Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd (Петроград), and later Leningrad (Ленинград), is the second-largest city in Russia, after Moscow, the nation's capital.
Situated on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, its area of 1,439 square kilometers (556 sq mi) makes it the smallest administrative division of Russia by area. The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the metropolitan area. Saint Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents. As the former capital of the Russian Empire, and a historically strategic Baltic port, it is governed as a federal city.
Getting to Saint Petersburg
Russian visa requirements are complex but are not hard to manage with some online research. See the Get In section of the article on Russia for information. = =
- 01Pulkovo Airport
Worth seeing
The historic center of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments are UNESCO world heritage, so definitely worth your while. As the center of the Russian world for 200 years of the Romanov Dynasty, the city reaped the rewards of Peter the Great's impossibly grandiose and tyrannical vision, and the Empire's extreme inequality.
Things to do
The Telegram Messenger groups InterNational Events, SPb Couchsurfing, Say Yes Saint Petersburg, Train Your Brain, World Language Cafe, Mafia English Events, and English Meetup Saint Petersburg all contain almost daily events for meeting locals or other foreigners, excursions, or practicing languages. No trip to St. Petersburg is complete without seeing an opera or ballet performance.
Where to eat
Tasty local offerings for street food/fast food include shawarma (шаверма) and pyshki (пышки). Shawarma is a decidedly Saint Petersburg phenomenon (you won't find much of it in other Russian cities), served mostly by Azeris, and is everywhere—in cafes and on the street. Pyshki are Russian doughnuts, wonderful with coffee, and are strongly associated with Saint Petersburg.
Getting around Saint Petersburg the local way
- Get in{{listing | name | url | address 59.88416 | long : Bukharestskaya (Бухарестская) | phone |fax 5:00-18:00 | price | content=Operates minibus daily departures from Ivangorod (2 hours, 6 per day).
- Go nextDay trips can be done on your own or via an organized excursion offered by many tour operators.
- Go nextNow available for day trips with high-speed rail.
From Wikivoyage: Saint Petersburg, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us. Last edited 2026-09.
Text adapted from Wikipedia and Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Wikimedia Commons (see file page), Wikimedia Commons.