTRODUCTION | T TO SEE | WHEN TO GO

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