What to do in St Petersburg

Cultural attractions in St Petersburg
While Moscow is now gaining a vast reputation for its non-stop nightlife, St Petersburg, as it was always meant to be, is the country's cultural focus. There are a massive range of theatre, ballet and opera concerts throughout the year, and a trip to see a performance at the grand and gracious Mariinsky Theatre should not be missed.

For sightseeing by day, one glance down St Petersburg's arterial, pulsing central street, Nevsky Prospekt, can provide ample ammunition for a week, a month or more of critical and cultural attractions.

The Peter and Paul Fortress stands on the River Neva at Nevsky's base and is an intriguing island web of a series of buildings and outhouses which stood for more than 200 years as a political prison and is now a fascinating monument to some of the darker moments in the city's history.

A little way forward, and the incredible arched columns at the Kazan Cathedral again speak powerfully of a once-mighty city and the people who have driven its progression.

Opposite is the world-famous Hermitage Museum. Packed with incredible artworks of a hugely eclectic nature – the range stretches from Egyptian mummies to modern legends – the vast museum is a brilliant but often baffling attraction that serves, in many ways, as a microcosm for this exceptional city as a whole. Set in the immense Winter Palace, the museum's architecture itself is one of its finest works of art, and the site also opens on to the magnificent vista of Palace Square.

Further on, towards the centre of Nevsky, the Church on Spilled Blood, built on the very spot of Emperor Alexander II's assassination, is Russia at its most iconic. With its an incredible collection of multi-coloured domes outside and a series of intricate religious murals on its inner, this church is an instant taste of an unknown Russia as only previously glimpsed by Western eyes through movie screens.

St Petersburg has a number of other, truly unique attractions, with one of the most interesting being the Dostoyevsky Museum, located in the very house in which the great writer died in 1881.

The city's founder Peter the Great, meanwhile, opened the oddly absorbing Kunstkamera in 1714, a museum rich in some spectacular scientific displays, but mostly famous for a large collection of jarred human and animal babies notable for their bizarre assortment of birth defects.

Relaxation in St Petersburg
Visitors to city should definitely try out a banya, a huge heated pool and sauna complex, where the local customs also include de-stressing with hits from branches of a birch tree and even a nerve-tingling roll in the snow.

Nightlife in St Petersburg
As stately as it might appear during the daytime, St Petersburg is every inch the sprightly young city by night, with a number of super-trendy new venues now mixing it with more comfortable old-timers.

The city also has a lively rock scene, with live artists often performing at a number of cool clubs including Metro, on Ligovsky pr, and Griboedov, on Voronezhskaya, which is even situated in the suitably edgy surroundings of a disused bomb shelter.

Sport in St Petersburg
St Petersburg offers a range of big city and big name sports events.

The Russian soccer season runs from October to April and, while often in the past left in the wake of big Moscow clubs, St Petersburg's premier team, Zenit have new big-spending owners who look prepared to pay for success. The team demand fervent support at games but tickets are still widely available, and can even be bought at the ticket office of most metro stations.

Ice hockey is also much-loved in Russia and, while St Petersburg’s top team SKA again often find themselves stuttering behind bigger rivals from Moscow, catching a game at the team's impressive new Ice Palace stadium can still be an invigorating experience.

Russia has in recent years become an increasing breeding ground for some of the world's best young tennis talent and the St Petersburg Open, normally held around the end of October at the 12,000 seat capacity Peterburgsky Stadium, draws some of the sport's best male players both from home and abroad.

Recommended restaurants in St Petersburg
Teremok are ubiquitous city-wide kiosks offering quick, tasty snacks in the shape of blini - traditional pancakes that come packed with a range of fillings. St Petersburg also has cheap pizza joints and middle-eastern style canteens on almost every street but is now also home to a huge variety of foods to suit even the most expensive tastes with fine flavours of both east and the west brought to Russian diners at high, sometimes even exceptional standards.

Popular acclaim often goes to the authentic Greek food served up at Oliva, on Bolshaya Morskaya, and the exceptional sushi at Kyoto, on Nabereznaya Reki Fontanki, but the choice is mammoth and ever-growing. Keep an eye out for business lunches, where even some of the best restaurants offer top-class three-course meals during the week at superb cut-prices.

Martin Frimet